George Frederick Cherry

George Frederick Cherry (1761 - 1799) was a British-born political officer of the East India Company, murdered in Benares by Wazir Ali Khan as part of a minor insurrection against the British.

George Frederick Cherry was born in 1761 in Gillingham, Kent, the first-born of Susan Cherry (née Curtis) and George Cherry (who in 1785 became chairman of the Victualling Board) in a family of ten children. He married Martha Maria Paul (1765-1819). Their only son, George Henry Cherry (1793-1848) was Member of Parliament for the rotten borough of Dunwich from 1820-1826.

He was the British Resident at Lucknow until 1796, immediately prior to the period in which Wazir Ali Khan was removed as Nawab of Awadh by the British and replaced by Saadat Ali Khan II. The role of a resident extended to intelligence gathering, and at this, in the relative turbulence of late 18th century Awadh, Cherry excelled, running a network of spies and informers - such as Mirza Abu Taleb Khan, who wrote about some of his interations with the East India Company.

He had made sufficient enemies in Lucknow by 1796 that he was relocated to Benares, considered a less exposed town, to act as political-agent to the Governor General. In 1797 Wazir Ali Khan was desposed and required by the British to live in Benares with a pension. The young Ali - only 19 - was far from satisfied with his lot, and indications before 1799, and evidence of later enquiries suggests he was plotting against the British and with a view to regaining his lost position. By 1799, the British had come to the conclusion that Ali should be required to live in Calcutta - further from his power-base, and much more obviously under the eye of the British. It fell to Cherry to impart this news.

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