Donald Martin Stewart

Donald Martin was born in Aberdeen and served in the Bengal Army. He was highly active in the campaigns of the North West Frontier and the Indian Mutiny where he was the Deputy Assistant Adjutant General at the Siege of Delhi and the relief of Lucknow. He served in Abyssinia before being transferred to Andaman as the Chief Commissioner. In July 1869 he was sent by Lord Mayo to the Andaman Islands to reorganize the convict settlement there, which Mayo hoped would make the islands self-supporting. He was made sole commandant with autocratic powers. The results were so encouraging that Mayo visited the settlements in 1872, when he was assassinated by a convict. The subsequent investigation exonerated Stewart; nevertheless, the tragedy so shocked him that he was obliged to go to Europe on sick leave. He later became a Field Marshall and ordered General Roberts to relieve Kandahar in 1880.

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