Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis, English general and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (born 1738)

Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis was a British Army officer, Whig politician and colonial administrator. In the United States and United Kingdom, he is best known as one of the leading British general officers in the American War of Independence. His surrender in 1781 to a combined Franco-American force at the siege of Yorktown ended significant hostilities in North America. Cornwallis later served as a civil and military governor in Ireland, where he helped to bring about the Act of Union; and in India, where he helped to enact the Cornwallis Code and the Permanent Settlement.

Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, or more formally Lieutenant General and General Governor of Ireland, was the title of the chief governor of Ireland from the Williamite Wars of 1690 until the Partition of Ireland in 1922. This spanned the Kingdom of Ireland (1541–1800) and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1801–1922). The office, under its various names, was often more generally known as the Viceroy, and his wife was known as the vicereine. The government of Ireland in practice was usually in the hands of the Lord Deputy up to the 17th century, and later of the Chief Secretary for Ireland.