Orfeur Cavenagh
British Indian Army general
General Sir Orfeur Cavenagh (8 October 1820 – 3 July 1891) was the last Governor of the Straits Settlements to be appointed by the East India Company, governing from 1859 to 1867 under the India Office.
Family background
Cavenagh was the third son of James Gordon Cavenagh and Ann née Coates.
Career
Cavenagh trained at Addiscombe Military Seminary, the military academy of the British East India Company. He passed his examination in June 1837, and in early 1838 joined the 32nd Regiment Native Infantry. In 1840, he passed the prescribed examination at Fort William College, Calcutta. He was appointed interpreter and quartermaster to the 41st Regiment Native Infantry. In 1840 and 1841, he was attached to the force employed in watching the Nepalese frontier.
He was adjutant of the 4th Irregular Cavalry (Skinner's Horse), and in December 1843 was badly wounded in the Battle of Maharajpore. His leg was severed just above the ankle by a round shot and his horse was killed under him. He was wounded again in January 1846 during the First Anglo-Sikh War, when he was struck in the left arm by a ricochetting round shot.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Orfeur Cavenagh” as british Indian Army general. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8016367. VIAF identifies the subject as 36591287. The Library of Congress control number is no2002085994. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1820, 1891, 1859 and 1867.
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This entry incorporates text from “Orfeur Cavenagh” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.