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The famous Victorian soldier Sir Neville Bowles Chamberlain was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1820. He attended a military academy in England and then joined the East India Company army as an ensign in 1837. After a lifetime of soldiering in India and Afghanistan, during which he took part in the invasion of Afghanistan in 1838 and the quelling of the Indian Uprising of 1857, he retired to Lordswood House in 1881. He had achieved the rank of general in 1877 and was elevated to field marshal in 1900. He died in 1902 and was buried at Rownhams.

His younger brother Sir Crawford Trotter Chamberlain (1821-1902) also served in India and Afghanistan and also retired to Lordswood House. He died in December 1902, nine months after the death of his brother. He too was buried at Rownhams.

Sir Neville Bowles Chamberlain

Undated portrait

Newspaper clippings (available online or from the Local Studies Library):

• Neville Chamberlain, of Rownhams - (SDE 19/03/1940)
• "Rownhams churchyard … " - (Southern Daily Echo 02/10/2013). Article about Chamberlain's career. Also includes details about Lordswood House.
• "The burial of a Field Marshal … " - (Hampshire Chronicle 30/12/1983)]. Discussion of Chamberlain's military career and speculation about why he was not made a field marshal until after he had retired. Description of his funeral and a photograph of his grave.

Further reading:

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004, Volume 12.

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