Background
Lake was the third son of Sir James Samuel William Lake, 4th Baronet, by his marriage with Maria, daughter of Samuel Turner. He was born at Kenilworth, Warwickshire, in 1808.
- Photos
- Works
- Photos
- Works
Henry Lake
Edit Profilecommissioner lieutenant officer colonel
Education
Lake was educated at Harrow and at the military college of the East India Company at Addiscombe.
Career
On 15 December 1826, he obtained a commission as second lieutenant in the Madras engineers, and went to India. Until 1854 he was employed in the public works department of India, and principally upon irrigation works. He became lieutenant on 4 March 1831, brevet-captain on 22 July 1840, regimental captain in 1852, and brevet-major 20 June 1854.
While in England on leave of absence in 1854 he volunteered his services for the Crimean War, and was sent to Kars, in Anatolia, as chief engineer, and second in command to Colonel (afterwards Sir) William Fenwick Williams.
He became lieutenant-colonel on 9 February 1855. He strengthened the fortifications of Kars, and took a very prominent part in the defence, including the repulse of the Russian forces under General Mouravieff on 29 September 1855.
On the capitulation of Kars he was sent, with the other British officers, as a prisoner of war to Russia, where he remained until the proclamation of peace in 1856. On his arrival in England he was presented with a sword of honour and a silver salver by the inhabitants of Ramsgate, where his mother then resided, and where his family was well known.
Lake was placed on half-pay on 12 September 1856, but next year accompanied the Earl of Eglinton, lord-lieutenant of Ireland, to Dublin as principal aide-de-camp, and in the following year retired from the army on his appointment as a commissioner of the Dublin Metropolitan Police.
Subsequently he became chief commissioner of police in Dublin. On 25 March 1875, he was made a Knight Commander of the civil division of the Order of the Bath (Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath) for his civil services, and in 1877 he retired upon a pension. He died at Brighton on 17 August 1881.
He was twice married: first, in 1841, to Anne, daughter of the Review
Peregrine Curtois of the Longhills, Lincolnshire. He remarried in 1848, to Ann Augusta, daughter of Sir William Curtis, second baronet.
