RootsChat.Com

Hi Jean

Here's some more info, from Dodwell E. & Miles J.S. (1838) Alphabetical List of Officers of the Bengal Army 1760-1834 (Longman, Orme, Browne & Co, London) pp96-97

Lt Col. William Elliot C.B. served with the 4th Bengal Light Cavalry,  where was admitted as a cadet (1793) before being commissioned as a 2nd Lt (1794).  He skipped full lieutenant and was promoted to Captain (1805), then Major (1806) and finally Lt Colonel (1819). He was invested as a Companion of the Order of Bath (4 Jun. 1815).     He died in Diamond Harbour south of Calcutta on board the ship Exmouth (confirming the death notice in Asiatic Intelligence).

[Widowed?], he married Mary Ann (Ann) Fagan on 25 Nov. 1813 at Cawnpore.  Have you managed to find more information on his family background (possibly Irish - his son was living in Enniskillen when his Will was drafted in 1814).

There is a reference amongst the casualties listed on the Belfast Boer War Memorial, to Lt Colonel H.A. Fagan, 2nd Battalion, Royal Irish Rifles.  Strangely, I cannot find info on this person from my regular Boer War sources.  Can anyone help me out with who he was; where he came from; and/or the circumstances of his death?

Lt Col. BJ Fagan commanded the 17th Infantry alongside the South African Cape Corps in the assault on Wye Hill, near Jerusalem, as part of General Allenby's 1916 Middle Eastern Campaign.  Here is some text from "The Story of the 1st Battalion Cape Corps, 1915-1919" by Ivor Difford (p207), which explains his pivotal role in that victory, and the circumstances of his becoming wounded (note, he had not yet been awarded his DSO at the time of this action):

"The approach to Wye Hill was most precipitous, and today one wonders how we reached the top. Consequent upon this fact a short delay was necessary in order to enable the slowest of the men to catch up to the more vigorous. Colonel Fagan, D.S.O., in command of the 17th Infantry, rightly decided, therefore, to delay calling for the barrage until such time as he was sure that the whole brigade was up the hill and closed up. At 10 p.m. (zero hour) he asked for the barrage and after twenty minutes bombardment of Wye Works his battalion attacked with great dash and took the position in a few minutes. Colonel Fagan and his regiment were under machine and rifle fire the whole time and took eighty odd casualties in capturing the hill (including Colonel Fagan himself) which they did at the point of the bayonet, capturing forty or fifty prisoners and seven machine guns."