Robert Rollo Gillespie

Major-General Sir Hugh Robert Rollo Gillespie (21 January 1766 – 31 October 1814 ) was an officer in the British Army. The Army's historian Sir John Fortescue called him "The bravest man ever to wear a red coat".

Early life Hugh Robert Rollo Gillespie was born on 21 January 1766 and grew up in Comber, County Down, in what is now Northern Ireland. He was educated at Kensington and near Newmarket

India, Java, Sumatra, Nepal

In 1804 he was honourably acquitted He continued overland through Germany, Austria, and Serbia, to the Euxine where he felt obliged to force his ship's captain at gunpoint to take him to Constantinople as agreed, rather than a corsair port for murder or slavery. He passed through Greece without recorded incidents, and took ship for Aleppo. In the desert, he narrowly saved his own life, and his servant's, by curing the chief of a band of Arabs who were planning to murder and rob him.

A few days after taking up his new post, Gillespie was warned of the Vellore Mutiny of 1806. He immediately collected about twenty dragoons, with galloper guns, and he set out ahead of a relief force within a quarter of an hour of the alarm being raised. Dashing ahead of his men, he arrived at Vellore within two hours, to find the surviving British troops within minutes of extinction by some hundreds of mutineers. About sixty men of the 69th, commanded by Sergeant Brady (who recognized Gillespie from the West Indies) and by two assistant surgeons, were holding the ramparts but were out of ammunition. Gillespie was unable to gain entry through the gate (which was controlled by the mutineers), so the sergeant lowered a chain of soldier's belts to allow Gillespie to climb the wall onto the battlements. To gain time for the rest of his men to arrive Gillespie led the 69th in a bayonet-charge along the ramparts, engaging in close combat with the enemy. With the rest of the 19th arrived, Gillespie ordered them to blow in the gates with their galloper guns and then made a second charge with the 69th, clearing the space just inside the gate to permit the cavalry to deploy. The 19th and Madras Cavalry then charged and slaughtered any enemy who stood in their way; about a hundred fugitives, captured within the fort, were summarily executed. Gillespie arrested the sons of Tipu Sultan, who were suspected of fomenting the mutiny, and sent them under guard to Madras. The mutiny was thus suppressed.

In 1811 he commanded forces in the Invasion of Java On his return to India he speared a tiger that escaped from a cage and prowled on Bangalore racecourse.

Two years later, at the beginning of the Anglo-Nepalese War, he led a column to attack a Nepalese hill fort at Khalanga, in the Battle of Nalapani, repulsing a Gorkha counter-attack. Gillespie then tried to follow them back into the fort with a dismounted party of the 8th Dragoons. Although this failed, Gillespie renewed the attack with companies of the 53rd Foot. Thirty yards from the fort he shouted the words, "One shot more for the honour of Down" and charged with the men when a Nepalese sharpshooter shot him through the heart and he died within seconds of falling. With his death the attack faltered causing the next senior officer to call a retreat.