Cabinet Photograph
Downey & Carver - Photographer
10 New Bridge Street
Newcastle-on-Tyne, England
September 1885

The brief military career of Lieutenant Henry Raymond Portal of the 2nd Battalion, the Gloucestershire Regiment was a story repeated far too often during the Victorian era. His young life and promising military were cut short by the perils of service in India.

Henry Raymond Portal was born in Albury, Surrey on 4 October 1863, the son of the Reverend George Portal and Helen Soulsby. He attended St. Peter's College, Radley, leaving in 1882. He was appointed lieutenant in the 3rd Battalion, the Royal Irish Rifles on 23 September 1882. Portal was commissioned lieutenant in the 2nd Battalion, the Gloucestershire Regiment on 6 May 1885. He joined his battalion which was already in India sometime after September 1885.

Lieutenant Portal was only in India for a few months when he succumbed to the effects of acute nephritis (kidney failure) at Ahmednagar on 24 May 1886. Buried the same day at
Ahmednagar Christian Cemetery, he was 22 years, 7 months old.