Wolseley ring
The Wolseley ring was a group of 19th century
Garnet Wolseley
and considered by him to be clever, brave, experienced and hard-working.
After the Crimean War Wolseley started to keep a note of the best officers he met, and began gathering a network of able military men loyal to him. There were other circles around other military leaders; later these would dwindle as more formal selection and promotion procedures became established.
The 'ring' itself was rooted in Wolseley's appointments for the
Red River Campaign in Canada
in 1870:
- John Carstairs McNeill
- William Francis Butler
- Redvers Henry Buller
- Hugh McCalmont
as well as other key figures:
- Henry Brackenbury
- John Frederick Maurice
- George Pomeroy Colley
- Baker Creed Russell
- Henry Evelyn Wood
- John Plumptre Carr Glyn
Men from this group accompanied Wolseley on his various projects for about a decade. They are sometimes called the Ashanti Ring, or, in a punning reference to Wolseley's first name, the Garnet Ring.
Later they were the "Africans", against the "Indians" of the rival Roberts Ring of
Buller
of the Wolseley Ring.
See also
- Anglo-Asante Wars
- Ashanti Kingdom
- Cardwell Reforms
Further reading
- Hew Strachan (1997). The Politics of the British Army. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-820670-5. Retrieved 29 June 2013.
- Byron Farwell (June 1985). Queen Victoria's Little Wars. W W Norton & Company Incorporated. ISBN 978-0-393-30235-6. Retrieved 29 June 2013.
- Leigh Maxwell (1985). The Ashanti Ring: Sir Garnet Wolseley's campaigns, 1870-1882. L. Cooper in association with Secker & Warburg. Retrieved 29 June 2013.
- Thomas Pakenham (1979). The Boer War. Random House. ISBN 978-0-394-42742-3. Retrieved 29 June 2013. (indexed under Roberts and Wolseley Rings).