Dates

• Existence: 4 June 1833 - 25 March 1913

Biography

Field Marshal Garnet Joseph Wolseley, 1st Viscount Wolseley was an Anglo-Irish officer in the British Army and one of the most influential and admired British generals of his time. He played a key role in modernising the British Army and promoting efficiency.

Wolseley was born in Dublin on 4 June 1833, the eldest son of Major Garnet Joseph Wolseley of the King's Own Scottish Borderers (25th Foot) and Frances Anne Wolseley.

After Wolseley’s father’s death in 1840, the family was left in financial difficulties and he took a job in a surveyor’s office aged fourteen years old. Although he had considered a career in the church, the family’s situation pushed him into a military career instead, which he started aged eighteen as an ensign in the 12th Foot. From this point his career in the army took off and he served in most of the major battles the British Empire led during the second half of the nineteenth century including Burma, the Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny, China, Canada and Africa. Wolseley had a prolific career in the armed forces gaining many medals, military honours and aristocratic titles and served as Commander-in-Chief of the Forces from 1895 to 1900.

Wolseley died of influenza on 26 March 1913 at the age of 80.

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