General A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of highest military ranks, high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry. In some usages the term "general officer" refers t ...

Sir John Cheape (5 October 1792 – 30 March 1875) was a Scottish military officer of the

Bengal Army The Bengal Army was the army of the Bengal Presidency, one of the three presidencies of British India within the British Empire. The presidency armies, like the presidencies themselves, belonged to the East India Company (EIC) until the Govern ...

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 ...

Life

The son of John Cheape of Rossie,

Fife Fife (, ; gd, Fìobha, ; sco, Fife) is a council area, historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries with Perth and Kinross (i ...

, he was educated at

Woolwich Woolwich () is a district in southeast London, England, within the Royal Borough of Greenwich. The district's location on the River Thames led to its status as an important naval, military and industrial area; a role that was maintained throu ...

and

Addiscombe Addiscombe is an area of south London, England, within the London Borough of Croydon. It is located south of Charing Cross, and is situated north of Coombe and Selsdon, east of Croydon town centre, south of Woodside, and west of Shirley. Et ...

, and entered 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 B ...

as a second lieutenant on 3 November 1809. He first served in the

Third Anglo-Maratha War The Third Anglo-Maratha War (1817–1819) was the final and decisive conflict between the English East India Company and the Maratha Empire in India. The war left the Company in control of most of India. It began with an invasion of Maratha te ...

, and was present at the sieges of Dhamoni and Mondela in 1815 and 1816. He next served with the Narmada River field force under Colonel Adams in 1817 (in what is now

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (, ; meaning 'central province') is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal, and the largest city is Indore, with Jabalpur, Ujjain, Gwalior, Sagar, and Rewa being the other major cities. Madhya Pradesh is the seco ...

); and under

John Doveton Lieutenant-general Sir John Doveton (1768 – 7 November 1847) was a British military officer in the East India Company's Madras Army. Early life He was born in St. Helena, the son of Jonathan Doveton, a planter and factor and his wife Mary H ...

and

John Malcolm Major-General Sir John Malcolm GCB, KLS (2 May 1769 – 30 May 1833) was a Scottish soldier, diplomat, East India Company administrator, statesman, and historian. Early life Sir John Malcolm was born in 1769, one of seventeen children of Geo ...

in 1818, he was present at the siege of

Asirgarh Asirgarh Fort is an Indian fortress ''(qila)'' situated in the Satpura Range about north of the city of Burhanpur, in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. Because the fortress commands a pass through the Satpuras connecting the valleys of the ...

. He was promoted captain on 1 March 1821. In 1824 Cheape was ordered to

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

, and served through the three campaigns of the

First Anglo-Burmese War The First Anglo-Burmese War ( my, ပထမ အင်္ဂလိပ်-မြန်မာ စစ်; ; 5 March 1824 – 24 February 1826), also known as the First Burma War, was the first of three wars fought between the British and Burmese ...

. Then for more than two decades he was employed in civil engineering. His promotion, however, went on, and he became major in 1830, lieutenant-colonel in 1834, and colonel in 1844. In 1848 Cheape happened to be employed in the

Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising ...

when the

Siege of Multan The siege of Multan began on 19 April 1848 and lasted until 22 January 1849, and saw fighting around Multan (in present-day Pakistan) between the British East India Company and the Sikh Empire. It began with a rebellion against a ruler imposed ...

was being planned. He was appointed chief engineer, and ran the operations which led to the fall of the fortress. He then joined the army under Hugh Gough. He directed the artillery fire in the

Battle of Gujrat The Battle of Gujrat was a decisive battle in the Second Anglo-Sikh War, fought on 21 February 1849, between the forces of the East India Company, and a Sikh army in rebellion against the company's control of the Sikh Empire, represented by ...

, the decisive moment in the

Second Anglo-Sikh War The Second Anglo-Sikh War was a military conflict between the Sikh Empire and the East India Company, British East India Company that took place in 1848 and 1849. It resulted in the fall of the Sikh Empire, and the annexation of the Punjab r ...

. Gough mentioned his services in his despatches, and Cheape was made a C.B. in the 1838 Coronation Honours and an ''aide-de-camp'' to the queen. When the

Second Anglo-Burmese War The Second Anglo-Burmese War or the Second Burma War ( my, ဒုတိယ အင်္ဂလိပ် မြန်မာ စစ် ; 5 April 185220 January 1853) was the second of the Anglo-Burmese Wars, three wars fought between the Konbaung dy ...

broke out in 1852, Cheape was made a brigadier-general and appointed second in command to General Henry Godwin. As before, English commanders underestimated their opponents, and Myat-thoon inflicted defeats on them. In February 1853, Cheape took over command and invaded

Pegu Bago (formerly spelt Pegu; , ), formerly known as Hanthawaddy, is a city and the capital of the Bago Region in Myanmar. It is located north-east of Yangon. Etymology The Burmese name Bago (ပဲခူး) is likely derived from the Mon lang ...

. He was successful and concluded the war, with the provinces of Pegu and Tenasserim annexed to the territories of 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 ...

. Cheape was made a K.C.B. in 1849, received a medal and clasp and was promoted to major-general on 20 June 1854. He then left India after a service of 46 years. He established himself in the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight ( ) is a county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the largest and second-most populous island of England. Referred to as 'The Island' by residents, the Isle of ...

. Promoted lieutenant-general on 24 May 1859, and general on 6 December 1866, and made a G.C.B. in 1865. He died at Old Park,

Ventnor Ventnor () is a seaside resort and civil parish established in the Victorian era on the southeast coast of the Isle of Wight, England, from Newport. It is situated south of St Boniface Down, and built on steep slopes leading down to the sea. ...

, on 30 March 1875.

Family

Cheape married in 1835 Amelia, daughter of T. Chicheley Plowden of the Bengal civil service.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cheape, John 1792 births 1875 deaths British East India Company Army generals Graduates of Addiscombe Military Seminary Bengal Engineers officers British military personnel of the First Anglo-Burmese War British Army personnel of the Second Anglo-Burmese War People from Fife Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath