Sir William Congreve, 2nd Baronet KCH FRS (20 May 1772 – 16 May 1828) was a British Army officer, Tory politician, publisher and inventor. A pioneer in the field of rocket artillery, he was renowned for his development and use of Congreve rockets during the Napoleonic Wars. His adaptation of Mysorean rocket technology from the Kingdom of Mysore represented a crucial development in the history of military rocketry, bridging Eastern innovation with Western industrial production and establishing rocket artillery as a practical weapon system that would influence military technology into the space age.
Biography
He was the eldest son of Rebeca Elmston and Lt. General Sir William Congreve, 1st Baronet, the Comptroller of the Royal Laboratories at the Royal Arsenal and raised in Kent, England. In 1782, aged 10, he appeared alongside his father in a portrait by Philip Reinagle, commissioned whilst the family resided at Eastcombe House in Charlton. This painting is now in the National Gallery of Ireland. He was educated at Newcome's school in Hackney, Wolverhampton Grammar School and Singlewell School in Kent. He then studied law at Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating BA in 1793 and MA in 1796.
Career at Woolwich and the 1814 celebrations
In 1814 he succeeded his father as second Baronet Congreve, and also to all his father's appointments, including Commandant of the Royal Military Repository and Superintendent of Military Machines at Woolwich. Congreve had been "closely involved in the series of celebratory events marking the peace of 1814 and had masterminded the Grand National Jubilee on 1 August of that year." These celebrations marked the centenary of the Hanoverian succession and the defeat of Napoleon. The Prince Regent commissioned architect John Nash to design a temporary structure in St James's Park for the festivities, which included an elaborate canvas tent pavilion—the structure that would later become the Rotunda. Congreve organised spectacular firework displays for these peace celebrations, demonstrating both his pyrotechnic expertise and his skill in managing large-scale public events. When the Prince Regent ordered the dismantling of the Rotunda from Carlton House in 1818, Congreve successfully petitioned for it to be re-erected at the Royal Military Repository at Woolwich, requesting on 7 December 1818 that the building be erected "on the brow of the Hill at the eastern boundary of the Repository Grounds, that spot being the most convenient as well as the most picturesque situation for it." In this role, Congreve was thus instrumental in securing the Rotunda for use as a museum, where it would house military trophies and serve as a monument to British military achievement. Congreve later organised the firework displays for the coronation of George IV in 1821.
Early military and political career In 1803, he was a volunteer in the London and Westminster Light Horse, and was a London businessman who published a polemical newspaper, the Royal Standard and Political Register, which was Tory, pro-government and anti-Cobbett. Following a damaging libel action against it in 1804, Congreve withdrew from publishing and applied himself to inventing. Many years previously, several unsuccessful experiments had been made at the Royal Laboratory in Woolwich by Lt. General Thomas Desaguliers. In 1804, at his own expense, he began experimenting with rockets at Woolwich. Congreve was named as comptroller of the Royal Laboratory at Woolwich from 1814 until his death. (Congreve's father had also held the same post.) Congreve was awarded the honorary rank of lieutenant colonel in the Hanoverian army's artillery in 1811, and was often referred to as "Colonel Congreve", later made major general in the same army. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in March that year. He was also awarded the Order of St. George following the Battle of Leipzig in 1813 and 1816 he was made Knight Commander of the Royal Guelphic Order (KCH). In 1821 he was awarded the Order of the Sword by the King of Sweden. He enjoyed the friendship of the Prince Regent, in whose household he served as an equerry from 1811, carrying on the service when the Prince, who supported his rocket projects, became King George IV in 1820. Earlier in 1812 he offered to contest for Parliament the borough of Liverpool but withdrew before polling for lack of support. He entered Parliament later that year when he was nominated as MP for the rotten borough of Gatton in 1812, but withdrew at the next elections in 1814 in favour of the son of the borough's proprietor Sir Mark Wood. In 1818 he was returned as Member for Plymouth, a seat he held until his death.
Marriage and family After fathering several illegitimate children with different mothers, Congreve married in late 1824 at Wessel, Prussia, Isabella Charlotte Carvalho, a young widow of Portuguese descent who had been raised in a Catholic family. She was the widow of Henry Nisbitt McEvoy, an Irish surgeon, and brought her young son Charles Henry McEvoy (1815–1837) into the household. The marriage took place five years before the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829, which removed most remaining restrictions on Catholics in the United Kingdom. Congreve was 52 and Isabella was 24 at the time of their marriage. They had three children: Sir William Augustus Congreve (1825–1887), who inherited the baronetcy as the 3rd Baronet; Isabella Maria Louisa Christina (1826–1907); and William Frederick Congreve (1827 or 1828–1860). Around 1825–1826, Congreve likely commissioned Highcombe House in Charlton, a Regency villa where he resided from c.1826 until shortly before his death in 1828. Charlton thus bookended Congreve's life: his childhood was spent at Eastcombe House in the 1780s, whilst his final years in England were spent at Highcombe. Both residences were situated close to his professional base at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, allowing ready access to the Royal Laboratory and the Rotunda he had secured for the Repository.
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