Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/67

 his house in Abercrombie Place, Glasgow. He was the father of John Tennant of St. Rollox, whose son, Charles Tennant, created a baronet in 1885, was M.P. for the city of Glasgow from 1879 to 1880, and for Peebles and Selkirk from 1880 to 1886.

[Walker's Memoirs of Distinguished Men of Science of Great Britain living in 1807–1808 (1862), p. 186 (a portrait is included in the engraving accompanying this work, taken from a picture by A. Geddes); Roscoe and Schorlemmer's Treatise on Chemistry, 1897, ii. 426.] 

TENNANT, JAMES (1789–1854), brigadier-general, colonel commandant Bengal artillery, second son of William Tennant, merchant of Ayr, and of his wife, the daughter of William Dalrymple [q. v.], was born on 21 April 1789. He was educated at the military school at Great Marlow, and sailed as cadet of the East India Company on 31 Aug. 1805 in the East India fleet which accompanied the expedition of Sir David Baird and Sir Home Popham to the Cape of Good Hope. The East India Company cadets and recruits under Lieutenant-colonel Wellesley of the Bengal establishment took part in the operations by which Cape Town was captured, and were usefully employed in different branches of the service (Despatch of Sir David Baird, 12 Jan. 1806). Tennant arrived in India on 21 Aug. 1806, and received a commission as lieutenant in the Bengal artillery antedated to 29 March for his service at the Cape.

In 1810 Tennant commanded a detachment of artillery on service on the ‘vizier's dominions.’ On 1 Jan. 1812 he was appointed acting adjutant and quartermaster to Major G. Fuller's detachment of artillery, and on 15 Jan. marched from Bauda with the force under Colonel Gabriel Martindell to the attack of Kalinjar, a formidable fort on a large isolated hill nine hundred feet above the surrounding level. Kalinjar was reached on 19 Jan.; by the 28th the batteries opened, and on 2 Feb. the breaches being practicable, an unsuccessful attempt was made to storm. On 3 Feb. the place capitulated, and was taken possession of on the 8th. The governor-general noticed in general orders the distinguished part taken by the artillery on 2 Feb. Tennant was employed throughout this and the following year in various minor operations in the districts bordering on Bandelkhand.

On 27 Dec. 1814, with two 18-pounder guns and four mountain pieces of the 3rd division, he joined Sir David Ochterlony [q. v.] at Nahr, on the north-north-east side of the Ramgarh ridge, to take part in the operations against Nipal. In March 1815 Tennant ascended the Ramgarh ridge, with the force under Lieutenant-colonel Cooper, and, bringing up his 18-pounders with incredible labour, opened upon Ramgarh, which soon surrendered, Jorjori capitulating at the same time. Taragarh (11 March) and Chamha (16th) were reached and taken. All the posts on this ridge having been successively reduced, the detachment took up the position assigned to it before Malown on 1 April. Malown was captured by assault on 15 April before the 18-pounders, which were dragged by hand over the hills at the rate of one or two miles a day, had arrived; these guns were eventually left in the fort.

Tennant was promoted to be second captain in the regiment and captain in the army on 1 Oct. 1816, and first captain in the Bengal artillery on 1 Sept. 1818. His next active service was in the Pindari and Maratha war of 1817 to 1819. He joined the centre division under Major-general T. Brown of the Marquis of Hastings's grand army at Sikandra in the Cawnpore district, but moving forward to Mahewas on the river Sind in November 1817, it was attacked by cholera. He took part in some of the operations of this war, as captain and brigade-major of the second division of artillery, and received a share of the Dakhan prize-money for general captures. He held the appointment of brigade-major of artillery in the field in 1819 and 1820. He was selected to command the artillery at Agra on 23 Dec. 1823, and on the 31st of the month he was nominated first assistant secretary to the military board.

On 28 May 1824 Tennant was appointed assistant adjutant-general of artillery. In November 1825 he accompanied the commandant of artillery, Brigadier-general Alexander Macleod, to Agra, where and at Muttra the commander-in-chief, Lord Combermere [see ], assembled his army for the siege of Bhartpur. The siege began in the middle of December; on the 24th the batteries opened fire, breaches were found practicable on 18 Jan. 1826, and this formidable place was carried by assault. Tennant, who, as assistant adjutant-general of artillery, had the management of all details connected with the artillery generally, was thanked by the commandant in regimental orders (21 Jan. 1826) for the assistance he had rendered. Tennant's ‘methodical habits and mathematical talent rendered labour easy to him which would have been difficult to others.’ In February he accompanied Combermere to Cawnpore and to the presidency.

Tennant was promoted to be major on 3 March 1831. He was appointed to officiate