Alexander Lindsay

General Sir Alexander Lindsay KCB (14 January 178522 January 1872) was an officer in both the British and East India Company armies. Commissioned into the British Army at the age of nine, he was placed on half-pay after the 104th Regiment of Foot (Royal Manchester Volunteers) was disbanded in 1795.

After passing out from the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, Lindsay joined the Bengal Army of the East India Company as an artillery officer in 1804. He served in a number of sieges and on campaign in Bundelkhand before joining David Ochterlony's army in the 1814–16 Anglo-Nepalese War, in which he was wounded in the hand and leg. Lindsay recovered to fight in the 1817–18 Third Anglo-Maratha War and later had responsibility for telegraphs and gunpowder manufacture in part of Bengal. He commanded the artillery of Joseph Wanton Morrison's division during the 1824–26 First Anglo-Burmese War. Lindsay was promoted to major-general in 1838, to lieutenant-general in 1851 and to general in 1859. His general's commission was transferred to the British Army when the East India Company armies were absorbed in the 1860s. Because of this he was in the unusual position of holding two British Army commissions, one as a lieutenant (from his service in the 104th Regiment) and one as a general.

Early life Alexander Lindsay was born on 14 January 1785, the second son of Ann and James Smyth Lindsay of the Dowhill branch of the Lindsay family. He transferred to the 104th Regiment of Foot (Royal Manchester Volunteers) on 3 March 1795 and at the same time was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. The regiment was on garrison in Ireland but army inspections found it to be failing to reach minimum standards and it was disbanded towards the end of 1795. Upon its disbandment Lindsay was transferred, for administrative purposes, into a previous 104th Regiment, that had been disbanded in 1783. Lindsay would remain a half-pay lieutenant in the British Army for the rest of his life. He was promoted to colonel and colonel-commandant on 2 July 1835. Lindsay was promoted to general in the Bengal Army on 11 September 1859.

Return to the British Army and later life When the presidency armies came into the control of the British government in 1860 (in the aftermath of the Indian Mutiny) Lindsay became colonel-commandant of the Bengal Artillery, an honorary, non-active service appointment. His general's commission was also transferred and his commission in the 104th not cancelled so Lindsay was in the unusual position of holding both a general's and lieutenant's commission in the British Army at the same time. He had continued to draw his British Army half-pay throughout and was listed twice in the Army List.

Lindsay was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath on 9 November 1862. His wife died in 1863, and Lindsay died of bronchitis at home in Perth, Scotland, on 22 January 1872. Lindsay's nephew Alexander Hadden Lindsay also served in the Bengal Artillery and became a major-general in the British Army.