Commissary-general Sir Edward Pine Coffin (1784 – 1862) was an English
commissary officer.
Life
Edward Pine Coffin, youngest son of
the Rev. John Pine, was born at Eastdown,
Devonshire, on 20 October 1784. He entered the
commissariat
A commissariat is a department or organization commanded by a commissary or by a corps of commissaries.
In many countries, commissary is a police rank. In those countries, a commissariat is a police station commanded by a commissary.
In some ar ...
as clerk on 25 July 1805, was made acting assistant in the following year, assistant commissary-general in 1809, deputy commissary-general in 1814, and commissary-general on 1 July 1840. He served at the
Cape from 1805 to October 1808, in Spain in 1808–9, including the
Corunna retreat, and in the
Peninsular from April 1809 to August 1810, from October 1810 to June 1811, and from July 1812 to September 1814; also in the Netherlands and France in 1815–16, on special service at Brussels in 1819, and in Canada from June 1819 to December 1822.
During the next ten years he was on half-pay in China, and afterwards on service in Canada from September 1833 to August 1835. From that time until April 1841 he was in Mexico charged with the duty of raising dollars for the commissariat chests, after which he served from April 1843 to July 1845 in China, and from January 1846 to March 1848 in Ireland and Scotland, and had charge of the relief operations at Limerick and in the west of Ireland during the
Famine
A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, Demographic trap, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. Th ...
up to August 1846, at the termination of which he was knighted by patent in recognition of his services. He was employed and paid from 1 April 1848 as one of the commissioners of inquiry into the working of the
Royal Mint
The Royal Mint is the United Kingdom's oldest company and the official maker of British coins.
Operating under the legal name The Royal Mint Limited, it is a limited company that is wholly owned by His Majesty's Treasury and is under an exclus ...
, whose report will be found in the ''Parliamentary Papers''.
[''Parliamentary Papers: Accounts and Papers'', 1849, vol. xxviii.] Coffin, who was unmarried, died at his residence, Gay Street,
Bath
Bath may refer to:
* Bathing, immersion in a fluid
** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body
** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe
* Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities
Plac ...
, 31 July 1862.
Sources
* Commissariat Records in the possession of the War Office;
* ''
The Gentleman's Magazine'' 3rd series, xiii. 372;
* ''Parliamentary Papers: Accounts and Papers'', 1847, vol. li. (Ireland, Distress, Commissariat series), 1849, vol. xxviii. (Mint Commissioners).
See also
*
John Pine Coffin
References
Citations
Bibliography
*
* Chichester, H. M.; Lunt, James (2004)
"Coffin, Sir Edward Pine" In ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. n.p.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Coffin, Edward Pine
1784 births
1862 deaths
British Army Commissariat officers
British Army personnel of the Napoleonic Wars