I am the very model of a modern Major-General,
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;
I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news,
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.

​

Thus Sir Garnet Wolseley (1833-1913) was punned by Gilbert & Sullivan in The Pirates of Penzance. He was loved by the British public as their "Only General", despised by Queen Victoria as an arrogant egotist and hated by the old guard of the British Army for his reformist convictions.

Wolseley fought in the Crimea, Indian Mutiny, China, Canada, Ashanti, Zululand, and Egypt. He is best known for his victory at Tel el Kebir in Egypt (1882) and his command of the unsuccessful  Nile Campaign to relieve General Gordon in Khartoum in 1884-5.

He eventually rose to the rank of Field Marshal and to Commander-in-Chief of the British Army in 1895.

Cabinet Photograph
The London Stereoscopic Company - Photographer
110, 108 & 106 Regent Street W., London, England
c. 1885