# Wolseley ring

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The **Wolseley ring** was a group of 19th century [British army](/source/British_army) officers loyal to [Garnet Wolseley](/source/Garnet_Wolseley) and considered by him to be clever, brave, experienced and hard-working.

After the [Crimean War](/source/Crimean_War) Wolseley started to keep a note of the best officers he met, and began gathering a network of able military men loyal to him. There were other circles around other military leaders; later these would dwindle as more formal selection and promotion procedures became established.

The 'ring' itself was rooted in Wolseley's appointments for the [Ashanti Campaign](/source/Ashanti_Campaign) of 1873-4, in which he led British troops to take control of the [Gold Coast](/source/Gold_Coast_(British_colony)). He chose officers he had got to know during his [Red River Campaign](/source/Wolseley_Expedition) in [Canada](/source/Canada) in 1870:

- [John Carstairs McNeill](/source/John_Carstairs_McNeill)

- [William Francis Butler](/source/William_Francis_Butler)

- [Redvers Henry Buller](/source/Redvers_Henry_Buller)

- [Hugh McCalmont](/source/Hugh_McCalmont)

as well as other key figures:

- [Henry Brackenbury](/source/Henry_Brackenbury)

- [John Frederick Maurice](/source/John_Frederick_Maurice)

- [George Pomeroy Colley](/source/George_Pomeroy_Colley)

- [Baker Creed Russell](/source/Baker_Russell)

- [Henry Evelyn Wood](/source/Evelyn_Wood_(British_Army_officer))

- [John Plumptre Carr Glyn](/source/John_Plumptre_Carr_Glyn)

Men from this group accompanied Wolseley on his various projects for about a decade. They are sometimes called the Ashanti Ring, or, in a [punning](/source/Pun) reference to Wolseley's first name, the [Garnet](/source/Garnet) Ring.

Later they were the "Africans", against the "Indians" of the rival **Roberts Ring** of [Lord Roberts](/source/Frederick_Roberts%2C_1st_Earl_Roberts) and [Herbert Kitchener](/source/Herbert_Kitchener) during the [Boer War](/source/Second_Boer_War). The Secretary for War [Lord Lansdowne](/source/Henry_Petty-FitzMaurice%2C_5th_Marquess_of_Lansdowne) had worked with Roberts in India, so was alienated from Wolseley and most of the War Office. The Cabinet made Wolseley Commander-in-Chief of the Army, and Roberts was fobbed off as the Commander-in-Chief in Ireland. But during the Boer War, Roberts and then Kitchener replaced [Buller](/source/Redvers_Henry_Buller) of the Wolseley Ring.

## See also

- [Anglo-Asante Wars](/source/Anglo-Asante_Wars)

- [Ashanti Kingdom](/source/Ashanti_Kingdom)

- [Cardwell Reforms](/source/Cardwell_Reforms)

## Further reading

- Hew Strachan (1997). [*The Politics of the British Army*](https://books.google.com/books?id=AD5HXrCoMKkC). Oxford University Press. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-19-820670-5](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-19-820670-5). Retrieved 29 June 2013.

- Byron Farwell (June 1985). [*Queen Victoria's Little Wars*](https://books.google.com/books?id=BqTYr-Gb8ngC). W W Norton & Company Incorporated. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-393-30235-6](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-393-30235-6). Retrieved 29 June 2013.

- Leigh Maxwell (1985). [*The Ashanti Ring: Sir Garnet Wolseley's campaigns, 1870-1882*](https://books.google.com/books?id=WE9nAAAAMAAJ). L. Cooper in association with Secker & Warburg. Retrieved 29 June 2013.

- Thomas Pakenham (1979). [*The Boer War*](https://archive.org/details/boerwar00pake). Random House. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-394-42742-3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-394-42742-3). Retrieved 29 June 2013. (indexed under *Roberts and Wolseley Rings*).

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Wolseley ring](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolseley_ring) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolseley_ring?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.