Brevet-Major Arthur Blyford THRUSTON (1865–1897)

The very first name in the list of officers on the east side of the so-called Tirah Memorial in Bonn Square, Oxford (which commemorates the soldiers of the 2nd Battalion of the Oxfordshire Light Infantry who died in 1897–8) reads: “Killed by mutineers in Uganda: Brevet-Major A. B. Thruston”.

Arthur Blyford Thruston (whose surname was often misspelt Thurston) was born in Cirencester on 2 January 1865, the son of Clement Arthur Thruston and Constance Sophia Margaret Russell. The family moved to Merionethshire in Wales soon after he was born, and the 1871 census shows Arthur (6) living there at Pennal Tower in Pennal Lower with his mother Constance (28), his brother Edmund (7), and his sister Olivia (two months), plus their eight servants (a nurse and an under-nurse, cook, butler, groom, footman, housemaid, and kitchenmaid

He was educated as a boarder at Marlborough College in Wiltshire, where he can be seen in the 1881 census.

In December 1882 at the age of 17 he passed the examination for the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, and in February 1884 at the age of 19 he was gazetted from Gentleman Cadet to a Lieutenant in the 2nd Battalion of the Oxfordshire Light Infantry. He served in Ireland, Gibraltar, Egypt, and India.

Thruston returned to England from India on sick leave in 1887, and in January 1888 he was appointed to the depot at Cowley Barracks. While there he twice placed advertisements in Jackson's Oxford Journal; for a chestnut gelding and a phaeton for sale from the barracks on 10 December 1887, and for Welsh pony, suitable for a lady, on 15 December 1888. He studied oriental languages while there and passed as an interpreter in Turkish in 1889.

In November 1889 he rejoined the 2nd Battalion of the Oxfordshire Light Infantry and served in the Egyptian army, setting sail for Suez on 29 January 1890 on the SS Manora. He was gazetted as a Bimbashi (Major) of the 13th Sudanese expedition at Aswan.

In August 1892 he was promoted to Captain of the 1st Battalion of the Oxfordshire Light Infantry. The next month was seconded for service in the Egyptian Army, resigning from this appointment in July 1893.

Thruston spoke fluent Arabic, and on 14 August 1893 The Times reported that he and three others who had experience of the Sudan and were acquainted with the language had been appointed to take command of the Sudanese troops in Uganda and had started out for Uganda the previous day.

On 22 May 1895 he received for his services the brevet of Major. On 17 June 1895 the Queen granted Thruston Her Majesty's Royal licence and authority to accept and wear the Insignia of the Order of the Brilliant Star of Zanzibar of the Second Class, and the next month he was gazetted Captain in the Oxfordshire Light Infantry.

On 18 August 1895 The Times reported: “On August 27 Captain Thruston, the officer commanding, hearing of a proposed attack by King Kabarega, marched out with 120 Soudanese rifles, meeting the forces of Kabarega, composed of 800 rifles and some thousand spearmen, about two miles from the fort, and after two hours' sharp fighting routed the Unyoros, who left some 200 dead, including several important chiefs, on the field.”

His article “Extracts from an African Diary” was published in the Oxfordshire Light Infantry Chronicle for 1895, pp. 251–278.

In January 1897 Thruston left for Uganda to take up his appointment in the Uganda Rifles. He was in charge of a garrison of Sudanese troops on the MacDonald Expedition who mutinied and took him prisoner at Fort Lubwas, where he was shot dead at the age of 32 on 19 October 1897, together with two other British officers (full details reported in The Times of 20 December 1897, with further information added by Thruston's mother in the edition of 7 March 1898).

His effects came to £347 15s. 7d., and his address at probate was given as Pennal Tower, Machynlleth, Montgomeryshire. His widowed mother was his executor.

A tablet in his memory was erected in St Paul's Cathedral in London: photograph. It reads:

In Memory of
ARTHUR BLYFORD THRUSTON

BREVET-MAJOR OXFORDSHIRE LIGHT INFANTRY / WHO SERVED WITH DISTINCTION IN THE UNYORO / AND DONCOLA EXPEDITIONS AND WHO AS A LAST / SERVICE TO HIS COUNTRY, WHEN THE LIVES AND / SUPREMACY OF THE ENGLISH IN UGANDA WERE IN / PERIL, WENT SINGLE HANDED TO ENDEAVOUR, BY / HIS PERSONAL INTERVENTION, TO RECALL TO / THEIR DUTY THE MUTINEERS OF THE UGANDA RIFLES / BY WHOM HE WAS MURDERED AT FORT LUBWAS / EAST AFRICA / OCTOBER 19TH 1897 / AETAT 32.

[Within two emblems of the Oxfordshire Light Infantry, marked with the old 43 and 52 regiment numbers]
THIS TABLET / IS ERECTED / AS A MARK OF ESTEEM / AND AFFECTION /
BY HIS / BROTHER OFFICERS OF THE OXFORDSHIRE LIGHT INFANTRY

He wrote a book jointly with his brother Edmund Heathcote Thruston called African Incidents: Personal Experiences in Egypt and Unyoro that was published after his death in 1900.

Brevet-Major Thruston's obituary, written by his brother Edward Heathcote Thruston, was published in the Oxfordshire Light Infantry Chronicle for 1897, pp. 228–249 (with his portrait photograph opposite page 228).

Brief biography of Arthur Blyford Thruston with portrait photograph
on the “Europeans in East Africa” website