Ramsay Weston Phipps (10 April 1838 – 24 June 1923) was an Irish-born military historian and officer in Queen Victoria's Royal Artillery. The son of Pownoll Phipps, an officer of the British East India Company's army, he was descended from the early settlers of the West Indies; many generations had served in the British, and the English military. Phipps served in the Crimean War, had a stint of duty at Malta, and helped to repress the Fenian uprising in Canada in 1866.
Phipps is known for his study of The Armies of the First French Republic and the Rise of the Marshals of Napoleon I, a five-volume set published posthumously from 1926–1939 by Oxford University Press. He also edited L.A. Fauvelet de Bourrienne's Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, a three-volume work published in 1885 and Madame Campan's The private life of Marie Antoinette, queen of France and Navarre; with sketches and anecdotes of the courts of Louis XVI, published in 1889.
Background Ramsay Weston Phipps descended from generations of military and political men. Colonel William Phipps, a Yeoman of Lincolnshire, raised a regiment of horse for Charles I. Another of his ancestors was Lord Chancellor of Ireland in the reign of Queen Anne.Pownoll William Phipps, The life of Colonel Pownoll Phipps. London: Bentley, 1894, pp. 232–233. Captain James Phipps settled the Island of St. Christopher, in the West Indies in 1676.Colonel R.W. Phipps (obit). The Times. Thursday 28 June 1923, p. 16, Issue 43379, Col. D. The family was rewarded for its loyalty with titles and lands in Ireland. Ramsay Phipps was also a cousin of the Earls of Mulgrave.New England Historic Genealogical Society Staff. The New England Register. Westminster, MD: Heritage, 2010, p. 197.
In 1791, Phipps' grandfather, Constantine (1746–1797), rented the Hotel d'Harcourt in Caen, France, from the Duke of Harcourt; in 1793, he returned briefly to England in 1793 for the wedding of one of his daughters, leaving eight of his children in France. When War of the First Coalition broke out in 1793, the children were separated from their parents. Ramsay Phipps' father, Pownoll Phipps (1780–1858) and his siblings grew up in the French city during the French revolution, and lived under the threat of anti-English violence.Pownoll Phipps, Life, pp. 5, 12, 230–231. Only after the Treaty of Campo Formio could the children return to England, arriving on 2 October 1798, all of them fluent in French; Pownoll Phipps reportedly spoke with French-accented English for the rest of his life. By the end of October, Pownoll had a commission as a lieutenant and joined the Bengal Army of the East India Company.Charles Phipps, "Preface." Ramsay Weston Phipps, The Armies of the First French Republic and the Rise of the Marshals of Napoleon I: The Armee du Nord. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1926. pp. v–ix. Pownoll Phipps, p. 40. The following June, he embarked for India on the Bombay-built ship Britannica.Pownoll Phipps, p. 40.
Upon arrival in India, Pownoll Phipps joined the force under command of Colonel Arthur Wellesley. He participated in Sir David Baird's expedition from India to Egypt in 1801, for which participation he eventually became a Knight of the Crescent. Phipps married Henrietta Beaunpaire; orphaned by the French Revolution, she had taken refuge with him and his siblings at the Hotel d'Harcourt, on 10 August 1802, in Calcutta.Parish register transcripts from the Presidency of Bengal, 1713–1948. India. Office of the Registrar General. Salt Lake City, Utah : Filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1966–1967. Pownoll Phipps' second wife, Sophia Matilda Arnold, was Benedict Arnold's daughter.Benson John Lossing. "Descendants of Benedict Arnold." The American historical record. Philadelphia: Chase & Town, Publishers, 1872–1874, volume 3, p. 595. They married in 1813, and had five children. Nathaniel Hawthorne. The English Notebooks: 1853–1856. United States: Ohio State University Press 1997, p. 535. Phipps retired from the East India Company service on 1 July 1825, with the rank of colonel.East India Company, Great Britain. India Office. East-India register and army list. London, W.H. Allen [n.d.], p. 241. Living for a time in London, he was a popular regular at Exeter Hall events. A well-versed, informed and articulate speaker and storyteller, Phipps was a gallant gentleman, readily at ease in all society, and very friendly: "a tall, stout, officer-like person, about 60-years of age, with white hair, short, sharp features, and a pleasant cast of countenance."One of the Protestant side (a pseudonym). Random recollections of Exeter Hall, in 1834–1837. London: James Nisbet and Co., 1837, pp. 160–161. He also had a strict sense of honor. In 1857, a year before his death, he wrote a letter to the Editor of The Times, in which he asserted his belief in the good character and quality of the Sepoys, despite the popular outrage against them during the Indian Mutiny.P. Phipps. "The Old Bengal Army." The Times. Tuesday, 22 September 1857, p. 11, Issue 22792, column B. Pownoll Phipps developed bronchitis after presiding over the closing of an art exhibit in Clonmel, Ireland; he died in November 1858. His funeral was attended by Protestant and Catholics, and the procession was over a mile long.Pownoll Phipps, pp. 205–207.
Ramsay Weston Phipps was the second son of Pownoll Phipps and his third wife, the Irish-born Anna Charlotte Smith. Born at the family estate, Oaklands, in County Tipperary, Ireland, he was named Ramsay in honor of an uncle who pioneered slave emancipation in the West Indies, and Weston after another uncle, a scientific clergyman.Pownoll Phipps, p. 119. By 1841, his father had returned to England, to reside in Kent, where the family lived in Yalding. They lodged at the "Parsonage" with a local farmer, Ramsey Warde; Ramsey Warde was also a relative of Phipps' mother. The family of four included three-year-old Ramsay, his older brother, Pownoll (age five),Married Elizabeth Dampier Risley, daughter of Shuckburgh Risley, 26 Jul 1859, Camden, Middlesex, St Pancras Parish Church. See London Metropolitan Archives, Saint Pancras Parish Church, Register of marriages, P90/PAN1, Item 123. his mother (age 30) and his father.District 2, Census Returns of England and Wales, 1841. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1841. Eventually, two more children joined the family: Henrietta Sophia and Robert Constantine, twins born 23 September 1841. The boy died 9 October, but Henrietta lived into adulthood, marrying Lieutenant-Colonel William Smith.Pownoll Phipps, p. 240. After suffering a bout of measles in spring 1847, Ramsay Phipps attended Mr. Barron's School at Stanmore with his older brother, Pownoll, with the intent to following his brother in a year or two to Rugby in Warwickshire.Pownoll Phipps, p. 169.
Military career Before he could enter Rugby, Phipps was offered instead a cadetship and entered the government preparatory school at Carshalton in Surrey. In 1849, at the age of 11, he put on a uniform, and he wore it, or a variation of it, until his retirement in 1887. Phipps later attended the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich. After his graduation, he expected a commission in the Royal Artillery, and while awaiting it, he lived for a few months with his uncle at Carragh, Ireland;Pownoll Phipps, pp. 193–194. his lieutenant's commission arrived, dated 1 August 1855, and with it instructions him to join his Royal Artillery unit at Woolwich, for service in the Crimean War. He reached the Crimea in November 1855, and participated in the siege of Sevastopol. Assigned to the Matthew Dixon's 5th Company, 9th Battalion, he was part of the right siege train, and his chief occupation was blowing up the Sevastapol docks. He was still small for his age, and looked very young, which drew teasing from his company. The siege work was difficult and the living conditions were brutal; he recounted to his brother that the soldiers were plagued not only by the Russian fire, but by dysentery, bad food, and wintering in tents. He returned to England the following year on the Imperatrice, arriving in March 1856. Although he was given a medal to wear when Queen Victoria reviewed the troops, it was later collected from him; the decision was made at higher commands that only those who had landed in the Crimea prior to September 1855 would be awarded the Crimea Medal.
After his return to England, Ramsay Phipps was quartered at the Tower of London.Pownoll Phipps, p. 186. After this assignment, he was sent to Plymouth, serving at the Prince of Wales Redoubt.Pownoll Phipps, p. 199. In 1861, Phipps was stationed in South Shoebury, Essex.Census Returns of England and Wales, 1861. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1861. Class: RG9; Piece: 1086; Folio: 31; Page: 17; GSU roll: 542750. He was promoted to the Royal Artillery's unique rank of second captain on 7 April 1864, and appointed brigade adjutant on 14 October 1868.H. G. Hart. The New Army List...for 1873. London: John Murray, 1873 p. 68. Modern CD version: and The brigade adjutant functioned as the staff officer for the brigade commander: he supervised all brigade books and records, monitored the execution of orders, supervised the education and training of subalterns, prosecuted in all courts-martial proceedings, and accepted and transmitted all orders.War Office. Standing orders ... for the Royal Regiment of Artillery. London, Horse Guards, War Office, 1876, pp. 11–12.
Promotions Lieutenant: 1855 Second Captain: 1863 Major: 1873 Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel: 1881 Lieutenant-Colonel: 1883 Colonel: 1886 Ramsay Phipps married Anne Bampfylde, the daughter of a Bath physician, in September 1864."Phipps." England & Wales, Marriage Index: 1837–1915. General Register Office. England and Wales Civil Registration Indexes. London, England: General Register Office. With a few exceptions, most of Phipps' posts included garrison duty in southern England in the vicinity of the Royal Artillery barracks at Woolwich. Phipps traveled to the United States, arriving in Boston on 30 April 1866;Africa passenger list. Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at Boston, Massachusetts, 1820–1891. Micropublication M277. RG036. 115 rolls. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C. he went to Canada to participate in operations against the Fenian uprising.Obituary, 28 June 1923. In 1869, his brother and a friend sought to climb the Zermatt and the Schreckhorn, during which climb the friend fell over to bottom of the Lauteraar glacier. In the emergency, Ramsay Phipps joined his brother in Grindelwald while guides recovered the body.Ramsay Phipps. "Fatal Accident on the Schreckrhorn ." The Times. Saturday 31 July 1869, p. 12, Issue 26504, col. F. The victim, Reverend Julius M. Elliott, of Brighton, fell out of sight; despite linking their ropes together, the guides could not descend far enough to catch sight of him; shouting produced no response, and eventually guides retrieved his body.
In 1881, Phipps was stationed in Ireland;Census Returns of England and Wales, 1881. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1881. Class: RG11; Piece: 1772; Folio: 55; Page: 1; GSU roll: 1341428. his wife remained in Bath, living in the prestigious Royal Crescent (No. 19), with her three children, a female cousin, and several servants.Census Returns of England and Wales, 1881. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1881. Phipps was promoted to major on 12 April 1873, to brevet lieutenant-colonel on 1 July 1881, and substantive lieutenant-colonel on 26 April 1882.