Deaths on October 12

Richard Molesworth, 3rd Viscount Molesworth, Irish field marshal and politician (b. 1680)

Field Marshal Richard Molesworth, 3rd Viscount Molesworth, PC (Ire) FRS (1680 – 12 October 1758), styled The Honourable Richard Molesworth from 1716 to 1726, was an Anglo-Irish military officer, politician and nobleman. He served with his regiment at the Battle of Blenheim before being appointed aide-de-camp to the Duke of Marlborough during the War of the Spanish Succession. During the Battle of Ramillies Molesworth offered Marlborough his own horse after Marlborough fell from the saddle. Molesworth then recovered his commander's charger and slipped away: by these actions he saved Marlborough's life. Molesworth went on Lieutenant of the Ordnance in Ireland and was wounded at the Battle of Preston during the Jacobite rising of 1715 before becoming Master-General of the Ordnance in Ireland and then Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Irish Army.