Charles Waddington ( East India Company officer ) Charles Waddington CB ( 24 October 1796 – 22 November 1858 ) was a major - general in the Bombay engineers . Biography . Charles Waddington was the fifth son of William Waddington or Walkeringham , Nottinghamshire , by his wife , Grace Valentine , daughter of Henry Sykes of London , was born at Brompton on 24 Oct . 1796 . After passing through Addiscombe Military Seminary of the East India Company , he received a commission as a second lieutenant in the Bombay engineers on 3 April 1813 , and arrived in India on 22 May 1814 , He accompanied Colonel Kennedy ’ s force to the Concan , and is services at the assaults of Madanghar ( eighty miles south - east of Bombay ) and of Jamba were favourably mentioned . Towards the end of 1819 he went home on furlough , was promoted to be lieutenant on 16 November 1820 , married in 1822 , and on his return to India in 1823 acted as executive engineer at Baroda . He was promoted to captain on 29 July 1825 , and appointed in October executive engineer of the Baroda subsidiary force . In November 1827 he was moved to Bombay as civil engineer at the presidency , and in August 1828 acted also as superintending engineer . He was appointed to the command of the engineer corps and to take charge of the Engineer Institution in October 1830 . In September 1834 he commanded the engineers at Sirur , returning to the presidency as superintending engineer in January 1835 . On 28 June 1838 Waddington was promoted to be major , and in May of the following year was appointed superintending engineer of the southern provinces . In September 1841 he went to Sind as commanding engineer . He accompanied Major - general ( afterwards Sir ) Richard England in his march through the Bolan Pass in the autumn of 1842 , and was favourably mentioned in England ’ s dispatch of 10 Oct . 1842 for his services at Haikalzai . On 4 November 1842 he was appointed command engineer in Baluchistan as well as Sind . He accompanied Sir Charles Napier as commanding engineer of his force in the celebrated march of eighty - two miles from Dijikote on 6 Jan 1843 to Imamghar , where they arrived on the 12th . Instructed to demolish the fort , Wadding fired his mines on the 15th . He himself lit the fuses of three mines , and was bending over the train of one when his assistant called upon him to run as the other mines were about to explode . But he deliberately insured that the fuse was well alight before he walked away amid a storm of bursting mines . Napier mentioned him in his dispatch of 22 Jan . 1843 for his gallantry . He called it a grand action , but advised Waddington that he would have done better to appreciate his own worth and reserve his heroism for an occasion where it might turn the crisis of a war . Waddington took part in the Battle of Miani on 17 Feb . 1843 , where he acted as aide - de - camp to Napier and was mentioned in dispatches . He was also at the Battle of Hyderabad , or Dubba , on 24 March , when Napier again mentioned him as having ' rendered the most important aid in examining the enemy ' s position with that cool courage which he possesses in so eminent degree ' ) . On 4 July he received the medal for Miani and Hyderabad and was appointed a Commander of the military division of the Order of the Bath and also promoted to lieutenant - colonel . After a furlough in England , Waddington was employed in special duty at Puna until October 1847 , where he was appointed superintending and executive engineer at Aden , altered to chief engineer in April 1851 , the court of directors desiring that ' their high approbation of his valuable services be conveyed to this zealous and able officer ' ( 30 July 1851 ) . He was promoted to colonel on 24 Nov . 1853 and major - general on 28 November 1854 . On 4 May 1854 he was appointed chief engineer in the public works department , Bombay , and his services in making the preparation for the Persian expedition received official acknowledgement on 3 Dec . 1856 . In November 1857 Waddington was appointed to the command in Sind . In September 1858 he was compelled by ill - health to leave India , and he died in London on 22 November of that year . Waddington married , in 1822 , Anne Rebecca , daughter of John Pinchard of Taunton , Somerset , and by her he left a family of six sons and two daughters . His eldest son , William ( b . 1823 ) , colonel Bombay staff corps , served in Persia ( medal and clasp ) 1856 - 1857 , and became J . P . for Wiltshire . Another son , Thomas ( b . 1827 ) , was major - general of the Bombay staff corps . Works . Waddington contributed to the professional papers of the corps of royal engineers , ( quarto series ) and other papers