G'day Begin forwarded message: > New update published: 124 biographies with a special focus on the modern churches: > http://www.oup.com/oxforddnb/info/freeodnb/shelves/sept2012/ > > Full list of new biographies: > http://www.oup.com/oxforddnb/info/newupdates/contents/newlives12c/ > > Editor’s introduction: > http://www.oup.com/oxforddnb/info/newupdates/contents/preface12c/ > > New biography podcast: Frank Pantridge (1916-2004), inventor of the heart defibrillator: > http://www.oup.com/oxforddnb/info/freeodnb/pod/ > > > ======================================================================== > > > > To read this Life of the Day complete with a picture of the subject, > visit http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/lotw/2012-10-03 > > > > Pottinger, Sir Henry, first baronet (1789-1856), army officer in the East India Company and colonial governor, was born at Mount Pottinger, co. Down, Ireland, on 3 October 1789, the fifth son of Eldred Curwen Pottinger, a descendant of the Pottingers of Berkshire, and his wife, Anne, daughter of Robert Gordon of Florida Manor, co. Down. He was educated at Belfast Academy, which he left when twelve years old, and went to sea. In 1803 he travelled to India to join the marine service there, but friends persuaded Lord Castlereagh in 1804 to substitute a cadetship in the East India Company's army. Meanwhile he studied in Bombay, and acquired a knowledge of Indian languages. He worked well, became an assistant teacher, and on 18 September 1806 was made an ensign, and promoted lieutenant on 16 July 1809. > > In 1808 Pottinger was sent on a mission to Sind under Nicholas Hankey Smith, the British political agent at Bushehr. In 1809, when Sir John Malcolm's mission to Persia was postponed, Pottinger and a friend, Captain Charles Christie, offered to explore the area between India and Persia in order to acquire information lacking to the government, which accepted the offer. The travellers, disguised as Indians, and accompanied by a local horse dealer and two servants, left Bombay on 2 January 1810, journeying by sea to Sind, and from there by land to Kalat. They were immediately recognized as Europeans, and even as having belonged to the embassy at Sind, but safely reached Nushki, near the boundary between Afghanistan and Baluchistan; here Christie diverged northwards to Herat, and proceeded thence by Yazd to Esfahan, while Pottinger, keeping in a westerly direction, travelled through Kerman to Shiraz, and joined Christie at Esfahan. Christie was directed to remain there, and was killed in a Russian attack on the Persians in 1812. Pottinger, returning via Baghdad and Basrah, reached Bombay in February 1811. He reported the results of his journey, published as Travels in Beloochistan and Sinde (1816). Pottinger married, in 1820, Susanna Maria (1800-1886), daughter of Captain Richard Cooke of Dublin, whose family was a branch of the Cookes of Cookesborough, co. Westmeath. They had a daughter and three sons; the eldest son died in infancy. > > Pottinger was next appointed to the staff of Sir Evan Nepean, governor of Bombay, by whom he was sent as assistant to Mountstuart Elphinstone, the British resident at Poona. On 15 October 1821 he was made captain. He served during the Anglo-Maratha War, and at its close became collector of Ahmednagar. He was promoted major on 1 May 1825, and in the same year was made resident in Cutch. He was promoted lieutenant-colonel on 17 March 1829, and brevet colonel on 23 January 1834. While resident in Cutch he conducted a mission to Sind in 1831, successfully negotiating a commercial treaty. He conducted further missions in 1833-4 and 1836-7, being appointed political agent there in 1836, negotiating the treaty of 1839 which achieved domination of Sind. Out of sympathy with what he saw as Auckland's excessively coercive approach, Pottinger left India in 1840, ill health being given as the reason for his return. He was created a baronet on 27 April 1840. > > Pottinger accepted Lord Palmerston's offer of the post of envoy and plenipotentiary in China and superintendent of British trade, thus superseding Captain Charles Elliot. The First Opium War had begun in January 1840. After Elliot, the British representative, had seized the forts by Canton (Guangzhou), a preliminary treaty had been drawn up in January 1841, but it was disavowed by both governments. Palmerston directed Pottinger to replace this treaty by one which would open China to British trade, but before he reached China hostilities had recommenced. Major-General Sir Hugh Gough arrived in March 1841 to command the expeditionary force from India. Gough took the four forts defending Canton in May 1841, and while he was preparing to attack the town itself, Pottinger reached Macau (9 August). He deemed it essential to the success of his mission to make a further display of force, and he co-operated with Gough and Admiral Sir William Parker (1781-1866) in the capture of Amoy (Xiamen), Chushan, Chintu (Chengdu), and Ningpo (Ningbo). On 13 June 1842 Pottinger, with Parker, entered the Yangtze (Yangzi) River with the object of taking Nanking (Nanjing). After many successes by the way, an assault on that city was imminent in July, when Pottinger announced that the Chinese were ready to treat for peace on a satisfactory basis. The Chinese diplomatists had already found that Pottinger could not be trifled with: an intercepted letter from the chief Chinese negotiator to his government stated that 'to all his representations the barbarian, Pottinger, only knit his brows and said "No"'. Eventually peace was signed on 29 August 1842 on board HMS Cornwallis before Nanking. By this treaty of Nanking, China agreed to pay an indemnity of 21 million, Hong Kong was ceded to England, and the five 'treaty ports'-Canton, Amoy, Foochow (Fuzhou), Ningpo, and Shanghai-were opened to British traders, and were to receive British consuls. In recognition of his successful conduct of negotiations Pottinger was made GCB (2 December 1842), and on 5 April 1843 was appointed the first British governor of Hong Kong. > > Pottinger returned to Britain in the spring of 1844, and was much honoured: he was sworn of the privy council (23 May 1844), was presented with the freedom of many cities, and in June 1845 the House of Commons voted him £1500 a year for life. On 28 September 1846 he succeeded Sir Peregrine Maitland as governor of Cape Colony. He stayed there less than six months, and apparently without reputation or distinction in the view of G. M. Theal, according to whom Pottinger left the colony 'without the esteem of a single colonist' (Lehmann, 279). In 1848 he returned once more to India as governor of Madras and attained the rank of lieutenant-general in 1851. He held the post until 1854, when he returned to Britain in broken health. His government of Madras had not been a success. He was resistant to change and had become dilatory in the discharge of public business, failing to recognize the need for essential improvements. He was better fitted to deal with a crisis than with ordinary administration. He died at Malta on 18 March 1856, and was buried at Valletta. His two surviving sons successively succeeded to the baronetcy. > > William Broadfoot > > James Lunt > > Sources Burke, Peerage (1907) + Hart's Army List + M. E. Yapp, Strategies of British India: Britain, Iran and Afghanistan, 1798-1850 (1980) + J. A. Norris, The First Afghan War, 1838-1842 (1967) + H. Pottinger, Travels in Beloochistan and Sindi (1816) + A. Burnes, Travels into Bokhara, 3 vols. (1834) + A. Burnes, Cabool: residence, 1836-8 (1842) + Fortescue, Brit. army, vol. 12 + A. J. Smithers, The Kaffir wars (1973) + G. M. Theal, History of South Africa, 11 vols. (1915-20); facs. edn (Cape Town, 1964) + J. H. Lehmann, Remember you are an Englishman: a biography of Sir Harry Smith (1977) > Archives TNA: PRO, corresp. and papers, FO 705 | BL, corresp. with Lord Aberdeen, Add. MS 43198 + BL, letters to Sir John Hobhouse, Add. MS 36478 + BL OIOC, letters to Mountstuart Elphinstone, MSS Eur. F 87-9 + BL OIOC, corresp. with Sir John Hobhouse, MS Eur. F 213 + NL Scot., corresp. with Sir Thomas Cochrane + NMM, letters to Sir William Parker + TNA: PRO, corresp. with Lord Ellenborough, PRO 30/12 + U. Durham L., corresp. with third Earl Grey + U. Southampton L., letters to Lord Palmerston > Likenesses F. Grant, oils, 1845, Gov. Art Coll. [see illus.] · H. Griffiths, stipple, pubd 1846 (after a lithograph by S. Laurence, 1842), NG Ire. · J. Brown, line engraving, NG Ire. · L. Dickinson, lithograph (after S. Laurence), BM, NPG · portrait (after F. Grant), Oriental Club, London · portrait (after F. Grant), possibly government house, Hong Kong · portrait (after F. Grant), priv. coll. > > > > > ======================================================================== > © Oxford University Press, 2004. See legal notice: > http://www.oup.com/oxforddnb/legal/ > > We hope you have enjoyed this Life of The Day, but if you do wish to stop > receiving these messages, please EITHER send a message to > LISTSERV@WEBBER.UK.HUB.OUP.COM with > > signoff ODNBLIFEOFTHEDAY-L > > in the body (not the subject line) of the message > > OR > > send an email to epm-oxforddnb@oup.com, asking us to stop sending you > these messages.