that, owing to the panic at home after the second Sikh war and to the jealousy of the court of directors of the direct patronage of the crown, his appointment had been cancelled, and Sir Charles Napier had just arrived at Calcutta as commander-in-chief and proceeded to the Punjab. Ample explanations from the Duke of Wellington and Lord Fitzroy Somerset awaited him at Calcutta, and the manner in which he bore his disappointment did him the greatest credit. He returned home with Lady Gomm, visiting Ceylon on their way, and arrived in England in January 1850. In the following August he was appointed commander-in-chief of Bombay, but on the eve of starting, Sir Charles Napier suddenly resigned, and Gomm was appointed commander-in-chief in India. The five years he held the chief command were comparatively uneventful. He was extremely popular, and his popularity was promoted by the social accomplishments of his wife.
He was promoted to be full general on 20 June 1854. He returned home in 1855 to enjoy twenty years of dignified and honoured old age. In 1846 he had been appointed honorary colonel of the 13th foot, and in August 1863 was transferred to the colonelcy of the Coldstream guards, in succession to Lord Clyde. On 1 Jan. 1868 he received his bâton as field-marshal, and on the death of Sir George Pollock (October 1872) was appointed constable of the Tower. The emperor of Russia when visiting England in 1874 sent him the order of St. Vladimir; he was already a knight of the second class of the order of St. Anne of Russia. He had been made a grand cross of the Bath, and the universities of Oxford and Cambridge had conferred upon him the honorary degree of D.C.L. (13 June 1834) and LL.D. respectively. He died on 15 March 1875, in his ninety-first year.
Five ‘Field-Marshal Gomm’ scholarships have since been founded at Keble College, Oxford.
[Letters and Journals of Field-Marshal Sir W. M. Gomm, by F. C. Carr-Gomm, 1881; Wellington Despatches.]
GOMME, Sir BERNARD de (1620–1685), military engineer, a Dutchman, was born at Lille in 1620. In his youth he served in the campaigns of Frederick Henry, prince of Orange. He afterwards accompanied Prince Rupert to England, and was knighted by Charles I. He served with conspicuous ability in the royalist army as engineer and quartermaster-general from June 1642 to May 1646 (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1660–1, p. 448). His plan of the fortifications and castle of Liverpool, dated 1644, is preserved in the British Museum, Sloane MS. 5027, A. art. 63. The original of his plan of the battle of Naseby, drawn up by Prince Rupert's orders, was sold with the collections of Rupert and Fairfax's papers at Sotheby's in June 1852 (lot 1443). The British Museum contains a more elaborate drawing of this plan, and also coloured military plans by Gomme of the battle of Marston Moor (2 July 1644) and the second fight at Newbury (27 Oct. 1644), all 48 by 20 inches. They with others are in Addit. MSS. 16370 and 16371. On 15 June 1649 Gomme received a commission from Charles II, then at Breda, to be quartermaster-general of all forces to be raised in England and Wales (ib. 1649–50, p. 188). At the Restoration he petitioned for a pension and employment as engineer and quartermaster-general; he also produced a patent for the place of surveyor-general of fortifications, dated 30 June 1645, and confirmed by the king at Breda on 15 June 1649 (ib. 1660–1661, p. 204). The engineers' places were filled, and the surveyor-generalship was not a permanent appointment; but Gomme received a life pension of 300l. a year (ib. 1665–6, p. 421). In March 1661 he was made engineer-in-chief of all the king's castles and fortifications in England and Wales, with a fee of 13s. 4d. a day, and an allowance of 20s. a day for ‘riding charges’ when employed on the king's immediate service (ib. 1660–1, p. 558, 1661–2, pp. 155, 281). Among his first tasks were the repairs of Dover pier, the erection of fortifications at Dunkirk, and the surveying of Tilbury Fort. On 10 Jan. 1664–5 the treasury were recommended to make regular payment of his pension, ‘as the king had immediate occasion for him at Tangier’ (ib. 1664–5, pp. 167–8). In August 1665 instructions were given for making the fortifications at Portsmouth according to the plans prepared by Gomme (ib. 1664–5, p. 510). His estimates and plans for the works are in Addit. MSS. 16370 and 28088, f. 26. On 14 Nov. of the same year the king directed him to give his assistance to commissioners for making the Cam navigable, and establishing a communication with the Thames. Three days later he received a commission to build a new citadel on the Hoe of Plymouth (ib. 1665–6, pp. 57, 61). On 15 Nov. 1666 the officers of ordnance were authorised to make a bridge after a model prepared for Gomme for the safer bringing in of explosives (ib. 1666–7 p. 261, 1667 p. 52). In March 1667 he accompanied the Duke of York to Harwich, which it was proposed to entrench completely all round (ib. 1666–7 p. 577, 1667 pp. 70, 77). On returning to London he was summoned to give advice for fortifying the
