Talk:Hew Dalrymple Ross

A few queries

A few (very minor) quibbles and queries:

• The lead should probably specify that he was the last person ever to hold the title of Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance. I suspect that to casual readers who land on this via random page, that will be one of the most interesting things about him.
  • Now included.
• "Ross was educated at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich and commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Royal Artillery on 6 March 1796. Promoted to lieutenant on 10 May 1795..." is confusing - it seems to suggest that he was a full lieutenant before becoming a second lieutenant (a more junior rank). Is there a date wrong somewhere?
  • My mistake with the commissioning date - now corrected.
• I may be wrong, but I think the Royal Artillery during the Napoleonic period didn't use the rank of "lieutenant" without qualification (that is, an RA officer was never just "lieutenant", they were always explicitly first lt, second lt etc).
  • You are correct - now corrected.
• Is "After the Battle of Vitoria in June 1813, Ross' guns were continually with the most advanced troops, and they captured the only piece of artillery held by the French Army" right? It seems to imply that the French troops only had a single artillery piece, which begs the question of how they managed to make any kind of fight against the heavily-armed British. Is it actually the case that Ross was the only person to capture a French gun, rather than that he captured the only French gun?
  • He captured the sole remaining piece of artillery held by the French - now specified.
• "Artillery Commander, Northern District with delegated command over all the forces of the four northern counties" should probably specify what the "northern counties" are. It's not clear whether he was commander of the north of Ireland, northern England, northern Britain (eg Scotland), or of the northern counties of an occupied territory in Europe. I assume the North of England, but bear in mind that a lot of people reading articles on the Napoleonic Wars are likely to be French and not know the peculiarly English meaning of "the north" as "between Birmingham and Newcastle", and assume that this means he was exiled to some windswept outpost in the Shetlands.
  • It was the four most northern counties in England - now specified.
• Did he actually serve in the Crimea, or was he responsible for checking the guns before they were shipped out?
  • He was responsible for checking the guns before they were shipped out - now made clearer.

I know these are all nitpicky and on the whole this is of a very good quality. Mogism (talk) 20:22, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

• Many thanks for these very helpful comments. Dormskirk (talk) 20:46, 30 December 2013 (UTC)