Biographies

Garnet Joseph Wolseley (1833-1913) had a long and distinguished military career, serving with the British army in India, the Crimea, and China before coming to Canada in 1861as assistant quartermaster general. In 1870 he was in charge of the military force sent to Red River. After 1871 he worked in the War Office but also spent time in the field. Perhaps the best known of the operations in which he was involved was the Nile Expedition of 1884-5. Wolseley commanded the expedition sent to rescue General Charles Gordon, trapped in Khartoum after attempting to rescue Egyptian garrisons cut off by a Muslim uprising. Wolseley recruited 390 Canadian voyageurs to travel up the Nile to Khartoum. It took them six months to reach Khartoum but they arrived too late. The city had fallen and Gordon had been killed. Wolseley was commander-in-chief of the British army from 1895-1900.

Mentioned in:

photos

1. Wolseley's Tent, Thunder Bay, Ontario (artist's rendering)