Burnaby, FREDERICK GUSTAVUS

Burnaby, FREDERICK GUSTAVUS, a daring traveller and dashing sabreur, was born at Bedford, 3d March 1842. The son of a clergyman and squire of Somersby Hall in Leicestershire, he was educated at Bedford, Harrow, and privately in Germany, and early became a capital linguist. He joined the Royal Horse Guards Blue in 1859, and became captain in the regiment in 1866, lieutenant-colonel in 1880, and colonel in 1881. His travels in Central and South America, his experiences in the Carlist camp in 1874, and with Gordon in the Soudan in 1875, prepared him for the great exploit of his life, his ride to Khiva, in the winter of 1875, across the steppes of Tartary. His brightly written Ride to Khiva (1876) at once made him famous; and indeed his great stature, immense strength, and reckless courage, no less than the outspoken frankness of his manners, his hearty patriotic hatred of Russia, and uncompromising Jingoism, were exactly the kind of qualities for a hero of the English people. He contested Birmingham without success in 1880, but polled over 15,000 votes. In 1876 he travelled in Asia Minor and Armenia, publishing on his return, On Horseback through Asia Minor, which was no less successful than his earlier book. In Graham's expedition to the Eastern Soudan he was attached to the Intelligence Department, and was badly wounded at El Teb; and in 1884 he made his way without leave to join Sir Herbert Stewart's column in the Nile expedition, and was killed by an Arab spear-thrust in the first battle, that of Abu Klea, 17th January 1885. Burnaby was a daring aeronaut, and crossed the Channel to Normandy in 1882 in a balloon. See his Life by Ware and Mann (1883).