Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Horsford, Alfred Hastings
HORSFORD, Sir ALFRED HASTINGS (1818–1885), general, son of General George Horsford, a distinguished West India officer, once lieutenant-governor of Bermuda, who died at Paris, 28 April 1840 (Gent. Mag. 1840, pt. ii. p. 430), was born at Bath in 1818, and was educated at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He was appointed a second-lieutenant in the rifle brigade, 12 July 1833. His subsequent military commissions were: first lieutenant 23 April 1839, captain 5 Aug. 1842, major 26 Dec. 1851, lieutenant-colonel 28 May 1853 (all in the rifle brigade), brevet-colonel 28 Nov. 1854, major-general 1 Jan. 1868, lieutenant-general 1874, and general 1 Oct. 1877. He served with the 1st battalion rifle brigade in the Kaffir war of 1847–8; returned to the Cape with the battalion as major in 1851; and commanded the battalion in the Kaffir war of 1852–3 (medal). He accompanied the battalion to the East in 1853, and served with it in Bulgaria and the Crimea, including the battles of the Alma, Inkerman, and Balaklava, and the early part of the siege of Sebastopol (C.B., knight of the Legion of Honour, British and Turkish Crimean and Sardinian medals). He was appointed one of the lieutenant-colonels of the 3rd battalion rifle brigade when formed at Portsmouth in 1855, and took a wing of the battalion out to Calcutta, where it landed in October 1857. Horsford commanded the battalion which formed part of Walpole's brigade at the battle of Cawnpore and in the advance on Lucknow. He commanded a brigade from February 1858 at the siege of Lucknow and in the operations in Oude and the Trans-Gogra. When Lord Clyde returned to Lucknow after the final defeat of the rebels at the Raptee, 30 Dec. 1858, Horsford's brigade was left to watch the Nepaul frontier at the point where the Raptee debouches from the mountains. He returned home soon afterwards; was deputy-adjutant-general at the horse guards 1860–6, brigadier-general at Aldershot 1866–9, major-general on the staff at Malta 1870–2, major-general commanding the south-eastern district 1872–4, and military secretary at the horse guards 1874–80. In 1874 he was sent to represent Great Britain at the international conference on the usages of war, held at Brussels. Horsford was made a K.C.B. in 1860, and G.C.B. in 1875. He was a special commissioner of Chelsea Hospital, and successively colonel of the 79th Cameron highlanders, the 14th foot, and colonel-commandant 2nd battalion rifle brigade. He died at Munlochy, near Inverness, 13 Sept. 1885.
[Hart's Army Lists; the Rev. Sir W. Cope's Hist. of the Rifle Brigade; Illustr. London News, 31 Oct. 1885 (will).]