Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/O'Connor, Luke Smythe
O'CONNOR, LUKE SMYTHE (1806–1873), major-general, born in Dublin on 15 April 1806, was appointed ensign in the 1st West India regiment 27 April 1827, became lieutenant 22 March 1831, captain 17 Jan. 1834, brevet major 9 Nov. 1846, major 1 Jan. 1847, brevet lieutenant-colonel 3 Feb. 1853, brevet colonel 28 Nov. 1854, regimental lieutenant-colonel 21 Sept. 1855, and major-general 24 April 1866. All his regimental commissions were in the 1st West India, of which he was adjutant in 1833–4. When it was decided, in 1843, that the garrisons on the African West Coast should be supplied by the West India regiments in turn, instead of by the 3rd West India (late royal African colonial corps) alone as previously, O'Connor was detached from Barbados to Sierra Leone with two companies of his regiment. In 1848, as major, he was detached from his regiment in Jamaica to British Honduras, where there were disturbances with the Yucatan Indians. In September 1852 he was appointed governor of the Gambia, and was invested with the command of the troops in West Africa, the headquarters of which were removed from Sierra Leone to Cape Coast Castle (Horse Guards Letter, 20 Sept. 1852). He commanded detachments of the three West India regiments, black pensioners, Gambia militia, and seamen and marines against the Mohammedan rebels of Combos, stormed their stronghold of Sabajee on 1 June 1853, and acquired by treaty a considerable tract of territory. The sense of the government respecting the manner in which this service was performed was communicated to O'Connor in a despatch from the Duke of Newcastle. On 16 July 1853 he attacked and repulsed a numerous force of Mohammedans under Omar Hadjee, the ‘Black Prophet,’ on which occasion, out of 240 British, twenty-nine were killed and fifty-three wounded. O'Connor received two shots through the right arm and one in the left shoulder, but remained on the field. He commanded the combined British and French forces against the Mohammedan rebels of Upper and Lower Combos. After four hours' fighting in the pass of Boccow Kooka on 4 Aug. 1855, he stormed the stockade and routed the enemy, with the loss of five hundred men (C.B. and reward for distinguished service). He was brigadier-general commanding the troops in Jamaica during the rebellion of 1865, when several Europeans were murdered at Morant Bay, and was thanked for his prompt and efficient measures for the safety of the public by Governor Eyre, the legislative council and House of Assembly, and by the magistrate and inhabitants of Kingston. He was president of the legislative council and senior member of the privy council of Jamaica in January 1867, and administered the government during the brief absence of Sir John Peter Grant [q. v.]
O'Connor, who married in 1856, died of dropsy and atrophy at 7 Racknitzstrasse, Dresden, Saxony, on 24 March 1873.
[War Office Records; Colonial Office List; Ellis's Hist. 1st West India Regiment.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.208
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 405 | i | 8 f.e. | O'Connor, Luke S.: for February 1868 read January 1867 |