Eldred Pottinger

Eldred Pottinger (12 August 181115 November 1843) was a Bombay Army officer and diplomat. In 1837 he happened to be in Herat in Afghanistan to gather intelligence on the area when the Persian army, supported by Russians, laid siege to the city. He helped the Afghan commander repulse the Persians, and was subsequently dubbed the "Hero of Herat" by British historians.

Life

Pottinger was born on 12 August 1811 in Ireland. He was the eldest son of Thomas Pottinger of Mount Pottinger, County Down (now in Northern Ireland), and Charlotte Moore.

For this service Pottinger was thanked by the governor-general, the Earl of Auckland, made brevet-major, and also received the C.B. He was also appointed Political Officer at Herat. In 1841 he was political officer in Kohistan when the revolt against Shah Shuja broke out there. Taking refuge with the Gurkha garrison of Charikar, Major Pottinger withstood a siege of fourteen days, and then made an adventurous retreat to Kabul. Less than a fortnight after his arrival Sir William Macnaghten was murdered, and Pottinger succeeded to his position as envoy to the Afghan court. The apathy of the military leaders made resistance hopeless, and it only remained to negotiate for the withdrawal of the British army. Pottinger himself was one of the hostages handed over to Akbar Khan, and thus escaped the near-total massacre of the retreating British and Sepoy troops in the evacuation from Kabul to Jelalabad in January 1842. Released, after some months in captivity, by Sir George Pollock's army, he returned to India.

Pottinger died on 15 November 1843 in Hong Kong while visiting his uncle Henry Pottinger, the first Governor of Hong Kong. He is commemorated by a cenotaph in St. Thomas Cathedral, Mumbai.

Legacy

Pottinger's role in the siege of Herat was repeatedly noted by 19th-century British historians, who described him as a genius of defensive sieges and dubbed him the "Hero of Herat". These historians described Pottinger as the man who defended the "pearl of the British Empire" from the Russo-Persian threat. However, although Pottinger defended the strategic interests of British India, Herat was never part of the British Empire.