Bot at 20:34, 5 November 2022

2022-11-05T20:34:45Z

New page

{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2020}}
{{EngvarB|date=February 2020}}
{{Infobox military person
|name = Frederick Mackeson
|image =
|caption =
|rank = [[Lieutenant-Colonel]]
|branch = [[Bengal army]]
|commands =
|unit = [[Bengal Native Infantry]]
|battles = [[First Anglo-Afghan War]]<br />[[First Anglo-Sikh War]]<br>[[Second Anglo-Sikh War]]
|awards =
|family =
|nickname =
|allegiance = [[File:Flag of the British East India Company (1707).svg|22x25px]] [[East India Company]]
|birth_date = {{Birth date|1807|09|02|df=y}}
|death_date = {{Death date and age|1853|09|14|1807|09|02|df=y}}
|birth_place = [[Hythe, Kent]], [[United Kingdom]]
|death_place = [[Peshawar]], [[British India]]
|placeofburial = Khalid Bin Waleed Park, Peshawar
|spouse =
|serviceyears = 1825-1853
}}

[[Lieutenant colonel]] '''Frederick Mackeson''' <small>[[Order of the Bath|CB]]</small> (2 September 1807 – 14 September 1853) was an [[East India Company]] officer operating in the [[Military history of the North-West Frontier|North West Frontier]] of [[British India]] and one of [[Henry Lawrence's "Young Men"]].

==Life==
He was born in [[Hythe, Kent]] to William and Harriett Mackeson. He studied at [[the King's School, Canterbury]] and in France, before joining the [[Bengal Native Infantry]] in 1825.<ref>Buckland, C.E., Dictionary of Indian Biography. London, 1906</ref> He was made Lieutenant in 1828, and in 1831 transferred to [[Ludhiana]] where he would be based for several years. In 1832, he was appointed assistant political agent at Ludhiana and in that capacity accompanied [[Claude Martin Wade]] on a Mission to [[Lahore]] and [[Bahawalpur]] in connection with the [[Indus river|Indus]] navigation scheme. In 1837 he accompanied Sir [[Alexander Burnes]] to [[Kabul]].<ref>George Bellas GREENOUGH, Address to the Royal Geographical Society of London delivered at the Anniversary meeting on the 27th May, 1840. By G. B. G., President, 1840, page 15</ref>

In 1838, he was sent to [[Peshawar]] tasked with winning local support for [[Shuja Shah Durrani]]'s attempt to return to power in [[Afghanistan]]. He remained in Peshawar throughout the [[First Anglo-Afghan War]] responsible for forwarding supplies and money to Sir [[Robert Sale]] in [[Jalalabad]], hastening up reinforcements and maintaining British influence in the Khyber region.<ref>Earl Frederick Sleigh Roberts Roberts, Forty-one Years in India: From Subaltern to Commander-in-chief, Asian Educational Services, 1897, page 14</ref> Mackeson's reputation was enhanced by the war, and a colleague [[Henry Montgomery Lawrence|Henry Lawrence]] described him as an "excellent officer, first-rate linguist, a man of such temper that no native would disturb and of untiring energy" he noted that "his life was spent in discoursing night and day with false Sikhs and Khyberees at Peshawar, and treading almost alone, or attended by Afghan escort, the paths of the Khyber".<ref>Charles Allen, Soldier Sahibs: The Men Who Made the North-West Frontier, Hachette UK, 21 June 2012</ref> After the final withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan in 1842, he was appointed acting Superintendent of Buttee, and later assistant to the political agents in [[Rajputana|Rajpootana]] and at Delhi.

During the [[First Anglo-Sikh War]] Mackeson served under [[Sir Harry Smith, 1st Baronet|Harry Smith]] and was present at the [[Battle of Aliwal]].<ref>Buckland, C.E., Dictionary of Indian Biography. London, 1906</ref> However, after the war when the prestigious position of British Resident to Lahore became available, he was overlooked in favour of Henry Lawrence, who lacked Mackeson's first hand frontier experience. In March 1846, [[Henry Hardinge, 1st Viscount Hardinge|Lord Harding]] appointed him Superintendent of the [[Cis-Sutlej states|Cis-Sutlej]] territory in the [[Punjab]], an area outside of Lawrence's domain.<ref>Charles Allen, Soldier Sahibs: The Men Who Made the North-West Frontier, Hachette UK, 21 June 2012</ref> In the [[Second Anglo-Sikh War]] he served as aide to [[Hugh Gough, 1st Viscount Gough|Lord Gough]] through which he gained the praise of both Lord Gough, and the Governor General [[Lord Dalhousie]]. After the [[Battle of Chillianwala]], he swam the treacherous [[Jhelum river]] to notify Brigadier Burn's brigade on the other side of the river bank of the danger of an imminent Sikh force, in turn saving the brigade.<ref>R. Bosworth Smith's Life of Lord Lawrence, i. 412-13</ref> In 1849 he was made a local Lieutenant-Colonel.

In 1850, [[James Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie|Lord Dalhousie]] selected him, along with his nephew Captain Ramsay, to safely escort the [[Koh-i-Noor]] diamond to Britain. The jewel had been ceded to the East India Company in the [[Treaty of Lahore]] at the conclusion of the Second Anglo-Sikh War, and was to be presented to [[Queen Victoria]] as a gift from the Company. The pair left [[Bombay]] on 6 April 1850 on board the steamship ''Medea'' captained by William Lockyear and arrived at Portsmouth on 30 June.<ref>Leavitt, Trow, & Company, 1853, The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, ''Science'', and Art, Volume 28, University of Iowa,p.15</ref> The voyage was full of hazards, when first an outbreak of [[cholera]] and later a devastating gale threatened to destroy all on board.<ref>William Dalrymple, Anita Anand, William Dalrymple, Anita Anand, Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 12 September 2017</ref> On their arrival in Portsmouth, Mackeson and Ramsay were escorted to the East India Company's headquarters, [[East India House]] in [[Leadenhall Street]], where they safely handed the jewel over to Company chairman, [[John Shepherd (governor and chairman)|John Shepherd]].<ref>William Dalrymple, Anita Anand, William Dalrymple, Anita Anand, Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 12 September 2017</ref>

Mackeson returned to India in 1851, and being then senior captain of his regiment and a brevet Lieutenant-Colonel, he was appointed Deputy Commissioner at Peshawar. For the next two years Mackeson was asked to pacify the frontier tribes, amid fears that subversive [[Wahhabi]] agents had been supporting local insurrection.<ref>Jules Stewart, The Savage Border: The Story of the North-West Frontier, The History Press, 22 February 2007</ref> In 1852 he took part in operations against the [[Yusufzai]] clans in the [[Torghar District|Black Mountain]] region. Two British officers of the Customs department had been hacked to death by a gang of [[Hassanzai]]s, a Yusufzai clan in the region.<ref>Jules Stewart, The Savage Border: The Story of the North-West Frontier, The History Press, 22 February 2007</ref> The offending clan was threatened with punitive action if they did not hand over the killers, however they refused to surrender the culprits and seized two local forts instead.<ref>Jules Stewart, The Savage Border: The Story of the North-West Frontier, The History Press, 22 February 2007</ref> The Government assembled an expeditionary force under Mackeson's command, including columns led by [[Robert Napier, 1st Baron Napier of Magdala|Robert Napier]] and [[James Abbott (Indian Army officer)|James Abbott]], which successfully retook the forts.

On 10 September 1853 while listening to appeals in his veranda, he was greeted with a low salaam and presented with a piece of paper by a religious fanatic from [[Swat (princely state)|Swat]] who proceeded to stab him with a large knife.<ref>Jules Stewart, Khyber Rifles, The History Press, 22 June 2006</ref><ref>Tejwant Singh, The Bold Brave and Fearless, Trafford Publishing, 2003, page 155</ref> Mackeson died four days later on 14 September 1853.<ref>Earl Frederick Sleigh Roberts Roberts, Forty-one Years in India: From Subaltern to Commander-in-chief, Asian Educational Services, 1897, page 15</ref> It was generally understood that a price had been set on Mackeson's head, although the government denied that was the case.{{citation needed|date=February 2020}} His assassin was tried, and on 1 October 1853 was hanged. By the advice of [[John Lawrence, 1st Baron Lawrence|John Lawrence]] the murderer's body was burned after it was cut down, and the ashes thrown into a running stream.<ref>Earl Frederick Sleigh Roberts Roberts, Forty-one Years in India: From Subaltern to Commander-in-chief, Asian Educational Services, 1897, page 15</ref>

[[File:Frederick Mackeson tomb plate.jpg|thumb|Frederick Mackeson tomb plate|267x267px]]
[[File:Frederick Mackeson tomb.jpg|thumb|Frederick Mackeson Tomb in Peshawar, KP, Pakistan]]

==Legacy==
Frederick Mackeson was buried in Khalid Bin Waleed Garden in Peshawar. A monument was erected in his memory within the [[Peshawar Cantonment]] paid for by his friends.<ref>Earl Frederick Sleigh Roberts Roberts, Forty-one Years in India: From Subaltern to Commander-in-chief, Asian Educational Services, 1897, page 15</ref>

The lasting legacy of Mackeson's influence around Peshawar can be noted by the words of [[Robert Warburton]], himself a frontiersmen in the region over twenty five years later:<ref>Jules Stewart, Khyber Rifles, The History Press, 22 June 2006</ref>

{{bquote|"Wherever I have been, in every part of the Peshawar district, in the Khyber range, the name of Mackeson has been honoured and respected by all the residents of those lands above that of any other Englishmen who has been on the Peshawar border."}}

There is a large memorial plaque in [[Canterbury Cathedral]], "erected to his memory by his friends and admirers in India".

He was known by locals by the name ''Kishin Kaka'' – Kishin being a corruption of his surname Mackeson.<ref>Charles Allen, Soldier Sahibs: The Men Who Made the North-West Frontier, Hachette UK, 21 June 2012</ref>

==See also==
*[[Henry Lawrence's "Young Men"]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mackeson, Frederick}}
[[Category:1807 births]]
[[Category:1853 deaths]]
[[Category:British military personnel of the First Anglo-Afghan War]]
[[Category:British military personnel of the First Anglo-Sikh War]]
[[Category:British military personnel of the Second Anglo-Sikh War]]
[[Category:British East India Company Army officers]]
[[Category:Bengal Artillery officers]]
[[Category:People educated at The King's School, Canterbury]]
[[Category:British people in colonial India]]
[[Category:History of Peshawar]]
[[Category:People from Hythe, Kent]]

Frederick Mackeson - Revision history

Bot at 20:34, 5 November 2022