Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 54.djvu/93

 A ‘River Scene with Mill’ by him is in the Norwich Museum. He died in 1889. He had a son, Alfred George, who painted landscapes, and died in 1885; and a daughter, who was a painter of fruit and flowers.



STANNUS, EPHRAIM GERRISH (1784–1850), major-general, born in 1784, was second son of Ephraim Stannus of Comus, co. Tyrone, by Susannah, daughter of Joseph Gerrish of Halifax, Nova Scotia. He went out to India as a cadet in 1799, was commissioned as an ensign in the Bombay army on 6 March 1800, became lieutenant on 26 May, and was appointed to the European regiment (now 2nd battalion royal Dublin fusiliers) in 1803. He served in the Kathiawar campaign in 1807, and became captain on 6 July 1811.

He distinguished himself in the Pindari war of 1817–18, was promoted major on 8 Oct. 1818, and was private secretary to Mountstuart Elphinstone while governor of Madras (1819–27). He was made lieutenant-colonel of the 9th native infantry on 31 Oct. 1822, C.B. on 23 July 1823, and colonel of the 10th native infantry on 5 June 1829. From 1823 to 1826 he was first British resident in the Persian Gulf. From this he was transferred to the 2nd European regiment (now 2nd battalion Durham light infantry). On 13 March 1834 he was appointed lieutenant-governor of the East India College, Addiscombe, and he was knighted in 1837. He was promoted major-general (local) on 28 June 1838. Though just and kindly, he was no administrator, and was systematically irritated by the cadets into extraordinary explosions of wrath and violent language. During the latter years of his rule at Addiscombe the discipline seems to have got very slack (cf. ‘Addiscombe’ in Blackwood's Mag. May 1893); he remained there until his death on 21 Oct. 1850. On 16 Oct. 1829 he married Mary Louisa, widow of James Gordon. He had no children.



STANWIX, JOHN (1690?–1766), lieutenant-general, born about 1690, was nephew and heir to Brigadier-general Thomas Stanwix. Thomas Stanwix was a captain in Colonel Tidcomb's foot in 1693, served in Flanders under Marlborough, and in Spain, and was appointed governor of Gibraltar on 13 Jan. 1711. He was colonel of the 12th foot from 25 Aug. 1717 until his death; he was also governor of Kingston-upon-Hull, and sat in parliament as member for Carlisle from 1705 to 1715; for Newport, Isle of Wight, in 1721; and for Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, in 1722; he died on 14 March 1724–5.

The nephew, John, entered the army in 1706, became adjutant of his regiment, and captain of the grenadier company, and in January 1741 he was given a majority in one of the new marine regiments. On 4 Oct. 1745 he was made lieutenant-colonel of a regiment raised by Lord Granby on account of the Jacobite insurrection, and disbanded in 1746. In 1749 he was appointed equerry to the Prince of Wales, in 1752 governor of Carlisle (for which city he had been elected M.P. in December 1746), and in 1754 deputy quartermaster-general.

At the beginning of 1756, in consequence of Braddock's defeat, the royal American regiment (62nd foot, afterwards 60th, and now the king's royal rifle corps) was raised, and Stanwix was made colonel-commandant of the 1st battalion from 1 Jan. and was sent to America. In 1757 he was employed in Pennsylvania. In January 1758 he was made brigadier, and was sent up the Hudson to Albany, and thence to Oneida portage, where he built Fort Stanwix. A plan of this fort is given in vol. iv. of the ‘Documentary History of New York.’ In 1759, while Wolfe was taking Quebec, Stanwix was guarding the western border of Pennsylvania, and repairing Fort Duquesne, renamed Pittsburg. He was promoted major-general on 25 June 1759.

He returned to England in August 1760. On 19 Jan. 1761 he became lieutenant-general, and on 14 Dec. he was made colonel of the 49th foot, from which he was transferred on 11 April 1764 to the 8th foot. He was appointed governor of the Isle of Wight in May 1763. His first wife having died in 1754, Stanwix married, on 20 April 1763, a daughter of Marmaduke Sowle, commissioner of appeals in the excise in Dublin, but had no children by her. On 29 Oct. 1766, after making some military inspections in Ireland, he left Dublin for Holyhead with his wife and daughter. The vessel, the Eagle, was leaky when she started, and was lost at sea. He was on his way to London to attend parliament, having been elected M.P. for Appleby on 8 April 1761.

[Dalton's English Army Lists, iii. 195; Hist. Reg. 1725 (Chron. Diary), p. 13; Beatson's Political Index, ii. 212; Gent. Mag. 1767, p.