History of New York City (1665–1783) port British ships evacuated in 1783. The English had renamed the colony the Province of New York, after the king's brother James, Duke of York and on June 12, 1665, appointed Thomas Willett the first of the Mayors of New York. The city grew northward and remained the largest and most important city in the Province of New York, becoming the third largest in the British Empire after London and Philadelphia. The Dutch regained the colony briefly in 1673, then finally lost it permanently to the English in 1674 after the Third Anglo-Dutch War. Leisler's Rebellion, an uprising in which
Allan Willett Leigh-Pemberton, Baron Kingsdown as Lord Lieutenant of Kent. Willett was appointed Knight of Justice of the Order of St. John in 2003. He is also the former Chairman of the Canterbury Cathedral Trust Fund (of which he remains trustee), and was Honorary Colonel of the 3rd Battalion Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment (a Territorial Army reserve battalion based at Canterbury) 2005-10, and Ambassador for Kent. He was appointed Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO) in the 2011 Birthday Honours for his service as lord-lieutenant. In January 2004 Willett created a charitable foundation whose principal beneficiaries are persons or organisations