John Dyke Acland

John Dyke Acland (21 February 1747 – 22 November 1778[1]) of Tetton and Pixton in Somerset, was Tory Member of Parliament for Callington in Cornwall[2] and fought in the American War of Independence.

He poured scorn on those fellow MP's who sought to appease the colonists and called their proposed concessions "nugatory and humiliating" and certain to result in "a total convulsion of the British Empire".

[8] On 8 April 1776 and accompanied by his wife and his pet dog "Jack Ketch", he set sail in the Kent from Cork in Ireland for Canada as a major of Grenadiers in the 20th Foot, serving under his friend General John Burgoyne at the head of an army to reinforce the British troops.

[10] Acland was grateful for the treatment received when recuperating as a prisoner of war, so much so that following his return to England he challenged a certain Lieutenant Lloyd to a duel when the latter spoke poorly of Americans at a dinner party.

He left an infant son born in 1778, aged only a few months old, who died 7 years later, having inherited the baronetcy from his grandfather, and a daughter Elizabeth "Kitty".