Charles Knowles (British Army officer)

Major-General Sir Charles Benjamin Knowles (1835–1924) KCB was a British Army officer.[1][2]

Sir Charles Knowles
AllegianceUnited Kingdom
Service/branchBritish Army
RankMajor-General
Battles/warsCrimean War
Second Anglo-Afghan War
AwardsKnight Commander of the Order of the Bath

Military career

The son of John Knowles of Rugby, Warwickshire, he was commissioned into the 77th (East Middlesex) Regiment of Foot in February 1855.[1][3] He saw action in the Crimean War in 1855 and served as commanding officer of the 67th (South Hampshire) Regiment of Foot at the Battle of Charasiab in October 1879 during the Second Anglo-Afghan War.[4]

In April 1886 Knowles became Adjutant-General of the Bombay Army, where he was succeeded in 1890 by William Forbes Gatacre.[3][5] That year he was promoted Major-General.[6] He was commander of British troops in Malta in January 1892.[3]

In October 1895 Knowles was made commander of the British Troops in Egypt.[3] The appointment had a social dimension, and the Duke of Cambridge, Commander-in-Chief, had recommended Knowles or Reginald Thynne, on the grounds that they both had "very nice wives".[7] In 1897 Knowles retired from the army.[6]

Knowles was knighted in 1903.[8] He served as colonel of the Royal Hampshire Regiment from 1908 to 1924.[9]

Family
Constance Mary Elliott, about 1888

Knowles married in 1892 Constance Mary Elmslie.[1] She was awarded an OBE and became a Dame of Grace, and in 1927 a Dame of Justice, of the Order of Saint John.[10] Constance was a widow, having previously been married to the Rev. George Luther Elliott;[11] their daughter Esme had married Francis Jearrad Bowker, who was ADC to Knowles in Malta.[12]

Bowker was killed in the Mesopotamian Campaign, fighting at the Hanna defile on 21 January 1916; and Esme became involved in relief work for British prisoners of the Ottomans.[12][13] Esme—an acronym nickname, for Edith Sophie Mary Elliott—remarried in 1922, to John Nicoll of Micheldever.[14] Lady Constance Knowles died in 1931 at home in Camberley, an obituary notice appearing under the title "Fine Work for Red Cross and Ambulance. Commandant of Three Wartime Hospitals."[15] From that time in the 1930s Esme was involved in restoring and adding to the Elliott family home at Egland, Awliscombe, now a listed building, working with the architect Walter Sarel.[16]

References
  1. Walford, Edward (1919). The county families of the United Kingdom; or, Royal manual of the titled and untitled aristocracy of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland . London : R. Hardwicke. p. 767.
  2. Whitaker's Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage, and Companionage. 1925. p. 372.
  3. Major General Charles Benjamin Knowles CB. Illustrated London News. 22 January 1987. p. 77.
  4. "The 67th Regiment and the Second Afghan War 1878-1880". Royal Hampshire Regiment. Retrieved 4 November 2020.
  5. Army, Great Britain (May 1891). The Monthly Army List. H.M. Stationery Office. p. 104.
  6. Debrett's Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage, and Companionage: Comprising Information Concerning All Persons Bearing Hereditary Or Courtesy Titles, Knights, and Companions of All the Various Orders, and the Collateral Branches of All Peers and Baronets. Dean & Son, Limited. 1902. p. 978.
  7. Beckett, Ian F. W. (2000). "Women and Patronage in the Late Victorian Army". History. 85 (279): 469. doi:10.1111/1468-229X.00157. ISSN 0018-2648. JSTOR 24424958.
  8. Shaw, William Arthur (1970). The Knights of England: A Complete Record from the Earliest Time to the Present Day of the Knights of All the Orders of Chivalry in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and of Knights Bachelors. Incorporating a Complete List of Knights Bachelors Dubbed in Ireland. Genealogical Publishing Com. p. 275. ISBN 978-0-8063-0443-4.
  9. "Royal Hampshire Regiment". Regiments.org. Archived from the original on 20 February 2007. Retrieved 29 December 2015.
  10. "No. 33236". The London Gazette. 1927-01-04. p. 39.
  11. Dod's peerage, baronetage, knightage, etc. of Great Britain and Ireland for ..., including bishops, members of the privy councils, companions of all orders, etc. London : Dod's Peerage. 1920. p. 491.
  12. https://www.harrowschool-ww1.org.uk/DOCS/BOWKER_FJ.pdf
  13. "Mesopotamia". The Royal Hampshire Regiment Museum.
  14. "Mrs Bowker WW1 WTC Roll Call of the Fallen 1914 - 1918". Winchester Training College Roll Call Of The Fallen 1914-1918.
  15. "Death of Lady Knowles". Surrey Advertiser. 28 March 1931. p. 9.
  16. Stuff, Good. "Egland, Honiton, Devon". britishlistedbuildings.co.uk.
Military offices
Preceded by
Sir Frederick Forestier-Walker		 GOC British Troops in Egypt
1895–1897		 Succeeded by
Sir Francis Grenfell
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