Company. On the 21st of March 1896 he was appointed government commissioner to Manitoba and the Territories to endeavour to lessen the bitterness in the discussion as to Roman Catholic rights in the public schools, and the compromise of 1897 followed the lines which he suggested (see Canada).
In January 1900, during the war in South Africa, he raised, equipped and presented to the British government a regiment of irregular cavalry 600 strong. Strathcona’s Horse, as it was called, was recruited in the Canadian West, and did good service during the war. Though this was perhaps the most striking of the many services which his great wealth enabled him to do for Canada and the British Empire, he left no side of Canadian life untouched. With his cousin, Lord Mountstephen, he founded and endowed the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal, and both in Canada and in Scotland gave largely and wisely to university work. He was the backbone of the emigration policy which from 1896 on did much to increase the population and the prosperity of Canada. He helped in the improvement of the waterways of the Canadian West, and in placing steamers on them, and gave much assistance to the proposed All Red Route of British-owned steamers, encircling the world. From the first he was a member of the Pacific Cable Board, controlling the cable laid in 1902 by the combined governments of Great Britain, Canada and Australia. No man did more to tighten the ties which bind Canada to the British Empire.
The Life by Beckles Willson contains some useful information. The Histories of the Hudson’s Bay Company by Beckles Willson, Rev. George Bryce and Miss Agnes C. Laut tell his early struggles. Sir Wilfrid Laurier (2 vols.), by J. S. Willison, describes the financial dealings between the Canadian government and the Canadian Pacific railway. His parliamentary speeches are in the Canadian Hansard. (W. L. G.)
STRATHNAIRN, HUGH HENRY ROSE, 1st Baron (1801–1885),
British field-marshal, third son of the Right Hon. Sir
George Henry Rose of Sandhills, Christchurch, Hampshire
(minister plenipotentiary at the Prussian court), was born at
Berlin on the 6th of April 1801. He was educated at Berlin, and
received military instruction at the cadet school. He entered
the 93rd Sutherland Highlanders as an ensign on the 8th of June
1820, but was transferred to the 19th Foot, then quartered in
Ireland, and took part in preserving order during the “Ribbon”
outrages. He was promoted rapidly, to a lieutenancy in 1821, a
captaincy in 1824, and an unattached majority at the end of
1826. He was brought into the 92nd Highlanders as a regimental
major in 1829, and the following year was appointed equerry to
H.R.H. the duke of Cambridge. The 92nd Highlanders were in
Ireland, and Rose again found himself employed in maintaining
law and order. He rendered important services in suppressing
disaffected meetings, but his conduct was so courteous to the
ringleaders that he incurred no personal hostility. In 1833 he
accompanied his regiment to Gibraltar, and three years later to
Malta, where he exerted himself with so much zeal during a
serious outbreak of cholera in attending to the sick soldiers that
his conduct elicited an official approval from the governor and
commander-in-chief. In 1839 he was promoted, by purchase,
to an unattached lieutenant-colonelcy. In the following year
Rose was selected, with other officers and detachments of Royal
Artillery and Royal Engineers, for special service in Syria under
the orders of the foreign office. They were to co-operate on
shore, under Brigadier-General Michell, R.A.—in conjunction
with the Turkish troops—with the British fleet on the coast, for the expulsion of Mehemet Ali’s Egyptian army from Syria. Sir
Stratford Canning sent Rose from Constantinople on a diplomatic
mission to Ibrahim Pasha, commanding the Egyptian
army in Syria, and after its execution he was attached, as deputy
adjutant-general, to the staff of Omar Pasha, who landed at
Jaffa with a large Turkish force from the British fleet. Rose
distinguished himself in several engagements, and was twice
wounded at El Mesden in January 1841. He was mentioned in
despatches, and received from the sultan the order of Nishan
Iftihar in diamonds, the war medal and a sabre of honour. The
king of Prussia sent him the order of St John, and expressed his
pleasure that “an early acquaintance” had so gallantly distinguished himself. Shortly after he succeeded to the command
of the British detachment in Syria with the local rank of colonel,
and in April 1841 he was appointed British consul-general for
Syria. For seven years, amidst political complications and
intrigues, Rose, by his energy and force of character, did much
to arrest the horrors of civil war, to prevent the feuds between
the Maronites and Druses coming to a head, and to administer
justice impartially. On one occasion in i84i,when he found the
Maronites and Druses drawn up in two lines and firing at each
other, he rode between them at imminent risk to his life, and by
the sheer force of a stronger will stopped the conflict. In the
first year of his appointment his action saved the lives of several hundred Christians at Deir el Khama, in the Lebanon, and his services were warmly recognized by Lord Aberdeen in the House
of Lords, and he was made C.B. In 1845, by his promptness
and energy, at great personal risk, he rescued 600 Christians
belonging to the American mission at Abaye, in the Lebanon,
from the hands of the Druses, and brought them to Beirut. In
1848, during the outbreak of cholera at Beirut, he was most
devoted in his attention to the sick and dying.
At the end of this year he left Syria on leave of absence, and did not return, as Lord Palmerston appointed him secretary of embassy at Constantinople in January 1851. In the following year he was charge d'affaires in the absence of Sir Stratford Canning during the crisis of the question of the “holy places,” and he so strengthened the hands of the Porte by his determined action that the Russian attempt to force a secret treaty upon Turkey was foiled. During the war with Russia in 1854–56 Rose was the British commissioner at the headquarters of the French army, with the local rank of brigadier-general. At Varna he succeeded in quenching a fire which threatened the French small-arm ammunition stores, and received the thanks of Marshal St Arnaud, who recommended him for the Legion of Honour. He was present at the battle of the Alma, and was wounded on the following day. At Inkerman he reconnoitred the ground between the British and French armies with great sang-froid under a withering fire from the Russian pickets, and his horse was shot under him. He distinguished himself on several other occasions in maintaining verbal communication between the allied forces, and by his tact and judgment contributed to the good feeling that existed between the two armies. His services were brought to notice by the commanders-in-chief of both armies, and he received the medal with three clasps and the thanks of parliament, was promoted to be major-general, and was made K.C.B. and commander of the Legion of Honour. On tie outbreak of the Indian Mutiny in 1857 Rose was given command of the Poona division. He arrived in September, and shortly after took command of the Central India force. In January 1858 he marched from Mhow, captured Rathgarh after a short siege, and defeated the raja of Banpur near Barodia in the same month. He then relieved Saugor, captured Garhakota and the fort of Barodia, and early in March defeated the rebels in the Madanpur Pass and captured Madanpur and Chanderi. He arrived before Jhansi on the 20th of March, and during its investment defeated a relieving force under Tantia Topi at the Betwa on the 1st of April. Most of Rose’s force was locked up in the investment, and to Tantia Topi’s army of 20,000 he could only oppose 1590 men; yet with this small force he routed the enemy with a less of 1500 men and all their stores. Jhansi was stormed and the greater part of the city taken on the 3rd, and the rest the following day, and the fort occupied on the 5th. Kunch was captured, after severe fighting in a temperature of 110° in the shade, on the 7th of May. Rose himself was only able to hold out by medical treatment, and many casualties occurred from the great heat. Under the same conditions the march was made on Kalpi. The rebels came out in multitudes on the 22nd of May to attack his small force, exhausted by hard marching and weakened by sickness, but after a severe fight under a burning sun, and in a suffocating hot wind, were utterly routed and Kalpi occupied the following day. Having completed his programme, Rose obtained sick leave, and Sir Robert Napier (q.v.) was appointed to succeed him, when news came of the defection of Sindhia’s troops and the
