Margaret Kemble Gage facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Margaret Kemble Gage |
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Portrait of Gage in the Turquerie style, circa 1771, by John Singleton Copley. This portrait is in the Timken Museum of Art in San Diego, California.
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| Born | 1734 New Brunswick, Province of New Jersey |
| Died | 1824 (aged 89–90) England |
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Margaret Kemble Gage (1734–1824) was the wife of General Thomas Gage, who led the British Army in Massachusetts in the American Revolutionary War. She was born in New Brunswick, Province of New Jersey and resided in East Brunswick Township. She died in England in 1824. Gage is a gateway ancestor to centuries of English nobility who have Dutch and Huguenot ancestry from what was once New Netherlands and later the Thirteen Colonies of British North America.
Family life and descendants
Margaret Kemble's father was Peter Kemble, a well-to-do New Jersey businessman and politician, and her mother, Gertrude Bayard; thus the granddaughter of Judge Samuel Bayard (b. 1669) and Margaretta Van Cortlandt (b. 1674); hence the great-granddaughter of Mayor of New York City Stephanus Van Cortlandt and Gertrude Schuyler.
She married Thomas Gage on December 8, 1758, at her father's 1200-acre Mount Kemble Plantation in New Jersey (where years later generals William Smallwood and Anthony Wayne were quartered in his modest wood-framed mansion, while the Continental Army encamped at Jockey Hollow during the brutal winter of 1779–80).
Following the outbreak of the American Revolution, Margaret Kemble Gage took sail for England from Boston in summer 1776, on a ship carrying military widows, orphans and 170 soldiers who were badly wounded in the Battle of Bunker Hill. She was joined by her husband a few months later, who was recalled after the failure of his attempts to resolve divisions with the colonists either by reconciliation or military action. Together with their children, the couple settled in a Portland Place address in London.
Margaret was to outlive Thomas Gage by 36 years. The couple had eleven children, and their first son, the future 3rd Viscount Gage, was born in 1761. Gage's daughter, Charlotte Margaret Gage, married Admiral Sir Charles Ogle.
Descendants of Kemble Gage include:
- Lieutenant General Sir John Paul Foley (1939) retired British general
- Henry Hodgetts-Foley (1828–1894) former member of Parliament
- Montagu Bertie, 6th Earl of Abingdon (1808–1884) British peer and politician
- John Vereker, 6th Viscount Gort (1886–1946) British military officer and Commander of the British Expeditionary Forces in Europe during World War II up to the Battle of Dunkirk.
- Gabriella Wilde (1989–) British model and actress
Her brother, Stephen Kemble, was a lieutenant-colonel in the British Army during the Revolution.
She was portrayed by Emily Berrington in the television miniseries Sons of Liberty.
Role in American Revolution
Some historians feel that Margaret Kemble Gage may have been instrumental in causing the first shots to be fired in the American Revolution (the Battle of Lexington and Concord).
In the days leading up to the battle, the Sons of Liberty could see that the British troops in Boston were preparing for something. Dr. Joseph Warren, one of the key leaders of the Sons of Liberty, had a confidential informer, who was well-connected to the British high command. This informer was intended for only the most important matters. The secret informant provided "intelligence of their whole design...to arrest Samuel Adams and John Hancock, who were known to be at Lexington, and burn the colonists' military stores at Concord."
Gen. Gage had hoped to prevent a war. He had planned a secret night march, hoping to move Adams and Hancock elsewhere, as well as the colonial powder and cannon, while the colonists slept.
Instead, Warren, after learning of the plan, dispatched Paul Revere and William Dawes, who set off a chain reaction of alarm riders all across Massachusetts and even to adjoining colonies. Instead of a quiet night mission, the British troops found themselves opposed by thousands of wide-awake, angry, armed colonists.
By the end of the day, the British troops were under heavy fire by irate patriots. If Gage had not later sent out an additional 1,000 reinforcements, with cannon, the original British force of 700 would have never made it back to Boston.
It is not known who Warren's secret source was. He kept his secret, and was killed two months later at the Battle of Bunker Hill.
The evidence is slim and circumstantial, but many historians feel that the leading suspect is Margaret Kemble Gage. She was an American, and came from a very prestigious, wealthy family. Her social standing was equal to that of her husband. Gen. Gage's officers called her "Dutchess". She did not make a secret of her divided loyalties and said that "she hoped her husband would never be the instrument of sacrificing the lives of her countrymen".
Gen. Gage stated that he had only told two people of the plan, which was to be kept a "profound secret": his second-in-command, and one other person. Some of the other top British officers suspected that that other person was Gen. Gage's wife.
Prior to this, Gen. Gage had been devoted to his wife, but after the unexpected engagements at Lexington and Concord, he ordered her away from him, and put her on a ship back to England.
