NAM.2009-02-110-347

Letter from Maj Gen Sir Gerald Graham VC to Sir John Cowell, London, 27 July 1882. Going to Egypt. Been told by Wolseley, ‘I have to prove that REs can command the troops in the field so that my responsibility is greater than that of an officer from the line as the credit of the Corps appears to rest on me.’ From the archive of Maj Gen Sir John Cowell, 1854-1893. Cowell served with the Royal Engineers in the Baltic in 1854 and in the Crimea in 1855. As Master of the Queen’s Household from 1866 until his death in 1894, Cowell acted as military gatekeeper to Queen Victoria and was the man to whom Victorian generals wrote if they wished their views to be communicated to the monarch. Associated with the Crimean War (1854-1856), 1st Sudan War (1884-1885), the Egyptian War (1882), the Sekukuni Campaign (1878-1879) and the 2nd Afghan War (1878-1881).