CONTENTS PAGE

Frontispiece

Introduction

Ken Stokes observations upon publication of the Autobiography in 1994.

Family Trees

Resume of Career of Sir John Stokes

Preface

Sir John Stokes explains why he wrote his autobiography.

Chapter 1 My Early Days

John Stokes was raised as the second son of an Oxford graduate in mathematics, who then became an Anglican vicar in Kent. Stokes attended the Military Engineering School at Chatham until he was 19.

Chapter 2 Embark for Foreign Service; My First Kaffir War

Stokes is sent to South Africa, where he spends time in Grahamstown and does battle with the "Kaffirs" a fair bit. He has some lucky escapes, but is then laid low by illness. At this point he falls in love with Henrietta Maynard, marrying her in 1849. They moved to King William's Town, where their first child was born. Chapter 3 My Second Kaffir War
After about a year in King William's Town, the British provoke a fight with the "Kaffirs", resulting in their defeat. Stokes gets involved in active service, a lot of "Boys Own" stuff. Ultimately he is recalled, as he is a member of the Royal Engineers, not the Army. He returns to England. Chapter 4 Life in England
After returning to England, Stokes is granted leave and hangs out at Cobham, Kent, with his folks. He then gets a job teaching Surveying and Field Works at the Royal Marines Academy, a job which left him with plenty of spare time, reasonable pay and two bouts of six weeks leave per year. He did a fair amount of shooting and played cricket. Despite these enjoyable activities, Stokes wanted to fight in the disasterous Crimean War. His Commanding Officer did not want his junior married officers going off and getting killed. Stokes convinced the Powers-that-were that his skills as a military engineer were needed in the Crimea. He put together an engineering detachment for service in the war. Chapter 5 The Crimea
In the Crimea, Stokes is dead keen to get into the trenches. His superiors dream up some unconvincing excuses for keeping him out of harm's way. Instead he watched the combat from a nice vantage-point, and later got to see the wounded. He then has the job of housing 20,000 men for a Russian winter. The Russians were defeated, and then he had to sell off vast quantities of material, including "several thousand" horses. Chapter 6 The Danube Commission
Stokes gets a call to the British Embassy where he is asked to join the Danube Commission. He has not the faintest idea what it is about but accepts the offer the next morning. He is given a gunboat to get around in, and visits Galatz (now Galati). One of his jobs is to rescue the British Consul from a sticky situation. His family arrives and have to subsist on caviar. He describes his colleagues on the Commission. Chapter 7 The Work of the Commission
Naturally, Stokes has rather cursory instructions about how to proceed with the job. There are also language problems on the Commission. An engineer, Charles Hartley arrives, with whom he has a close relationship. There are no details of how or how much he will be paid though it turned out to be quite generous for the time. The Russians prove difficult people to deal with. Stokes and his wife visit Bucharest, then later travel across Europe. He runs a bit low on money at Kronstadt and talks a local businessman into providing £20. Chapter 8 The Danube (1860 - 1865)
Chapter 9 The Danube (1865 - 1869)
Chapter 10 The Danube (1869 - 1873)

Chapter 11 The Suez Canal

This chapter is mainly detail over an international commission in 1875 regarding the means of determining the tonnage of ships. Nevertheless, there is some fascinating British diplomacy near the end

Chapter 12 Chatham

Though Chatham is the military engineering college, most of the chapter is about the British acquisition of a large share of the Suez Canal. This includes a period in Cairo investigating the finances of of the Egyptian government.

Chapter 13 The Port of Alexandria

Some of this is about the Port of Alexandria, and a hatchet job Stokes did to make the port accessible to battleships at night and in bad weather. There is a fair amount of swanning about the Mediterranean, checking out other ports.

Chapter 14 Military Duties: Channel Tunnel

The end of this chapter contains discussions about the Suez Canal, including a transcript of the conversation between the Prime Minister and Stokes in May 1882. It was at this time that the UK engaged in some fairly hostile activity against Egypt, including the shelling of Alexandria.

Chapter 15 The Lady Strangford Hospital ; The Roburite Explosives Company ; Family Matters

In this chapter, Stokes goes out to Egypt in 1894 as the British Government representative. He practises a bit of gunboat diplomacy, with his quarters being the HMS Dreadnought. He did not hesitate to wear his General's uniform when no-one else did, and salute the Khedive of Cairo with a salvo from one of the ships at his disposal.

Later in the chapter, he is a guest at an inspection of 165 ships of the Royal Navy , and then attends a garden party at Buckingham Palace. The narrative ends rather suddenly, possibly due to the author's death in 1902.

Appendices

Sir John Stokes K.C.B. R.E. deceased 17/11/1902 Military Terms and Abbreviations

Go back to Sir John Stokes.