STATESMEN. No. 320.

CAPTAIN LORD GIFFORD, V.C.

IN the beginning of the century there was a clever lawyer who became successively Attorney-General, Lord Chief Justice, and a Peer. The present Lord Gifford is that lawyer's grandson. He was born a little over thirty years ago, and at nineteen was put into the 83rd Regiment, which he accompanied to Gibraltar and thence to India. From India he was invalided home, and being forbidden by his doctor to return to Hindostan, he exchanged into the 24th Regiment. But shortly afterwards he volunteered for the Ashanti War, where he distinguished himself in command of the scouting party sent from the Prah to Coomassie, and where, as Sir Garnet Wolseley said of him, he "carried his life "in his hand from day to day." In this business he was slightly wounded, and earned the Victoria Cross at the capture of Beequah, where he led the attack. Sir Garnet Wolseley, who had by this time adopted him as one of his personal friends and supporters, took him to Natal as Aide-de-Camp on special service, and procured his transfer from the 57th Regiment, which he had subsequently joined in Ceylon, to his own staff in Cyprus. While in Cyprus Lord Gifford was offered an appointment under the Colonial Office, which he had accepted, when, hearing of the Isandula disaster and of the 57th being ordered to the Cape, he threw up the appointment and rejoined his regiment. Here he was appointed second in command of Barrow's Horse on the frontier, and when Sir Garnet Wolseley arrived was again taken on the Staff. He played a considerable part in the hunt after Cetewayo, during which he was in the bush for sixteen days with eight Europeans and twenty natives, and only just missed capturing the defeated king. He was sent home however with the despatches.

Lord Gifford is a well-looking man of very pleasing manners. He is somewhat reserved and retiring, but he has to a remarkable extent the faculty of provoking friendship and inspiring confidence. He is engaged to be married.

STATESMEN. No. 320.

CAPTAIN LORD GIFFORD, V.C.

97L

50L

20L

(These charts are for monitor calibration only)

Yale Center for British Art, 2013