Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/461

 at Indore, the native state of Dhar, during the minority of its Rajah (1861–2). Promoted major in 1865, lieutenant-colonel in 1871, and colonel in 1876, he was in command of his regiment when the second Afghan war broke out in 1878. From the first he had shown an aptitude for engineering and had made the earliest road up to the hill station of Matheran, near Bombay. His talent was now to stand him in good stead. From 16 Dec. 1878 to 26 Feb. 1879 he was employed with his men in making a military road from Jacobabad to Dhadar, a distance of 109 miles. On 27 Feb. the regiment thence began to ascend the Bolan Pass, making in its progress a further roadway, accessible to heavy guns and transport. At Dozan (half-way through the pass), which was reached in June, the workers were attacked by cholera, and more than fifty succumbed. During this outbreak Col. Creagh visited the hospital twice daily, and on one occasion a sepoy died holding his hand. On 31 July he was put in command of the Bombay troops in line of communication, with the rank of brigadier-general. By September the road was carried to Darwaza, a distance of 63 miles from Dhadar. Sir Richard Temple described the long road as ‘a signal example of what may be accomplished by a small body of troops with their trained followers.’

Owing to urgent private business, Creagh retired from the service in December, with the rank of major-general. He was mentioned in despatches and received the Afghan medal. Returning to England early in 1880, he passed the remainder of his life at St. Leonards-on-Sea. A churchman and conservative, he took an active though unostentatious part in religious, philanthropic, and political affairs. He died at St. Leonards on 23 May 1901, and is buried in the Hastings borough cemetery. Two small oil paintings of him at the ages of twenty-eight and forty respectively belong to his widow.

General Creagh was twice married: (1) on 29 April 1857 to Haidée Sarah Rose, daughter of John Dopping, of Derrycassan, co. Longford, by whom he had five sons and two daughters; (2) on 10 November 1877 to Dora, younger daughter of Edwin Sturge of Gloucester, by whom he had one son and two daughters. The four sons who reached manhood all entered the army. The eldest, Ralph Charles Osborne, served with distinction in Burmah, in Manipur, at the relief of Chitral, in the Kurram Valley, and in South Africa, and died at Netley on 27 Jan. 1904.

 CREMER, WILLIAM RANDAL (1838–1908), peace advocate, born on 18 March 1838 at Fareham, Wiltshire, was son of George Cremer, a coach-painter, by his wife Harriet Tutte, daughter of a local builder. Soon after his birth his father deserted his family, and the child was brought up in great poverty. At twelve years of age he went to work as a pitchboy in a shipyard. Three years afterwards he was apprenticed to a carpenter. Then he went to Brighton, where he came under the influence of Frederick William Robertson [q. v.], and in 1852 found his way to London, where he soon mixed in politics and trade unionism. A good speaker, he represented his fellow workmen on the committee in charge of the nine hours' movement of 1858, which involved the lock-out of 70,000 men in 1859–60. From this arose the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners (4 June 1860), Cremer being one of the promoters. He was secretary to the workmen's committee, formed to maintain sympathy with the Northern states of America, after the outbreak of the civil war in 1861, and he organised the meeting in St. James's Hall addressed by John Bright, to protest against the British government having allowed the privateering Alabama to escape.

When the International Working-men's Association was formed in 1865, Cremer was the secretary of the British section, and next year he was a delegate to the conference at Geneva, when wide divergence was discovered between the English and some of the continental representatives. Cremer and his friends pleaded for a practical programme, the others for a revolutionary propaganda. Thereupon Cremer severed his connection with the association. But he was steadily extending his international friendships. He knew Mazzini, and was active in the receptions given in London to Garibaldi. At length in 1870 he formed a committee of working men to try to keep Great Britain neutral during the Franco-German War. This committee became in 1871 the Workmen's Peace Association, of which Cremer was secretary till his death, and on behalf of which he journeyed repeatedly to America and the continent, bearing 