Service/branch British Army Died 1898 Years of service 1837-1881 Awards Order of the Bath | Commands held Bombay Army Rank Lieutenant general Name Henry Warre Allegiance United Kingdom | |
Battles/wars Crimean War
Second Taranaki War
Second Anglo-Afghan War Books Sketches in North America and the Oregon Territory Battles and wars Crimean War, Second Taranaki War, Second Anglo-Afghan War | ||
Lieutenant-General Sir Henry James Warre KCB (1819 – 3 April 1898) was a British Army officer.
Military career
Warre was the son of lieutenant-general Sir William Warre who saw service in the Peninsular War as William Beresford, 1st Viscount Beresford's aide-de-camp.
Educated at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, Warre was commissioned into the 54th Regiment of Foot in 1837. He became aide-de-camp to Sir Richard Downes Jackson, Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in British North America in 1839. In 1845 he was sent on a military reconnaissance mission with Mervin Vavasour to the Oregon Country to prepare for a potential Anglo-American war over the territory. Hudson's Bay Company officer Peter Skene Ogden traveled with the British officers and held a low opinion of Warre. In a letter written in April 1846 to Governor Simpson, Odgen complained that Warre was "to the last hour a disagreeable Puppy and at times most disgusting particularly when under the influence of Brandy and Opium."
Warre commanded the 57th Regiment of Foot in the Crimean War in 1855. Later he led his regiment in the Second Taranaki War in New Zealand in Spring 1865, seizing Māori land on the north Taranaki coast and establishing posts from Pukearuhe, 50 km north of New Plymouth, to Opunake, 80 km south of the town. He became Commander-in-Chief of the Bombay Army in 1878 and served in that role during the Second Anglo-Afghan War until he retired in 1881.
Warre was also a talented artist and published two books of sketches from his journeys: 'Sketches in North America and the Oregon Territory' (1848) and 'Sketches in the Crimea' (1856).