Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Webber, Charles Edmund
WEBBER, CHARLES EDMUND (1838–1904), major-general, royal engineers, born in Dublin on 5 Sept. 1838, was son of the Rev. T. Webber of Leekfield, co. Sligo. After education at private schools and at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, he was commissioned as lieutenant in the royal engineers on 20 April 1855. The exigencies of the Crimean war cut short his professional instruction at Chatham, and he was sent to the Belfast military district, being employed principally on the defences of Lough Swilly.
In September 1857 Webber was posted to the 21st company of royal engineers at Chatham, which was ordered to join in India, during the Indian Mutiny campaign, the Central India field force, commanded by Major-general Sir Hugh Rose, afterwards Lord Strathnairn [q. v.]. Brigadier C. S. Stuart's brigade, to which Webber's company was attached, marched on Jhansi, which Sir Hugh Rose's brigade reached by another route. Webber was mentioned in despatches for his services on this march. He took part in the battle of the Betwa on 1 April and in the assault of Jhansi on the 3rd, when he led the ladder party at the Black Tower on the left up a loopholed wall twenty-seven feet high. Webber saved the life of Lieutenant Dartnell of the 86th regiment, who, severely wounded, was first to enter the place with him. Although Sir Hugh Rose recommended both officers for brevet promotion, only Dartnell was rewarded. Webber took part in the operations attending the capture of Kunch (7 May), of Kalpi (23 May), and of Gwalior (19 June). A detachment of his company in his charge joined a flying column under Captain McMahon, 14th light dragoons, in Central India against Tantia Topi, Man Singh, and Firozshah, and he was mentioned in despatches. He continued in the field until April 1859. When the mutiny was suppressed he was employed in the public works department, first at Gwalior and afterwards at Allahabad, until he returned to England in May 1860. For his services in the Indian Mutiny campaign he received the medal with clasp for Central India.
After service in the Brighton sub-district until Oct. 1861 he was until 1866 assistant instructor in military surveying at Woolwich. He was promoted captain on 1 April 1862. During the latter part of the seven weeks' war in 1866 he was attached to the Prussian army in the field to report on the engineering operations and military telegraphs. Minor services on special missions abroad followed, with duty at the Curragh Camp in Ireland (1867–9). The 22nd company of royal engineers, of which he was in command at Chatham, was as a temporary expedient lent to the post office from 1869 to 1871 to assist in constructing and organising the telegraph service. In May 1870 Webber took the headquarters of the company to London, the rest being distributed about the country. In 1871 the 34th company was added to Webber's command and stationed at Inverness in Scotland. The total strength of the royal engineers at that time employed under the post office was six officers and 153 non-commissioned officers and men. The mileage both over and under ground constructed and rebuilt in 1871 was over 1000 line miles and over 3200 wire miles.
Webber, who was promoted major on 5 July 1872, was director of telegraphs with the southern army in the autumn manœuvres of that year. The headquarters of the 34th company were then moved to Ipswich as the centre of the eastern division (lying east of a line between Lynn and Beachy Head) of the postal telegraphs. In 1874, at Webber's suggestion, the south of England was permanently assigned for the training and exercise of military telegraphists, five officers and 160 non-commissioned officers and men being employed by the post office there. The scheme proved of great value both to the army organisation and the general post office. While employed under the post office he with Colonel Sir Francis Bolton [q. v. Suppl. I] founded in 1871 the Society of Telegraph Engineers (now the Institution of Telegraph Engineers); he was treasurer and a member of council, and in 1882 was president.
Webber's reputation as an expert in all matters affecting military telegraphy was well established when in May 1879 he resumed active military service in the field. Accompanying Sir Garnet Wolseley to South Africa for the Zulu war, he became assistant adjutant and quartermaster-general on the staff of the inspector-general of the lines of communication of the Zulu field force. He was stationed at Landmann's Drift. He afterwards took part in the operations against Sekukuni in the Transvaal. He was mentioned in despatches for his services (27 Dec. 1879), and received the South African medal and clasp.
Promoted regimental lieutenant-colonel on 24 Jan. 1880, Webber on his return home was successively commanding royal engineer of the Cork district in Ireland (July 1880–Feb. 1881), of the Gosport sub-district of the Portsmouth command (Feb. 1881–July 1883), and of the home district (July 1883–Sept. 1884). Meanwhile he was at Paris in 1881 as British commissioner at the electrical exhibition, and as member of the International Electrical Congress.
In 1882 he accompanied Sir Garnet Wolseley as assistant adjutant and quartermaster-general in the Egyptian campaign, and was in charge of telegraphs. He was present at the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, and was mentioned in despatches, being created a C.B., and receiving the Egyptian medal with clasp, the Khedive's bronze star, and the third class of the Mejidie. Webber, who was promoted to a brevet colonelcy on 24 Jan. 1884, went again to Egypt in September, and served throughout the Nile expedition under Lord Wolseley as assistant adjutant and quartermaster-general for telegraphs. He received another clasp to his Egyptian medal. Coming home in 1885, he retired with the honorary rank of major-general. Thenceforth Webber engaged in electrical pursuits in London. He was at first managing director, and later consulting electric adviser of the Anglo-American Brush Electric Light Corporation, and was thus associated with the early application of electric lighting in London and elsewhere. He was also consulting electric engineer of the City of London Pioneer Company and of the Chelsea Electric Supply Company. He died suddenly at Margate of angina pectoris on 23 Sept. 1904, and was buried at St. Margaret's, Lee, Kent.
Webber was a member of the Royal United Service Institution, of the Institution of Civil Engineers, an original member of the Société Internationale des Electriciens, and a fellow of the Society of Arts. Among many papers, chiefly on military and electrical subjects, were those on ‘The Organisation of the Nation for Defence’ (United Service Institution, 1903); ‘Telegraph Tariffs’ (Society of Arts, May 1884); and ‘Telegraphs in the Nile Expedition’ (Society of Telegraph Engineers).
Webber married: (1) at Brighton, on 28 May 1861, Alice Augusta Gertrude Hanbury Tracy (d 25 Feb. 1877), daughter of Thomas Charles, second Lord Sudeley; (2) at Neuchâtel, Switzerland, on 23 Aug. 1877, Mrs. Sarah Elizabeth Stainbank, born Gunn (d. 1907). By his first wife he had three sons, and a daughter who died young. The eldest son, Major Raymond Sudeley Webber, was in the royal Welsh fusiliers.
[War Office Records; Royal Engineers' Records; Electrician, Engineering, and the Royal Engineers' Journal, 1904; The Times, 24 Sept. 1904; Porter's History of the Royal Engineers, 1891.]