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 ...

Sir Thomas Hungerford Holdich (13 February 1843 – 2 November 1929) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

geographer and president of the

Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

. He is best known as Superintendent of Frontier Surveys 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 ...

, arbiter in the

Cordillera of the Andes Boundary Case The 1902 Arbitral award of the Andes between Argentina and Chile ( es, Laudo limítrofe entre Argentina y Chile de 1902) was a British arbitration in 1902 that established the present-day boundaries between Argentina and Chile. In northern and ce ...

and author of numerous books, including ''The Gates of India'', ''The Countries of the King's Award'' and ''Political Frontiers and Boundary Making''.

Life

Born in

Dingley, Northamptonshire Dingley is a village and civil parish in Northamptonshire, England, located along the A427, about east of the nearest town, Market Harborough. It is also close to the A6 and near the border with Leicestershire. At the time of the 2001 cens ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

to the Rev. Thomas Peach Holdich, he was educated at Godolphin Grammar School and the Royal Military Academy, obtaining a commission in the

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 ...

in 1862. He saw active service in the

Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainous ...

expedition of 1865, the Abyssinian campaign of 1867–68 and the

Second Anglo-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 ...

of 1878–79. During peacetime, Holdich was largely occupied with the survey of India. He was the chief surveyor on the

Afghan Boundary Commission The Afghan Boundary Commission (or Joint Anglo-Russian Boundary Commission) was a joint effort by the United Kingdom and the Russian Empire to determine the northern border of Afghanistan The Boundary Commission traveled and documented the northern ...

of 1884–86. The Commission soon found itself in the midst of a crisis, inflamed by the

Panjdeh incident The Panjdeh Incident (known in Russian historiography as the Battle of Kushka) was an armed engagement between the Emirate of Afghanistan and the Russian Empire in 1885 that led to a diplomatic crisis between the British Empire and the Russian ...

; when this nearly led to war with Russia, Holdich was put in charge of fortifying

Herat Herāt (; Persian: ) is an oasis city and the third-largest city of Afghanistan. In 2020, it had an estimated population of 574,276, and serves as the capital of Herat Province, situated south of the Paropamisus Mountains (''Selseleh-ye Safēd ...

against a potential Russian invasion. He later served on the Tasmar Boundary Commission of 1894, the Pamir Boundary Commission of 1895 and the Perso-Baluchistan Boundary Commission of 1896. He was awarded the Founder's Medal of the

in 1887 in recognition of his work on the Afghan frontier. Holdich was also member of the British tribunal engaged i
''The Cordillera of the Andes Boundary Case''
by the governments of

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

and

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

in 1902 to arbitrate the boundary along the Andes Mountains. For this service he was appointed a Knight Commander of the

Order of St Michael and St George The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is a British order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George IV, George IV, Prince of Wales, while he was acting as prince regent for his father, George III, King George III. ...

(KCMG) in December 1902. On his retirement to half-pay in 1898, he thanked "that providence which had been good to me in that during that last year of my Indian career I had been able to put a round finish on the last of our frontier maps". He was placed on the Retired list with an Indian pension 13 February 1900. In later years, he wrote and lectured extensively on geographical issues, and served as president of the Royal Geographical Society from 1917 to 1919. He also served as President of the Geographical Association between 1917 and 1918. He contributed a number of entries to the eleventh edition of the ''Encyclopædia Britannica''.

Boundaries are the inevitable product of advancing civilisation; they are human inventions not necessarily supported by nature's dispositions, and as such they are only of solid value so long as they can be made strong enough and secure enough to prevent their violation and infringement. – Sir Thomas Hungerford Holdich (1916)

His thought on international boundaries emphasized a need for them to be, or have the potential to become, militarily strong. Holdich died in 1929 at his home at Parklands in

Merrow, Surrey The village of Merrow, in Surrey, England in the 21st century constitutes the north-east suburb of Guildford. It is however centred from the town centre, right on the edge of the ridge of hills that forms the North Downs. Although now a rela ...

, near

Guildford Guildford () is a town in west Surrey, around southwest of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants in . The name "Guildf ...

, at the age of 86.

List of publications

* T H Holdich. (Editor). ''Peru-Bolivia Boundary Commission Report 1911-1913''. 1918. * T H Holdich. ''Boundaries in Europe and the Near East'', 1918. * T H Holdich. ''Frontiers and Boundary Making'', 1916. * T H Holdich, Leonard Arthur Bethell and

Hamilton Bower Major-General Sir Hamilton St Clair Bower (1 September 1858 – 5 March 1940) was a British Indian Army officer who wrote about his travels through Xinjiang and Tibet. Private life Bower was born on Portsea Island, Hampshire, the son of a Sc ...

. ''The Abor Expedition: Geographical Results: Discussion''.

Geographical Journal ''The Geographical Journal'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal of the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers). It publishes papers covering research on all aspects of geography. It also publishes shorter ...

, Feb., 1913, vol. 41, no. 2, pages 109–114. * T H Holdich. ''Gates of India, Being an Historical Narrative of Early Relations Between the East and the West'', 1910. * T H Holdich. ''Tibet the Mysterious'', 1906. * T H Holdich. ''Countries of the King's Award'', 1904. * T H Holdich. ''England's Strength in Asia''. Proceedings of the Central Asian Society, 1904. * T H Holdich. ''Indian Borderland 1880–1900'', 1901. * M. G. Gerard, T. H. Holdrich, R. A. Wahab, A. W. Alcock
Report on the proceedings of the Pamir Boundary Commission.
Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. 1897. * T H Holdich. ''Notes on the Antiquities, Ethnography and History of Las Bela and Makran'', 1894. *

Family

Holdich was married to Ada Vanrenen, and had two daughters and two sons. His elder daughter Laura Holdich married in 1898 Major Edmund Peach (1865–1902), Indian Staff Corps.

References

External links

Biography
from the Holdich Family History Society
The Geographical Journal
– Obituary, Vol LXXV, No 3, March 1930 * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Holdich, Thomas 1843 births 1929 deaths English geographers Royal Engineers officers British military personnel of the Second Anglo-Afghan War British military personnel of the Abyssinian War Presidents of the Royal Geographical Society Indology Companions of the Order of the Bath Knights Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George Knights Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire British people in colonial India