John Salusbury Trevor
John Salusbury Trevor (1830-1896)
1896 Obituary [1]
MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN SALUSBURY TREVOR, C.S.I., late R.E., who died on the 9th of June, 1896, at his residence, 75 Ladbroke Road, Notting Hill, was the son of Captain Robert Salusbury Trevor of the 3rd Bengal Cavalry.
He was born at Cawnpore on the 30th August, 1830, and when ten years of age accompanied his parents to Cabul. In the disaster which overtook the British force under General Elphinstone in 1841-42, his father was killed, and he, with the other members of the family, was among the hostages made over to the Afghans in the course of negotiations to obtain terms. The hostages were rescued after General Pollock’s re-occupation of Cabul in 1842 and accompanied his force on its return to India in the same year.
Young Trevor was a boy of twelve when he first came to England. Two years after he entered the Royal Military College at Addiscombe, where his strong mathematical ability obtained for him a commission in the Bombay Engineers in 1847, after the usual course of study at the School of Military Engineering at Chatham, Mr. Trevor proceeded to India and was employed as Assistant Superintendent of Roads and Tanks from 1849 to 1855, when he was transferred to the Railway Department as Deputy Consulting Engineer.
In 1861 he was made a member of the Bombay Municipality, in addition to his other duties.
In 1864, owing to a severe attack of fever, Captain Trevor - he had been promoted in 1858 - was compelled to take leave to England.
On his return to India two years later, he was appointed Executive Engineer of the Tapti Irrigation Works. On the occurrence, however, of a vacancy in the Railway Department, he was transferred to that branch of the service, and in 1868 became Consulting Engineer and Under Secretary to the Government of Bombay. In the previous year he had been promoted Lieutenant-Colonel and in 1870 he was appointed Chief Engineer of the Presidency.
During 1871 and 1872, in the latter of which years he was promoted Colonel, he acted as Deputy Secretary to the Government of India in the Railway Branch, and was then again obliged by ill-health to take leave to England.
Colonel Trevor’s health was not sufficiently restored to allow of his returning to India until June, 1878, when he was appointed Officiating Deputy-Secretary to the Government of India in the Railway Branch.
At the end of that year he retired from the army with the rank of Major-General. His services as an administrative officer were, however, considered of such value by the Government of India that he was requested to retain his departmental appointments and on the creation, in 1880, of the post of Director General of Railways in India, he was selected to fill it.
In addition to the duties of that office he also acted for some time as Secretary to the Government of India in the Public Works Department.
In March, 1881, General Trevor finally severed his connection with the service, receiving the Companionship of the Order of the Star of India in recognition of his work as a departmental order.
He then returned to England, where his wide experience and profound knowledge of the working of Indian Railways were utilized by several of the Guaranteed Companies, on the Boards of which he had a seat.
At the time of his death he was Chairman of the Bombay, Baroda and Central India, the Southern Mahratta and the Rohilkund and Kumaon Railway Companies, all of which are greatly indebted for the prosperity of their several undertakings to his accuratek nowledge of the local conditions affecting their working and to the untiring energy with which he devoted himself to the promotion of their interests.
He was elected an Associate on the 4th of March, 1873.