Ernest Gambier - Parry Major Ernest Gambier - Parry , OBE ( 25 October 1853 – 15 April 1936 ) was a British military officer who participated in an expedition to the Sudan to avenge the grisly death of a renowned general in 1885 . However , the wounds he sustained in that campaign ended his military career . Gambier - Parry was also known for his work as an author , musician , and artist . He succeeded to the manor at Highnam Court following the death of the composer Sir Hubert Parry . In addition , he preserved and archived the art collection that had been amassed by his father Thomas Gambier Parry ; the masterpieces were eventually bequeathed to the Courtauld Institute of Art . Background . Ernest Gambier - Parry , son of Thomas Gambier - Parry and his second wife Ethelinda Lear , was born on 25 October 1853 at Highnam Court , Highnam , Gloucestershire . His father was an artist , philanthropist , and art collector . His half - brother was the composer Sir Hubert Parry , Thomas Gambier - Parry ' s son by his first wife Anna Maria Isabella Clinton . Another brother was the architect Sidney Gambier - Parry . His nephew Brigadier Sir Richard Gambier - Parry modernised communications at the Secret Intelligence Service ( MI6 ) and was the communications consultant for Operation Tracer in Gibraltar during World War II . Ernest Gambier - Parry was educated at Eton , where he studied under William Evans , the drawing master at Eton , from 1866 to 1871 . Career . Gambier - Parry served in the Volunteers . By 1871 , he had joined the Royal North Gloucestershire Regiment of Militia as a supernumerary lieutenant . He was promoted to lieutenant and , on 2 December 1874 , he joined the Royal Welch Fusiliers ( 23rd Regiment of Foot ) in that rank . Gambier - Parry became an instructor of musketry to the 2nd Battalion in 1880 and was at the Royal Citadel , Plymouth in 1881 . He resigned as instructor of musketry on 22 August 1881 . On 14 February 1883 , he left the Royal Welch Fusiliers as a lieutenant , and joined the Devon Yeomanry , the Royal 1st Devon . On 12 February 1885 , he was given the rank of captain in the army . Gambier - Parry participated as a special service officer in the Suakin Expedition of March 1885 commanded by Major - General Sir Gerald Graham VC , following the Siege of Khartoum , to avenge the murder of General Charles George Gordon in January 1885 . The moments before Gordon ' s death and beheading were portrayed in the painting " General Gordon ' s Last Stand " " ( pictured ) " by George William Joy . The Suakin Expedition was also an attempt to change the course of the Mahdist War . During the Eastern Sudan campaign of March 1885 , Captain Gambier - Parry was seriously wounded . That military campaign in the Sudan was the subject of his published work " Suakin , 1885 " , which he penned during his convalescence . In the preface to that book , he requested " the indulgence of critics . . . on behalf of one who has carried a sword more often than a pen . " He was appointed as a captain in the reserve of officers on 28 October 1885 , and was subsequently promoted to the honorary rank of major on 7 May 1886 for his gallant conduct . He was invalided from the army and resigned his commission . During the First World War , he was commandant of No . 6 Red Cross Hospital in Oxfordshire , the Goring Auxiliary Hospital . Gambier - Parry was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1918 . He was the president of the Gloucester Children ' s Hospital that had been established by his father . He was also a Gloucestershire magistrate . Gambier - Parry had a strong interest in the arts . Not only was he an author ; he was also a musician and artist . In addition to " Suakin , 1885 " , Gambier - Parry was the author of " Annals of an Eton House with some Notes on the Evans Family " , " Sketches of a Yachting Cruise " , " Day - dreams " , " The Pageant of my Day " , " Murphy : A Message to Dog - lovers " , " Allegories of the Land " , " The Spirit of the Old Folk " , " Life of Reynell Taylor " , and " Ainslie Gore : A Sketch from Life " . He was a member of the Gloucester Committee of the Three Choirs Festival . He often exhibited his paintings at the Royal Academy and other venues . Gambier - Parry assumed the role of family archivist . He was reluctant to sell the collection of paintings and other art objects that his father had collected over his lifetime . ( His younger son Mark similarly attempted to avoid the attention of dealers and instead bequeathed the Gambier - Parry collection intact to the Courtauld Institute of Art . ) The Gambier - Parry archive included an 1897 inventory of the estate that Ernest Gambier - Parry compiled and was utilised in the research of the collection for the Courtauld Institute . His inventory documented prominent members of the art world who were friends of his father and viewed the collection . They included two presidents of the Royal Academy : Sir Frederic Leighton and Sir Edward John Poynter . The former selected works from the collection in 1888 to show in the Royal Academy ' s Winter Exhibition . After his father ' s death , Gambier - Parry extended invitations to art experts to view the collection at Highnam . The visits occurred primarily in the 1910s and 1920s . Gambier - Parry documented the visits and the impressions or detailed appraisals offered by the experts . The visitors included Professor Charles John Holmes , director of the National Gallery ; Sir Claude Phillips , curator of the Wallace Collection ; Roger Eliot Fry ; Bernard Berenson ; Dr . Raymond van Marle , author of " The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting " , William George Constable of the National Gallery , and historian Welbore St . Clair Baddeley . Family and later life . Gambier - Parry married Evelyn Elizabeth Palk , daughter of Lawrence Palk , 1st Baron Haldon , in 1882 . He resided with his wife and children in Goring , Oxfordshire in 1891 , but had moved into Highnam Court " ( pictured ) " by 1894 . Following the death of his mother Ethelinda Lear in 1896 , his half - brother Hubert Parry inherited the Highnam Court estate . The two brothers disagreed over the management of Highnam Court , which was in grave financial difficulty . Ernest Gambier - Parry moved out and his brother moved into Highnam Court . The two brothers remained estranged for the rest of their lives . Gambier - Parry lived in Goring prior to Hubert Parry ' s death in 1918 , at which time he succeeded him to the estate at Highnam Court . Ernest Gambier - Parry and his wife had two children , although neither of their sons ever married . His elder son Thomas Robert Gambier - Parry was a botanist . He also became curator of the Department of Oriental Collections at the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford . His son Robert died in February 1935 ; his wife Evelyn died that same year . Major Gambier - Parry died on 15 April 1936 at Highnam Court . His younger son , Thomas Mark Gambier - Parry , succeeded to the estate at Highnam Court ; Mark resided there until his death on 9 August 1966 .