Robert Hamilton Vetch

Colonel Robert Hamilton Vetch CB (6 January 1841 – 28 January 1916) was a British Army officer and biographer who contributed to the Encyclopædia Britannica and the Dictionary of National Biography.

He served as Deputy Inspector-General of Fortifications and as Chief Engineer in Ireland.

Early life Born at Moseley near Birmingham in January 1841, Vetch was a son of Captain James Vetch (1789–1869), a retired Royal Engineers officer and Fellow of the Royal Society who later became Conservator of Harbours at the Admiralty.

Vetch trained for a career in the British Army as a gentleman cadet at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, a specialist school for future Engineer and Artillery officers, where the subjects studied included mathematics, the principles of fortification, gunnery, and bridge-building.

Career Out of his cadet company, Vetch was commissioned as a lieutenant into the Royal Engineers on 23 December 1857.

Personal life In 1911, Vetch was living in Kew with his wife of 47 years, Mary Ann, who had been born in Wellington, New Zealand, two unmarried daughters, a cook, and a housemaid. He and his wife had had fourteen children, of whom twelve were still alive. Vetch died at home at Ilchester, Kew Road, Richmond, Surrey, on 28 January 1916, aged 75. He left an estate valued for probate at £3902, and his Executors were his sons Douglas Francis Stewart Vetch, a bank manager, and Harold George Gordon Vetch, a clerk.