John Nicholson

Brigadier General John Nicholson, (11 December 1822 – 23 September 1857) was an Anglo-Irish officer in the British Army who rose to prominence during his career in British India. Born in Ireland, Nicholson moved to the Indian subcontinent at a young age and obtained a commission in the East India Company where he spent the majority of his life helping to expand Company rule in numerous conflicts such as the First Anglo-Afghan War and the First and Second Anglo-Sikh War. Nicholson created a legend for himself as a political officer under Henry Lawrence in the frontier provinces of British India, especially in the Punjab, and he was instrumental in the establishment of the North-West Frontier. Nicholson's most defining moment in his military career was his crucial role in suppressing the Indian Rebellion of 1857, a conflict in which he died. A charismatic and authoritarian figure, Nicholson led a life whose controversial exploits have created a polarized legacy; contemporary descriptions of Nicholson presented him as the man who was crucial in suppressing the Indian Rebellion, while more recent historical accounts have described him as an "imperial psychopath". His imposing physical appearance and noted deeds of valor and violence created an almost mythical status and even religious worship among the numerous tribes of the North-West Frontier whom Nicholson brought into the British Empire. Background Nicholson was born on 11 December 1822 in Dublin, Ireland, the eldest son of Dr. Alexander Jaffray Nicholson and Clara Hogg, who were both descendants of Protestant Scottish settlers who had immigrated to Ireland as part of the Ulster Plantation. Dr. Nicholson died when John was nine after contracting an illness from one of his patients, after which the family moved to Lisburn, County Antrim. Nicholson was privately educated in Delgany and later attended the Royal School Dungannon, through the patronage of his maternal uncle, Sir James Weir Hogg, a successful East India Company lawyer and for some time Registrar of the Calcutta Supreme Court, and later a Member of Parliament. He left school soon after his sixteenth birthday and, as the eldest male in his family, obtained a cadetship in the East India Company army's Bengal Infantry thanks to his uncle.