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Alan Maxwell Boisragon

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Alan Maxwell Boisragon
Frontispiece portrait from Boisragon's The Benin Massacre; Boisragon on left, District Commissioner Locke on right
Born(1860-01-22)22 January 1860
Bengal, British India
Died18 March 1922(1922-03-18) (aged 62)
London, England
Allegiance United Kingdom
Service / branch British Army
UnitRoyal Irish Regiment
Battles / warsNile expedition
Alma materRoyal Military College, Sandhurst
Spouse(s)
Ethel Rosling
​
(m. 1893)​
Children1 daughter
RelationsEthel Grimwood (half-sister)
Other workAuthor and Captain Superintendent of the Shanghai Municipal Police

Alan Maxwell Boisragon (22 January 1860 – 18 March 1922) was a British Army officer, and author, and was Captain Superintendent of the Shanghai Municipal Police from 1901 to 1906.

Life

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Born in Bengal, India, on 22 January 1860, the son of an army officer of Huguenot ancestry, Major-General Theodore Boisragon, CB, A. M. His father divorced his wife, Margaret Emma Boisragon (born Gerrard), in 1864 after she ran off with Charles William Moore, a judge in Bengal. Charles and Margaret's children included Ethel Moore, his half-sister, who was born in 1867.[1]

Boisragon entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst in 1878, and served in the Royal Irish Regiment—with seven years in India, and action in the 1884-85 Nile expedition—until 1891, when he retired. He joined the colonial service in the Gold Coast, where he initially served as Assistant Inspector of Constabulary.[2] In 1894 he was appointed Commandant of the newly established Niger Coast Protectorate Force, in which position he came to know Roger Casement.[3] In January 1897 he was only one of two survivors of a small British expedition to Benin which was attacked and defeated, the incident prompting the Benin Expedition of 1897. Boisragon published his account of the incident as The Benin Massacre in 1897.[4] He then rejoined the Royal Irish Regiment as a captain in the 3rd Battalion, its Militia battalion.[5]

In early 1901 Boisragon was seconded from the army, and appointed Captain Superintendent of the Shanghai Municipal Police, arriving in March 1901 to take over command.[6] He was forced to resign in the aftermath of the 1905 Shanghai Mixed Court Riot.[7] In 1915 Boisragon published a book for boys, Jack Scarlett Sandhurst cadet: A story for boys, with illustrations by J. F. Campbell. He died in London on 18 March 1922.[8]

Family

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He married Ethel Rosling on 9 January 1893 at South Nutfield, Christ Church, Surrey, England. Their son Leslie Alan Maxwell Boisragon was born in 1909 in Shanghai, China.

Boisragon's first cousin Guy Hudleston Boisragon was awarded the Victoria Cross in 1891.

References

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  1. ^ Reynolds, K. D. (2010). "Grimwood [née Moore; other married name Miller], Ethel Brabazon [pseud. Ethel St Clair Grimwood] (1867–1928), the heroine of Manipur". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/101006. Retrieved 11 October 2020. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. ^ David C.A. Agnew, Protestant Exiles from France in the Reign of Louis XIV ..., Volume 2 (Reeves & Turner ; Edinburgh : William Paterson, 1871), p. 206
  3. ^ 1895 [C.7596] Africa. No. 1 (1895). Report on the administration of the Niger Coast Protectorate, August 1891 to August 1894(London: HMSO, 1895), pp.15-16; Angus Mitchell (ed.), Sir Roger Casement's Heart of Darkness: The 1911 Documents (Dublin: Irish Manuscripts Commission, 2003), p.383.
  4. ^ Captain Alan Boisragon, The Benin Massacre (London: Methuen, 1898)
  5. ^ The London Gazette, 12 May 1891, p. 2543; 15 April 1898, p.2386; 19 February 1901, p.1236.
  6. ^ North China Herald, 13 March 1901
  7. ^ Robert Bickers, Empire Made Me: An Englishman adrift in Shanghai (London: Allen Lane, 2003)
  8. ^ The Times, 20 March 1922

(Citing this Record "England and Wales Marriage Registration Index, 1837-2005," database, FamilySearch) (Citing this Record "England and Wales Census, 1911," database, FamilySearch)

Bibliography

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