Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 45.djvu/308

Pilkington on 7 Nov. 1765. He passed through the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, and obtained a commission as second lieutenant in the royal artillery on 27 Aug. 1787. He was transferred to the royal engineers on 5 June 1789, embarked for Canada in July 1790, and was stationed at Quebec. He was promoted first lieutenant on 16 Jan. 1793, captain-lieutenant on 3 June 1797, and captain on 18 April 1801. In 1794 he established a fortified post on the river Miamis in North America. He returned to England in January 1803, and was again stationed in the southern district, whence, in May, he was transferred for special service to the government gunpowder factory at Waltham Abbey.

Pilkington was promoted regimental lieutenant-colonel on 24 June 1809. In this year he accompanied the expedition to Walcheren, as commanding royal engineer of one of the divisions under the Earl of Chatham, and took part in the siege and capture of Flushing, where he was wounded, and in the operations under Lieutenant-generals [q. v.] and [q. v.] In November and December he had charge of the work for the destruction of the basin, arsenal, and sea defences of Flushing, previous to the departure of the army, when Captain Moore and six hundred men of the royal navy were employed under his orders. Great credit was given to Pilkington in the despatch of Sir George Don for the skill with which the operations were carried out.

Pilkington returned to England in January 1810, and was stationed first at Woolwich and later at Weedon, where he superintended the erection of the large ordnance store establishment, gunpowder magazines, and barracks. In May 1815 he was appointed commanding royal engineer of the north-western district; and he was promoted regimental colonel on 1 Dec. 1815. In October 1818 he was appointed commanding royal engineer at Gibraltar, and he remained at that fortress for twelve years, having been promoted major-general on 27 May 1825. He was appointed a colonel commandant of the corps of royal engineers on 28 March 1830, when he returned to England. He succeeded General Sir A. Bryce as inspector-general of fortifications on 24 Oct. 1832, and died in London on 6 July 1834.

Pilkington married, in 1810, at Devizes, Wiltshire, Hannah, daughter of John Tylie, by whom he had four daughters and one son.

[Despatches; Royal Engineer Corps Records; War Office Records.]  PILKINGTON, THOMAS (d. 1691), lord mayor of London, son of Thomas Pilkington of Northampton, by his second wife, Anne Mercer, and grandson of John Pilkington of Oakham in Rutland, came up to London at an early age, and was soon a successful merchant. He was a leading member of the Skinners' Company, and served the office of master in 1677, 1681, and 1682. He attracted public notice somewhat late in life. Being a staunch whig, he was returned as one of the four city members to the short parliament which met on 6 March 1679. In the course of the debate Pilkington expressed a wish that the Duke of York might return from abroad, so that he might be impeached for high treason. He was again returned to the parliament of 1680. On 14 Dec. in the same year he was elected alderman of the ward of Farringdon Without (City Records, Repertory 86, fol. 37).

In June 1681 the citizens obtained a victory over the court party, on the election of Pilkington and Shute as sheriffs, after a hotly contested poll, by a large majority over the court candidates, Box and Nicholson. The election gave great offence to the king (cf., History of England, 1706, iii. 401); but Pilkington braved the royal frowns, and entertained at his house the Duke of Monmouth, Shaftesbury, Essex, and other leaders of the whig party. Meanwhile the lord mayor, Sir John Moore (1620–1702) [q. v.], who led the court party in the city, gave similar entertainments to its chiefs at his house in Fleet Street (, Relation of State Affairs, i. 172, 176). North stated that, on the trial of the Earl of Shaftesbury for high treason (24 Nov. 1681), Pilkington, as a whig, showed great partiality in returning the grand jury, and was reprimanded by the judges (Examen, 1740, pt. i. chap. i. p. 3). In March 1682 he was tried at the Southwark assizes on a trivial charge of libel, but the jury brought in a verdict of 800l. damages for the plaintiff (ib. p. 174). Pilkington appealed on the ground of excessive damages, and eventually the case came before the House of Lords, by whom the judgment was confirmed 3 June 1689.

At the election of new sheriffs on midsummer day 1682, Pilkington and his fellow-sheriff Shute, who presided, defeated, by an exceptional exercise of their authority, the lord mayor's efforts to secure the election of the court candidates, Dudley North and Ralph Box [see under ]. The lord mayor on the following day attended with a deputation to inform the king that the sheriffs had behaved riotously. A privy council was hastily sum-