CATOR, K.C.B., ROYAL ARTILLERY. 
XXI 
During* tlie period of six and a half years through which General Cator dis¬ 
charged the duties of Director-General of Artillery, the armament of the empire 
may be said to have entered on an entirely new era. His position was thus at 
that time of the most important character; as embracing not only the maintenance 
in efficiency of the extensive armaments of the forts and batteries of our Home and 
Colonial defences, but also the arduous duties of drawing out and reporting upon 
plans for the erection of numerous fortifications. For he was frequently employed 
in conjunction with military and naval officers, in visiting different parts of the 
kingdom, with a view to the better arming of salient positions of defence. 
In fulfilling these and other collateral duties, much correspondence was entered 
into with the Master-General and Board of Ordnance, and latterly with the 
Secretaries of State for War. In fact, the work was so excessive, that General 
Cator’s health again gave way under it, and in September 1858, he begged to be 
relieved of his duties. 
He was persuaded however to continue in his position till the end of the year; 
but in December he was compelled to send in his formal resignation; stating that 
his health would admit of no further delay in its acceptance. 
Thus with the fall of 1858, General Cator’s active career closed; and he could 
well retire to his life of repose, with the conviction that he had performed services 
for his Corps and Country of which he might justly be proud. 
Indeed, the Secretary of State for War, General Peel, wrote him a letter 
expressing in flattering terms his acknowledgments of General Cator’s services, 
and of which the following is an extract:— 
“ In thus accepting your resignation, I desire to express to you my thanks, and 
the thanks of Her Majesty’s Government, for the zeal and attention you have 
displayed in the discharge of your duties, and my regret at losing the assistance of 
an officer of your large and distinguished services.” 
On the 25th September, 1859, he was promoted to the rank of Lieut.-General; 
and on the 1st April, 1860, was appointed Colonel Commandant of the 15th 
Battalion. 
In appreciation of his general services he was nominated a Kniglit-Commander 
of the Bath, in 1865 ; succeeded General Sir Edward Whinyates as Colonel 
Commandant of the “B ” Brigade, Boy al Horse Artillery, in December of the same 
year ; and was promoted to the rank of General on 5th April, 1866. 
For the last year, Sir William Cator had been in a very uncertain state of 
health, till on the 11th May, 1866, he succumbed to the never failing influence 
of Time, and died at the ripe old age of 81, leaving in his last message of 
affectionate remembrance to all his old surviving friends, an example of the amiable 
qualities, he had possessed, through a long and useful life. 
One striking characteristic of his life must not be omitted in this short sketch 
of it. 
For very many years, if not throughout the whole of it, Sir William Cator ever 
took as his unerring guide, the unfailing word of God. By night when disturbed 
and restless, and thus deprived of sleep as well as by day, did this good man 
familiarize himself with its contents; a fact that bore record of its fruits in the 
peaceful and happy nature of his death, and one that by being recorded here may 
possibly bear fruit hereafter, inasmuch as it tends to prove beyond a doubt, that a 
