Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dick, Robert Henry
DICK, Sir ROBERT HENRY (1785?–1846), major-general, was the son of Dr. Dick of Tullimet, Perthshire, and, if a romantic story be true, must have been born in India about 1785. It is said (Gent. Mag. for May 1846) that when Henry Dundas and Edmund Burke were staying with the Duke of Athole at Dunkeld, they accidentally met a farmer's daughter, who gave them refreshment during a walk. Upon hearing their names she asked Dundas if he could help a young doctor (Dick) to whom she was betrothed, and who was too poor to marry. Dundas, hearing a good report of Dick, gave him an assistant-surgeoncy in the East India Company's service. Dick at once married and went to India, where he soon made a large fortune, with which he retired and purchased the estate of Tullimet. Robert Dick, the son of this fortunate doctor, entered the army as an ensign in the 75th regiment on 22 Nov. 1800, and was promoted lieutenant into the 62nd on 27 June 1802, and captain into the 78th, or Rosshire Buffs, on 17 April 1804. He accompanied the 2nd battalion of this regiment to Sicily in 1806, and was wounded at the battle of Maida in the same year. In 1807 his battalion formed part of General Mackenzie Fraser's expedition to Egypt, and Dick was wounded again at Rosetta. He was appointed major on 24 April 1808, and exchanged into the 42nd Highlanders (the Black Watch) on 14 July in that year. In June 1809 he accompanied the 2nd battalion of his regiment to Portugal, and was soon after selected to command a light battalion of detachments, which he did efficiently, at the battle of Busaco, in the lines of Torres Vedras, in the pursuit after Masséna, and at the battle of Fuentes de Onoro. He then returned to regimental duty, and acted as senior major of the 42nd, 2nd battalion, at the assault of Ciudad Rodrigo, and in command of the 1st battalion at the battle of Salamanca and in the attacks upon Burgos and the retreat from that city. For these services he was promoted lieutenant-colonel by brevet on 8 Oct. 1812. He then returned to the majority of the 2nd battalion, which he held till the end of the Peninsular war, when he was made a C.B. At the peace of 1814 the 2nd battalion of the 42nd was disbanded, and Dick accompanied the only battalion left to Flanders, as senior major, in 1815. At Quatre Bras the 42nd bore the brunt of the engagement, and when Sir Robert Macara, K.C.B., the lieutenant-colonel, was killed, Dick, though severely wounded in the hip and the left shoulder, brought them out of action. He was nevertheless present at the battle of Waterloo, and his commission as lieutenant-colonel of the 42nd was antedated to the day of that great battle, as a reward for his valour. He was promoted colonel on 27 May 1825, and soon after went on half-pay, and retired to his seat at Tullimet, which he had inherited on his father's death. In 1832 he was made a K.C.H., and on 10 Jan. 1837 was promoted major-general, and in 1838, in the honours conferred on the occasion of the queen's coronation, he was made a K.C.B. He now applied for employment on the general staff, and in December 1838 he was appointed to command the centre division of the Madras army, and as senior-general in the presidency he assumed the command-in-chief at Madras on the sudden death of Sir S. F. Whittingham in January 1841. This temporary post Dick held for nearly two years, until September 1842, when the Marquis of Tweeddale went out as governor and commander-in-chief to Madras. As it was thought undesirable to send the general back to a divisional command, he was transferred to the staff of the Bengal army. He at first took command of the division on the north-west frontier; but his sturdy independence in holding his own opinion as to an expected mutiny in certain of the regiments led to his removal by the governor-general, Lord Ellenborough, to the presidency division. He at once sent in his resignation to the Horse Guards, but the authorities refused to receive it. His old comrade, Sir Henry Hardinge, went out as governor-general, and the commander-in-chief, Sir Hugh Gough, gave him the command of the Cawnpore division. From this post he was summoned by Sir Hugh Gough in January 1846 to take command of the 3rd infantry division of the army in the field against the Sikhs, in the place of Major-general Sir John m'Caskill, K.C.B., who had been killed at the battle of Moodkee in the previous December. Dick had thus lost the opportunity of being present at the first two important battles of the first Sikh war; but he played a leading part in the third and crowning victory of Sobraon. On the morning of 10 Feb. 1846 Sir Hugh Gough determined to attack the strong entrenchments of the Khalsa army, and Dick's division was ordered to head the assault. At four A.M. his men advanced to a ravine about a thousand yards from the Sikh entrenchments, and lay down while the English artillery played upon the enemy over their heads. By nine A.M. sufficient damage had been done for the infantry to charge, and Dick led his first brigade into the Sikh entrenchments. When it had effected a lodgment he returned to lead his second brigade, headed by the 80th regiment. While leading this brigade from battery to battery, taking them in flank, Dick was struck down by one of the last shots fired during the day, and only survived until six o'clock on the same evening. His funeral the next day at Ferozepore was attended by the whole army, and Lord Gough thus speaks of him in his despatch announcing the victory of Sobraon: ‘I have especially to lament the fall of Major-general Sir Robert Dick, K.C.B., a gallant veteran of the Peninsular and Waterloo campaigns. He survived only till the evening the dangerous grapeshot wound, which he received close to the enemy's entrenchments whilst personally animating, by his dauntless example, the soldiers of her majesty's 80th regiment in their career of noble daring.’ [Gent. Mag. May 1846; Royal Military Calendar; Colburn's United Service Magazine, June 1846, for his dispute with Lord Ellenborough, and Lord Gough's Despatch for the battle of Sobraon; information contributed by General Sir H. Bates.]