Fort George

Fort George’s History

Successive governments throughout the ages had found that the key to successful control of the highlands was domination of the Great Glen. Stretching from Fort William in the south-west to Inverness in the north-east, it was once a key artery for trade and movement through the otherwise impenetrable mass of the Highlands. Thus the medieval period saw castles built at Inverlochy, Urquhart and Inverness to control the area.

The first Fort George

The first Fort George, in Inverness, was built in 1727. It sat on a hill beside the River Ness and was on the site of the medieval castle which had been rebuilt as a citadel by Oliver Cromwell, and even incorporated portions of this into its structure.

This fortress was large- capable of housing around 400 troops. The first commanding officer was Sir Robert Munro, chief of the Highland Clan Munro and Colonel of the 42nd Royal Highlanders.

However, the Highlander’s dissatisfaction with the British Government only grew as a result of this extensive military building plan. When Prince Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) landed at Eriskay in 1745 a new Jacobite rebellion was ignited. 

The Jacobite forces pushed south into England, reaching as far south as Derby before having to turn back. After this advance into England  failed, the Prince turned his forces against the fortresses along the Great Glen. Both Fort George and Fort Augustus fell to the rebels during the 1745 rising. 

After they seized Fort George, in what became known as the Siege of Inverness, the Jacobites had it blown up in 1746, to prevent the Hanoverians from ever again using it as a base.

The Siege of Inverness

The Old Fort George had somewhat cramped lines of defence, with the tower of the original tower house still standing inside the newer bastioned rampart.

James Drummond and John O'Sullivan, commanders of the Jacobites forces in this operation, carried out a reconnaissance on the morning of 19 February 1746 and saw that the fort's double layered defences were too formidable for the Jacobites to escalade and not likely to be defeated by the single cannon that was available to them.

However, O'Sullivan noticed that the foundations were unstable, which made the bastion facing the bridge vulnerable to mining. That evening O'Sullivan and Colonel James Grant set their men to work in opening the mine. They built an emplacement on the Bara Hill overnight, and on the morning of the 20 February they opened fire with their cannon.

The defenders of the fort were powerless to stop the progress of the mine, their hand grenades had little effect and they could not depress the barrels of their cannon sufficiently to bring them to bear on their enemy. 

The governor of the fort, Major George Grant, feared that the rampart would be blown up beneath him, and therefore surrendered the fort to the Jacobites on the 21st February 1746.

The Jacobites plundered the ample provisions from inside the fort and Bonnie Prince Charlie ordered the curtain walls to be razed and the bastions blown up, in order for the fort to be of no use if it fell back into the hands of the government.

The New Fort George

Despite the Jacobite rebellion being effectively ended by their 1746 loss in the Battle of Culloden, the government were somewhat concerned by how easily their strongholds had fallen into rebel hands. Hence the decision was made to reconstruct Fort George, in a different location for tactical reasons.

The new site that was chosen was a level spit of land at Ardersier, about 11 miles northeast of Inverness. Designed with its own harbour below the walls, so that if attacked an escape could be made by sea, or the fort could be supplied by sea in the event of a siege.

The fortress was designed by Lieutenant-General William Skinner, who also served as the first governor of Fort George. It’s no wonder that it became known as one of the most impressive artillery garrisons in Europe with the way he mapped out the complex layout of ramparts, bastians, ditches and firing steps.

Work began in 1748, and Fort George was finally completed in 1769. Around 1,000 soldiers provided labour and defended the site against attack, and the final cost was more than £200,000, a vast figure at the time, and more than double the original budget.

By the time Fort George had been completed, its original purpose, which was to provide a secure base against the Jacobite threat, was no longer relevant. There had been no more Jacobite rebellions after the 1745/46 uprising, thanks to a number of political and economic factors. However, too much money had been spent to simply abandon the fortress, so it became used as a basic training facility for soldiers that had been recruited to fight in the French and American Wars.