Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/241

 1864). He received the medal with clasp, and was promoted colonel on 3 April 1865. Subsequently he commanded the Laruf field force as brigadier-general during the operations in the Malay Peninsula in 1875-6, and took part in the capture of Kota-Lana (4 Jan. 1876). On bringing the operations to a successful issue he was mentioned in the general orders of the government of India (''Lond. Gaz.'' 18 Feb. and 23 Feb. 1876), and was given the medal with clasp.

Ross held the command of the Saugor district at Jubbulpore in 1874, and of the Presidency district at Fort William (1875 and 1876–9). He became major-general on 1 Oct. 1877 (antedated in 'London Gazette,' 1 March 1870). The Indian expeditionary force which was sent to Malta by Lord Beaconsfield's orders in 1878 during the Eastern crisis was under Ross's command. During the Afghan war of 1878-80 he led the second division of the Kabul field force which defeated the enemy at Shekabad, and was accorded for the service the thanks of the governor-general in council and of the commander-in-chief in India. He accompanied Sir Frederick (afterwards Lord) Roberts in the march from Kabul to Kandahar in command of the infantry division, and was present at the battle of Kandahar (Lond. Gaz. 30 July and 3 Dec. 1880). He received the thanks of both houses of parliament, was nominated K.C.B. on 22 Feb. 1881, and was awarded the medal with clasp and bronze decoration. From 1881 to 1886 he held the command of the Poona division of the Bombay army, and in the latter year was promoted lieut.-general (12 Jan.). In 1888 he was appointed commander-in-chief in Canada, and in the following May served as administrator pending the arrival of the governor-general, Sir Frederick Stanley (afterwards sixteenth earl of Derby) [q. v. Suppl. II]. He was nommated G.C.B. on 30 May 1891. He was appointed colonel of the Leicestershire regiment on 6 Feb. 1895, and colonel commandant of the rifle brigade on 29 July 1903. He received the reward for distinguished service, and retired on 18 March 1896. He died on 5 Jan. 1905 at Kelloe, Berwickshire. He married in 1868 Mary Macleod, daughter of A. M. Hay, but obtained a divorce in 1881. He had issue one son and one daughter.

 ROSS, JOSEPH THORBURN (1849–1903), artist, born at Berwick-on-Tweed on 15 May 1849, was youngest child of two sons and two daughters of Robert Thorburn Ross, R.S.A. (1816–1876), by his wife Margaret Scott. The parents removed to Edinburgh for good when Joseph was a baby. Having been educated at the Military Academy, Hill Street, Edinburgh, he was engaged for a time in mercantile pursuits in Leith and Gloucester, but eventually, after a successful career as a student in the Edinburgh School of Art and the life school of the Royal Scottish Academy (1877–80), he devoted himself to painting as a profession. He first exhibited in 1872, but an unconventional strain in his work retarded its official recognition, and it was not till 1896 that he was elected an associate of the Royal Scottish Academy. Portraiture, incident (but not anecdote), fantasy, landscape, and the sea were all treated by him, and if at times decorative intention and realism were imperfectly harmonised, and the execution and draughtsmanship, though bold, lacked mastery, the colour was nearly always beautiful and the result novel and interesting. But it was in sketches made spontaneously for themselves or as studies for more ambitious pictures that he was at his best. He worked in both oil and water-colour and possessed instinctive feeling for the proper use of each medium. Ross was familiar with the best art on the Continent, travelling much in Italy, and he was a frequent exhibitor at some of the leading exhibitions abroad, his 'Serata Veneziana' winning a diploma of honour at Dresden in 1892. He was unmarried and resided at Edinburgh with his sisters. He died from the effects of a fall in his Edinburgh studio on 28 Sept. 1903.

Shortly afterwards, at a memorial exhibition of his work held in Edinburgh, his admirers purchased 'The Bass Rock,' one of his most important pictures, and presented it to the National Gallery of Scotland. One of his two sisters, Christina Paterson Ross, R.S.W. (1843–1906), was well known as a water-colour painter. His other sister. Miss Jessie Ross, Edinburgh, has three portraits of her brother, two when a child by his father, and one in oUs painted by Mr. William Small in 1903. 