{{Short description|East India Company army officer}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2025}} {{Use Indian English|date=April 2025}} {{Infobox military person | honorific_prefix = Lieutenant General | name = Sir Frederick Lester | honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|KCB}} | birth_date = {{birth-date|3 February 1795}} | death_date = {{death-date and age|3 July 1858|3 February 1795}} | burial_label = | burial_place = | birth_place = | death_place = Belgaum, Bombay Presidency, India | birth_name = Frederick Parkinson Lester | allegiance = {{UK}} | branch = 23px British Army<br />23px East India Company | service_years = | rank = Lieutenant-General | unit = | commands = Southern Division of the Bombay Army | battles = Indian Mutiny | awards = Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath | relations = | other_work = }}
Lieutenant-General '''Sir Frederick Parkinson Lester''', KCB (3 February 1795 – 3 July 1858) was an army officer in the East India Company, third son of John Lester, merchant, of Racquet Court, Fleet Street, and his wife, Elizabeth Parkinson.<ref name=OxfordDNB>{{cite ODNB|url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-16505|title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|year=2004 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/16505 |isbn=978-0-19-861412-8 }}</ref>
==Early life== Born on 3 February 1795, to John Lester a member of the prominent Lester merchant family of Poole, Dorset and the nephew of Benjamin Lester, MP for Poole, his mother was Elizabeth Parkinson, daughter of John Parkinson.<ref name=CanadianDB>{{cite web|url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/lester_benjamin_5E.html.|title=Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 5, 2005|publisher=University of Toronto/Université Laval}}</ref> Educated at Mr Jephson's academy at Camberwell and at Addiscombe Military Seminary.<ref name=OxfordDNB/> He qualified for a commission into the Bombay artillery on 22 April 1811.<ref name=OxfordDNB/>
==Military career== Lester's commissions, all in the Bombay artillery, were: second-lieutenant (25 October 1811), lieutenant (3 September 1815), captain (1 September 1818), major (14 May 1836), lieutenant colonel (9 August 1840), brevet colonel (15 March 1851), and major-general (28 November 1854).<ref name=OxfordDNB/><ref name=LondonGazette>{{cite web|url=https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/21658/page/431|title=The London Gazette 1855|publisher=Official Public Records}}</ref> he was finally promoted to Lieutenant General on 3 July 1858.<ref name=LondonGazette1858>{{cite web|url=https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/22181/page/4100|title=The London Gazette 1858|publisher=Official Public Records}}</ref> Lester's career was marked by its efficiency, resulting in his being 'specially thanked for his zealous and efficient services' by the governor of Bombay in April 1847.<ref name=OxfordDNB/> His career during his service in India chiefly involved acting commissary of ordnance, commissary of stores, and secretary to (and afterwards ordinary member of) the military board. A system of double-entry bookkeeping introduced by him was, in 1834, ordered to be generally adopted in the Ordnance department.<ref name=OxfordDNB/> Lester was appointed to command the southern division of the Bombay army in April 1857, he assumed command there at his headquarters at Belgaum on 12 May 1857.<ref name=Jacob212>{{cite book|title=Western India Before and During the Mutinies|publisher= Henry S. King & Co.|date=1871|page=[https://archive.org/details/westernindiabefo0000jaco/page/212 212]}}</ref> Major-General Sir George Le Grand Jacob stated that his actions between May and September 1857 'in all probability to have prevented an explosion at Belgaum.'<ref name=Jacob213>{{cite book|title=Western India Before and During the Mutinies|publisher= Henry S. King & Co.|date=1871|page=[https://archive.org/details/westernindiabefo0000jaco/page/212 213]}}</ref> He repaired the fort, moved the powder and ammunition inside the fort, deported suspected sepoys, and moved guns, gun carriages, and horses into the fort.<ref name=edFalkner>{{cite ODNB|url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-16505|title=General Sir Frederick Lester DNB, Edited, James Falkner|author=Charles Manners Chichester|year=2004 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/16505 |isbn=978-0-19-861412-8 }}</ref> In addition he organized night-time patrols (chiefly of civilian volunteers) and moved the depot of Her Majesty's 64th regiment, with 400 European women and children, into the fort.<ref name=edFalkner/> He vetoed the proposal of the commanding officer of the 29th Bombay native infantry, backed by the political agent, Mr Seton-Karr, to disarm the regiment as potential mutineers on the ground of the inadequacy of any European force for the task, and the possibility of a failure which would end in disaster.<ref name=edFalkner/> On the arrival of British troops (10 August 1857) he supervised the court-martial, execution, and other punishment of rebels.<ref name=edFalkner/> One of these courts-martial consisted entirely of Indian non-commissioned officers, a testament to Lester's wise leadership.<ref name=edFalkner/> The measures were among the precautions which prevented the insurrection spreading to western India, and Lester was hardly given the credit due to him for them.<ref name="edFalkner" />
==Personal life== Lester was a deeply religious man. During his period in India, a profane conversation at which Sir John Keane, 5th Baronet was present resulted in his leaving a mess breakfast table in protest against the conversation and it placed him temporarily under an official cloud.<ref name=OxfordDNB/>
Lester married twice, first, in 1828, at St Thomas's Church, Bombay, Helen Elizabeth Honner, they had two children, both of whom died in infancy.<ref name=OxfordDNB/> He married secondly, in 1840, at Mahabaleshwar, Charlotte Pratt Fyvie, daughter of the Revd William Fyvie (nephew of Elizabeth Simpson, wife of Henry Bridgeman, 1st Baron Bradford; through the Simpsons he was also first cousin of Henry Liddell, 1st Earl of Ravensworth and Sir John Dean Paul, 1st Baronet); they had five children, including:<ref name=OxfordDNB/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Cokayne |first1=G.E. |title=The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, new ed. |date=1910–1959 |page=194 |edition=II}}</ref> * Charlotte Elizabeth Lester (1842-1874), married James Rhoades.<ref name="JRWho'sWho">{{cite book|url=https://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/10.1093/ww/9780199540891.001.0001/ww-9780199540884-e-202146|title=James Rhoades' Who's Who|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U202146 |isbn=978-0-19-954089-1 }}</ref> * Rev. John Moore Lester (1851-1919), Rector of Litchborough, married twice, his descendants included his grandchildren, James Shaw, Baron Kilbrandon and Katherine DeMille, née Lester. * Horace Frank Lester (1853-1896)
Lester was found dead in his bed of heart disease at 7 a.m. on 3 July 1858, at Belgaum.<ref name=OxfordDNB/>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *[https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-16505 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography] {{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lester, Frederick}} Category:1795 births Category:1858 deaths Category:Graduates of Addiscombe Military Seminary Category:British East India Company people Category:British East India Company Army generals Category:British Indian Army generals Category:Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath Category:British military personnel of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 Category:British military personnel of the Second Anglo-Sikh War Category:Bombay Artillery officers