https://indianpedia.org/index.php?action=history&feed=atom&title=Charles_Alexander_McMahonCharles Alexander McMahon - Revision history2026-07-31T15:37:05ZRevision history for this page on the wikiMediaWiki 1.45.4https://indianpedia.org/index.php?title=Charles_Alexander_McMahon&diff=375038&oldid=prevBot at 02:03, 9 September 20222022-09-09T02:03:57Z<p></p>
<p><b>New page</b></p><div>[[Lieutenant-general (United Kingdom)|Lieutenant-General]] '''Charles Alexander McMahon''' [[Fellow of the Royal Society|FRS]] [[Fellow of the Geological Society of London|FGS]] (23 March 1830 – 21 February 1904) was an Anglo-Irish soldier, [[geologist]], and administrator in [[British India]].<ref name=obit>[http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FGEO%2FGEO5_1_05%2FS0016756800119685a.pdf&code=9eadff6364f30138215d621ee092fd38 Obituary of Lieut. General Charles Alexander McMahon], ''[[Geological Magazine]]'', Vol. 1, Issue 5, May 1904, pp. 237-239, journals.Cambridge.org, accessed 4 September 2022</ref> <br />
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==Early life and family==<br />
Born at [[Highgate]], McMahon was the son of [[Captain (armed forces)|Captain]] Alexander McMahon (born 1791), an officer of the [[East India Company]], originally of [[Kilrea]], [[County Londonderry]].<ref name=obit/> by his wife Aim, a daughter of Major Patrick Mansell, a British army officer.<ref name=DNB/> His grandfather, Arthur McMahon, was a [[Presbyterian]] minister at Kilrea and a prominent [[Irish republicanism|Irish Republican]], a leading member of the [[Society of United Irishmen]] and one of their [[colonel]]s during the [[Irish Rebellion of 1798]].<ref>Samuel McSkimin, ''The Annals of Ulster from 1790 to 1798'' (1906), pg. 87</ref> He fought at [[Battle of Saintfield|Saintfield]] and [[Battle of Ballynahinch|Ballynahinch]] and fled to [[France]], where he served in [[Napoleon]]’s [[Irish Legion]] and died fighting on the French side at [[Battle of Waterloo|Waterloo]].<ref><br />
J. W. Kernohan, ''The Parishes of Kilrea and Tamlaght O'Crilly'' (1912), [http://www.torrens.org.uk/Genealogy/BannValley/books/Kilrea/Kilrea03.html p. 37], torrents.org.uk, accessed April 2011</ref><br />
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In 1881, McMahon’s father was an elderly inmate of the [[Royal India Asylum]] at [[Hanwell]].<ref>[[1881 United Kingdom census]], "Alex. McMahon / Age 90<br />
/ Married / Birth Year: abt 1791 / Patient / Male / Where born: Ireland / Civil Parish: Ealing / County: Middlesex / <br />
Street Address: Royal Indian Asylum, Warwick Rd / Marital status: Married", ancestry.co.uk, accessed 4 September 2022 {{subscription}}</ref><br />
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==Career==<br />
After training at the [[Addiscombe Military Seminary]], McMahon was commissioned into the [[Madras Army]] and served for eight years in the 39th Regiment, [[Madras native infantry|Madras Native Infantry]], and for thirty years was a member of the [[Punjab Commission]]. He was appointed as [[Commissioner]] of [[Lahore Division|Lahore]] and [[Hisar district|Hissar]] in the [[Punjab Province (British India)|Punjab Province]].<ref name=obit/><br />
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While at Hissar in 1871, McMahon began to work on geology, and in 1877 published his first important paper, in Volume X of the ''Records'' of the [[Geological Survey of India]], dealing with a group of crystalline rocks. In 1879, while on leave in England, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, he enrolled as a student at the [[Royal School of Mines]]. Back in India he continued to investigate its geology, contributing twenty-one papers to the ''Records''.<ref name=DNB/><br />
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In 1885 he retired with the rank of colonel, but received further promotions, to major-general in 1888 and to [[Lieutenant-general (United Kingdom)|Lieutenant-General]] in 1892. Settling in London, he took up [[petrology]], publishing papers which took the total number of his contributions to geology to nearly fifty.<ref name=DNB/><br />
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He was president of the [[Geologists' Association]] from 1894 to 1896.<ref>Obituary: Lieut.-General Charles Alexander McMahon, F.R.S., F.G.S. Born March 23, 1830. Died February 21, 1904, The Geological Magazine, New Series, Decade V., Vol. I, Jan.–Dec. 1904, London: Messrs. Dulau & Co., [https://books.google.com/books?id=tYMPAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA237 pp 237–239]</ref><ref name=DNB>{{cite DNB12|wstitle=McMahon, Charles Alexander|volume= 2|pages=542–543}}</ref> In 1899 he was awarded the [[Lyell Medal]] by the [[Geological Society of London]].<ref name=obit/><br />
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McMahon died in February 1904, aged 73, and an obituary in the ''[[Geological Magazine]]'' described him as an excellent geologist and petrologist and a prominent member of the Geological Society of London, noting that he had had no early scientific training.<ref name=obit/><br />
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He was the father of [[Henry McMahon]] (born 1862), who followed his father into a career in India.<ref name=Haileybury>"McMahon, Arthur Henry, b. Nov. 28, 1862, son of Lieut.-Col. McMahon, 6, Regent's Park, Heavitree, Exeter" in Lionel Sumner Milford, ''Haileybury Register, 1862-1891'' (Haileybury College, 1891), p. 149</ref><br />
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==Honours==<br />
McMahon was elected as a [[Fellow of the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge]], a Fellow of the Geological Society of London, and a Fellow of the [[University of Lahore]].<ref name=obit/><br />
==Notes==<br />
{{reflist}}<br />
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[[Category:1830 births]]<br />
[[Category:1904 deaths]]<br />
[[Category:British geologists]]<br />
[[Category:Madras Native Infantry]]</div>Bot