Lewis Pelly

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Lewis Pelly
Knight Commander of the Order of the Star of India

British East India Company officer, and then an imperial army and political officer. At the end of his life, he was a Conservative Member of Parliament for Hackney North
, from 1885 to 1892.

Early years

He was the son of

Sir John Henry Pelly, Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company and Governor of the Bank of England, was his uncle.[1][2]

First period in India

Pelly entered the East India Company service in 1840.[1] In 1841 he was commissioned in the Bombay Army as an ensign.[3] He served in Sind before its annexation. Appointed to the regimental staff in 1842, he was promoted to lieutenant in 1843.[1]

Moved to a political role in the system of

Gaekwar.[3][1] He then transferred to the civil service of Sind Division until 1856, being promoted to captain in 1855.[1]

In the

Bushire and Kharg Island.[1] In April 1858 he was in London, where he had his book on Jacob published, and met Herbert Spencer at John Chapman's house, 142 The Strand.[4]

Pelly served as

Scinde Irregular Horse, commanded by Jacob, in 1858.[3] He was made a judge in Karachi in 1859.[1]

In Persia

Pelly was secretary of the British legation in

Persia from 1859 to 1860: taking up the post, he rode to Tehran from Trebizond.[5] He was then appointed chargé d'affaires there.[1] Henry Rawlinson left the legation during this period, replaced as its head by Charles Alison.[6]

Alison sent Pelly on a special mission to

Ahmed Khan (Sultan Jan). Pelly departed to visit Sultan Jan in Herat, with a small party and six horses, in September 1860.[6] From Herat, he travelled on to Farah, Kandahar and Qalati Ghilji.[2]

Roving political agent

In 1860 Pelly had travelled overland on a horse, in uniform, from Tehran most of the way to

Forward Policy for British India; and in particular of a British Agent at Herat and other strategic hotspots.[7] Frere took Pelly under his wing, and became a patron of his career.[8]

In 1861 Pelly went to the

Comoros Islands, where he was shipwrecked on Johanna (Anjouan);[2] and to Mozambique. In May 1861, he was part of the expedition which placed Bahrain
under British tutelage, even if theoretically it was in the sphere of influence of Persia.

Pelly was then appointed political agent and consul at

Sultanate of Oman came into effect in April 1861. It involved an annual subsidy from Zanzibar to Oman, the Canning Award agreed at the level of 40,000 Maria Theresa thalers. The sum represented about 20% of Zanzibar's revenue from the Indian Ocean slave trade.[9] In the years that followed, Imam Azzan bin Qais took power in Oman from Thuwaini bin Said, and Majid bin Said of Zanzibar was reluctant to make the payments. Pelly took the side of Majid bin Said in the dispute.[10]

From Zanzibar, Pelly visited and reported on the

Matthew Sausse, Pelly was in the small group of well-placed British imperial staff who took up advantageous offers of British India Steam Navigation stock from Mackinnon in the 1860s.[14]

The

Shatt al Arab to Karachi.[17] Pelly caused some confusion by a proposal for radical change in British arrangements, organised around a centre on the Musandam Peninsula.[15]

Pelly officially visited

Sheikh Shoeyb Island in lifeboats.[20][21]
Pelly published an account of his journey.

East India Company Steam Ship of War Berenice, lost in 1865 when it caught fire with Lewis Pelly on board in the Persian Gulf

The Qatari–Bahraini War broke out in 1867. When he was in a position to make a show of strength, in autumn 1868 Pelly sailed to Bahrain with the sloops HMS Daphne and HMS Nymphe, and the gunboats HMS Clyde and HMS Hugh Rose.[22] The outcome by 6 September 1868 was that Muhammad bin Khalifa Al Khalifa was deposed, and his brother Ali bin Khalifa Al Khalifa became the ruler of Bahrain.[23] On 12 September, Pelly signed a treaty with Mohammed bin Thani which recognised the independence of Qatar. In October he went to Bombay in HMS Vigilant.[24]

Pelly was promoted to major in 1861, lieutenant colonel in 1866, and colonel in 1871.

Anti-slavery mission

In 1872–1873, Pelly accompanied Sir Bartle Frere in the anti-slavery mission to the east coast of Africa. Others on the expedition included

Kutch, representing Indian traders with East Africa.[1][25] The investigation, on behalf of the Anti-Slavery Society, had originally been intended by Frere to be led by Pelly, without Frere's participation.[26]

Frere in Muscat and Zanzibar was unable to negotiate an end to the Zanzibar slave trade, but John Kirk, consul in Zanzibar, did so shortly thereafter.[27]

Second period in India

On 21 June 1873, Pelly was appointed agent to the governor general of

Baroda Crisis. The embattled Robert Phayre, resident in Baroda, was the apparent victim of an attempted poisoning in November 1874, on the orders of its ruler Malhar Rao Gaekwad; but was unwilling to resign. He was replaced by Pelly later that month.[28] Pelly had Malhar Rao arrested in January 1875, and tried by a commission. The outcome was inconclusive, but Malhar Rao was deposed.[3] Pelly was knighted (K.C.B.) in 1877.[29]

sadr-i a'zam Sayyid Nur Muhammad Shah representing the emir, Sher Ali Khan, in Peshawar. He stated that the admission of British agents to Afghanistan was a prerequisite for talks.[32] The discussions led nowhere, and Pelly, who had plenipotentiary powers, was told to withdraw from them in March.[3] Nur Muhammad was by then seriously ill, and he died on 26 March.[33] The Second Anglo-Afghan War began the following year.[3]

Later life

A dilapidated kerb surround style grave with a tablet and a fallen cross headstone.
The grave of Lewis Pelly at St Katharine's Merstham

In 1878 Pelly returned to the United Kingdom.[1] In 1885, by now a lieutenant general, he was elected as Conservative Member of Parliament for the newly created North Hackney constituency.[3] In 1886 he attended the Annual General Meeting of the National Society for Women's Suffrage.[34]

Pelly became a director of the Imperial British East Africa Company.[35] On 8 March 1892 J. G. Swift MacNeill objected in Parliament to votes made by Pelly, William Burdett-Coutts and John Henry Puleston, directors and shareholders in the Imperial British East Africa Company, on a grant for a survey to be made from the East African coast to Lake Victoria Nyanza of a railway route.[36] MacNeill's motion was successful, and the "distinction of degree" of self-interest involved in this "Mombasa railway" instance of disallowal of votes persisted in parliamentary practice.[37]

Pelly died in Falmouth on 22 April 1892, and is buried adjacent to Rutherford Alcock at Merstham in Surrey.

Honours

Family

Amy Lady Pelly, 1880 photograph

In 1878 Pelly married Amy Henrietta Lowder, who was born in 1847 at

Eccleston Street, London.[40]

In 1882, the couple were living at 1, Eaton Square, London.[41] They had no children.[3]

Publications

  • Our North West Frontier (1858), pamphlet[42]
  • The Views and Opinions of Brigadier General John Jacob K.C.B. (1858)[43]
  • Report on a Journey to Riyadh in Central Arabia, 1865, 1866 text reprinted with an introduction by Robin Leonard Bidwell[44]
  • The Miracle Play of Hasan and Husain (1879, 2 vols.),[45] English translation from the Persian of 37 ta'zieh dramas, revised and with notes by Arthur Naylor Wollaston. Pelly's translations followed those by Aleksander Chodźko, into French.[46]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Lee, Sidney, ed. (1895). "Pelly, Lewis" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 44. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  2. ^
    ISBN 978-0-7391-2705-6
    .
  3. ^
    doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/21816. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  4. ISBN 978-1-108-06681-5
    .
  5. ISBN 978-0-902675-64-3
    .
  6. ^
    JSTOR 4282538
    .
  7. ISBN 0349113661
    .
  8. ISBN 978-0-907151-32-6
    .
  9. ISBN 978-0-00-754704-3
    .
  10. ISBN 978-1-107-00940-0
    .
  11. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/17618. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  12. JSTOR 181547
    .
  13. ISBN 978-0-85115-935-5
    .
  14. ISBN 978-0-85115-935-5
    .
  15. ^
    JSTOR 1796823
    .
  16. ^ "Report No. 73 of 1864 by Lewis Pelly on his journey from Bandar Abbas to Cape Jask reconnoitering the route of the proposed telegraph line [7r] (13/20)". Qatar Digital Library. 5 June 2014.
  17. JSTOR 1796823
    .
  18. ^ Abdullah Mohammad Sindi. "The Direct Instruments of Western Control over the Arabs: The Shining Example of the House of Saud" (PDF). Social sciences and humanities. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  19. ISBN 978-0-226-45133-6
    .
  20. ^ "The Burning of H. M. Steamer Berenice". Sun (London). 26 December 1866. p. 3.
  21. ^ "Her Majesty's Steamer Berenice destroyed by fire". blogs.bl.uk.
  22. ISBN 978-1-85207-030-4
    .
  23. ^ Talal Toufic Farah (1979). "Protection and Politics in Bahrain 1869-1915" (PDF). eprints.soas.ac.uk. University of London. p. 61.
  24. ^ "The Revolution in Musct". Homeward Mail from India, China and the East. 16 November 1868. p. 3.
  25. ^ Martineau, John (1895). The Life and Correspondence of the Sir Bartle Frere, Bart., G.C.B., F.R.S., Etc. Vol. 2. J. Murray. p. 71.
  26. ^ Martineau, John (1895). The Life and Correspondence of the Sir Bartle Frere, Bart., G.C.B., F.R.S., Etc. Vol. 2. J. Murray. p. 69.
  27. ISBN 978-0-85115-935-5
    .
  28. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/22088. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  29. ^ Debrett's illustrated baronetage and knightage (and companionage) of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 1880. p. 574.
  30. ^ The Pall Mall Budget: Being a Weekly Collection of Articles Printed in the Pall Mall Gazette from Day to Day, with a Summary of News. 1879. p. 263.
  31. ISBN 978-1-78914-019-4
    .
  32. ^ Cassell's Illustrated History of the Russo-Turkish War: From December, 1878, to the ratification of peace : including a history of Cyprus, and of the Afghan war. Cassell, Petter & Galpin. 1880. p. 422.
  33. ^ Great Britain Parliament House of Commons Afghan Committee Sub-committee on Afghan and Central Asian Questions (1879). Causes of the Afghan War: Being a Selection of the Papers Laid Before Parliament with a Connecting Narrative and Comment. Chatto and Windus. p. 122.
  34. ^ "Women's Suffrage". Morning Post. 16 July 1886. p. 2.
  35. ^ Gjersø, Jonas Fossli (2015). "'Continuity of Moral Policy': A Reconsideration of British Motives for the Partition of East Africa in light of Anti-Slave Trade Policy and Imperial Agency, 1878-96" (PDF). etheses.lse.ac.uk. London School of Economics and Political Science. p. 252.
  36. ^ "SUPPLY—COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 8 March 1892)". api.parliament.uk.
  37. S2CID 143502773
    .
  38. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/293. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  39. ^ "Lowder, John (LWDR836J)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  40. ISBN 978-0-359-14630-7
    .
  41. ^ Kelly's Handbook to the Titled, Landed & Official Classes. Kelly & Co. 1882. p. 400.
  42. ^ Ward, Thomas Humphry (1887). Men of the Time: A Dictionary of Contemporaries, Containing Biographical Notices of Eminent Characters of Both Sexes. G. Routledge & Sons. p. 822.
  43. ^ Jacob, John (1858). The Views and Opinions of Brigadier General John Jacob K.C.B. ... Collected and Edited by ... L. Pelly.
  44. ISBN 978-0-902675-64-3
    .
  45. ^ Pelly, Sir Lewis; Wollaston, Arthur Naylor (1879). The Miracle Play of Hasan and Husain. Vol. I. W. H. Allen.
  46. ISBN 978-1-352-00561-5
    .

External links
Government offices
Preceded by Chief Political Resident of the Persian Gulf
1862–1872 		Succeeded by
Preceded by
Chief Commissioner of Ajmer-Merwara

1873–1878 		Succeeded by
Parliament of the United Kingdom
New constituency
 Member of Parliament for North Hackney
1885–1892 		Succeeded by
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