Major-General Frederick Abbott
(1805-1892)
10 June 1862

Volume 7, page 95, sitting number 8626. 

Born on 13 June 1805 at Buntingford in Hertfordshire, Frederick Abbott was the second son of Henry Alexius Abbott, a retired Calcutta merchant, and his wife Margaret née Welsh, daughter of William Welsh of Edinburgh. 

On completing his military training at the East India Company Military Seminary at Addiscombe in Surrey, he was posted to India with the Bengal Engineers. He served in the First Burmese War (1824-1826) and was wounded in the Battle of Prome. He later served as chief engineer in the First Afghan War (1832-1842). In 1841 he was appointed superintending engineer of the north-western provinces of Bengal. He fought in the First Anglo-Sikh War in 1846 and took part in the Battle of Sobraon, for which he was created a Companion of the Order of the Bath.

Following his retirement in 1851 he was appointed lieutenant-governor of Addiscombe Seminary. Abbott became a knight bachelor in 1854 and was promoted to major-general in 1858. In 1859 he was appointed to serve on the Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom; the commission’s recommendations prompted a huge programme of fortification for the British naval dockyards.

He married in 1835 Frances, daughter of Lt. Col. Fox of the Royal Artillery and widow of Lt. Col. Hubert de Burgh. Their marriage produced one daughter. 

Major-General Sir Frederick Abbott died, aged 87, on 4 November 1892 at Branksome Park near Poole in Dorset. He left an estate valued at £18,521. 

‘Army men will hear with regret of the death of an old veteran of the Indian Army, Sir Frederick Abbott, who entered the Bengal Engineers in 1822 as a lad of sixteen. He took part in the first Burmese war, and also in the first Afghan war as Chief Engineer with General Pollock’s army in the operations again Cabul. During the subsequent Sikh war, under Sir Charles Napier, he directed the bridge and pontoon operations of the first campaign. He also held the post of Superintending Engineer of the North-West Provinces of the Bengal Presidency. From 1851 to 1861 he filled the post of Lieutenant-Governor of Addiscombe Military College, and held the office of member of the Council of Military Education and Commissioner of National Land Defences’ (Newark Herald, 19 November 1892).