Arthur Havelock

Sir Arthur Elibank Havelock, (7 May 1844 – 25 June 1908) was a career British colonial governor, serving as Governor of Sierra Leone from 1880, of Natal, of Madras, of Ceylon from 1890 to 1895, and of Tasmania from 1901 to 1904. Early life and family Havelock was born in 1844 in Bath, Somerset, the fifth surviving son of Lieutenant-Colonel William Havelock and Caroline Elizabeth Chaplin, and the nephew of Sir Henry Havelock. The family moved to India in 1844, where his father commanded the 14th Light Dragoons but was killed in action at the Battle of Ramnagar on 22 November 1848. The Havelocks returned to England briefly, but settled in Ootacamund in 1850, where Havelock attended school until he completed his education in London. Military career In 1860, Havelock entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and on 14 January 1862 was gazetted an ensign in the 32nd (Cornwall) Light Infantry. He was promoted lieutenant on 10 April 1866, and was stationed at Gibraltar (1866–7), at Mauritius (1867–8), then at the Cape Colony (1868–72). He returned to Mauritius in 1872 as the colony's paymaster, and was promoted to captain on 1 February 1873, serving as aide-de-camp to Selby Smith, the acting governor, and later to the governor of Mauritius, Sir Arthur Hamilton-Gordon. Havelock held several key posts in the colonial civil service from 1874: chief civil commissioner of the Seychelles (1874–75), and colonial secretary and receiver general in Fiji (1874–75). He returned to England in 1876, and retired from the British Army as a captain in March 1877.