Colonel John Gurwood CB (7 April 1788 – 27 December 1845) was a British Army officer who published the dispatches of the Duke of Wellington which form a major contribution to military history.

He had almost certainly been a London merchant, his will describes him as 'Esquire of Hoddesdon', and he left a substantial sum to his wife and two sons and a small estate at Langton to John.

Gurwood may have started work in a merchant's office[3] but on 30 March 1808 he enlisted as an Ensign in the 52nd (Oxfordshire) Regiment of Foot, a decision he said was strongly opposed by his mother.

Despite being wounded in the head, he gained the rampart and, guided by a French officer whom he saved from being threatened by British soldiers, made his way with his men to the Citadel and took the surrender of the Governor in customary fashion by receiving his sword.

Gurwood returned to the Peninsula in December 1812 and on 17 January 1813 acted as Esquire when Wellington knighted Sir Charles Stuart on the orders of the Prince Regent.

After three months leave in England, Gurwood went to Brussels in August 1814 having been appointed ADC to Sir Henry Clinton, who was second in command to the Prince of Orange in the Netherlands.

He was at this time extremely concerned about the plight of the common soldiers who were discharged into a country that had run up an enormous national debt in order to pay for the war, that was experiencing catastrophic harvests, and that was suffering severe outbreaks of disease most notably typhus.

Like other officers he assisted men who had served under him by giving them money and helping them to make a case for receiving a pension, and by finding them paid positions.

The reply was that the pension fund was oversubscribed, the Duke admitting to Gurwood that the interests of common soldiers had suffered from a 'lavish liberality extended towards officers.

Gurwood removed the many entries relating to courts martial and then re-ordered the rest under headings listed in alphabetical order, the whole being reduced to one volume.

The first Carlist War had broken out in 1833 on the death of Ferdinand VII and the British Government, which did not take sides, was horrified by the summary execution of prisoners by both armies.

The mission managed to make contact with both sides including with Tomas di Zamalcarregui, the Basque general on the Carlist faction with which Gurwood was more in political sympathy.

Gurwood had been thinking about editing the Duke's Dispatches for some time and spelt out his idea at breakfast at Stratfield Saye in January 1832 when the conversation turned on Sir William Napier's History of the War in the Peninsula.

Some material relating to the Indian campaigns would be added to explain 'the vast importance of the victories and successes of General Wellesley', but the 'dispatches from the Peninsula, require no such explanatory introduction.

The work quickly became much bigger than Gurwood had envisaged; in addition to the official dispatches it now included the many letters exchanged between the Duke to fellow officers and subordinates.

The question of names and material to be omitted came up very early over the statement by Sir Jasper Nicolls that Wellesley had hanged 10 -15 men, the Duke feeling that this would shock readers 'in these times of impunity for thieves and vagabonds.

'[11] Omissions continued to be an issue throughout with Gurwood making suggestions, and the Duke himself initiating deletions, in April 1834 for example striking out 'some words referring to the jealousies between Baird and me' on the grounds that 'Long before he died he and I were on he very best terms.

[15] He wrote that it was because the dispatches related to such important events as well as to the Duke's character and fame that the exact truth should be told: 'posterity' would otherwise be led into error 'by the imagination of historians.'

As to the truths that might give offence to nations or individuals, they could 'with a diligent exercise of caution, under your Grace's guidance, be omitted as the general will supply ample authority.'

Gurwood made strenuous and prolonged efforts to obtain papers from a wide range of the Duke's correspondents writing, often several times, to individuals or their descendants.

On the publication of Volume 12 in November 1838 Gurwood wrote to the Duke that when he began the work he had not been aware of its 'magnitude and importance' and he expressed his thanks for 'the confidence reposed in me by your Grace in permitting me to undertake the Compilation'.

[20] The Duke replied congratulating Gurwood on bringing 'before the Publick a Work which must be useful to Statesmen and Soldiers as containing the details of important Political and Military operations of many years duration.

This was ostensibly a review of a life of Marshall Blucher but the larger part was concerned with criticisms of the Duke's disposition of the Allied troops at Waterloo made in Sir Archibald Alison's History of Europe.

On reading a draft of the article the Duke, who had for many years resisted pressure to write his own account, sat down immediately and wrote a short memorandum with the aim of making Alison out to be 'a damned rascally Frenchman.

Macaulay, pointed out that garrison sinecures were supposed to be abolished on vacancy, but the Duke argued that in these times of civil unrest it was essential to do everything to ensure the security of the Tower.

Gurwood disagreed with the accounts in Napier's History of the rivalry between the 43rd and the 52nd in the capture of the howitzer at Sabugal and, more personally, of his own role in the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo.

In 1838 he put the matter into the public domain with a footnote in Volume VIII of the Dispatches stating that Napier had been misinformed about the siege and that a correct statement had been forwarded to him for use in a future edition.

[24] Gurwood then spent a great deal of time obtaining statements in support of his own account from comrades who had been present at the siege, and in May 1844 he managed to track down M. Bonfilh, the French officer who had taken his party to the Citadel.

Napier remained unconvinced, and Gurwood collected together all the material relating to their argument about the siege and also about the capture of the howitzer and published it in book form.

His half brother, Charles Okey, said after Gurwood's death that his head wound had caused occasional fainting fits and that some eminent army surgeons had expressed the opinion that 'although he thought little of it, it might one day prove fatal to him.