SIR

See also:

• WILLIAM
• WILLIAM (1143-1214)
• WILLIAM (1227-1256)
• WILLIAM (1J33-1584)
• WILLIAM (A.S. Wilhelm, O. Norse Vilhidlmr; O. H. Ger. Willahelm, Willahalm, M. H. Ger. Willehelm, Willehalm, Mod.Ger. Wilhelm; Du. Willem; O. Fr. Villalme, Mod. Fr. Guillaume; from " will," Goth. vilja, and " helm," Goth. hilms, Old Norse hidlmr, meaning
• WILLIAM (c. 1130-C. 1190)
• WILLIAM, 13TH

WILLIAM

See also:

• NOTT, ELIPHALET (1773-1866)
• SIR WILLIAM NOTT (1782-1845)

NOTT (1782-1845)  , English general, was the second son of Charles Nott, a Herefordshire farmer, who in 1794 became an innkeeper at Carmarthen . William Nott was indifferently educated, but he succeeded in obtaining a cadet-ship in the Indian army and proceeded to India in 'Soo . In 1825 he was promoted to the command of his regiment of native infantry; and in 1838, on the outbreak of the first Afghan war, he was appointed to the command of a brigade . From April to October 1839 he was in command of the troops left at Quetta, where he rendered valuable service . In November 1840 he captured Khelat, and in the following year compelled Akbar Khan and other tribal chiefs to submit to the British . On receiving the news of the rising of the Afghans at Kabul in November 1841, Nott took energetic measures . On the 23rd of December the British envoy, Sir William Hay Macnaghten, was murdered at Kabul; and in February 1842 the weak and incompetent commander-in-chief, General Elphinstone, sent orders that Kandahar was to be evacuated . Nott at once decided to disobey, on the supposition that Elphinstone was not a free agent at Kabul; and as soon as he heard the news of the massacre in the Khyber Pass, he urged the government at Calcutta to. maintain the garrison of Kandahar with a view to avenging the massacre and the murder of Macnaghten . In March he inflicted a severe defeat on the enemy near Kandahar, and in May drove them with heavy loss out of the Baba Wall Pass . In July he received orders from Lord Ellenborough, the governor-general of India, to evacuate Afghanistan, with permission to retire by Kabul . Nott. arranged with Sir George Pollock, now commander-in-chief, to join him at Kabul . On the 3oth of August he routed the Afghans at Ghazni, and on the 6th of September occupied the fortress, from which he carried away, by the governor-general's express instructions, the gates of the temple of Somnath; on the 17th he joined Pollock at Kabul .

The combined army recrossed the

Sutlej in December . Nott's services were most warmly commended; he was immediately appointed resident at Lucknow, was presented with a sword of honour, and was made a G.C.B . In 1843 he returned to England, where the directors of the East India Company voted him a pension of £r000 per annum . He died at Carmarthen on the 1st of January 1845 . See Memoirs and Correspondence of Sir William Nett, edited by J . H . Stocqueier (2 vols., London, 1854) ; Charles R . Low, The Afghan War 1838—184a (London, 1879), and Life and Correspondence of Sir George Pollock (London, 1873) ; Sir J . W . Kaye, History of the War in Afghanistan (2 vols., London, 1851) .