Saunders Alexius Abbott

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Major-General Saunders Alexius Abbott (July 9, 1811 - February 7, 1894) was an army officer in the British East India Company.

He was the son of Henry Alexius Abbott, a British merchant in Calcutta, and had four brothers: Augustus, Frederick, James and Keith. He was educated privately at Addiscombe.

In 1828, Abbott joined the Bengal Infantry. He was appointed in 1836 to be Assistant in the Revenue Survey under Henry Montgomery Lawrence. Abbott held Survey charges from 1838 to 1842. Abbott fought in the First Anglo-Sikh War. At the Battle of Mudki, he forced marched reserves from Kasauli and Sabathu. He served later as aide-de-camp to Sir Henry Hardinge at the Battle of Ferozeshah, during which he was dangerously wounded. In 1846 he was a brevet-major.

Abbott was appointed Deputy Commissioner of Umbala in 1847. He was appointed to the same post in Hoshiarpur in 1849 and held the post during a mutiny. From 1858 to 1863 he was Commissioner of Lucknow. He was an honorary aide-de-camp to the governors-general until his retirement in September 1864.

After his retirement, Abbott became an agent for a railway company in Lahore before being promoted to its board of directors. He died in Brighton on February 7, 1894.

[edit] References

• C., Buckland (1906). in Charles Edward Buckland: Dictionary of Indian Biography. Harvard University, Digitized July 8, 2005: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., Lim: London, page 2.