Lehal Library

NOTE ON THE CUNNINGHAM FAMILY xiir author of the present volume, was born in. 1812. At an early age he showed such aptitude for mathematics that his father was advised to send him to Cambridge. But as he was keenly desirous of becoming a soldier a cadetship in the East India Company's service was procured for him, through the good offices of Sir Walter Scott. After a brilliant career at AddiScombe he jailed for India in 1834, and was at iirst employed on the staff In of the chief engineer of the Bengal Presidency. 1837 he was appointed assistant to Colonel (afterwards Sir Claude) Wade, the political agent on the Sikh frontier. For the next eight years he held various appointments under Colonel Wade and his successors, and at the time of the outbreak of the first Sikh War was political agent in the State of Bahawalpur. Upon the commencement of hostilities he was attached first to the staff of Sir Charles Napier and then to that of Hugh Gough. He was present, as political officer, with the division of Sir Harry Smith at the battles of Buddawal and Aliwal. At Sobraon he served as an additional aide-de-camp to the Governor-General, Sir Henry Hardinge. His services earned him a brevet and the appointment of political agent to the State of Bhopal. In 1849 appeared his History of the Sikhs. As has been noted elsewhere in this edition, the views taken by the author were anything but pleasing to his superiors. As a punishment, he was removed from his political appointment and sent back to regimental duty. The disgrace undoubtedly hastened his death, and soon after his appointment to the Meerut Division of Public Works he died suddenly at Ambala, in 1851. Like Joseph Davey Cunningham, his younger Sir brothers inherited their father's literary abilities. Alexander, the second brother, had a distinguished career in India. He, too, obtained his cadetship through the influence of Sir Walter Scott, and arrived in India Lord Auckland appointed him one of his in 1833. aides-de-camp, and while on the Governor-General's staff he visited Kashmir, then almost an unknown country. He served with distinction in the Gwalior campaign of 1843 and acted as executive engineer of Gwalior until the outbreak of the first Sikh War. In this war and also in the second Sikh War he did good service and then returned to Gwalior. In 1856 he was appointed chief engineer in Burma (after a brief period of service in Multan, where he designed the Vans Agnew and Anderson monument) and remained there He was transferred to the North-Western till 1858. ,