Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 18.djvu/366

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Fergusson
360
Fergusson

exchanged into the 85th regiment, and served in the 4th division in the passage of the Bidassoa, the battles of the Nivelle and the Nive, and the investment of Bayonne. On 16 May 1814 he was promoted without purchase lieutenant-colonel of the 2nd battalion of the 3rd regiment, the Buffs, but his battalion was reduced in 1816, and he had to go on half-pay, but obtained leave to study at the Royal Military College at Farnham for three years. In 1819 he was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the 88th regiment, from which he was removed in 1825 to the 52nd, one of the old light division regiments. He remained at the head of this battalion for thirteen years, until 1839, commanding it in England, Ireland, Nova Scotia, Gibraltar, and the West Indies, and ‘his retirement from the 52nd was deeply regretted by all who had served under his command’ (Moorsom, Historical Record of the Fifty-second Light Infantry, p. 305). While with the 52nd Fergusson was appointed an aide-de-camp to William IV, promoted colonel on 22 July 1830, made a C.B. in 1831, and on 23 Nov. 1841, two years after his retirement from it, was promoted major-general. His health suffered from the wounds received in the Peninsula, which prevented him from accepting any command abroad, but he was colonel of the 62nd foot from 9 March to 26 March 1850, of the 43rd from 26 March 1850, and lieutenant-general from 11 May 1851. In 1853 he accepted the post of general commanding the troops at Malta, not, as has been stated, of governor of Malta, and for his services in this capacity in passing on the troops sent to the East during the first year of the Crimean war, his zeal in forwarding medical comforts, and his kindness in receiving invalided officers and soldiers, he was publicly thanked by the Duke of Newcastle, the secretary of state, and made a K.C.B. on 5 July 1855. On 28 Aug. 1855 he was appointed governor and commander-in-chief at Gibraltar, which post he resigned in 1859. He was promoted general 21 Feb. 1860, and made a G.C.B. on 21 May in that year. He took up his residence at Macaulay Buildings, Bath, where he died on 4 Sept. 1865, and was buried in Locksbrook cemetery, Bath, where a handsome monument has been erected to his memory.

[Levinge's Historical Record of the 43rd Monmouthshire Light Infantry; Hart's Army Lists; Napier's Peninsular War; Gent. Mag. December 1865.]

H. M. S.

FERGUSSON, JAMES (1808–1886), writer upon architecture, born at Ayr on 22 Jan. 1808, was the second son of Dr. William Fergusson (1773–1846) [q. v.] He was educated first at the Edinburgh High School, and afterwards at a private school at Hounslow to prepare him for a place in the firm of Fairlie, Fergusson, & Company, merchants, Calcutta, in which his elder brother was a partner, and with which his family had long been connected. Soon after his arrival in India at an early age he started an indigo factory on his own account, and as he fortunately left the parent firm before its failure he was able in about ten years' time to retire from business with a moderate competency, and to carry out an early resolution of devoting himself to archæological studies. He settled in London, and built for himself the house 20 Langham Place, W., in which he spent the remainder of his life; but his fortune was impaired by responsibility for the ultimate losses of the Calcutta firm, in which he had imprudently allowed his name to remain. His antiquarian zeal was unbounded, and he was a skilled draughtsman with the camera lucida. His last visit to India was in 1845, but already, chiefly between 1835 and 1842, he had made with remarkable energy the lengthened tours in that country which are shown in the map in his ‘Picturesque Illustrations of Ancient Architecture in Hindustan,’ and in the course of which he prepared the laborious and accurate measurements and drawings of Indian buildings which formed the material of his best-known works. In 1840 he was elected a member of the Royal Asiatic Society, to which, towards the close of 1843, he read a paper on ‘The Rock-cut Temples of India,’ published in its ‘Journal,’ vol. viii. He remained through life an active contributor to the ‘Proceedings’ of this society, of which at his death he was one of the vice-presidents. The paper in question led to the presentation of a memorial from the council of the society to the court of directors of the East India Company, in consequence of which, much to Fergusson's satisfaction, instructions were sent for the measurement and drawing of the antiquities in the different presidencies of the country. In 1848 he read a paper on ‘The Ancient Buddhist Architecture of India’ to the Royal Institute of British Architects, the first of a number of papers of great value, which were afterwards published in the ‘Transactions’ of that body, chief among which were, in 1849, on ‘The History of the Pointed Arch;’ in 1850 on ‘The Architecture of Southern Italy;’ in 1851 on ‘The Architecture of Nineveh;’ in 1851 on ‘The Architectural Splendour of the City of Bijapur,’ and ‘The Great Dome of Muhammad's Tomb, Bijapur.’ In 1849 he published ‘An Historical Enquiry into the