The Memoirs of Admiral Lord BeresfordBeresford, Charles William De la Poer Beresford, Baron
History
The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford
Beresford, Charles William De la Poer Beresford, Baron
Admirals -- Great Britain -- Biography; Great Britain -- History, Naval -- 19th century
Upon landing at Bombay, I rode up to Government House with my brother,
Lord William, precisely as I had ridden up with another brother, Lord
Marcus, exactly six years previously, on the same day of the year.
Lord William was then extra A.D.C. to the Viceroy, Lord Northbrook,
having been appointed to that post as a subaltern in the 9th Lancers.
He was subsequently appointed A.D.C. to Lord Lytton, in which capacity
he attended the Viceroy at the Durbar at which Queen Victoria was
proclaimed Empress of India. He was afterwards military secretary to
three successive viceroys, Lords Ripon, Dufferin and Lansdowne;
altogether he served on the personal staff of five viceroys. From 1877
to 1879, while nominally in attendance upon the Viceroy, Lord William
fought in the Jowaki expedition of 1877-78, the Afghan war, during
which he was present at the capture of Ali Musjid, and the Zulu war of
1879. "In the latter," wrote a military correspondent of _The Times_
(31st December, 1900), "he served as a staff officer during the
reconnaissance across the White Umvolusi River and at the battle of
Ulundi. It was in Zululand, in July, 1879, that Beresford won the V.C.
for halting, when closely pursued by the enemy, to take a wounded
non-commissioned officer on his horse. When the soldier at first
declined to risk the officer's life by giving the latter's horse a
double burden, Beresford is understood to have hotly declared that
unless the man immediately got up on the saddle he would himself
dismount and 'punch his head.'"
{161}
For his services in the Burmese expedition of 1886, he received a
brevet-colonelcy; and in 1891 he was promoted full colonel; in 1894 he
received the K.C.S.I.; and thereafter remained on the active list of
the Army, but unemployed. Of his exploits on the turf it is not here
the place to speak; but I may be pardoned if I have placed on record in
this place some account of Lord William's Indian service which extended
over nearly twenty years. Few men have earned so universal an
affection as that which Lord William inspired, alike in European and
native. His ability in matters of administration was remarkable, and
he acquired an extraordinary influence over the natives of India. The
correspondent of _The Times_, already quoted, observes that Lord
William might have had a distinguished career in any profession; that
he might have been a great soldier, a great diplomat, a great political
officer, had not his passion for the turf diverted a part of his
energies. It may be so; but perhaps one may be allowed to say that one
liked him for what he was and not for what he might have been; and also
that he did not do so badly. The warmest affection existed between my
brother and myself; and his death, which occurred in 1900, was a great
grief to me. But that was in the far future when I landed from the
_Serapis_ and we rode up to Government House together.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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