CENTENARIAN GENERAL

Evening Star, Issue 19330, 17 August 1926, Page 11

CENTENARIAN GENERAL

MUIiHABLE BEKHSGEIRES

In tho ‘ Sunday Cronicle ’ the centenarian general, Sir George Higgnison, gives his rqmihisceucos-of his strikingly eventful career. . “ I can see him yefc. I can see his white greatcoat; his broad-brimmed bat, and his kindly face as he pulled up and bade my nurse bring me to the carnage, where lie patted me on tho head.” Nincty-soveu years ago King George IV. of England was taking an airing in the Frogmore road, and stopped to pat the curly head of the three-year-old child.: To-day, the little boy of that incident, son of a general who in his day carried tho colors of the Grenadiers •at Corunna under Sir John Moore, proudly relates this first honor paid him by a reigning sovereign. “ The Father of the Guards,” General Sir George Higginson, G.C.8., is the oldest living Etonian; ho is the only survivor of the gallant band who saved the colors at Inkemian; he is probably the only man living who can claim to have met Beau Brummel, the “ Last of tho Dandies,” and probably also the only man living who saw the great firo that destroyed tho Houses of Parliament in 1834.

Marlow knows Mm best, however, for his remarkable activities. He is invariably in Ms place on the magistrates’ bench; he never misses a meeting of the local Waterworks Committee, of which he is chairman; and, unless he has “ gone to London on business,” betakes his daily balf-milo walk regularly. He refuses to recognise himself as old, though it is eighty-one years since the quarter-master at the Tower of London welcomed him as a Guards-man-with the words:— “ Glad to see you—very glad. I was your color-sergeant at fthe Battle of Coninna.” UNDER FIVE SOVEREIGNS, Sir George has lived under five Sovereigns, and has been honored by the personal notice of each. He gave King Edward his first military lesson; ho acted as godfather to Princess' Mary’s older son; as an Eton boy he was one of the crowd that cheered Queen Victoria and tho Prince Consort on their wedding day. His remiuiscenes of fagging at Eton reveal the school of those days as a stern and relentless place. “ I seldom had time to snatch a morsel of breakfast, and began to learn even then if success was to bo attained in life it must be acMeved through selfreliance.” THE IRON DUKE. He was at Eton when tho review was held in Windsor Great Park in honor of the visit of the Emperor Nicholas of Russia. Owing to the bad health of Queen Victoria, the Duke of Wellington bad given orders that ‘the customary salute of twenty-one guns was to bo omitted. But sometMng went wrong, and ho sooner was the Royal Standard broken out than tho first gun roared, forth. The Duke, General Higginson relates, was furious.

Staff officers and A.D.C.s ■were sent off at the gallop to stop tiie firing and to summon tho unlucky officer in command of the guns for ap explanation. Then the Iron Duke bade him take his guns away. “ But wh-whore am I to take them, your grace?” he stammered. “To hell, sir,” was the reply. LAST SURVIVOR. General Higginson had ton years’ service in the Grenadiers when ho went, ont to the Crimean campaign. Tho troops marched down the Strand and over 'Waterloo Bridge by night; women in their night attiro waved greetings from the windows, and special police had to be employed to keep the crowds from breaking the ranks. To-day, Sir George Higginson is tho last survivor of tho baud of’ Grenadiers who broke through masses of the enemy and saved the colors of the regimi*r.t, which now hang tattered in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor. ‘ Before this, in ISIB, ho was ordered with the Guards from, Chichester to London under the command of tho Iron Duke to maintain law and order in the industrial disputes of that day, and was quartered in Milbank Prison and set to guard Somerset House. Again he was on duty in Hyde Park during the Great Exhibition of 1851. While at the Crimean base at Scutari ho came across five or six men who had been made hopelessly incapable by drinking cheap illicit liquor supplied by a Greek vendor, and had tho good fortune to discover the Greek. POETIC JUSTICE. “My indignation overpowerod all .prudence,” said the general, in relating the incident. “I ordered the scoundrel to bo laid on his back and pegged down, and had nearly half a pint of his own liquor poured down Ids throat. “ Our own unfortunate victims gradually recovered consciousness, and were removed to tho guard tent. About two hours later 1 made inquiries after our Greek friend, who was reported to Iks lying insensible, breathing heavily. “The last report, just as I turned in, was ‘ much the same state.’ Soon after midnight T wont to the scene of my summary justice, and was ranch relieved when tho sentry told me tho man had begun kicking, and on being released had walked out of the camp.” AT ALMA. At tho Battle of Alma ho was one of the lino of British soldiers who advanced with impressive regularity until it was within 50yds of the position held by tho Russian gunners. Then, at tho’“ Charge!” the line flung itself at the parapet of the position and captured it.

“ All of us agreed,” says the general, “ that no excitement we had ever had equalled our experience during that battle.”

Before Sebastopol, bo was engaged in''posting sentries on occasion, at long intervals along a line, awl, when lie turned back along the line, was amazed to find that every man bad disappeared. At the end of tbo line lie found all bjs sentries bunched together in a solid 'mass, in fulj view of the enemy, and, of course, demanded to know why they had deserted their posts. A GALLANT SERVANT.

“We don’t mind dving to the last man,” ho was told, “if only wo can be allowed to stand shoulder to shoulder.” Naturally, ho explained to them tho impossibility of this, and tho reason for their being posted singlehanded, and after that all was well. Ono act of gallantry in connection with the Crimean campaign, typical of many, concerns Captain Higginson’s (as be was then) servant. After an engagement the man made his master comfortable for the night, and then asked if ho might be excused. On being questioned as to his reason for the request, he explained: “Why, to have my wound dressed, sir.” hie had a gaping wound in the leg, enough to send an ordinary man to hospital at once. ‘ THE BOLL CALL.’

At the end of the campaign, the general returned homo with field rank, and look part in the march of tho .Guards past Queen Victoria. Sixtythree years later, ho was given a place of honor in the courtyard of Buckingham Palace, and saw our present King and Queen welcome home the Guards from the Great War. What memories must have been his then!

To many thousands the face and form of this grand old soldier will he familiar, for Lady Butler chose him as the mounted officer in her famous picture, ‘ Tim Roll CalL’ a typical Crimean scene. To-day, ho enjoys such peace as befits the closing years of one whose; life has been, spent in the.