AS SEEN ON TV: SIR HUDSON LOWE

SIR HUDSON LOWE

AS SEEN IN:
"Eagle In A Cage"

AS PLAYED BY:
Sir Ralph Richardson

Sir Hudson Lowe KCB, GCMG (28 July 1769 - 10 January 1844) was an Anglo-Irish military commander, best known as the Governor of St Helena, where he was the "gaoler" of Napoleon Bonaparte.

During this period the island was strongly garrisoned by the regular British regimental troops, local St Helena Regiment troops and naval shipping circling the island. Agreement was reached that St Helena would remain in the East India Company’s possession, the British government meeting additional costs arising from guarding Napoleon and the East India Company. Governor, Sir Hudson Lowe (1816–1821), was appointed by, and directly reported to, the Lord Bathurst, Secretary for War and the Colonies in London.

The 1817 census recorded 821 white inhabitants, a garrison of 820 men, 618 Chinese indentured labourers, 500 free blacks and 1,540 slaves. In 1818, whilst admitting that nowhere in the world did slavery exist in a milder form than on St Helena, Lowe initiated the first step in emancipating the slaves by persuading slave owners to give all slave children born after Christmas of that year their freedom once they had reached their late teens.

The Duke of Wellington later said that he was "a very bad choice; he was a man wanting in education and judgement. He was a stupid man, he knew nothing at all of the world, and like all men who knew nothing of the world, he was suspicious and jealous."

BCnU!