Bindon Blood

Infobox Military Person
name= Bindon Blood
lived=7 November 1842 - 16 May 1940
placeofdeath=London


caption=
nickname=
allegiance=British Empire
serviceyears= 1860 - 1940
rank=Major-General
commands=Malakand Field Forces, Sappers and Miners, Chitral relief force, Royal Engineers
battles=Siege of Malakand, Second Anglo-Afghan War, battle of Tel-el-Kebir, First World War
awards=Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath
Major-General Sir Bindon Blood GCB (7 November 1842 - 16 May 1940) was a British military commander who served in Egypt, Afghanistan, India and Africa.

Born near Jedburgh, Scotland, Blood was a descendant of Colonel Thomas Blood who attempted to steal the Crown Jewels in 1671. Blood attended the Royal School, Banagher, and Queen's College, Galway before the Indian Military Seminary at Addiscombe, near Croydon. He was commissioned in 1860 in the Royal Engineers as a temporary lieutenant in charge of signalling and pontoon bridge construction in India, and for brief periods in Zululand and South Africa. Promoted to captain in 1873, he commanded the British forces in the North-West Frontier and then in 1879 was sent back to Africa to fight against the Zulus. He went on to fight in the Second Anglo-Afghan War and the battle of Tel-el-Kebir. By 1882 he was a brevet lieutenant-colonel.

The following year, 1883, Blood married Lady Charlotte E. Colvin, second daughter of Sir Auckland Colvin, a distinguished Indian administrator. Then he returned to India and taking command of the Sappers and Miners in 1885. After seven years he reached the rank of brigadier-general at the British garrison at Rawalpindi, and then in the Chitral relief force. He then commanded the Malakand Field Force and the Buner Field Force, relieving the British garrison under Brigadier-General William Hope Meiklejohn during the siege of Malakand in 1897, until 1898, and at the end of this command he was promoted to major-general. Lord Kitchener requested Blood to serve in South Africa in 1901, stationed in Eastern Transvaal. In November 1907 he retired to London, where he continued to lead a very active life.

He was made colonel-commandant of the Royal Engineers in 1914 and worked to recruit soldiers for the First World War. He was aged 94 when he was made Chief Royal Engineer (CRE) in 1936, and he died in 1940, survived by his one daughter.

References

* [http://www.thepeerage.com/e374.htm The Peerage biography page] retrieved June 2 2007

External links

* [http://www.remuseum.org.uk/articles/rem_article_blood.htm Royal Engineers Museum] Blood's Pontoon (1870-89)
* [http://www.remuseum.org.uk/corpshistory/rem_corps_part15.htm Royal Engineers Museum] The Corps between the wars (1919-39)- General Blood's appointment to Chief Royal Engineer