- George Pereira
Brigadier-General George Edward Pereira,
CB , CMG,DSO (26 January 1865 –20 October 1923 ) was a British explorer inCentral Asia ,Tibet andWestern China ; a soldier, writer and diplomatist.Early life and family
George Pereira was descended from an old
Roman Catholic family of Portuguese origins, settled at Caversham Place, nearReading , which had profited in the 19th century from the Chinese trade. He was eldest of the three sons of Edward Pereira by the Hon. Margaret Anne Stonor, 8th daughter ofThomas Stonor, 3rd Baron Camoys ofStonor Park , Oxfordshire. He was educated at theOratory School inEdgbaston , where his younger brother Edward Thomas Pereira ('E.P.') (1866–1939) was later principal and benefactor. A third brother was Major-General Sir Cecil Pereira (1869-1942), KCB, a distinguished commander in theBoer War and theFirst World War , notably at theBattle of Loos ; he commanded the 2nd BattalionColdstream Guards (1914-15), the 85th Brigade (1915), the 1st Brigade (1916) and the 2nd Division (1916-19).oldier
George Pereira was commissioned into the
Grenadier Guards and served in China (1900) andSouth Africa (1902). During the First World War, he served on theWestern Front as officer commanding the 47th Brigade (from January 1916 to November 1917) and then the 43rd Brigade (1918). He was one of the great characters of the 16th Division. Known to the men as 'Hoppy' because of lameness after a riding accident, he was an irascible fire-eater and firm disciplinarian; characteristics he combined with an obvious concern for the welfare of his men. 'Every officer and soldier of his brigade swears by him', one of his battalion commanders wrote.Explorer
Pereira had served as British Military Attaché in
Peking from 1905 to 1910 and was fluent in Chinese. He made many adventurous journeys in China and Tibet, frequently travelling thousands of miles on foot. He was the first European to walk from Peking toLhasa , when he described theAmne Machin massif in easternTibet in 1921-2, sometimes reckoned among the great geographical discoveries of the twentieth century.His journey from
Yunnan along the Tibetan border in 1923 was his last, as he died of some internal trouble just before reaching Kantze (where he was buried), near Batang,Sichuan , in October 1923.His journals of Chinese exploration were edited shortly after his death. Further extracts from his journals have been published recently (2004-) in the "Guards' Magazine", edited by his great nephew, Edward Pereira.
References
* Sir
Francis Younghusband (ed. and intro.), "Peking to Lhasa; The Narrative of Journeys in the Chinese Empire Made by the Late Brigadier-General George Pereira" (London: Constable and Company, 1925)
* "DNB" article by his brother, Major-General Sir Cecil Pereira
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