George Borlase Tremenheere
Major General George Borlase Tremenheere (1809-1896)
1897 Obituary [1]
GEORGE BORLASE TREMENHEERE, MAJOR-GENERAL, R.E., late Bengal Engineers, was born on the 9th November, 1809.
He joined the Corps of Sappers and Miners in India in 1827, of which he was for some years Adjutant and afterwards in command.
In 1840, on return to India from furlough, he presented to the Government of India a collection of geological and mineral specimens as a nucleus for a Museum of Economic Geology, which was thereon established in Calcutta and still exists.
He was selected by the Governor-General, Lord Auckland, to succeed the late Dr. Helfer in investigating the mineral resources and in superintending the teak forests of the Tenasserim Province of British Burma, upon which his reports were published. In 1847 he joined the Army of the Punjab, and was Garrison Engineer at Lahore during its first occupation, and afterwards Superintending Engineer of the Punjab.
On the breaking out of the second Sikh War, Major Tremenheere joined, as senior engineer officer in the field, the force which, under the personal command of Lord Gough, advanced from Lahore to attack the Sikh army on the banks of the Chenab. He was present at the affair of Ramnuggur, the crossing of the Chenab, and the battles of Chillianwallah and Goojerat, and was mentioned in dispatches, promoted to the brevet rank of Lieutenant- Colonel, and received the medal with two clasps.
In 1850 Colonel Tremenheere was engaged with a field force from Peshawur under General Sir Charles Napier and Sir Colin Campbell in forcing the Kohat Pass on the North West Frontier, for which service he received a medal. He was promoted Brevet Lieut.-Colonel in 1849, and Major-General, on retirement, in 1856.
In 1857 he was made Honorary Secretary to the Indian Mutiny Relief Fund, to which £440,863 were subscribed in England and its Colonies, and elected President thereof on the death of Alderman Finnis in 1882, by whom, as Lord Mayor of London, the fund was inaugurated. He was appointed Lieut.-Colonel of the 1st Battalion Duke of Cornwall Rifle Volunteers in 1860 and held the command fifteen years.
General Tremenheere was elected an Associate on the 8th May, 1838, and was, consequently, within two or three degrees of being the “Father of the Institution.” He was the author of two Papers published in the Minutes of Proceedings, namely, “On some Operations in Blasting in the Jumna and at Delhi,” and “On Public Works in the Bengal Presidency,” for the latter of which he received a Telford Medal.
He died at Torquay on the 19th December, 1896.
He was a Director of the Recife and Sao Francisco Pernambuco Railway Company, of the Strand Buildings Company for Improving the Dwellings of the Working Classes, and of the Indo-European Telegraph Company since 1868; a Justice of the Peace for the County of Middlesex, July, 1863; and for nine years Chairman of the Brentford Petty Sessional Division.