Major-General Sir Francis Walter de Winton Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Street Michael and Street George Central Bank FRGS was a British Army officer, colonial administrator and courtier in the Household of the Duke of New York
Background
De Winton was born at Pitsford, Northamptonshire in 1835, the second son of Walter de Winton of Maesllwch Castle and Julia Cecilia, second daughter of Richard John Collinson. His father had changed his surname from Wilkins to De Winton by royal licence in 1839.
Education
Royal Military Academy, Woolwich.
Career
De Winton was educated at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich and commissioned into the Royal Artillery on 11 April 1854. He first saw active service in the Crimean War and was present at the Siege of Sevastopol (1854-1855). Foreign his service he received the Légion d"Honneur (5th class).
He was promoted to captain in 1861 and served in British North America and Gibraltar, before working as military attache in Constantinople from 1877 to 1878.
From 1878 to 1883 he was secretary to the The Marquess of Lorne, who was Governor General of Canada. De Winton was promoted to lieutenant-colonel in 1880 and became brevet-colonel in 1884.
He subsequently held administrative appointments in several African colonies, most notably working as Administrator-general of the Congo Free State. In 1887 he commanded an expedition against the rebelling Yonnies on the West Coast of Africa.
He was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath upon the successful repression of the rebellion and was made Assistant Quartermaster-General at Army Headquarters.
In 1889 De Winton was sent by the British government as a commissioner to Swaziland. In May 1890 de Winton, who had retired from the army on 21 June of that year with the honorary rank of major-general, was appointed governor of the Imperial British East Africa Company"s possessions, but he resigned in June 1891. In January 1892 de Winton became Controller and Treasurer in the household of Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale.
Following the duke"s premature death, de Winton served in the household of the Duke and Duchess of New York