Early Life
Forbes was born on his family's Pittencrieff Estate in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland in 1707, the son of an army officer. After beginning to study medicine, he decided in his second year as a student to become a soldier and was accepted and commissioned as a lieutenant in the Scots Greys in 1735. He saw action in the War of the Austrian Succession and in the Jacobite rising of 1745, serving under the Duke of Cumberland as acting quartermaster-general.
Read more about this topic: John Forbes (British Army Officer)
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