GENERAL SIR REDVERS HENRY BULLER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2401, 8 March 1900, Page 59

GENERAL SIR REDVERS HENRY BULLER.

Sakah A. Tooley, in the Lady's Realm. General Sir Redvers Henry Buller is descended from a long line of West Country ancestors. He comes of that class of valiant gentlemen of Cornwall and Devon whose deeds of daring and enterprise live in the pages of Kingsley, and mementoes of whom are to be found in the brasses of the West Country churches. He received the name of Redvers after Richard de Rivers, or Redvers, first Earl of Devon, after the Conquest, with whose family the Bullers were connected by marriage. Sir Redvers is the eldest surviving son of the late James Wentworth Buller, Esquire, of Dowries House, Crediton, and was born in the ancestral home in 1859. . . . The general's mother was Charlotte, daughter of the late Lord H. M. Howard, of Norfolk. . . . The manor and house came into the j)ossession of the Buller family in 1726, through a marriage with the heiress of Gould, and has since remained the seat of the family in Devonshire. . . . At the early age of 17 he entered the army as an ensign in the 60th, the Sing's Own Rifles; but before he actually joined • he met "with an accident which very nearly lost him the career upon which he had' set his heart, and the country a valuable soldier. When at Downes, just before joining his regiment, he was out one morning in the park cutting wood, and the hatchet slipped and cut him severely across the side of the knee. The doctor took a very serious view of the wound, and strongly advised amputation. "Take my leg off?" said young Buller, "with a gasp of horror at the thought of losing not only his limb, but his military career. " No,"' he continued emphatically ; " I would rather die with two I legs than go through life vrith one." His father and the doctor yielded to thG boy's decision. The wound was sewn up, faithlul Mrs Cleave holding him while the operation was performed. Thanks to good musing and the patient's indomitable spirit, the injured leg was perfectly restored to use, and Sir Redvers has never throughout his career been at all inconvenienced by weakness attendant on the accident. At the age of 21 Ensign Buller went out ■with his regiment to China, and quickly proved his mettle. He'was at the storming of the Taku forts, and returned home with a medal for conspicuous bravery. Ten years elapsed before the young soldier tasted battle again. His next campaign was in connection with the Red River Expedition, led by Lord, then Sir Garnet, Wolselpy against the rebels in Canada. Captain Buller led a battalion of the 60th Rules through the western wilds of Manitoba, and during that march, when the officers, as well as the men, had to work like navvies lugging boats through muddy swamps, and clearing the bush, he profited not a little Lr ths hardening life and familiarity with various kinds of outdoor work to which he had been

accustomed as a boy at Downes. Sir Garnet noted the intrepid soldier, keen of eye, taciturn, and resourceful, and ever since has invariably selected "Buller" when there was a bit of hard work to be done. Three years after his return from Canada, Captain Buller went on Lord Wolseley"s staff to the Ashantee Avar, and was promoted to be major. It was in the Kaffir and Zulu wars of 1878-79 that Sir Redvers came to the front as a soldier of exceptional $ source and daring. Lord Wolseley was then Governor of Natal, and organised a force for the protection of the colonists. It was in this campaign that Sir Redvers won the Victoria Cross by a series of deeds almost unparalleled in the records of British heroism. Colonel Buller returned home after the battle of Ulundi, which victoriously closed this Zulu campaign, covered wth glory. In the Boer war of 1881 he was Chief of the Staff to Sir Eveljoi Wood, and the knowledge he then gained must be seiving him in good stead at the present crisis. . . . When Sir Redvers Buller chose a military career he was a younger son, without thought of the responsibility of being a large landowner. On the death of his elder brother in 1872, Sir Redvers succeeded to the family estate, and has since fulfilled the double duties. He has been none the worse a squire for being an active soldier. For 10 years he lived a 'bachelor at Downes, until in 1882 he married Lady Audrey, third daughter of the Marquis ' Townshend, and -widow of n Bir Redvers's cousin, the Hon.

Greville T. Howard. Lady Audrey had two sons and two daughters by her first marriage, and these have found the kindliest of stepfathers in Sir Redvers. Doubtless

inspired by him, the two young Howards , entered the army. Only last July the elder, who had joined the 60th, died of fever in India. The second of Lady Audrey's sons is shortly expected home on furlough, and ■will probably proceed to join Sir Redvers's corps in Africa.