Captain (later Lieutenant-Colonel) William Tyrwhitt-Drake (1785-1848), Royal Horse Guards, May 1809

Miniature portrait in watercolour on ivory, by William Wood (1769-1810), 1809.

William Tyrwhitt-Drake was commissioned as a Cornet in the Army in 1805. As a Captain in the Royal Horse Guards he campaigned with Wellington in the Spanish peninsular from 1811 to 1813. However Wellington seldom if ever used his cavalry in those campaigns. He was with his regiment at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815, and after the charge of the heavy cavalry, he was the senior surviving officer of his regiment. Tyrwhitt-Drake received a battlefield promotion to Major in the Army on 18 June 1815.

From 1812 Tyrwhitt-Drake was Member of Parliament for Amersham along with his elder brother Thomas. However, it was one of the notorious 'Rotten Boroughs' subject to reform in 1832, after which William lost his seat.