Birthplace of "Wellington's Welsh general"

Image: © Natasha Ceridwen de Chroustchoff Taken: 27 Jan 2007

Haverfordwest's most notorious 'son', the future General Sir Thomas Picton, MP for Pembroke, was born here in 1748. Following family tradition he joined the army at 13 and eventually became governor of Trinidad where he blotted his copybook by acceding to the judicial torture of a 14 year old mulatto [sic] girl: she was forced to stand on a sharp spike, a sadistic practise called 'picketing' but subsequently dubbed 'pictoning'. He was forced to resign and face trial in London leaving behind his own local woman-of-colour and their 4 children who he never saw again. He was eventually exonerated and managed to redeem himself in the Napoleonic wars, taking part in several campaigns in France and the Iberian peninsula from 1809 until 1815 when he fell in the battle of Waterloo. His remains are buried at St George's Hanover Square and he has a monument in St Paul's Cathedral. It is only in recent years that his unsavoury back story has become better known. The BBC TV series of historical legal dramas, Garrow's Law, focused one episode on the case and local author Brian John has used elements of Picton's story in the plot of his 2012 novel Conspiracy of Angels.

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