Sir John Gell, 1st Baronet
Sir John Gell, 1st Baronet was born on June 22, 1593. See ranking, bio blurb, and everyone else born that day.
About Sir John Gell, 1st Baronet
Sir John Gell (22 June 1593 – 26 October 1671) was an English military officer who acted as local Parliamentarian commander for most of the First English Civil War from 1643 to his resignation in 1646. He was notorious for parading the body of his Royalist opponent through Derby after the Battle of Hopton Heath in March 1643. A member of the landed gentry, Gell was from Hopton, Derbyshire. Reputedly the richest man in Derbyshire, he proved an effective and energetic general, but the plundering conducted by his often unpaid troops provoked numerous complaints to Parliament. According to Puritan diarist Lucy Hutchinson, he "had not understanding to judge the equity of the cause, nor piety, nor holiness", while his men were "the most licentious, ungovernable wretches that belonged to the Parliament". Gell resigned his commission just before the First English Civil War ended in 1646, and his ambiguous stance during the Second English Civil War meant he was removed from all his positions in February 1649. Implicated in a Royalist plot in 1650, he was sentenced to life imprisonment but released due to ill health three years later. Pardoned after the Stuart Restoration in 1660, he died in London October 1671.