William Forbes Gatacre

Sir William Forbes Gatacre
Born (1843-12-03)3 December 1843
Herbertshire Castle, Stirlingshire, Scotland
Died 18 January 1906(1906-01-18) (aged 62)
Gambella, Abyssinia
Allegiance  United Kingdom
Service/branch British Army
Years of service 1862–1904
Rank Lieutenant general
Unit 77th Foot
Commands held Eastern District
Battles/wars Chitral Expedition
Omdurman
Second Boer War
Battle of Stormberg
Awards Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath
Distinguished Service Order
Order of the Medjidie
Kaisar-i-Hind Medal
Signature
Memorial to William Forbes Gatacre, All Saints Church, Claverley, Shropshire, in the South Gatacre chapel.

Lieutenant-General Sir William Forbes Gatacre KCB DSO (3 December 1843 – 18 January 1906) was a British soldier who served between 1862 and 1904 in India and Africa. He commanded a division of two brigades at the Omdurman, and commanded the 3rd Division during the first months of the Second Boer War during which time he suffered a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Stormberg.

Early life

William Forbes Gatacre was born at Herbertshire Castle, near Stirling on 3 December 1843, he was the third son of Edward Lloyd Gatacre, of Gatacre in the parish of Claverley, Shropshire, and Jessie Forbes, whose father William Forbes owned Herbertshire Castle.[1][2] He was educated at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and entered the army as an ensign of the 77th Foot in 1862, posted to India.[1] He purchased the rank of lieutenant on 23 December 1864.[3]

Military career

He reached the rank of captain by purchase on 7 December 1870,[4] before the purchase of commissions was abolished in the early 1870s[5] and passed into Staff College in 1873. Between 1875 and 1879 he returned to Sandhurst as an instructor of surveying. He then returned to India with his regiment in 1880, being promoted to major on 23 March 1881.[6]

On 29 April 1882 he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel[7] and appointed to command a battalion on 28 June 1884[8] until he was made Deputy Quartermaster General in December 1885[1][9] He was mentioned in Sir George White's despatches of 10 March 1887 as part of the Upper Burma Field Force.[10]

He gained the substantive rank of colonel and became Adjutant-General of the Bombay Army with local rank of major-general on 25 November 1890.[11] While serving as a major-general in India in the early 1890s he was bitten by a jackal whilst hunting with the Bombay Jackal Club and, temporarily deranged, had his bungalow windows barred against jackals.[5]

He was put in command of a second class district in India in January 1884.[12] Mentioned in despatches by Lieutenant-General Sir Robert C. Low, commander of the Chitral Relief Force on 1 May 1895.[13] As Chair of the The Plague Committee he authored the 3 volume 1886-7 Report on the Bubonic Plague of Bombay.[14]

He returned home to command a brigade at Aldershot Command in August 1897.[15]

He commanded a division of two British brigades at Omdurman, and in the Second Boer War he was placed at the head of the 3rd division, with the rank of lieutenant-general.[16] Gatacre was the commanding general of the Imperial forces at the Battle of Stormberg, during "Black Week", in which 135 men were killed and 696 captured in an ambush. His reputation, high after Omdurman, sank after Stormberg.[5]

He went on to serve as General Officer Commanding Eastern District from December 1898 to October 1899 and again from June 1900 to December 1903.[17] He retired in 1904. In 1906 he embarked on a trading expedition through Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. He died of fever near Gambela, Ethiopia,[18] an Anglo-Sudanese enclave leased by Emperor Menelik II, where Britain was in the process of establishing a port and customs station.

Though he worked them hard, Gatacre's men loved him and called him "General Backacher." Lady Beatrix Gatacre wrote his biography in General Gatacre: The story of the life and services of Sir William Forbes Gatacre, K.C.B., D.S.O. 1843-1906 (London, 1910).

Awards

References

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 "Sir William Forbes Gatacre". Ladysmith Historical Society. Retrieved 21 March 2013.
  2. ↑ "Person page 31861". thepeerage.com. Retrieved 21 March 2013.
  3. ↑ The London Gazette: no. 22923. p. 6700. 23 December 1864. Retrieved 22 March 2013.
  4. ↑ The London Gazette: no. 23685. p. 5660. 6 December 1870. Retrieved 22 March 2013.
  5. 1 2 3 Reid 2006, p51
  6. ↑ The London Gazette: no. 24961. p. 1793. 12 April 1881. Retrieved 22 March 2013.
  7. ↑ The London Gazette: no. 25142. p. 4013. 29 August 1882. Retrieved 22 March 2013.
  8. ↑ The London Gazette: no. 25384. p. 3534. 5 August 1884. Retrieved 22 March 2013.
  9. ↑ The London Gazette: no. 25559. p. 746. 16 February 1886. Retrieved 22 March 2013.
  10. ↑ The London Gazette: no. 25735. p. 4759. 2 September 1887. Retrieved 22 March 2013.
  11. ↑ The London Gazette: no. 26156. p. 2311. 28 April 1891. Retrieved 22 March 2013.
  12. ↑ The London Gazette: no. 26509. p. 2615. 4 May 1884. Retrieved 22 March 2013.
  13. ↑ The London Gazette: no. 26680. p. 6172. 2 September 1887. Retrieved 22 March 2013.
  14. ↑ Gatacre, W.F. (1897). "Report on the bubonic plague in Bombay". Bombay, India: The Times of India. Retrieved 12 February 2014.
  15. ↑ The London Gazette: no. 26884. p. 4674. 20 August 1897. Retrieved 22 March 2013.
  16. ↑ The London Gazette: no. 27126. p. 6180. 13 October 1899. Retrieved 22 March 2013.
  17. ↑ "Army Commands" (PDF). Retrieved 23 November 2015.
  18. ↑ Beatrix Gatacre (1910): General Gatacre, chapter 18. at Project Gutenberg, retrieved July 2013.
  19. ↑ The London Gazette: no. 25923. p. 2098. 12 April 1889. Retrieved 22 March 2013.
  20. ↑ The London Gazette: no. 27023. p. 6688. 15 November 1898. Retrieved 22 March 2013.
  21. ↑ The London Gazette: no. 27079. p. 3030. 12 May 1899. Retrieved 22 March 2013.
  22. ↑ The London Gazette: no. 27195. p. 3329. 23 May 1900. Retrieved 22 March 2013.

Sources

Military offices
Preceded by
Charles Burnett		 GOC Eastern District
1898–1899 		Succeeded by
Henry Abadie
Preceded by
Henry Abadie		 GOC Eastern District
1900–1903 		Succeeded by
Herbert Plumer
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