Lieutenant-General Sir William Forbes Gatacre KCB, DSO (1843-1906) was born near Stirling and educated at Royal Military College,  Sandhurst. He entered the army in 1862 and retired in 1904, after serving in India, including the Hazara and Chitral Campaigns on the North West Frontier, in Burma, and during Kitchener's Sudan Campaign.

During the Anglo-Boer War, he was placed at the head of a division with the rank of lieutenant general. Gatacre was the commanding general of the Commonwealth forces at the Battle of Stormberg in which 135 men were killed and 696 captured during an ambush.

Lady Gatacre recounted in General Gatacre: The story of the life and services of Sir William Forbes Gatacre, K.C.B., D.S.O. 1843-1906 (London, 1910), how though he drove his men hard and expected much from them, and was generally well-liked by his men even if they nick-named him "General Backacher."

Gatacre died in Abyssinia in March 1906 while inspecting the Abyssinian rubber forests for the Kordofan Trading Company of London.

In this photograph, Gatacre wears the Khedive's Sudan Medal but had not yet been issued the Queen's medal for the same campaign. He must have sat for the photographer quite soon after his return from the Sudan.


Cabinet Photograph
Elliott & Fry - Photographer
55 Baker Street, London, W., England
c. 1898