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  viewed by many of the Friends to whom he was all his life attached. The active and often unpopular part he took he conceived to be his duty as a Christian. Although no speaker, his power over numbers was shown in 1850, when he successfully stemmed the tide of anti-papal agitation in a great meeting at Birmingham. He illustrated his consistency by his opposition to the building of the Birmingham town-hall for the triennial festivals, from a conscientious objection to oratorio, while he privately gave to the funds of the General Hospital, which the festival was founded to assist.

He married first, in 1834, Eliza, only daughter of [q. v.], the philanthropist. She died in 1835. Secondly, he married, on 14 Oct. 1846, Hannah (d. 19 Oct. 1896), daughter of Barnard Dickinson of Coalbrookdale, Shropshire, by whom he left a son Joseph and four daughters. Sturge's elder sister, Sophia, was his constant companion from 1819 until her death in 1845, and to her judgment and ability he owed much. His brother and partner, Charles Sturge (1802–1888), was associated with him in most of his philanthropic acts.

Sturge's labours for the town of Birmingham are commemorated by a fountain and statue, erected at Five Ways, Edgbaston, and inaugurated by the borough members, John Bright and William Scholefield, on 4 June 1863.

His portrait is included in B. R. Haydon's large picture of the anti-slavery convention 1840, at the National Portrait Gallery. It was also drawn by W. Willis. A third portrait, painted by Barrett, belongs to the corporation of Birmingham.



STURGEON, HENRY (1781?–1814), lieutenant-colonel, born about 1781, was admitted to the Royal Military Academy as a cadet in May 1795, and commissioned as second lieutenant in the royal artillery on 1 Jan. 1796. He became lieutenant on 21 Aug. 1797. He served in Pulteney's expedition to Ferrol in 1800, and in the expedition to Egypt, and was wounded in the battle of Alexandria on 13 March 1801. On 25 June 1803 he was transferred to the royal staff corps with the rank of captain, and became major in it on 1 June 1809. He served throughout the war in the Peninsula, always showing himself ‘a clever fellow,’ as Wellington described him (to Lord Liverpool, 19 Dec. 1809). At Ciudad Rodrigo his exertions and ability from the commencement of the siege were very conspicuous. He reconnoitred the breaches before the assault, and guided a column which was told off, at his suggestion, to make a demonstration on the right of the main breach. The column afterwards joined the stormers at that breach. Sturgeon was specially mentioned in Wellington's despatch, both for his services during the siege and for his construction of a bridge over the Agueda, which was an indispensable preliminary to it. He was made brevet lieutenant-colonel on 6 Feb. 1812. He was again specially mentioned in the Salamanca despatch, and was sent three months afterwards to make a bridge at Almaraz. In April 1813 he was placed in charge of the corps of guides, and the post-office and communications of the army. In February 1814 he took a prominent part in the bridging of the Adour, and was one of the officers praised by Hope in his report for the zeal they showed in the execution of that bold project. Napier, who speaks of it as a ‘stupendous undertaking, which must always rank among the prodigies of war,’ attributes its conception to Sturgeon.

A few weeks afterwards, on 19 March, Sturgeon was killed by a bullet as he was riding through a vineyard during the action near Vic Bigorre. ‘Skilled to excellence in almost every branch of war, and possessing a variety of accomplishments, he used his gifts so gently for himself and so usefully for the service that envy offered no bar to admiration, and the whole army felt painfully mortified that his merits were passed unnoticed in the public despatches’.



STURGEON, WILLIAM (1783–1850), electrician, was born on 22 May 1783 at Whittington in Lancashire, a village near Kirkby Lonsdale. His father, John Sturgeon, an ingenious but idle man, a 