Frere Sir Henry Bartle

Frere, Sir Henry Bartle, Bart. (1815-84), nephew of John Hookham Frere, entered the service of the East India Company in 1833. He did good administrative work among the Mahrattas as Resident and Commissioner at Sattara, and while Chief Commissioner of Scinde he checked the Mutiny by seizing Mooltan. As a member of the Viceroy's Council he helped to re-establish the finances, and was highly successful as Governor of Bombay (1862-67). He was a member of the Council of India for ten years. In 1872 he first went to South Africa, where he negotiated a treaty with the Sultan of Zanzibar which abolished the slave-trade in the interior. Five years later he was made Governor of the Cape, and High Commissioner for the settlement of affairs in South Africa. The scheme of Confederation failed, and the Kaffir and Zulu Wars followed. Sir Bartle's conduct in the last was severely condemned by many statesmen, and when the Liberals came into power in 1880 he was recalled. He spent the rest of his life in literary pursuits, and died at Wimbledon. A monument to him on the Thames Embankment was unveiled in 1888.