PENNYCUICK, JOHN (d. 1849), brigadier-general, entered the army on 31 Aug. 1807 as an ensign in the 78th highlanders, and became lieutenant on 15 Jan. 1812. He served in the expedition to Java, and was wounded in the attack on the entrenched camp adjoining the fort of Meester-Cornelis on 26 Aug. 1811. He was promoted captain on 14 June 1821, and took part in the Burmese war in 1825–6. He became major, unattached, on 25 April 1834, and on 8 May 1835 he obtained a majority in the 17th foot. With this regiment he made the campaign of 1839 in Afghanistan, including the capture of Ghuznee, and was afterwards employed in Beloochistan, under General Willshire, to subdue the khan of Khelat. He led the storming party in the capture of Khelat on 13 Nov. 1839, and was made C.B., having already obtained a brevet lieutenant-colonelcy for Ghuznee. He had been made a knight of the Guelphic order in 1837. He became lieutenant-colonel on 12 June 1840, and in 1841 took and destroyed some Arab posts near Aden. In 1848 he exchanged from the 17th to the 24th regiment. At the end of that year he served in the second Sikh war, and commanded a brigade, which consisted of his own and two native regiments, in Thackwell's division (afterwards Sir Colin Campbell's). He was in the force under Thackwell which turned the Sikh position on the Chenab, by crossing at Wazirabad, and he was eager to attack at once; but other councils prevailed, and the Sikhs were allowed to retire. When Lord Gough decided to attack them near Chillianwalla, on the afternoon of 13 Jan. 1849, his brigade led the attack. They were told to advance without firing, as the 10th had done at Sobraon. The 24th carried the Sikh guns with a rush; but that regiment had outstripped the two native regiments, and the men found themselves exposed, with their own arms unloaded, to a very heavy fire from the jungle round them. Pennycuick and Brooks, the other lieutenant-colonel of the 24th—‘two officers not surpassed for sound judgment and military daring in this or any other army,’ as Lord Gough wrote—were killed, and the brigade was driven back. The 24th lost twenty-two officers and 497 men. Among the officers killed was a younger son of the brigadier, a boy of seventeen, the junior ensign of the regiment. Seeing his father fall, he ran to his assistance, and was himself shot through the heart as he bent over his father's body. The brigadier's eldest son, John Farrell Pennycuick, is separately noticed.
[Hart's Army List; Records of the 17th Regiment; Kaye's War in Afghanistan; Thackwell's Second Sikh War; Macpherson's Rambling Reminiscences of the Punjab Campaign; Historical Records of the 24th Regiment, by Colonels Paton, Glennie, and Symons.]
PENNYCUICK, JOHN FARRELL (1829–1888), general, eldest son of Brigadier John Pennycuick [q. v.], was born on 10 Aug. 1829, and, after spending three and a half years at the Royal Military Academy, entered the royal artillery as second lieutenant on 2 May 1847. He became first lieutenant on 30 June 1848, and second captain on 21 Sept. 1854. He served in the Crimea, and took part in the battle of Inkerman, his being one of the two 9-pounder batteries attached to the second division, which were the first to engage the much more powerful artillery of the Russians. He received the brevet rank of major, and the fifth class of the Medjidieh. During the Indian mutiny he was engaged in the second relief of the Lucknow residency, the battle of Cawnpore (6 Dec. 1857), and the siege and capture of Lucknow. He served in the expedition to China in 1860, including the capture of the Taku forts, and was made brevet lieutenant-colonel (15 Feb. 1861) and C.B. He became a regimental lieutenant-colonel on 10 July 1871, regimental colonel on 1 May 1880, and on 8 Nov. of that year major-general. On 1 July 1885 he became lieutenant-general, and on 4 Jan. 1886 general. He died on 6 July 1888. He had married a daughter of W. Rutledge, esq., of Victoria, Australia, and left sons and daughters.
[Times obituary, 12 July 1888; Kane's List of Royal Artillery Officers; Kinglake's War in the Crimea.]
PENNYMAN, JOHN (1628–1706), pseudo-quaker, was fourth son of Sir James Pennyman (d. 1655) of Ormesby, Yorkshire, by his second wife, Joan Smith (d. 1657) of London. His half-brother, Sir James Pennyman (1609–1679), was knighted by Charles I at Durham in 1642, raised a troop of horse for the king's service at his own expense, and was created a baronet by Charles II on 22 Feb. 1664 (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1663, 1664, pp. 475, 492).
John, born at Ormesby on 14 Aug. 1628, entered the king's service at fifteen as ensign in the foot regiment of which Sir James was colonel. Upon the defeat of the royalist army, John and two brothers took refuge abroad until their father and eldest brother had made their composition with the parliament. John was apprenticed on 8 Feb. 1647 to a Mr. Fabian, a wool-draper in London, also a zealous royalist. In 1651 he attended the fifth-monarchy services
