George Abbas Kooli D'Arcy

George Abbas Kooli D'Arcy (born January 30, 1818 in Paddington , Greater London , † October 22, 1885 in Penzance , Cornwall ) was a soldier and colonial governor of the British Empire . He is also known by his abbreviation GAK D'Arcy .

career

George Abbas Kooli D'Arcy was born in Montagu Square in the Marylebone district of Paddington, London, in 1818 , the son of Lieutenant Colonel Joseph D'Arcy (1780–1848) and his first wife, Lady Catherine Georgiana D'Arcy (1783–1824) , Daughter of John West, 4th Earl De La Warr . His father was a major in the Royal Artillery , with whom he came to Persia together with the ambassador and diplomat Sir Gore Ouseley to reform and equip the Persian army. The ruling Shah of Persia at the time , Abbas Kooli Khan, asked D'Arcy to name his firstborn son after him. Joseph D'Arcy only partially followed his wish when his son was born, omitting the title of Shah, as well as the following ruler title of Khan. His brother Robert West D'Arcy, who was around two years his junior, was also a military officer and died in 1862 after returning from India . Another biological brother was Richard Wellesley D'Arcy (1824-1859), who also died young. His half-siblings, his father was married two more times, include Catherine Lucy Jane D'Arcy, John Hyde D'Arcy, Frank Hyde D'Arcy, Joseph William D'Arcy, Josephine Anderson and Laura Dilara.

On April 21, 1835 , George Abbas Kooli D'Arcy acquired the rank of Ensign in the 59th Infantry Regiment and attended the Royal Military College. He became a colonel in the 3rd West India Regiment and spent a number of years in India. In 1859 he was appointed governor of Gambia . In the year he took office, a yellow fever epidemic raged there , just as D'Arcy arrived in Bathurst in September 1859 . His appeals for additional funding to contain the outbreak of the epidemic and to expand sanitation within the colony were rejected in England. In 1861 he led a military expedition against the kingdom of the Baddibu and the ruler Jeriba Marong , which contributed to the rise to power of the marabout leader ( Almamy ) Maba Diakhou Bâ . Subsequently, D'Arcy concluded a friendship treaty with Maba Diakhou Bâ in February 1863. His attempts to improve the situation of the Liberated Africans in Bathurst were undermined by local merchants and members of their own administration. Several of these Liberated Africans then signed a petition in 1864, in which they advocated that D'Arcy's governorship was extended, although his popularity declined somewhat in 1865. In 1866, now Lieutenant-Colonel, he led his regiment in the fight against the rebellious marabout leader Amar Faal in Tubabakolong , also known as Tubab Kolon. The garrison unit in Bathurst at that time was the 4th West India Regiment.

During the battle he led his battalion consisting of 270 officers and foot soldiers, as well as 500 Soninke warriors to Tubabakolong, where he attacked the fenced city on the north bank of the Gambia on June 30, 1866. During the Battle of Tubabakolong, D'Arcy was in dire straits at a fortified gate and was supported in the fight by Private Samuel Hodge , a West Indian, who was subsequently awarded the Victoria Cross , the highest war decoration of the British Empire, for his bravery . was awarded. Hodge, seriously injured in the fight and with numerous gunshot wounds, failed to recover and died of a fever less than a year later in Belize . Born in Tortola , British Virgin Islands , Samuel Hodge was the second black man in history to receive the Victoria Cross . After the reorganization of British West Africa , D'Arcy was elected from office and replaced as governor by Charles George Edward Patey , CMG , but remained in his administration.

After returning to his homeland some time later, he was appointed Governor of the Falkland Islands in 1870 , which he held until his retirement in 1876, when he was replaced by Jeremiah Thomas Fitzgerald Callaghan , who became the 7th Governor of the islands in southern South America. In his retirement he settled in the small coastal town of Penzance in the county of Cornwall, where he died in 1885 at the age of 67 and was the same age as his father, who died in 1848.

D'Arcy and his assistant Samuel Hodge were painted by the British painter Louis William Desanges , who specialized in paintings of soldiers who had been awarded the Victoria Cross .

literature

• Arnold Hughes, David Perfect: Historical Dictionary of the Gambia , Scarecrow Pr Inc, 2008.
• Collectanea Hibernica: Sources for Irish History , Assisi Press, 2002, mentions on several pages (see search result) Google Books

Individual evidence

1. ↑ A BVI Hero (English), accessed on June 29, 2015

predecessor	Office	successor
Luke Smythe O'Connor	Governor of Gambia 1859–1866	Charles George Edward Patey
Sir William Cleaver Francis Robinson	Governor of the Falkland Islands 1870–1876	Jeremiah Thomas Fitzgerald Callaghan