[General] Francis Rawdon Chesney

Life
1789-1872; b. Ballyhea, Co. Down; explorer and military writer; commissioned Royal Artillery 1805; received grant of £20,000 was voted by parliament to enable him to try the experiment of communicating with India by the EuphratesSurvey of the Euphrates and Tigris (1850), The State of Fire-Arms Past and Present (1852) and Narrative of Euphrates Expedition (1868). CAB ODNB DIW DIB

Criticism
J. R. R. Adams, ‘The Early Life of Francis Rawdon Chesney’, in Field Excursions in Ulster, 3: “The Annalong District of the Mournes, County Down” (Ulster Folklore Soc. 1986), pp.16-20.

References
Charles A. Read, The Cabinet of Irish Literature [1876-78], notes that a grant of £20,000 was voted by parliament to enable him to try the experiment of communicating with India by the Euphrates; cites Past and Present State of Firearms (1852); Russo-Turkish Campaigns of 1828-9 (1854).

Dictionary of National Biography: bio-dates 1789-1872; volunteer against Irish rebels, 1789; service in Turkey, Suez, Syria, Hongkong; published narratives of his surveys, among which he showed that the Suez canal was practicable, 1830.

Belfast Linen Hall Library, Cuttings: ‘Father of the Suez Canal’, 17.6, 34.22, 36.30-1, CB 71.140 & 136.

Notes
Kith & Kin: Charles Cornwallis Chesney, 1826-1876; military critic; Campaigns in Virginia and Maryland (1863), and Essays in Military Biography (1874).

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