Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 57.djvu/167

 contingent, on 13 Feb. 1850 postmaster at Sihor, on 20 June 1854 he was promoted to be lieutenant-colonel, on 22 Aug. 1855 was appointed officiating commandant, and on 15 Feb. 1856 commandant, of the Bhopal contingent. In this year he commanded a force in the field against Sankar Sing, and received the thanks of government for his services. On 6 Dec. 1856 he was promoted to be colonel.

After the outbreak of the mutiny in 1857 Travers moved in the middle of June from Bhopal to Indur, where Colonel (afterwards Sir) Henry Marion Durand [q. v.] was the resident, and assumed command of the forces there. On 1 July some of Holkar's troops mutinied, and thirty-nine persons were massacred. Travers, uncertain of his own men, nevertheless no sooner heard the guns than he formed up the picket where they could most advantageously charge the guns of the mutineers, and at once ordered them to advance. Gallantly leading them, he drove away the gunners, wounded Saadat Khan, the inciter of the mutiny, and for a few moments had the guns in his possession. But he found only five men had followed him, and, as they were completely exposed to a galling infantry fire, he was obliged to retire. The charge, however, by creating a favourable diversion, not only enabled Durand to place the residency guns in position and to make some hurried arrangements for defence, but allowed many persons to escape to the residency. Travers opened fire from the residency guns, but his cavalry were leaving him, and his efforts to induce his infantry to charge were unavailing. The ladies and children were therefore placed on gun-carriages, and, covered by the cavalry, which, though willing to follow Travers, would not fight for him, the little band moved out of the residency, and arrived at Sihor on 4 July. For his services he received the war medal, and for his special gallantry in charging the guns on 1 July, which Durand brought to notice in his despatches, Travers was awarded the Victoria Cross on 1 March 1861.

Travers returned to duty with his old regiment, the 2nd native infantry, in 1858. On 8 Sept. 1860 he was appointed commandant of the Central India horse, on 25 Oct. 1861 brigadier-general commanding Saugor district, on 23 July 1865 he was promoted to be major-general, and the same year received a good-service pension. He was given the command of the Mirat division on 5 Aug. 1869, was promoted to be lieutenant-general on 5 Feb. 1873, and was made a companion of the Bath, military division, on 24 May 1873. Travers was permitted on 3 July 1874 to reside out of India. He was promoted to be general on 1 Oct. 1877, and was placed on the unemployed supernumerary list on 1 July 1881. He died at Pallanza, Italy, on 1 April 1884. Travers published in 1876 ‘The Evacuation of Indore,’ to refute statements in Kaye's ‘History of the Sepoy War.’

[India Office Records; Despatches; Gent. Mag. 1884; Vibart's Addiscombe, its Heroes and Men of Note; Kaye's History of the War in Afghanistan, 1838–42; Kaye's History of the Sepoy War; Malleson's History of the Indian Mutiny; Stocqueler's Memorials of Afghanistan; Professional Papers of the Corps of Royal Engineers, Occasional Papers Series. vol. iii. 1879, Paper vii.; Durand's First Afghan War; Last Counsels of an Unknown Counsellor, by Major Evans Bell.] 

TRAVERS, JOHN (1703?–1758), musician, born about 1703, received his early musical education in the choir of St. George's Chapel, Windsor. By the generosity of Henry Godolphin [q. v.], dean of St. Paul's and provost of Eton College, he was apprenticed to Maurice Greene [q. v.] He afterwards studied with John Christopher Pepusch [q. v.], and copied, says Burney, ‘the correct, dry, and fanciless style of his master.’ On Pepusch's death Travers succeeded, by bequest, to a portion of his fine musical library. About 1725 he became organist of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, and afterwards of Fulham church. On 10 May 1737 he succeeded Jonathan Martin (1715–1737) [q. v.] as organist of the Chapel Royal, a post which he held until his death in 1758.

Travers wrote much church music, including ‘The whole Book of Psalms for one, two, three, four, or five voices, with a thorough bass for the harpsichord’ (1750?). His service in F and his anthem ‘Ascribe unto the Lord’ are still in frequent use. Of his secular compositions the best known are his ‘Eighteen Canzonets,’ the words being from the posthumous works of Matthew Prior, which enjoyed great popularity in their day.

[Georgian Era, iv. 515; Burney's General History of Music, iii. 619, iv. 639; Grove's Dict. of Music and Musicians, iv. 162.]  TRAVERS, REBECCA (1609–1688), quakeress, born in 1609, was daughter of a baptist named Booth, and from the age of six devoutly studied the Bible. At an early age she married William Travers, a tobacconist at the Three Feathers, Watling Street, London. In 1654 curiosity led her to hear a dispute between James Naylor [q. v.] and the baptists. Soon afterwards she met Naylor privately, became a sound quaker, and his good friend. Her stability and discretion contrasted with the extravagances of the handful of quaker women who contributed to Naylor's fall. Rebecca Travers visited him in prison, and, upon his release in