Field Marshal Stapleton Cotton, 1st Viscount Combermere GCB GCH KSI PC (14 November 1773 – 21 February 1865), was a British Army officer, politician, colonial administrator and peer who served as the governor of Barbados from 1817 to 1820.

[2] He was then sent to Norwood House, a private military academy in Bayswater, which was run by a Shropshire militiaman, Major Reynolds, an acquaintance of his father's.

On 26 February 1790, Cotton's father obtained for him a second-lieutenancy, without purchase, in the 23rd Regiment of Foot or Royal Welch Fusiliers, which he joined in Dublin in 1791.

En route he took part in operations in Cape Colony (July to August 1796), and on arrival was present at the Siege of Seringapatam in May 1799 during the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War,[9] where he first met Colonel Arthur Wellesley, later the Duke of Wellington.

[9] He returned to Portugal in May 1810 and, having been promoted to the local rank of lieutenant-general and given overall command of the cavalry, fought at the Battle of Bussaco in September 1810 and then covered the withdrawal to the Lines of Torres Vedras later that year.

During the engagement he successfully led a cavalry charge against Maucune's division, leading Wellington to exclaim, "By God, Cotton, I never saw anything so beautiful in my life; the day is yours.

"[17] According to Wellington's subsequent despatch, "Cotton made a most gallant and successful charge against a body of the enemy's infantry which they overthrew and cut to pieces.

[9] For these services he was raised to the peerage as Baron Combermere in the county palatine of Chester on 3 May 1814[21] and advanced to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath on 4 January 1815.

[22] Cotton was not present at the Battle of Waterloo as the command of the cavalry had been given, at the insistence of the Prince Regent, to Lord Uxbridge, a more senior general.

[23] In that role on 18 January 1826, after a three-week siege, he stormed the capital of the Princely state of Bharatpur (also known as Bhurtpore) with its fort, which had previously been deemed impregnable, and restored the rightful raja to the throne.

[5] An equestrian statue in bronze, the work of Carlo, Baron Marochetti, was raised in his honour at Chester by the inhabitants of Cheshire in October 1865.