Major-General Sir Justin Sheil (2 December 1803 – 18 April 1871) was an Irish army officer and diplomat, the British envoy in

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

from 1844 to 1854.

Life

The son of Edward Sheil and Catherine McCarthy, and brother of

Richard Lalor Sheil Richard Lalor Sheil (17 August 1791 – 23 May 1851), Irish politician, writer and orator, was born at Drumdowney, Slieverue, County Kilkenny, Ireland. The family was temporarily domiciled at Drumdowney while their new mansion at Bellevue, near ...

, he was born at Bellevue House, near

Waterford "Waterford remains the untaken city" , mapsize = 220px , pushpin_map = Ireland#Europe , pushpin_map_caption = Location within Ireland##Location within Europe , pushpin_relief = 1 , coordinates ...

, on 2 December 1803. Educated at Stonyhurst College, he was nominated to an

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 South ...

cadetship. On arriving 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 ...

Sheil was posted as ensign to the 3rd Bengal infantry (4 March 1820). Exchanged to the 35th Bengal infantry, of which he became adjutant, he was present at the

Siege of Bharatpur The siege of Bharatpore was a siege that took place in the Indian princely state of Bharatpur (now part of Rajasthan) between December 1825 and January 1826. British troops under Lord Combermere initially surrounded the state's capital until ...

. Becoming a captain on 13 April 1830, he was on 4 July 1833 appointed second in command of regular troops in Persia under Major Pasmore; Pasmore had recommended him to

Lord William Bentinck Lieutenant General Lord William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck (14 September 177417 June 1839), known as Lord William Bentinck, was a British soldier and statesman who served as the Governor of Fort William (Bengal) from 1828 to 1834 and the First G ...

and praised him highly. On 16 February 1836 Sheil was appointed secretary to the British legation in

, and in 1844 he succeeded Sir John McNeill as envoy and minister at the

Shah Shah (; fa, شاه, , ) is a royal title that was historically used by the leading figures of Iranian monarchies.Yarshater, EhsaPersia or Iran, Persian or Farsi, ''Iranian Studies'', vol. XXII no. 1 (1989) It was also used by a variety of ...

's court. He held the post till his retirement in 1854. He was promoted to the rank of major on 17 February 1841, and became a major-general in 1859. In 1848 he was created a C.B., and in 1855 a K.C.B. Sheil died in London on 18 April 1871. Curiously he chose not to be buried alongside his wife, who had died in Ireland two years earlier.

Works

Sheil contributed notes on ''Koords, Turkomans, Nestorians, Khiva, ...'', to a book ''Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia'' (London, 1856), written by his wife. He published in vol. viii. of the ''Royal Geographical Society's Journal'' "Notes of a Journey from Kurdistan to Suleimaniyeh in 1836", and "Itinerary from Tehran to Alamut in May 1837".

Family

Sheil married the writer Mary Leonora Woulfe, daughter of Stephen Woulfe,

Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer The Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer was the Baron ( judge) who presided over the Court of Exchequer (Ireland). The Irish Court of Exchequer was a mirror of the equivalent court in England and was one of the four courts which sat in the build ...

and Frances Hamill. She died in 1869: she is buried in

Glasnevin Cemetery Glasnevin Cemetery ( ga, Reilig Ghlas Naíon) is a large cemetery in Glasnevin, Dublin, Ireland which opened in 1832. It holds the graves and memorials of several notable figures, and has a museum. Location The cemetery is located in Glasne ...

, far from her husband. They had ten children, including the politician Edward Sheil, Mary Emily (died 1888), who married her cousin, the leading journalist John Woulfe Flanagan, and Laura, who married the Spanish diplomat Pedro de Zulueta and was the mother of Francis de Zulueta,

Regius Professor of Civil Law (Oxford) The Regius Chair of Civil Law, founded in the 1540s, is one of the oldest professorships at the University of Oxford. Foundation The Regius Chair of Civil Law at Oxford was founded by King Henry VIII, who established five such Regius Professorshi ...

at the Regius Professor of Law.

Notes

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Sheil, Justin 1803 births 1871 deaths British East India Company Army officers British diplomats People from County Waterford British Indian Army generals Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath