Major-General Sir David Ochterlony, 1st Baronet, GCB (12 February 1758 – 14 July 1825) was a Bengal Army officer who served as the British resident to the Mughal court at Delhi.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, he spent most of his life on the Indian subcontinent in the service of the East India Company, seeing action in numerous conflicts.

Captain Ochterlony died in the Saint Vincent, West Indies, in 1765,[2] after which his widow moved to England and his mother remarried to Sir Isaac Heard, Garter King-of-Arms.

Thereafter, he returned to Calcutta, and in recognition of his eminent service during the war was conferred with the appointment of Judge Advocate-General for one of the divisions in the army.

[citation needed] In early 1803, he was appointed lieutenant colonel and accompanied Lord Lake throughout the Second Anglo-Maratha War.

In 1804, he defended the city with a very inadequate force against an attack by Yashwantrao Holkar which earned him the highest approbation from the Commander-in-Chief.

In return for his services during the war, he became a Knight Commander of the Bath, the first time the honour had been conferred on an officer of the British military in India, and was granted a baronetcy in November 1815.

During this period he encountered and engaged in an ongoing personal feud with James Tod, which was based most likely on the power politics within the hierarchy of the East India Company.

The feeling that the confidence that his length of service merited had not been given him by the governor-general is said to have accelerated his death, and he died at Meerut in July 1825.

[5] As the official British Resident at Delhi, David Ochterlony adopted and thoroughly embraced Indo-Persian culture of Mughals.

Raised by Mubarak, the girl went on to marry her cousin, a nephew of the famous Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib.

"[11] However, in spite of all her power and high status, Mubarak Begum was widely unpopular among the British and the Mughals alike.