Colvill, Captain Hugh George (1821 – 1906)
Captain Hugh George Colvill 1821-1906 – 10 Vermont road 1888-1891
Born in Clontarf, Ireland, graduating from Sandhurst Military Academy and enrolling as ensign in the 39th (Dorsetshire) Regiment of Foot in January 1840. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1841, very severely wounded during the battle of Maharajpoor in 1843 and awarded the Maharajpoor Star medal. Appointed to the 29th (Worcestershire) Regiment of Foot in 1843 where he was promoted to Captain in 1852, serving during the 1857 Indian Mutiny and awarded the Indian mutiny medal.
In 1858 he served in the 29th foot with Edward Moorhead M.D, later of 2 Vermont Road (1885-1889) – his biography is listed under Rockmount Road.
“The head-quarters of the regiment being ordered to join a Field force, assembling under command of Lieut.-Colonel Turner, with a view of operating against a large body of rebels who, under the leadership of Ummur Singh, were plundering in the Palamau district, on the afternoon of the 6th December 1858, Major Wheeler, Captains Colvill and Walker, Lieutenants Kent, Smith (acting adjutant), Black, and Bacon, Qr.-Master W. Smith, Surgeon Moorhead, with about 200 non-commissioned officers, rank and file” marched.. “for Barun, where they were joined by a company of H. M. 37th Foot, and some irregular cavalry.”
http://www.worcestershireregiment.com/wr.php?main=inc/h_indian_mutiny
After retirement from the army, he served as a governor of Bodmin jail from 1860. After the abolition of the penalty of imprisonment for debt in 1869, Bodmin jail was operating at less than 25 percent capacity and it started to receive naval prisoners from 1873. Plans for part of the jail to be designated for use by the Royal Navy were considered by parliament and in 1876 the Hon Sir Henry Keppel K.C.B. wrote to the secretary of the Admiralty in connection with this:
“The governor, Captain Colville, is a military officer of upwards of 20 years’ service, most of which in the capacity of adjutant, and therefore understands the characters of the men with whom he has to deal, and takes an interest in enforcing a strict and proper discipline”.
– House of Commons papers 1876 – Bodmin Gaol as a Naval Prison , Reports and Correspondence relative to Bodmin County Gaol for the Confinement of Naval Prisoners
By 1881 Captain Colvill had been appointed governor of Wandsworth Jail. A.S Croyle’s 2016 novel “the Bird and the Buddha” describes a hanging at Wandworth jail attended by the young Sherlock Holmes:
“The only witnesses present were Sherlock, a prosecutor, Under Sheriff Captain Colville, the prison governor, the prison doctor, two male warders, and two reporters.”
By 1888 he had retired and was living at 10 Vermont road, then Thickett Road by 1893 and then at “Invermark” Farquhar Road at the time of his death in 1906.