Gerald Graham

Biography

Lieutenant-General Sir Gerald Graham, (27 June 1831 – 17 December 1899) was a senior British Army commander in the late 19th century and an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.

As an officer of the Royal Engineers, he served in the Crimean War, China, Canada, and Africa — including as a Brigadier General in the Anglo-Egyptian War, under Garnet Wolseley, and as commander of the Suakin Expedition against Mahdist Sudan in 1884–85.

In February 1884, Graham accompanied his close friend and colleague Charles George Gordon up the Nile to Gordon's disembarkation at Korosko, making Graham one of the last Englishmen to see Gordon alive before he set out across the Nubian Desert on his fateful mission to Khartoum. In 1887 Graham commemorated Gordon, reflecting on his life, character, and the context of the Mahdist War, in a publication entitled “Last Words with Gordon”.