Brereton was born in 1789, and entered the
Royal Military Academy as a "
Gentleman Cadet" in 1803,
passing out on 10 May 1805 as a
second lieutenant in the Royal Artillery, and gaining promotion to
first lieutenant on 7 June 1806. He served in the
Peninsular and
Waterloo campaigns from December 1809 to June 1815, including the
defence of Cádiz, where he commanded the guns at Fort Matagorda, the
battle of Barrosa, where he was wounded, the
Burgos retreat, the battles of
Vitoria and
the Pyrenees, the
siege of San Sebastián, where he was temporarily attached to the breaching batteries, the battles of
Orthez,
Toulouse,
Quatre Bras, and
Waterloo. During the greater part of the time, he was one of the
subalterns of the famous "
H Troop" of the
Royal Horse Artillery commanded by Major
W. Norman Ramsay, with which he was severely wounded at Waterloo. He became a
second captain on 5 November 1816, and was placed on
half-pay the year after. On 23 January 1819, while still on half-pay, he was promoted to
major. He was brought on full pay again in 1823, and, performed further varied service at home and in the colonies. He was
invested as a
Knight of the Royal Guelphic Order in 1837 and as a
Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1838. He was then sent to China, where he was second in command under General
George D'Aguilar in the 1847
punitive expedition to the
Bocca Tigris, and at the capture of the city of
Canton. He received promotion to
colonel in November 1851. During the early part of the
Crimean War, Brereton, who was then on the strength of the horse brigade at Woolwich, was present with the Black Sea fleet, as a guest on board , carrying the flag of his relative, Vice-Admiral
Sir James Dundas, and directed the fire of her rockets in the
attack upon the forts of Sevastopol on 17 October 1854. He was appointed the
Colonel Commandant of the Royal Artillery on 12 April 1864, and was promoted to
major-general on 16 December the same year. He was made a
Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1861. Brereton, having had been promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general a few days before, died at his chambers in the
Albany, London, on 27 July 1864, aged seventy-four. In his will, executed on 10 April 1850, and
proved on 16 August 1864 (
personalty sworn under £25,000), he left the sum of £1000, the interest to be applied in perpetuity to encourage the game of cricket among the non-commissioned officers of horse and foot artillery stationed at Woolwich. ==Publications==