Governor of Gibraltar, Military Figure. Robert Napier, 1st Baron Napier of Magdala, held the rank of Field Marshall in the British Indian Army during the 19th century. Among his many accomplishments is his encounter with the Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia, rescuing a number of Protestant missionaries being held as hostages. Born Robert Cornelis Napier, the son of a British military officer, he was an infant when his father died in 1810 from wounds from a battle in what is now Indonesia. Leaving his home in what is Sri Lanka in the 21st century, he was educated in London at Addiscombe Military Seminary, a school for students who would become young military officers to serve in the British East India Company. He was commissioned into the Bengal Engineer Group on December 15, 1826. After training at the Royal School of Military Engineering, he was deployed to India as a lieutenant in November of 1828. Proving to be an outstanding engineer, he began his career in 1831 on the East Jumna Canal irrigation works and helped to develop what is today, Darjeeling, India, starting in 1839. During the First Anglo-Sikh War in 1845, he was seriously wounded, but recovered and promoted to the rank of brevet major in April of 1846. Crossing 400 miles of mountainous terrain, he continued his engineering endeavors developing public works, roads, canals, bridges, buildings, and along with frontier defenses. During the Second Anglo-Sikh War, he was in several battles, wounded again, present at the surrender of the Sikh Army and promoted in June of 1848 to brevet lieutenant-colonel. Helping the British to conquer the natives, he took change of a unit on the west front fighting in the Afridi Pashtun rebellion, against tribal units from Pakistan and Afghanistan and promoted to lieutenant-colonel on April 15, 1856. In the Indian Mutiny, he fought bravely when his 700 men pursued, caught and defeated Tatya Tope's forces of 12,000 men on the plains of Jaora Alipur, ending the war in January of 1859. Bravely leading the 2nd division expeditionary force in the Second Opium War in China, he was in the Battle Taku of Forts, the surrender of the Peking's Anting Gate, and the invasion of Peking in 1860. For this, he was promoted to the substantive rank of colonel on February 18, 1861. Napier achieved his greatest fame as an army officer when he led the expedition of 1868 against Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia, which was known at that time as Abyssinia. On Good Friday, April 10, 1868, he defeated the 9,000 troops still loyal to Tewodros at the Battle of Magdala with the loss of only 2 British lives with Emperor Tewodros II committing suicide. For this victory, he made a Fellow of the Royal Society, a Freeman of the City of London, elevated to the peerage as Baron Napier of Magdala on July 11, 1868, and granted an annual pension for life of £2,000. From Africa, he brought back to England the "spoils of war", containing priceless historical and religious items. Traveling with him and documenting this event was newspaper reporter, Henry Morton Stanley, who would become famous worldwide in 1871 after finding missionary Dr. David Livingstone in Africa. Napier became Commander-in Chief of India, at the rank of general in April 1870 and became Governor of Gibraltar in June of 1876. Two years later, he was recalled to London and appointed to command an expeditionary force, which was being prepared in anticipation of a war with Russia, but was returned to Gibraltar when the war did not occur. He represented Queen Victoria as ambassador extraordinary at Madrid on the occasion of Alfonso XII of Spain's second marriage in November of 1879. In December of 1879, he became a member of the Royal Commission. He resigned the post of Governor of Gibraltar on January 1, 1883 to be promoted to the rank of field marshal. He was made an honorary colonel of the 3rd London Rifle Volunteer Corps and colonel-commandant of the Royal Engineers. In January of 1887 he was appointed constable of the Tower of London. Dying of influenza three years later, he was given a state funeral and buried with honors at St. Paul's Cathedral. A statue of Napier on horseback was sculpted by Sir Joseph Boehm, which was eventually located to Queen's Gate at Kensington in 1920. In his honor, the Napier of Magdala Battery was established on the cliffs of Gibraltar and the Napier House Army Reserve Centre is located in London.