Men Who Have Won Commissions from the Ranks.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXV, Issue II, 14 July 1900, Page 76

Men Who Have Won Commissions from the Ranks.

If it is in effect little more than a pleasant fiction that a Field Marshal’s Isiton is within the reach of any British private, there are at least many instances to prove that it is possible for “Tommy Atkins” to bridge the guif which divides the rank and file from the ranks of colonels and generals.

Il is true that only one man in the British Army has succeeded in climbing from the very lowest rung in the ladder of promotion to the rank of a full general; and to discover him we have to go back to the far-away days of the Georges. Sir John Elley, who began his soldiering as a trooper in the Royal Horse Guards, won almost every honour, with one exception, that the army had to give. He became a full general, the trusted friend and adviser of the Duke of Wellington, was thanked by Parliament, and knighted by George 111., and in his days of retirement sat in Parliament for the Royal Borough of Windsor.

A contemporary and felow-general of Sir John, though of lower rank, was General Anderson, who survived Waterloo by 7 years. Anderson, who was born in 1746, was the son of poor parents, and on his father’s death his mother was so destitute and homeless that she was glad to cradle her child in a stone bas in in the ruine Cathedral of Elgin.

When the boy grew to manhood he entered the East India Company’s service as a private, and displayed such zeal and ability that he was promoted to the rank of general. His name is still associated with Elgin, where he was so strangely cradled, in connection with a charity for the relief of the poor.

When young Anderson and his mother were living among the ruins of Elgin Cathedral. Joseph Brome was a drummer in the Royal Regiment of Artillery, then stationed at Minorca. He was a lad of singular smartness, and developed soldierly qualities so ra-

pidly that he was given a commission before he was thirty. He ultimately rose to the rank of lieutenant-general, and transmitted his gifts to a son and grandson, who Itecame generals in turn.

The Gordon Highlanders have perhaps produced more men who have risen from the ranks than any other British (regiment. Lt is not many years since Colonel Staepoole, whose skill in suprintending the embarking of our troops at Southampton has evoked so much admiration, joined the Gordons as a private. When he received his commission he was transferred to the Royal Irish Fusiliers, and has since done much excellent work in the Army Service Corps. It was also as a Gordon that General Heetor Macdonald, the Inverness draper’s apprentice, won the choice between the Victoria Cross and a commission. and was far-seeing enough to choose the latter.

Another “ gallant Gordon ” enjoyed the almost unique distinction of twice passing from the non-commissioned to the commissioned ranks. In the 3rd Battalion of the Worcester Regiment

Mansell Fenwick rose to the rank of captain, only to resign his commission and enlist as a private in the Gordons, in which he quickly secured a restoration to commissioned rank.

Perhaps the only other example of a double promotion was in the case of John Shipp, a poor orphan boy of Saxmundham. in Suffolk, who enlisted in the 22nd Regiment of Foot more than a century ago. He fought with conspicuous valour in South Africa and India, and was twice commissioned before he was thirty. Major-General Luke O'Connor, who won the Victoria Cross at Alma forty - five years ago, was a private soldier at eighteen and an ensign five years Inter, when he fought so bravely in the Crimea. He is happily still with us. and with Hector Macdonald is a striking example of the possibilities of the private soldier. Another Major-General of our day who has risen from the ranks is MajorGenl. Sexton, now on the retired list.