Thomas Rice Henn (British Army officer)

Lieutenant Thomas Rice Henn (1849–1880) of the Royal Engineers was an Irish officer in the British Army. He was killed in action near the end of the Battle of Maiwand while covering the retreat of routed British forces.

Thomas Rice Henn
Born2 November 1849
Dublin, Ireland
Died27 July 1880 (aged 30)
Maiwand, Afghanistan
AllegianceUnited Kingdom
Service/branchBritish Army
Years of service1869–1880
RankLieutenant
Battles/wars

Life

Early life

Thomas Rice Henn was the third son of Thomas Rice Henn of Paradise Hill, County Clare, Esquire, JP, DL, Recorder of Galway, by Jane Isabella, his wife, the second daughter of Francis Blackburne, Lord Chancellor of Ireland. He was born in Dublin on 2 November 1849. He was educated at Windermere College, and entered the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, second in the list of successful candidates, at the early age of seventeen.[1]

India and Afghanistan

On 7 July 1869 Henn obtained a commission in the Royal Engineers, and after the usual course of study at Chatham was sent to India. He was posted to the Bombay Sappers and Miners at Kirkee, the second company of which he commanded in the Afghan War of 1880. He was present in the Bolan Pass, and also at Kandahar, when he was appointed brigade major of Royal Engineers.[1]

Battle of Maiwand
The Last Eleven at Maiwand by Frank Feller (c. 1884)

In July 1880 Henn took part in the advance of the brigade under General Burrows to the Helmund, and was killed in the disastrous Battle of Maiwand. When the battle became a rout Henn and his sappers were alongside the battery of Horse Artillery. Its commander, Major Blackwood, had been mortally wounded, and Captain Slade, who succeeded him, ordered the battery to limber up and retire.[1]

Henn, already wounded in the arm, successfully covered the operation with his handful of men, firing volleys upon the crowd of Ghazis pouring down upon them. Henn then fell steadily back, carrying the wounded Blackwood, and following the line of retreat of the 66th Regiment across the nullah to a garden on the other side. Behind the wall of the garden Henn and the remnant of his company of sappers, supported by a party of the 66th and some native grenadiers, took up their stand. There they held the enemy at bay, fighting till every man was killed to cover the retreat of their comrades. Around the spot were afterwards found, lightly buried, the bodies of Henn and fourteen sappers, forty-six men of the 66th Regiment, and twenty-three native grenadiers.[1]

Memorials
Memorial plaque in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin
John Elder Moultray: The Last Stand of the British at Maiwand, Afghanistan, 27 July 1880 (c. 1887)

In General Primrose's despatch of 1 October 1880 he describes, on the authority of an eye-witness—an artillery colonel of Ayub Khan's army—the gallant stand made by this little party.[1]

Henn was unmarried. A stained-glass window in his memory was placed in Rochester Cathedral by the Corps of Royal Engineers, and a memorial tablet was also placed in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.[2]

Arms
Coat of arms of Thomas Rice Henn
Notes
Granted 28 November 1856 by Sir John Bernard Burke, Ulster King of Arms.[3]
Crest
On a mount Vert a hen-pheasant Proper.
Escutcheon
Gules a lion rampant Argent on a canton of the last a wolf passant Sable langued of the first.
Motto
Gloria Deo

References
  1. Vetch 1891, p. 422.
  2. Vetch; Stearn 2011.
  3. "Grants and Confirmations of Arms Vol. F". National Library of Ireland. p. 103. Retrieved 28 June 2022.

Bibliography
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