# Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Simmons, John Lintorn Arabin

​SIMMONS, Sir JOHN LINTORN ARABIN (1821–1903), field marshal and colonel commandant royal engineers, born at Langford, Somersetshire, on 12 Feb. 1821, was fifth son of twelve children of Captain Thomas Simmons {d. 1842), royal artillery, of Langford, by his wife Mary, daughter of John Perry, of Montego Bay, for many years judge of the supreme court of Jamaica, his father was author of the treatise 'On the Constitution and Practice of Courts Martial,' which was long an authorised textbook. Six out of his eight brothers were officers in the army.
Educated at Elizabeth College, Guernsey and at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, Simmons received his first commission in the royal engineers on 14 Dec. 1837, and after professional instruction at Chatham embarked for Canada in June 1839. He was promoted first lieutenant on 15 Oct. following. While in Canada he was employed for three years in the then disputed territory on the north-east frontier of the United States of America, constructing works of defence, and making military explorations.
Returning to England in March 1845, Simmons was stationed in the London district for a year, was then an instructor in fortification at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, and being promoted second captain on 9 Nov. 1846, was appointed next month inspector of railways under the railway commissioners. In 1850 he became secretary to the railway commissioners, and when the commission was absorbed by the board of trade on 11 Oct. 1851, secretary of the new railway department of the board.
In Oct. 1853 Simmons travelled on leave in Eastern Europe, where war had been declared between Turkey and Russia. After his arrival at Constantinople, he was of service to the British ambassador. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe [q. v.], in reporting on the defences of the Turkish Danube frontier and of the Bosphorus, and he also visited with Sir Edmimd Lyons's squadron the Black Sea ports.
Promoted first captain on 17 Feb. 1854, he was preparing to leave for England when on 20 March the British ambassador sent him to warn Omar Pasha, the Turkish commander on the Danube, of the intention of the Russians to cross the Lower Danube near Galatz. With great promptitude and energy he found Omar at Tertuchan, and the hasty retreat of the Turkish army prevented catastrophe. Meanwhile in reply to a summons from the board of trade to ​return home at once or resign his appointment, Simmons, who had outstayed his leave, sent in his resignation, which was accepted on 30 June 1854. When at the end of March the Western powers allied themselves with Turkey against Russia, Simmons was formally attached to Omar Pasha's army on the Danube as British commissioner. He gave advice and help in the defence of Silistria, which he left during the siege on 18 June to join Omar Pasha and the allied generals at Varna. Five days later the siege of Silistria was raised, and the generals at Varna decided that Omar Pasha should take advantage of this success to cross the river and attack the Russian army at Giurgevo.
On 7 July Simmons was in command of 20,000 men of all arms at the passage of the Danube and the battle of Giurgevo. He threw up the lines of Slobodzie and Giurgevo in presence of the enemy, who tried to prevent him, while a Russian army of 70,000 men lay within seven miles. For his services with the Turkish army and his share in the defence of Silistria and the battle of Giurgevo, when the Russians were routed, Simmons was promoted brevet major on 14 July 1854, and given the local rank of lieutenant-colonel (a brevet lieutenant-colonelcy following, 12 Dec). During the retreat of the Russians and the occupation of Wallachia by the Turks, Simmons was frequently in charge of re-connaissances upon the enemy's rear until they had evacuated the principality.
In the meantime the allies had invaded the Crimea, the battles of the Alma, Balaclava, and Inkerman had been fought, and the siege of Sevastopol was in progress. Simmons opposed Napoleon III's proposal that the Turks should advance on the Pruth so as to act on the Russian line of communications with the Crimea. Realising the weakened condition of the allies after Inkerman and that there were no reserves nearer than England and France, he urged that the Turkish army should reinforce the allies in the Crimea. After much discussion the advanced guard of the Turkish army in Jan. 1855 occupied Eupatoria, which Simmons at once placed in a state of defence, in time to repulse a determined attack by the Russians on 17 Feb. The Russians were 40,000 strong, while the Turkish garrison was small. After this action the remainder of the Turkish army arrived from Varna, and Simmons laid out and constructed an entrenched camp. From April to September 1855 he was with Omar Pasha's army before Sevastopol, taking part in the siege until the place fell. He was created C.B. on 13 Oct.
When after the fall of Sevastopol Omar Pasha took his army to Armorica to operate against the Russians south of the Caucasus, and thus relieve the pressure on the fortress of Kars invested by the Russians, Simmons continued with him as the British commissioner. Omar, advancing into Mingrelia with 10,000 men, encountered 12,000 Russians on the river Ingur on 6 Nov. 1855. Simmons commanded a division which, crossing the river by the ford of Ruki and turning the Russian position, captured his works and guns and compelled the enemy to retreat. The casualties were small, so sudden and unexpected was their turning movement, the Russians losing 400 and the Turks 300 in killed and wounded. Omar Pasha in his despatch attributed the success mainly to Simmons. Unfortunately the campaign began too late to enable the relief of Kars to be effected. It capitulated on 26 Nov.
Early in 1856 Omar Pasha sent Simmons to London to explain his views for the next campaign in Asia Minor, against Russia, but, by the time he arrived in England, peace negotiations were in progress, and the treaty of Paris was signed on 30 March. For his services Simmons received the British war medal with clasp for Sevastopol ; the Turkish gold medal for Danubian campaign, and the Turkish medal for Silistria ; the third class of the order of the Mejidie (the second class was sent by the Sultan, but the British government refused permission for him to accept it on account of his rank) ; the Turkish Crimean medal ; the French legion of honour, fourth class ; and the Sultan of Turkey presented him with a sword of honour and made him a major-general in the Turkish army. In his service with the Turkish army Simmons had shown a knowledge of strategy and a power of command which should have led to further command in the field, but did not.
In March 1857 he was nominated British commissioner for the delimitation of the new boundary under the treaty of Paris between Turkey and Russia in Asia. Major-general Charles George Gordon [q. v.] was one of three engineer officers who accompanied him as assistant commissioners. The whole frontier from Ararat to the Black Sea was traversed and questions of principle were settled by the commission ; the actual marking of the boundary line was carried out by their expert assistants in the following year ​There were no carriage roads, and everything had to be carried on pack animals, while the altitudes over which they marched varied from 3000 to 7500 feet. Simmons returned home in Dec. 1857, and was promoted to a brevet colonelcy.
For two years (20 Feb. 185&-60) Simmons was British consul at Warsaw, where he gained the friendship of the viceroy. Prince Gortschakoff, and the esteem of both the Polish and the Russian communities. Promoted a regimental lieutenant-colonel on 31 Jan. 1860, Simmons was for the next five years commanding royal engineer at Aldershot. He received the reward for distinguished service on 3 Aug. 1862. Among several important committees of which he was a member during his command was one in 1865, on the Royal Engineers establishment at Chatham, presided over by the quartermaster-general. Sir Richard Airey [q. v.]. In September of the same year Simmons became director of the Royal Engineers estabUshment (now the School of MUitary Engineering) at Chatham with a view to carrying out the recommendations of the committee.
In Oct. 1868 he relinquished this appointment after his promotion as major-general (6 March), and in March 1869 he was made lieutenant-governor of the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, becoming K.C.B. on 2 June. Hitherto the commander-in-chief was nominally governor of the Royal Military Academy, but in 1870 Simmons became governor with full responsibility. On 27 Aug. 1872 he was promoted lieutenant-general and was made a colonel commandant of royal engineers. The French Prince Imperial became a cadet at Woolwich in December, and thenceforth the Empress Eugenie regarded Sir Lintom as a personal friend. While governor at Woolwich Simmons was a member of the royal commission on railway accidents in 1874 and 1875. After a highly successful reign of over six years he left Woolwich on his appointment as inspector-general of fortifications at the war office (1 Aug. 1875). In that office, which he held till 1880, he was the trusted adviser of the government on all questions connected with the defence of the empire. As chief technical military delegate with the British plenipotentiaries, Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury, at the Berlin Congress of 1878, he rendered valuable service. He had been promoted to be general on 1 Oct. 1877, and on 29 July 1878 was awarded the G.C.B. His services were again utilised by the foreign office at the international conference of Berlin, in June 1880, on the Greek frontier question, when he was chief technical military delegate with the British plenipotentiary. Lord Odo Russell [q. v.]. After leaving the war office in the summer of 1880 Sir Lintom served on Lord Carnarvon's royal commission on the defence of British possessions and commerce abroad, until it reported in 1882. He was also a member of Lord Airey's committee on army reorganisation ; he had published a pamphlet on the subject, 'The Military Forces of Great Britain,' in 1871.
Appointed governor of Malta in April 1884, Simmons satisfactorily inaugurated a change in the constitution whereby the number of elected members, which had been the same as the number of official members of council, was more than doubled. He did much to improve the condition of the island, especially as regards drainage, water supply, and coinage. On 24 May 1887 he was awarded the G.C.M.G. He remained at Malta until his retirement on 28 Sept. 1888. On 29 Oct. 1889 Sir Lintom was appointed envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Pope Leo XIII on a special mission with reference to questions of jurisdiction under the royal proclamation providing for the existing establishment of religion in Malta. With the assistance of Sir Giuseppe Carbone, the chief justice of Malta, he brought to a successful issue protracted negotiations respecting the marriage laws.
On 14 March 1890 the Sultan of Turkey conferred on Sir Lintom the first class of the order of the Mejidie, and on 21 May of the same year Queen Victoria made him a field-marshal. As a devoted friend of General Gordon, Simmons was chairman of the Grordon Boys' Home, established in Gordon's memory. He spent the last years of his life with his son-in-law and daughter. Major and Mrs. Orman, at Hawley House, near Blackwater, Hampshire, where he died on 14 Feb. 1903 ; he was buried by his own wish at Churchill, Somersetshire, beside his wife. A mihtary funeral service was held by command of King Edward VII at Hawley chvirch. A memorial to the field-marshal's memory has been erected by his brother officers in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral, London, and at the Gordon Boys' Home at Woking.
Simmons was elected an associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1847. He was also a member of the Royal United Service Institution, the Society of Arts, ​the Colonial Institute, and the Institute of Electrical Engineers.
His portrait in oils as a general was painted by Frank Holl, R.A.,in 1883 for the corps of royal engineers, and hangs in the mess at Chatham. Another portrait in oils as a field-marshal, about 1890, was painted by H. Heute, a German artist, and is in Mrs. Orman's possession.
Simmons was married twice: (1) at Keynsham, near Bristol, Somersetshire, on 16 April 1846, to his cousin Ellen Lintorn Simmons, who died on 3 Oct. 1851, leaving a daughter, Eleanor Julia (d. unmarried in 1901); (2) in London, on 20 Nov. 1856, to Blanche (d. Feb. 1898), only daughter of Samuel Charles Weston, by whom he had one daughter, Blanche, wife of Major Charles Edward Orman, late Essex regiment.
[War Office Records; Royal Engineers' Records; Porter's History of the Royal Engineers, 1889; The Times, 16 Feb. 1903; Royal Engineers' Journal, Sept. 1903.]
R. H. V.