Lieutenant Colonel Sir Henry Trotter, (30 August 1841 – 25 September 1919) was a British Indian Army officer in the Royal Engineers, an author, and an explorer of Central Asia.

Biography

Trotter attended Addiscombe Military Seminary from 1858 to 1860, and was awarded his commission in the Royal Engineers, Bengal on 8 June 1860. He sailed to India in 1862, and from 1863 to 1875 served on the Great Trigonometric Survey. He was a member of the Second Yarkand Mission to

Sinkiang Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...

to visit the territory ruled by Yakub Beg: the mission had 350 support staff and 6,476 porters, and was led by Sir Thomas Douglas Forsyth. Among the other Indian Army officers were Thomas E. Gordon, John Biddulph, Henry Bellew, Ferdinand Stoliczka and R. A. Champman. During the exhibition Trotter was the first recorded European to have shot an Ovis Poli. Trotter, now a captain, joined the special service in China in 1876 and he served as assistant military attaché at

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya ( Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis ( ...

during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78; Trotter was present at the fall of

Erzurum Erzurum (; ) is a city in eastern Anatolia, Turkey. It is the largest city and capital of Erzurum Province and is 1,900 meters (6,233 feet) above sea level. Erzurum had a population of 367,250 in 2010. The city uses the double-headed eagle as ...

to the Russians. In 1879, now a major, he was appointed consul for

Kurdistan Kurdistan ( ku, کوردستان ,Kurdistan ; lit. "land of the Kurds") or Greater Kurdistan is a roughly defined geo-cultural territory in Western Asia wherein the Kurds form a prominent majority population and the Kurdish culture, languages ...

; and in 1880 he was appointed consul at

. From 1882 to 1889 he served as military attaché at Constantinople, following which he became British consul-general in Syria, based in

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

. In 1906 Trotter retired from public service and in 1907 he began to work with the Central Asian Society. He served as a member of council for the society and from 1917 to 1918 he was president of the society. Trotter was invested as a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) and a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB). Trotter died on 25 September 1919 at Lucas Green Manor,

Chobham Chobham is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Surrey Heath in Surrey, England. The village has a small high street area, specialising in traditional trades and motor trades. The River Bourne and its northern tributary, the Hale, ...

, Surrey.

Family

Henry Trotter was the fourth son of Alexander Trotter (1804–1865), a wealthy stockbroker for Coutts Bank and his first wife Jacqueline Elizabeth Otter (1811–1849), a daughter of William Otter, Bishop of Chichester. On 15 October 1890 Trotter married Olivia Georgiana Wellesley, daughter of Admiral

George Wellesley Admiral Sir George Greville Wellesley (2 August 1814 – 6 April 1901) was a Royal Navy officer. As a junior officer he took part in the capture of Acre during the Oriental Crisis in 1840 and, as Captain of in the Baltic Fleet, he took part ...

and Elizabeth Lukin. He and his wife had two daughters, Jacqueline Theodora (1894–1948) and Angela Olivia in 1897. He was survived by his wife and daughters. In 1926 Trotter's daughter Angela married

Edmond Pery, 5th Earl of Limerick Colonel Edmund Colquhoun Pery, 5th Earl of Limerick (16 October 1888 – 4 August 1967) was a British peer and soldier. Life Pery was the eldest son of the 3rd Earl of Limerick and his second wife, Isabella, and was educated at Eton and New Co ...

. Her son, Trotter's grandson, was

Patrick Pery, 6th Earl of Limerick Patrick Edmund Pery, 6th Earl of Limerick KBE, AM, DL (12 April 1930 – 8 January 2003), was an Irish peer, banker and public servant. Life Patrick Edmund Pery was the son of Edmund Pery, 5th Earl of Limerick, and Angela, Countess of Limer ...

List of publications

*1875. Trotter, Henry. Account of the Survey Operations in Connection with the Mission to Yarkand and Kashgar in 1873–74. Calcutta: Printed at the Foreign Department Press. *1876. Secret and Confidential Report of the Trans-Himalayan Explorations by Employees of the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India, during 1873-74-75. Calcutta. *1878. "On the Geographic Results of the Mission to Kashgar under Sir T. Douglas Forsyth in 1873–74." Journal of the Royal Geographical Society 48. pp. 173–234. *1907
“Despatch by Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Henry Trotter Reporting Upon the Operations of the European Commission of the Danube During the Years 1894–1906, Together with a Résumé of Its Previous History.”
H.M. Stationery Office. *1917. "The Amir Yakoub Khan and Eastern Turkestan in Mid-Nineteenth Century."

Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society ''Asian Affairs'', the journal of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs, has been published continuously since 1914 (originally as the ''Journal of the Central Asian Society'', and from 1931 to 1969 as the ''Journal of the Royal Central Asian Socie ...

. Vol. 4. No. 4. pp. 95–112.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Trotter, Henry 1841 births 1919 deaths People educated at Cheltenham College Bengal Engineers officers Graduates of Addiscombe Military Seminary Central Asian studies scholars Companions of the Order of the Bath Knights Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George British Indian Army officers