Lieutenant general Lieutenant general (Lt Gen, LTG and similar) is a three-star military rank (NATO code OF-8) used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages, where the title of lieutenant general was held by the second-in-command on the ...

Sir Charles Edward Nairne (30 June 1836 – 19 February 1899) was a British military officer who served in

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

Early life

He was the son of Captain Alexander Nairne, a military officer in the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...

.Dictionary of National Biography. Supplement. United Kingdom, Smith, Elder, & Company, 1901. Educated at

Addiscombe Military Seminary The East India Company Military Seminary was a British military academy at Addiscombe, Surrey, in what is now the London Borough of Croydon. It opened in 1809 and closed in 1861. Its purpose was to train young officers to serve in the East India ...

, Nairne was commissioned into the Bengal Artillery in 1855. Due to sickness he was only present for two and a half terms at Addiscombe, instead of the usual four, and this prevented him joining the

Bengal Engineers The Bengal Engineer Group (BEG) (informally the Bengal Sappers or Bengal Engineers) is a military engineering regiment in the Corps of Engineers of the Indian Army. The unit was originally part of the Bengal Army of the East India Company's Ben ...

.Vibart, Henry Meredith. Addiscombe, Its Heroes and Men of Note; by Colonel H. M. Vibart... With an Introduction by Lord Roberts of Kandahar.... N.p., A. Constable and Company, 1894.

Career

During the

Indian Mutiny The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the fo ...

in 1857 he was stationed mostly at

Peshawar Peshawar (; ps, پېښور ; hnd, ; ; ur, ) is the sixth most populous city in Pakistan, with a population of over 2.3 million. It is situated in the north-west of the country, close to the International border with Afghanistan. It is ...

and only saw action towards its close. In 1863 he served in an expedition against the

Yusufzai The Yusufzai or Yousafzai ( ps, یوسفزی, ), also referred to as the Esapzai (, ) are one of the largest Pashtun tribes, tribes of ethnic Pashtuns. They are natively based in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, to which they migrated to from Sulim ...

on the north-western frontier. He went on to serve as a Horse Battery Commander with the

Peshawar Valley Field Force The Peshawar Valley Field Force was a British field force. It was the largest of three military columns created in November 1878 at the start of the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-1880), each of which invaded Afghanistan by a different route. The Pes ...

during the

Second Afghan War The Second Anglo-Afghan War (Dari: جنگ دوم افغان و انگلیس, ps, د افغان-انګرېز دويمه جګړه) was a military conflict fought between the British Raj and the Emirate of Afghanistan from 1878 to 1880, when the l ...

from 1878 to 1880. In 1882 he took part in the

Anglo-Egyptian War The British conquest of Egypt (1882), also known as Anglo-Egyptian War (), occurred in 1882 between Egyptian and Sudanese forces under Ahmed ‘Urabi and the United Kingdom. It ended a nationalist uprising against the Khedive Tewfik Pasha. It ...

and commanded the horse artillery at the Battle of Kassassin Lock and the

Battle of Tel el-Kebir The Battle of Tel El Kebir (often spelled Tel-El-Kebir) was fought on 13 September 1882 at Tell El Kebir in Egypt, 110 km north-north-east of Cairo. An entrenched Egyptian force under the command of Ahmed ʻUrabi was defeated by a British ...

where he was

mentioned in despatches To be mentioned in dispatches (or despatches, MiD) describes a member of the armed forces whose name appears in an official report written by a superior officer and sent to the high command, in which their gallant or meritorious action in the face ...

. He was also appointed a Companion of the

Order of the Bath The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I of Great Britain, George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate medieval ceremony for appointing a knight, which involved Bathing#Medieval ...

(CB). In 1882 he became colonel of the depot staff of the horse artillery, and in 1885 commandant of the school of gunnery at

Shoeburyness Shoeburyness (; also called Shoebury) is a suburb of the city of Southend-on-Sea, in the City of Southend-on-Sea, in the ceremonial county of Essex, England. east of the city centre. It was an urban district of Essex from 1894 to 1933, when it ...

for the next two years. In 1887 he became Inspector-General of Artillery in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, serving in the role for five years. In 1890 he attained the rank of Major-general after 35 years service. In 1892 Nairne was appointed to the command of the Division at

Meerut Meerut (, IAST: ''Meraṭh'') is a city in Meerut district of the western part of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The city lies northeast of the national capital New Delhi, within the National Capital Region and west of the state capital ...

, and the following year he became Commander-in-Chief of the

Bombay Army The Bombay Army was the army of the Bombay Presidency, one of the three presidencies of Presidencies and provinces of British India, British India. It was established in 1662 and governed by the East India Company until the Government of India A ...

(renamed Bombay Command in 1895). He was promoted Lieutenant-General in November 1895 and became a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in June 1898. He was acting

Commander-in-Chief, India During the period of the Company rule in India and the British Raj, the Commander-in-Chief, India (often "Commander-in-Chief ''in'' or ''of'' India") was the supreme commander of the British Indian Army. The Commander-in-Chief and most of his ...

from March to November 1898.

Death

He died suddenly on 19 February 1899 and was buried with military honours at Charlton Cemetery in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

on 22 February.

Family

In 1860 he married Sophie Addison. His sister, Helen Catherine Nairne, who was born on 1 September 1843, married

Sir Frederick Arnold-Baker Sir Frederick Spencer Arnold-Baker (1 April 1885 – 9 December 1963) was a British lawyer. He was the third son of Frederick Arnold-Baker (born 30 December 1845) and Helen Catherine Nairne (born 1 September 1843), and grandson of the New Zealand ...

.Baker & Smart Pedigree 1902
/ref>

References

Sources

, - {{DEFAULTSORT:Nairne, Charles 1836 births 1899 deaths Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath Recipients of the Order of the Medjidie, 3rd class British Commanders-in-Chief of India British military personnel of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 British Army generals British military personnel of the Second Anglo-Afghan War British Army personnel of the Anglo-Egyptian War Bengal Artillery officers Royal Artillery officers British people in colonial India Members of the Council of the Governor General of India