Sir Ephraim Stannus

Major-General Sir Ephraim Gerrish Stannus CB (1784 - 21 October 1850) was a British military officer in the service of the East India Company.

Biography

Stannus was born into a wealthy Irish family in 1784. He went out to India as a cadet in 1799 and was commissioned as an ensign in the Bombay Army on 6 March 1800. He thereafter became lieutenant on 26 May, and was appointed to the European regiment in 1803.

He served in the Kathiawar campaign in 1807, and became captain on 6 July 1811.[1] He distinguished himself in the Third Anglo-Maratha War of 1817–18, was promoted major on 8 Oct. 1818, and was private secretary to Mountstuart Elphinstone while governor of Madras between 1819–27. He was made lieutenant-colonel of the 9th native infantry on 31 Oct. 1822, C.B. on 23 July 1823, and colonel of the 10th native infantry on 5 June 1829.

From 1823 to 1826 he was first British Resident in the Persian Gulf at Bushehr.[2] From this he was transferred to the 2nd European regiment. On 13 March 1834 he was appointed lieutenant-governor of the East India Company Military Seminary in Addiscombe, and knighted in 1837.[2] He was promoted major-general on 28 June 1838.

Though just and kindly, he was no administrator, and was systematically irritated by the cadets into extraordinary explosions of wrath and violent language.[3] Nonetheless notwithstanding his quickness of temper and his use of strong language, Stannus was a favourite with the cadets. He remained in charge at Addiscombe until his death of a heart attack in 1850.[2]

He married Mary Louisa, widow of James Gordon but had no children.

References

  1. ↑ Stannus, Ephraim Gerrish (DNB00), https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Stannus,_Ephraim_Gerrish_(DNB00)&oldid=4248812 (last visited Jan. 28, 2018).
  2. 1 2 3 "Ephraim Gerrish Stannus". British Museum.
  3. ↑ cf. ‘Addiscombe’ in Blackwood's Mag. May 1893

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Dictionary of National Biography volume 54.djvu/93". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.


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