George Forbes, 3rd Earl of Granard

George Forbes, 3rd Earl of Granard PC (21 October 1685 – 1765) was an Anglo-Irish naval commander and diplomat. He was at the Capture of Gibraltar. He took a very valuable prize ship and was briefly a Governor of the Leeward Islands. He took a role in politics, helping to end Robert Walpole's career, but eventually retired.

Forbes was the son of Arthur Forbes, 2nd Earl of Granard and Mary, daughter of Sir George Rawdon, 1st Baronet, of Moira, County Down, was born in Ireland on 21 October 1685. He was for a time at the grammar school at Drogheda. His grandfather, Arthur Forbes, first earl, died when young Forbes was about twelve years of age. Coming to London with his grandmother in 1702, he introduced himself to Admiral George Churchill, then first of the council to the lord high admiral, Prince George of Denmark, and sought to enter the navy.

Churchill appointed him to the Royal Anne at Portsmouth, and made him a lieutent in the marines. Forbes was midshipman on HMS St George in 1704, and was with George Rooke at the Capture of Gibraltar, where he was on shore as aide-de-camp to the Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt and in the Battle of Málaga the same year. Forbes became heir to the earldom on the death of his elder brother, a captain in the Scots royals, from wounds received at the Battle of Blenheim.

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