Colonel Colonel (abbreviated as Col., Col or COL) is a senior military officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. In the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, a colonel was typically in charge of ...

Robert Hamilton Vetch CB (6 January 1841 – 28 January 1916) was a

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

officer and biographer who contributed to the ''

Encyclopædia Britannica The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various time ...

'' and the ''

Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...

''. He served as Deputy

Inspector-General of Fortifications The Chief Royal Engineer (CRE) is the official head of the Corps of Royal Engineers of the British Army. Origin and development Before the English Restoration a Chief Engineer was a pay grade and not defined. In 1660 King Charles II appointed S ...

and as Chief Engineer in Ireland.

Early life

Born at Moseley near Birmingham in January 1841,War Office file WO 25/3913
"Statement of the Services of Robert Hamilton Vetch of the Royal Engineers, Where Born Mosely Date of Birth 6th January 1841"
ancestry.co.uk, accessed 22 June 2022 Vetch was a son of Captain

James Vetch James Vetch (1789–1869) was a Scottish army officer and civil engineer. A veteran of the Peninsular War in the Royal Engineers, in later life he took on a wide range of engineering work, including mining in Mexico. He was a Fellow of the Royal S ...

(1789–1869), a retired

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...

officer and Fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

who later became Conservator of Harbours at the Admiralty. At the time, his father was resident engineer of the

Birmingham and Gloucester Railway The Birmingham and Gloucester Railway (B&GR) was the first name of the railway linking the cities in its name and of the company which pioneered and developed it; the line opened in stages in 1840, using a terminus at Camp Hill in Birmingham. It ...

. His mother was Alexandrina Ogilvie, a daughter of Robert Auld of Edinburgh, and he had nine brothers and sisters. Vetch trained for a career in the British Army as a gentleman cadet at the

Royal Military Academy, Woolwich The Royal Military Academy (RMA) at Woolwich, in south-east London, was a British Army military academy for the training of commissioned officers of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers. It later also trained officers of the Royal Corps of Sig ...

,''

The London Gazette ''The London Gazette'' is one of the official journals of record or government gazettes of the Government of the United Kingdom, and the most important among such official journals in the United Kingdom, in which certain statutory notices are ...

'', Issue 22085, 19 January 1858
p. 271
/ref> a specialist school for future Engineer and Artillery officers, where the subjects studied included mathematics, the principles of fortification, gunnery, and bridge-building.

Career

Out of his cadet company, Vetch was commissioned as a lieutenant into the Royal Engineers on 23 December 1857. His early work was on defences at

Bermuda ) , anthem = "God Save the King" , song_type = National song , song = " Hail to Bermuda" , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , mapsize2 = , map_caption2 = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = , e ...

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

, and the

Bristol Channel The Bristol Channel ( cy, Môr Hafren, literal translation: "Severn Sea") is a major inlet in the island of Great Britain, separating South Wales from Devon and Somerset in South West England. It extends from the lower estuary of the River Seve ...

, and he became secretary of the Royal Engineers' Institute at

Chatham Chatham may refer to: Places and jurisdictions Canada * Chatham Islands (British Columbia) * Chatham Sound, British Columbia * Chatham, New Brunswick, a former town, now a neighbourhood of Miramichi * Chatham (electoral district), New Brunswic ...

. Between 1877 and 1884 he edited the professional papers of the Royal Engineers. Vetch was promoted to captain in 1869, major in 1878, lieutenant colonel in 1884, and full olonel in 1888. In his later career, Vetch was successively deputy inspector-general of fortifications and chief engineer in Ireland, retiring from military service in 1898. He was placed on the retired list on 6 January 1898, his 57th birthday, with a pension of £500 a year, his Service Record noting that he had served for forty years and fourteen days, with periods of leave in Bermuda, Barbados, and Malta totalling more than seven years. As a military historian and biographer, Vetch edited a history of General Gordon's campaign in China and wrote biographies of two fellow Royal Engineers, Sir Gerald Graham VC and General Sir Andrew Clarke, an inspector-general of fortifications. He also contributed many articles to the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' and the first ''Dictionary of National Biography'', under the editorship of

Sidney Lee Sir Sidney Lee (5 December 1859 – 3 March 1926) was an English biographer, writer, and critic. Biography Lee was born Solomon Lazarus Lee in 1859 at 12 Keppel Street, Bloomsbury, London. He was educated at the City of London School , ...

. "Obituary: Colonel R. H. Vetch, C.B."
in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'', Tuesday, 1 February 1916; Issue 41078; p. 5; col. B

Personal life

In 1911, Vetch was living in Kew with his wife of 47 years, Mary Ann, who had been born in

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, two unmarried daughters, a cook, and a housemaid. He and his wife had had fourteen children, of whom twelve were still alive. Vetch died at home at Ilchester, Kew Road, Richmond, Surrey, on 28 January 1916, aged 75."VETCH Robert Hamilton of Ilchester Kew-road Richmond Surrey died 28 January 1916" in ''Wills and Administrations 1916 (England and Wales)'' (1917), p. 137 He left an estate valued for probate at £3902, and his Executors were his sons Douglas Francis Stewart Vetch, a bank manager, and Harold George Gordon Vetch, a clerk.

Books

*''Gordon’s Campaigns in China by Himself: with an Introduction and Short Account of the Tai-Ping Rebellion by Colonel R. H. Vetch C.B.'' (London: Chapman and Hall, 1900)
full text
at

archive.org The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

*''Lieut.-General Sir Gerald Graham VC GCB: Life, Letters and Diaries'' (Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1901) *''Life of Lieut.-General the Hon. Sir Andrew Clarke GCMG CB CIE'' (Plymouth: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1905)
full text
at archive.org

Honours

*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 ...

, 20 November 1894, the citation reading "Colonel Robert Hamilton Vetch, Royal Engineers, late Deputy Inspector-General of Fortifications, War Office"''The London Gazette'', 20 November 1894, Issue 26572
p. 6505
/ref>

Notes

External links

Robert Hamilton Vetch Colonel (United Kingdom), Colonel Robert Hamilton Vetch Order of the Bath, CB (6 January 1841 – 28 January 1916) was a British Army officer and biographer who contributed to the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' and the ''Dictionary of National Biograp ...

Wikisource Wikisource is an online digital library of free-content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole and the name for each instance of that project (each instance usually rep ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vetch, Robert Hamilton 1841 births 1916 deaths Graduates of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich People from Moseley Royal Engineers officers