6 
OBITUARY. 
Major-General Gronow Davis, 3J(E., late R.A., died at Royal Park, Clifton, 
Bristol, on the 18tli October, 1891. He was commissioned 18tli December, 
1847, and as Second Captain served in the Crimean Campaign, 1855-6, including 
the Siege and Fall of Sebastopol and Battle of Tchernaya. Despatches, London 
Gazette , 2nd November, 1855. Medal with clasp and F&-; 5th Class of Medjidie; 
Turkish Medal and Brevet of Major, 6th June, 1856 ; Brevet Lieut.-Colonel, 
29th August, 1868 ; and Brevet Colonel; 1st October, 1876. He retired upon 
a special pension, with the honorary rank of Major-General, 29th October, 1881. 
He received the Victoria Cross “ for great coolness and gallantry in the attack 
on the Bedan (Sebastopol), 8th September, 1855, on which occasion he com¬ 
manded the spiking party, and after which he saved the life of Lieutenant 
Sanders, 30th Foot, by jumping over the parapet of a sap, and proceeding twice 
some distance across the open under a ‘ murderous * fire to assist in conveying 
that officer, whose leg was broken, and who was otherwise severely wounded, 
under cover; and repeated this act in the conveyance of other wounded soldiers 
from the same exposed position. 55 
Captain Thomas Wright Blakiston, late R.A., whose death occurred at San 
Diego, California, on the 15th October, 1891, entered the Royal Artillery, 17th 
December, 1851, became Captain, 7th December, 1858, and resigned his com¬ 
mission 4th June, 1862. 
He was one of that band of officers who, headed by Sabine and Lefroy, did 
so much to maintain for the Royal Artillery the title of “ Scientific Corps. 55 
In May, 1857, he left England to conduct the astronomical and physical obser¬ 
vations on the “North American Exploring Expedition, 55 under Mr. Palliser, and 
the results of this expedition may be best judged by the following extracts from 
the Proceedings of a General Meeting of the R.A.I., held on Wednesday, 
May 30th, 1860 : —“ The Committee cannot pass without notice the magnificent 
donation by Captain Blakiston, of the various birds collected by him during his 
connection with the North American Exploring Expedition, the scientific value of 
which can hardly be overrated.The Committee refer with great 
pleasure to Captain Blakiston as an instance of a scientific collector who has done 
service to ornithology ; several eggs, for example, obtained by that officer having, 
prior to his discovery, been quite unknown. Duplicates of some of the rarer 
ones have been forwarded to the Smithsonian Institution for insertion in the 
work now being published by them on the Oology of North America.” 
In March, 1861, he, with Lieut.-Colonel Sarel,- 17th Lancers, Dr. Alfred 
Barton, and the Reverend S. Schereschewsky, explored the River Yang-Tsze in 
China for some 960 miles above Hankow, being the first Europeans who travelled 
in that country under the New Treaty Rights. Their discoveries and adventures 
are well described in " Five Months on the Yang-Tsze,” by T. W. Blakiston, 
late Capt. R.A. London : Murray, 1862. A book which, owing to the disturb¬ 
ances in China, is just now well worthy of perusal. 
Captain Blakiston resided but little in England after leaving the service. 
