John Pine Coffin

Major-General John Pine Coffin (1778 – 1830) was an English army officer and colonial administrator who served as Governor of St. Helena 1821–23.

Life

Napoleonic Wars John Pine Coffin, fourth son of The Rev. John Pine of Eastdown, Devonshire, who took the name of Coffin in 1797, by his wife, the daughter of James Rowe of Alverdiscot, Devonshire, was born on 16 March 1778. In 1795 he obtained a cornetcy in the 4th Dragoons, in which James Dalbiac and George Scovell were among his brother subalterns, and became lieutenant therein in 1799. He was attached to the quartermaster-general's staff of the army in Egypt in 1801, and was present at the surrender of Cairo and the attack on Alexandria from the westward.

On the formation of the Royal Staff Corps (for engineer and other departmental duties under the quartermaster-general), he was appointed to a company therein, but the year after was promoted to major and removed to the permanent staff of the quartermaster-general's department, in which capacity he was in Dublin at the time of Emmet's insurrection, and continued to serve in Ireland until 1806, afterwards accompanying Lord Cathcart to the Isle of Rugen and in the expedition against Copenhagen in 1807.