Dictionary of Indian Biography/Colley, Sir George Pomeroy
COLLEY, SIR GEORGE POMEROY (1835–1881 )
Maj-General : son of the Hon. George Francis Colley, who was originally Pomeroy : born Nov. 1835 : educated at the R.M.C. Sandhurst (highly distinguished), joined the 2nd Queen's in 1852 : served at the Cape, and held a Border Magistracy there, 1857–8 : served in China, was at the action of the Taku forts and the advance on Pekin : Brevet-Major, 1863 : entered the Staff College and passed with distinction : appointed Professor there, and wrote articles on the Army in the Encyclopcedia Britannica : in the Ashanti campaign, 1873 : went to Natal on a special mission, to the Transvaal, and Swaziland : was Military Secretary to Lord Lytton when Viceroy and Governor-General of India, 1876–8 : Private Secretary, 1878–80, but during 1879 was Chief on the Staff to Sir Garnet Wolseley in Zululand and the Transvaal, until recalled late in that year to India. He was C.B., 1873 : C.M.G., 1878 : K.C.S.I., 1879. Early in 1880 he was appointed High Commissioner for South Eastern Africa, and Governor and C. in C, Natal : in the fighting with the Boers which ensued, Colley was defeated at Laing's Nek, and was killed in the Boers' attack on Majuba Hill, Feb, 26, 1881. Colley had studied deeply the questions of the Indian frontier and Central Asia, and exercised much influence on the military and political policy of Lord Lytton's administration.