Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/48

 figure-head of the Centurion, after standing for many years in the Anson ward of Greenwich Hospital (, p. 419), was in 1870 transferred to the playground of the hospital school, and fell to pieces from decay in 1873. Copies of a portrait of Anson, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, are in the National Portrait Gallery, and in the Painted Hall at Greenwich. The original, belonging to Lord Lichfield, was exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery, 1884.



ANSON, GEORGE (1797–1857), general, was the second son of the first Viscount Anson, and brother of the first Earl of Lichfield. He entered the army at an early age, in the 3rd (or Scots Fusilier) Guards, with which regiment he served at Waterloo. In 1818, while still an officer in the guards, he was elected a member of parliament, and sat in the House of Commons for many years, holding in succession the political offices of principal storekeeper of the ordnance and clerk of the ordnance. In 1853, having meanwhile attained the rank of major-general in the army, he was appointed to command a division in Bengal, and in the following year succeeded to the command of the Madras army, from which post he was advanced to that of commander-in-chief in India early in 1856. General Anson was holding this important command when the mutiny of the Bengal army took place. Hastening down from Simla, whither he had gone only a few weeks previously to recruit his health, he collected a force at Amballa, and marched with it against Delhi, but being attacked by cholera at Karnal died at that place on 27 May 1857. General Anson was a man of unquestionable talent, and although he had never seen war except at Waterloo, where he served as a mere youth, those who knew him best had very high expectations that he would distinguish himself in his profession if an opportunity offered. It has been alleged that he showed vacillation and want of promptitude when preparing for the march upon Delhi; but the allegation has been amply refuted by a distinguished officer (Sir Henry Norman) who held an important position on the staff of the army at the time, and had the best means of forming a judgment. Sir Henry says that, 'suddenly placed in a more difficult position than has probably ever fallen to the lot of a British commander,' General Anson 'met the crisis with fortitude and with a calm endeavour to restore our rule where it had disappeared, and to maintain it where it still existed.' General Anson married in 1830 Isabella, daughter of the first Lord Forester, who survived him less than two years.



ANSPACH, ELIZABETH, (1750–1828), dramatist, was the youngest daughter of Augustus, fourth Earl of Berkeley, by his countess Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Drax, of Charborough, in the county of Dorset. In 1767. she married Mr. William Craven, afterwards the sixth Earl of Craven, and of this union six children were born. Lord and Lady Craven separated in 1780, and her ladyship left England for France, and travelled in Italy, Austria, Poland, Russia, Turkey, and Greece. In 1789 she published in quarto her 'Journey through the Crimea to Constantinople,' related in a series of letters. Subsequently she visited Anspach, and took up her abode with Christian Frederick Charles Alexander, Margrave of Brandenburg, Anspach, and Bareith, Duke of Prussia, and Count of Sayn. She wrote to her husband that she was to be treated as the Margrave's sister. She wrote little plays in French for the Court theatre—'La