Arthur Wellesley Torrens

Sir Arthur Wellesley Torrens (1809–1855) was a British Army officer and colonial administrator. He reached the rank of major-general.

He was the second son of Major-general Sir Henry Torrens and his wife Sarah, daughter of Robert Patton, governor of St. Helena, born on 18 August 1809; he was a godson of the Duke of Wellington. In 1819 he was appointed a page of honour to the Prince Regent.

Torrens passed through the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and obtained a commission as ensign in the Grenadier Guards, becoming lieutenant on 14 April 1825. He was appointed adjutant of the second battalion with the temporary rank of captain on 11 June 1829. He was promoted captain on 12 June 1830. He continued to serve as adjutant of his battalion until 1838, when he was appointed brigade-major at Quebec on the staff of Major-general Sir James Macdonell, commanding a brigade in Canada. He took part in the operations against the Lower Canada Rebellion at the close of that year. He was promoted to lieutenant-colonel on 11 September 1840, when he returned to England.

Torrens exchanged into the 23rd Royal Welch Fusiliers, and obtained its command on 15 October 1841. On the expansion of the army in April 1842 a second battalion was given to the regiment. The depot was moved from Carlisle to Chichester, where, with two new companies, it was organised for foreign service under Torrens, who embarked with it at Portsmouth for Canada on 13 May, arriving at Montreal on 30 June.

In September 1843 Torrens went, in command of the first battalion, from Quebec to the West Indies, arriving at Barbados in October 1843. The battalion was moved from one island to another, but for two years and a half Torrens commanded the troops in Saint Lucia and administered the civil government of the island. The sanitary measures adopted by Torrens for the preservation of the health of the troops were considered exemplary, and correspondence on the subject was published in November 1847 by order of the Duke of Wellington, as commander-in-chief.

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