Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Michel, John
MICHEL, Sir JOHN (1804–1886), field-marshal, was eldest son of General John Michel of Dewlish and Kingston Russell, Dorset, by his second wife, Anne, daughter of the Hon. Henry Fane, M.P., of Fulbeck, Lincolnshire, and granddaughter of the eighth earl of Westmoreland. The father, who had no issue by the first wife, was a subaltern in the 51st foot at the memorable defence of Minorca in 1781, of which he was one of the last survivors, was lieutenant-colonel commanding the 30th light dragoons in 1794–6, and the 14th light dragoons in 1799–1806, and afterwards held a brigade command in Ireland. He died in April 1844, leaving, according to report, considerable wealth (Gent. Mag. 1844, pt. i. p. 554).
John, born on 1 Sept. 1804, was educated at Eton. On 3 April 1823 he obtained an ensigncy by purchase in the 57th foot, passing through the 27th to the 64th foot, joining that corps at Gibraltar, and obtaining his lieutenancy in it on 28 April 1825. He purchased an unattached company on 12 Dec. 1826, and on 15 Feb. 1827 exchanged back to the 64th at Gibraltar. On 8 Feb. 1832 he entered the senior department of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and on 7 Nov. 1833 passed his examination and received a first certificate. He then rejoined his regiment, and served with it in Ireland until February 1835, when he exchanged to the 3rd buffs in Bengal. He was aide-de-camp to his uncle, General Sir Henry Fane, G.C.B. [see Fane, Sir Henry], while commander-in-chief in India in 1835–40. On 6 May 1840 he was promoted to a majority by purchase in the 6th foot, over the heads of many old officers in the regiment, an appointment which provoked much criticism at the time, and on 15 April 1842, a few weeks after the arrival of the regiment in England, he purchased the lieutenant-colonelcy. He commanded the 6th at home and at the Cape until 1854. He was in command of a brigade during the Kaffir war of 1846–7, and during part of the war of 1852–3 was in command of the 2nd division of the army in the Waterkloof (medal). At the close he was made C.B. ‘for distinguished service in the Kaffir wars of 1846–7 and 1851–3.’ He became brevet-colonel on 20 Jan. 1854, and was appointed to command the York recruiting district, but exchanged to half-pay 98th foot, on appointment as chief of the staff of the Turkish contingent, with the local rank of major-general in Turkey, a post he held until the end of the Crimean war (2nd class of the Medjidié and Turkish medal). In 1856 he was appointed to a brigade at Fort Beaufort, Cape of Good Hope, at a time of great danger and threatened war, owing to the expected fulfilment in February 1857 of an old Kaffir prophecy of the destruction of the whites.
The danger was hardly over before Michel was ordered to China for a command there. He was shipwrecked in the Transit steamer in the Straits of Sunda on 10 July 1857, and carried to Singapore (Ann. Reg. 1857, p. 169). His services were subsequently diverted to India, and he was placed on the Bombay Staff, 18 Feb. 1858. In June 1858 the troops in Rajputana were concentrated at Nusseerábád and Nímach, under Major-general H. G. Roberts, Bombay army, those at Mhow consisting of a brigade under Brigadier Honner. The latter, reinforced from Bombay, were formed into a division, as the Málwá field force, under Michel, the command of the troops in Rajputana being added thereto in August 1858, when Roberts was promoted to the command in Gujarat. Michel became major-general on 26 Oct. 1858. Impressed with the necessity of cutting off from the towns the bodies of rebels under Tantia Topee, Rao Sahib, and other leaders, and compelling them to seek the jungles, Michel adopted a strategy which proved eminently successful, despite serious physical obstacles, for the rains at this season had converted the soil of Málwá into a sea of black mud, and the heat was phenomenal. He distributed his troops in lightly equipped columns at salient points in Rajputana and Málwá, with orders to follow the rebels without intermission. Starting himself from Mhow, Michel came up with Tantia Topee at Beorora on 15 Sept. 1858. Tantia and the cavalry fled, pursued by the British cavalry. The infantry and guns made a stand, but did not await the British onset, and leaving thirty guns behind them, eight thousand well-trained troops were put to flight without the loss of a man. Michel again defeated Tantia at Mingrauli on 9 Oct., marched against Rao Sahib the next day, and defeated him at Sindwaha on 15 Oct.; on 5 Dec. he annihilated one wing of Tantia's force near Saugor, the other escaped and crossed the Narbadá into Nágpur. Other defeats of bodies of rebels followed, and they began to lose heart and creep away to their homes. Between 20 June 1858 and 1 March 1859 the field force traversed an aggregate distance of over three thousand miles, of which Michel himself marched seventeen hundred miles. The operations ended with the capture of Tantia Topee, who was taken by a small column under Brigadier Meade, was at once tried by court-martial, and was hanged on 18 April 1859 for being in arms against the British. The legality of the sentence was questioned, but he was admitted to have been one of the most bloodthirsty of Nana Sahib's advisers (cf. note to Malleson's Hist. 6th edit. v. 265).
Michel, who was made K.C.B. and received the medal, remained in command of the Mhow division until the end of 1859, when he was appointed to the army under Sir James Hope Grant [q. v.], proceeding to the north of China. Michel commanded the 1st division at the action at Sinho (medal and clasp for the Taku Forts), and the occupation of Pekin on 12 Oct. 1860. His division on 18 Oct. burned the summer palace at Pekin, in return for the treacherous treatment by the Chinese of Mr. (afterwards Sir Harry) Parkes [q. v.] and some other captives. At the close of the campaign Michel was made G.C.B. for ‘his zeal, skill, and intrepidity.’ He was appointed colonel of the 86th royal county Down regiment (since the 2nd Irish rifles) on 19 Aug. 1862, became a lieutenant-general on 25 June 1866, and general on 28 March 1874. He was selected to command the troops in the first ‘autumn manœuvres’ in the south of England in 1873. In 1875 he was appointed commander of the forces in Ireland, and was sworn of the Irish privy council. He held the Irish command from 1875 to 1880, his social qualities and ample means rendering him extremely popular. He was made a field-marshal on 27 March 1885, and was a J.P. for Dorset. He died at his seat, Dewlish, Dorset, on 23 May 1886, aged 82.
Michel married, on 15 May 1838, Louise Anne, only daughter of Major-general H. Churchill, C.B., then quartermaster-general of the queen's troops in India, by whom he left two sons and three daughters. Michel was an active, spare-built man, somewhat below the middle height, impetuous and warm-hearted, a good sportsman, and a very energetic and capable officer.
[Burke's Landed Gentry, 1886 ed. vol. ii. under ‘Michel;’ Hart's Army Lists; London Gazettes and Ann. Registers under dates. The best account of Michel's Central Indian campaign is that given by an officer who was present in Blackwood's Mag. August 1860. See also Malleson (6th ed.) and Holmes (3rd ed.), Histories of the Indian Mutiny, Wolseley's Narrative of the Campaign in China in 1860, and Army and Navy Gazette, 25 May 1886.]