James Bucknall Bucknall Estcourt

James Bucknall Bucknall Estcourt (1803-1855), was a major-general and MP.

Estcourt, son of Thomas Grimston Bucknall Estcourt, M.P., and younger brother of Thomas Henry Sutton Sotheron Estcourt, was born on 12 July 1802. He was educated at Harrow School, and entered the army as an ensign in the 44th regiment on 13 July 1820.

On 7 June 1821 he was transferred to the 43rd Monmouthshire light infantry, in which he was promoted lieutenant on 9 December 1824, and captain on 4 November 1825. He spent the next five years of his military life in Gibraltar. He returned to England and then Ireland. In 1834 he accepted the post of second in command to Colonel F. R. Chesney in the famous Euphrates Valley Expedition, and was placed in charge of the magnetic experiments. He showed himself a loyal assistant to his chief during the next two years of arduous labour and travel, and it was chiefly owing to Chesney's advocacy of his services that Estcourt was promoted major on 21 October 1836, and lieutenant-colonel by brevet on 29 March 1839. His regiment participated in the suppression of the Lower Canada Rebellion, and he was based eventually in Drummondville, Upper Canada, where, in addition to other activities as surveyor, he brought the attention of his superiors to the poor condition of the Cayuga Road.

In 1837 he married Caroline, daughter of Reginald Pole-Carew, for many years Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department.

On 31 March 1842 the foreign secretary, the Earl of Aberdeen, appointed him British boundary commissioner in fulfilment of article 6 of the Webster–Ashburton Treaty, which then determined the international border with the British North American colonies of New Brunswick and Lower Canada. Estcourt’s instructions enjoined him not only to demarcate the line but also to examine the possibilities of defending it. He landed in Boston on 19 April 1843. The same day he met with the American boundary commissioner, Albert Smith. On 25 August 1843 he went on half-pay, on being promoted to an unattached lieutenant-colonelcy. By the end of the 1843 season most of the collaboration on the north line, from the source of the St. Croix River to the Saint John River, as well as the settling of the Saint John River boundaries, had been completed. In response to a request from him so that he might hasten progress the following year (1844), Aberdeen dispatched an additional 14 sappers from London; that year Estcourt would employ 500 foremen and axe-men.

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