Chesney, FRANCIS RAWDON, the explorer of the Euphrates, was born in 1789 at Annalong in County Down. He was gazetted to the Royal Artillery in 1805. In 1829 he inspected the route for a Suez canal, which he proved to be practicable.
His first exploration of the route to India, by way of Syria and the Euphrates, was made in 1831, and he made three other voyages with the same object. The idea was taken up by government, who made a grant of £20,000 after his first expedition, but owing to the opposition of Russia it was never brought to a practical issue. He commanded the artillery at Hong-kong from 1843 to 1847. In 1850 he published his Expedition for the Survey of the Rivers Euphrates and Tigris, and in 1868 a Narrative of the Euphrates Expedition. He died at Mourne, 30th January 1872. General Chesney's Life by his wife and daughter, edited by Stanley Lane-Poole, was published in 1885.—His nephew, Colonel Charles Cornwallis Chesney (1826-76), was the author of the well-known Waterloo Lectures (1861), which were delivered by him as professor at Sandhurst.—A younger brother of the latter, General Sir George Tomkyns Chesney, K.C.B. (1830-95), was appointed member of the Council of the Viceroy of India in 1886, and became M.P. for Oxford in 1892. He was the author of the clever jeu d'esprit, The Battle of Dorking (1871), and of a remarkable novel, The Private Secretary (1881).