"Napoleonic Era Officer" Rufane Shaw Donkin Signed Free Frank Dated 1836 For Sale

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"Napoleonic Era Officer" Rufane Shaw Donkin Signed Free Frank Dated 1836:
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for sale "Napoleonic Era Officer" Rufane Shaw Donkin Signed Free Frank Dated 1836. 

ES-9391

Lieutenant General Sir Rufane Shaw Donkin GCH KCB FRS FRGS (1772 – 1 May 1841), was

a British army officer

of the Napoleonic

era and later Member of Parliament. Rufane Donkin came

of a military family and was the eldest child of General Robert

Donkin, who had served with many famous British commanders including Wolfe and Gage and Young Rufane was baptised at St October 1772 with the name Rusaw Shaw Donkin. Becoming a captain in 1793, Donkin

saw active service in the West Indies in the

next year, gaining promotion to major in 1796. At the age of twenty-five

he became a lieutenant-colonel and

in 1798 led a in Popham's expedition to

Ostend. He served and two years later won command of a brigade of three regiments in the

army in Portugal, which he led in

victory at the Second Battle

of Porto (May 1809). On

the day before the Battle of

Talavera (July 1809), an advance French force surprised

Donkin's brigade (positioned ahead of the main British army) before they could

post pickets:

the British had over 400 casualties. Donkin fell back, rallied the men at the

main line and led the brigade throughout the battle. The Army then transferred

Donkin, in the role of quartermaster-general, to the Mediterranean command.

He served there from 1810 to 1813, taking part in the Catalan expeditions and Lord William

Bentinck (1813). In July 1815, the now Major-General Donkin

received a posting to India,

distinguishing himself as a divisional commander in Hastings's operations

against the Mahrattas (1817–1818)

and receiving the KCB as his reward. The death of his

young wife Elizabeth him, after that he went to the Cape of Good Hope on

extended sick leave. From 1820 to 1821 he administered the Cape Colony with

success as acting Governor. He named the rising seaport of Algoa Bay Port Elizabeth in

memory of his wife and in August 1820 erected a memorial to her on a hill

overlooking Algoa Bay. In 1821 Grand Cross of the Royal Guelphic Order.

The rest of Donkin's life passed in literary and political work. He

was one of the original fellows of the Royal

Geographical Society, and was a member of the Royal Society and of

many other learned bodies. His theories as to the course of the River Niger, published

under the title Dissertation on the Course and Probable Termination of

the Niger (London,

1829), involved him in a good deal of controversy. From 1832 to 1837 he sat in

the House of Commons as Member of Parliament (MP) for Berwick-upon-Tweed, and in

1835 became Surveyor-General

of the Ordnance. He was elected as MP for Sandwich in 1839, and held that seat

until he committed suicide at Southampton on 1 May

1841. He was then a general, and colonel of the 11th Regiment

of Foot. He

is listed as one of the important graves lost on the Burdett

Coutts Memorial in Old St. Pancras Churchyard

in London. Collier

Michell, served as the surveyor-general of the Cape Colony.

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