Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/275

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Bulwer
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Bunsen

far as possible, as a county organisation. During Bulwer's term of office and in the teeth of much opposition a commencement was made of this localisation. His experience taught him that ‘in an army raised by voluntary enlistment it is not wise to have too many compulsory clauses,’ that young men still growing and immature are of great value as soldiers, that the reserves may be trusted when called on, and that ‘the interest of the man and the interest of the state should be made identical’ (cf. his article on the British army in the National Review, March 1898). On 1 Oct. 1877 he was promoted to the rank of major-general, and on 10 March 1879 was given command of the Chatham district; but in the following year he was back at headquarters as inspector-general of recruiting (1880–6), taking active part in the supply of troops for the Egyptian and Sudan wars and in carrying out the reforms of H. C. E. Childers, the secretary of state for war [q. v. Suppl. I]. In 1886 he received the K.C.B., and became deputy adjutant-general to the forces (1886–7), being promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general on 10 March 1887. He was also deputed in 1886 to serve on the commission of inquiry into the Belfast riots. From 1889 to 1894 he was lieutenant-governor and commander of the troops in Guernsey, serving also as a member of Lord Wantage's committee to inquire into the conditions of service in the army in 1891, and being promoted to be general on 1 April 1892. He retired from the active list in 1896. Honours still awaited him. He was honorary colonel of the 3rd battalion Norfolk regiment 1896–1905, and on 31 March 1898 he received the distinction, which he valued above all others, of colonel of the royal Welsh fusiliers. He was made G.C.B. in 1905. To the end of his life he took a deep interest in the Duke of York's Royal Military School, Chelsea, of which he was for many years a commissioner. He died after a long illness in London on 8 Dec. 1910.

In July 1863 he married Isabella, daughter of Sir J. Jacob Buxton, baronet, of Shadwell Court, Norfolk, who, dying in 1883, left one son and four daughters.

[The Times, 10 Dec. 1910; Kinglake, Invasion of the Crimea; T. H. Kavanagh, How I won the Victoria Cross, 1860; Major Broughton Mainwaring, Historical Record of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers; Reports on annual recruiting presented to Parliament.]

W. L-W.


BUNSEN, ERNEST DE (1819–1903), theologian, was second son in the family of five sons and five daughters of Christian Charles Josias, Baron von Bunsen, Prussian diplomatist, who was Prussian minister at the court of St. James's from 1841 to 1854, by his wife Frances, daughter of Benjamin Waddington of Dunston Park, Berkshire. Of his brothers, Henry (1818-1855) became a naturalised Englishman and was rector of Donnington, Wolverhampton; George (1824-1896) was an active politician in Germany ; and Karl (1821-1887) and Thcodor (1832-1892) passed their careers in the Prussian and German diplomatic service.

Ernest was born on 11 Aug. 1819 at the Villa Caffarelli, Rome, while his father was the Prussian representative at the Vatican. Educated at home by his parents till 1834, and afterwards at the school for cadets at Berlin, Bunsen in 1837 became an officer in the Kaiser Franz regiment of grenadier guards. He subsequently served in the regiment of the Emperor Alexander at Berlin, and after a severe illness joined his parents in England in 1843 on long leave. He served under his father as secretary of the Prussian legation in London, and in 1848 joined the suite of the Prince of Prussia, afterwards William I, first German Emperor, during his visit to England. In 1849 he returned to Germany and served during the Baden campaign on the staff of the Prince of Prussia, by whom he was decorated for distinguished service at the battle of Sedenburg. He left the German army shortly afterwards. Settling in England, he made his home at Abbey Lodge, Regent's Park, London, a house which he acquired on his marriage in 1845. While his father lived he paid annual visits to Baden, and was also frequently in Italy. During the Franco-German war he helped in the hospitals on the Rhine (1870-1), and in 1871 was made chamberlain at the court of William I. But his main interests lay in literary study. In 1854 he published a free German rendering of Hepworth Dixon's biography as 'William Penn oder die Zustande Englands 1644-1718.' Following his father's example, he made laborious researches into biblical history and comparative religion among Oriental peoples. His chief work, 'Biblical Chronology' (1874), was an attempt to fix the dates of Hebrew history by a comparison with contemporary History of Egypt, Babylon, and Assyria. Later research has questioned his conclusions,