Field Marshal Robert Cornelis Napier, 1st Baron Napier of Magdala, (6 December 1810 – 14 January 1890) was a British Indian Army officer. He fought in the First Anglo-Sikh War and the Second Anglo-Sikh War before seeing action as chief engineer during the second relief of Lucknow in March 1858 during the Indian Rebellion of 1857. He also served in the Second Opium War as commander of the 2nd division of the expeditionary force which took part in the Battle of Taku Forts, the surrender of Peking's Anting Gate and the entry to Peking in 1860. He subsequently led the punitive expedition to Abyssinia in July 1867, defeating the Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia with minimal loss of life among his own forces and rescuing the hostages of Tewodros.

Military career

Early career

Born the son of Major Charles Frederick Napier, who was wounded at the storming of Meester Cornelis (now Jatinegara) in Java on (26 August 1810) and died some months later, and Catherine Napier (née Carrington), Napier was educated at Addiscombe Military Seminary before being commissioned into the Bengal Engineers on 15 December 1826. He attended the Royal Engineer Establishment at Chatham with the rank of ensign from 7 June 1827 before being promoted to lieutenant on 28 September 1827 and being sent to India in November 1828. After commanding a company at Delhi, he was employed in the irrigation works of the Public Works Department until 1836 when he returned to England for leave on account of his poor health. he was chief engineer at the siege of the fortress of Kote Kangra in the Punjab by Brigadier-General Wheeler in May 1846. and became chief engineer to the Board of Administration of Punjab Province at the end of the War. and to the substantive rank of colonel on 18 February 1861.

Napier became the military member of the Council of the Governor-General of India in 1861, acting for a short while as Governor-General after the sudden death of Lord Elgin. and received promotion to the substantive rank of lieutenant-general on 1 March 1867 before taking command of the punitive expedition to Abyssinia July 1867.

Abyssinia

thumb|upright|"The [[British Expedition to Abyssinia|British Expedition". Caricature by Spy published in Vanity Fair in 1878.]]

Napier achieved his greatest fame as an army officer when he led the expedition of 1868 against Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia. The Ethiopian ruler was holding a number of Protestant missionaries hostage, in his mountain capital of Magdala, as well as two British diplomats who had attempted to negotiate their freedom (Tewodros had unwisely taken them hostage as well). After months of planning and other preparations, the advance guard of engineers landed at Zula on the Red Sea to construct a port on 30 October 1867; Napier himself arrived in Zula on 2 January 1868, and on 25 January 1868 led his troops south into the Ethiopian Highlands.

After the Ethiopian campaign, Napier was made a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Freeman of the City of London. and granted an annuity for life.

Later career

Napier became Commander-in-Chief, India, with the local rank of full general in April 1870, and having been promoted to the substantive rank of full general on 1 April 1874, he became Governor of Gibraltar in June 1876. In February 1878, however, he was recalled to London and appointed to command an expeditionary force which was being prepared in anticipation of a war with Russia. he was promoted to field marshal on 1 January 1883.

Napier was also honorary colonel of the 3rd London Rifle Volunteer Corps and colonel-commandant of the Royal Engineers. In January 1887 he was appointed Constable of the Tower of London.

Napier died of influenza at his residence in London on 14 January 1890. He was given a state funeral and buried in St Paul's Cathedral on 21 January 1890.

Legacy

In 1883 the British government installed one Armstrong 100 ton gun in a battery in Gibraltar that they named the Napier of Magdala Battery and in 1891 a statue of Napier on horseback by Sir Joseph Boehm was unveiled in front of Carlton House Gardens in London: it was moved to Queen's Gate, Kensington in 1920.

The descendants of the Third City of London Rifle Volunteer Corps are located within Napier House Army Reserve Centre, Grove Park, London; the building is named in his honour.

Honours

Napier's honours included:

  • Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB) – 27 April 1868 (KCB – 27 July 1858)
  • Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Star of India (GCSI) – 16 September 1867

Family

In June 1840 Napier married Anne Pearse; they had three sons and three daughters before his wife died in childbirth in 1849.