Author: Rice, Woodford
Biography:
RICE, Woodford (b c. 1730 d 1784: ancestry.com)
There is no known birth record for Captain Woodford Rice. He certainly was born in Wales and he appears to have been related to Woodford Rice (1710-1771), High Sherrif of Carmarthenshire in 1764, and his wife, Catherine (Lloyd) Rice (d 1788). He should not be confused with that man’s grandson, also Woodford, who died in 1788. He first emerges in the record as an ensign in the 30th regiment of foot. On 11 Sept. 1758 during the Battle of St Cast, he rescued the regimental colours. For that action, he was promoted first lieutenant, and, on the same day, 4 Aug. 1759, transferred to the Royal Volunteer light infantry. During the Battle of Vila Velha, Oct. 1762, he again showed exceptional bravery when he successfully led a small troop against a much larger force. He was rewarded then by promotion to captain and by being placed in command of a company of Portuguese grenadiers. In 1779, he transferred to the 86th (Rutland’s) from the 85th, his regiment from about 1770. In Apr. 1783, he resigned his command. Whilst in England—his London residence was 10 Suffolk Street, Haymarket—he was a social gadfly; an attendee at masqued balls; the friend of military officers, of aristocrats and Whig politicians, of the literati and denizens of the stage. He was a steward of the Cymmrodorion and a member of the Society of Antient Britons. He died, unmarried, in May 1784 and was buried on 15 June at St John, Hackney. In his lengthy poem The Rutland Volunteer Influenza’d, published in 1783 by Kearsley of Fleet Street, he celebrated his regiment and paraded his Whiggish social connections. In 1899, William Manners attributed to Rice An Heroic Epistle to the Right Honourable Lord Viscount Sackville, also published by Kearsley in 1783. In that poem, the author attacks Sackville, a disgraced yet highly promoted officer under whose command he had served in the American war for independence. (ancestry.com 24 Jan. 2024; GM 29 [Aug. 1759], 393; Gloucester Journal, 17 Jan. 1763; Leeds Intelligencer, 10 Sept. 1771; Derby Mercury, 8 May 1772 and 20 Aug. 1779; Yeovil Mercury, 18 Sept. 1780; Town and Country Magazine [June 1784], 336; W. E. Manners, Some Account of the Military, Political, and Social Life of the Right Hon. John Manners, Marquis of Granby [1899], 122; The Welshman, 21 Apr. 1933) JC