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Frederick Lester

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Lieutenant General

Sir Frederick Lester
Birth nameFrederick Parkinson Lester
Born3 February 1795 (1795-02-03)
Died3 July 1858 (1858-07-04) (aged 63)
Belgaum, Bombay Presidency, India
Allegiance United Kingdom
Service / branch British Army
East India Company
RankLieutenant General
CommandsSouthern Division of the Bombay Army
Battles / warsIndian Mutiny
AwardsKnight Commander of the Order of the Bath

Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Parkinson Lester, KCB, (3 February 1795 – 3 July 1858) was an army officer in the East India Company, third son of John Lester, merchant, of Racquet Court, Fleet Street, and his wife, Elizabeth Parkinson.[1]

Early life

Born on 3 February 1795, to John Lester a member of the prominent Lester merchant family of Poole, Dorset and the nephew of Benjamin Lester, MP for Poole, his mother was Elizabeth Parkinson, daughter of John Parkinson.[2] Educated at Mr Jephson's academy at Camberwell and at Addiscombe Military Seminary.[1] He qualified for a commission into the Bombay artillery on 22 April 1811.[1]

Military career

Lester's commissions, all in the Bombay artillery, were: second-lieutenant (25 October 1811), lieutenant (3 September 1815), captain (1 September 1818), major (14 May 1836), lieutenant colonel (9 August 1840), brevet colonel (15 March 1851), and major-general (28 November 1854).[1][3] he was finally promoted to Lieutenant General on 3 July 1858.[4] Lester's career was marked by its efficiency, resulting in his being 'specially thanked for his zealous and efficient services' by the governor of Bombay in April 1847.[1] His career during his service in India chiefly involved acting commissary of ordnance, commissary of stores, and secretary to (and afterwards ordinary member of) the military board. A system of double-entry bookkeeping introduced by him was, in 1834, ordered to be generally adopted in the Ordnance department.[1] Lester was appointed to command the southern division of the Bombay army in April 1857, he assumed command there at his headquarters at Belgaum on 12 May 1857.[5] Major-General Sir George Le Grand Jacob stated that his actions between May and September 1857 'in all probability to have prevented an explosion at Belgaum.'[6] He repaired the fort, moved the powder and ammunition inside the fort, deported suspected sepoys, and moved guns, gun carriages, and horses into the fort.[7] In addition he organized night-time patrols (chiefly of civilian volunteers) and moved the depot of Her Majesty's 64th regiment, with 400 European women and children, into the fort.[7] He vetoed the proposal of the commanding officer of the 29th Bombay native infantry, backed by the political agent, Mr Seton-Karr, to disarm the regiment as potential mutineers on the ground of the inadequacy of any European force for the task, and the possibility of a failure which would end in disaster.[7] On the arrival of British troops (10 August 1857) he supervised the court-martial, execution, and other punishment of rebels.[7] One of these courts-martial consisted entirely of Indian non-commissioned officers, a testament to Lester's wise leadership.[7] The measures were among the precautions which prevented the insurrection spreading to western India, and Lester was hardly given the credit due to him for them.[7]

Personal life

Lester was a deeply religious man. During his period in India, a profane conversation at which Sir John Keane, 5th Baronet was present resulted in his leaving a mess breakfast table in protest against the conversation and it placed him temporarily under an official cloud.[1]

Lester married twice, first, in 1828, at St Thomas's Church, Bombay, Helen Elizabeth Honner, they had two children, both of whom died in infancy.[1] He married secondly, in 1840, at Mahabaleshwar, Charlotte Pratt Fyvie, daughter of the Revd William Fyvie (nephew of Elizabeth Simpson, wife of Henry Bridgeman, 1st Baron Bradford; through the Simpsons he was also first cousin of Henry Liddell, 1st Earl of Ravensworth and Sir John Dean Paul, 1st Baronet); they had five children, including:[1][8]

Lester was found dead in his bed of heart disease at 7 a.m. on 3 July 1858, at Belgaum.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/16505. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. ^ "Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 5, 2005". University of Toronto/Université Laval.
  3. ^ "The London Gazette 1855". Official Public Records.
  4. ^ "The London Gazette 1858". Official Public Records.
  5. ^ Western India Before and During the Mutinies. Henry S. King & Co. 1871. p. 212.
  6. ^ Western India Before and During the Mutinies. Henry S. King & Co. 1871. p. 213.
  7. ^ a b c d e f Charles Manners Chichester (2004). "General Sir Frederick Lester DNB, Edited, James Falkner". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/16505. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  8. ^ Cokayne, G.E. (1910–1959). The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, new ed (II ed.). p. 194.
  9. ^ James Rhoades' Who's Who. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U202146. ISBN 978-0-19-954089-1.
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