Early life

Robert Rollo Gillespie grew up in County Down

County Down

-Cities:*Belfast *Newry -Large towns:*Dundonald*Newtownards*Bangor-Medium towns:...

, in what was then the Kingdom of Ireland

Kingdom of Ireland

The Kingdom of Ireland refers to the country of Ireland in the period between the proclamation of Henry VIII as King of Ireland by the Crown of Ireland Act 1542 and the Act of Union in 1800. It replaced the Lordship of Ireland, which had been created in 1171...

, after turning down the opportunity of going to Cambridge university he joined the 3rd Irish Horse as a Cornet

Cornet (military rank)

Cornet was originally the third and lowest grade of commissioned officer in a British cavalry troop, after captain and lieutenant. A cornet is a new and junior officer.- Traditional duties :The cornet carried the troop standard, also known as a "cornet"....

. In 1786 he was involved in a duel in which he killed the opposing duellist. Fleeing to Scotland, he stayed briefly and then returned voluntarily to stand trial in 1788. The verdict was 'justifiable homicide' and Gillespie was acquitted.

Active service

In 1792 he transferred to the Light Dragoons with the rank of lieutenant

Lieutenant

A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...

 and soon embarked with his new regiment for Jamaica. However, his ship was shipwrecked at the Portuguese islands of Madeira

Madeira

Madeira is a Portuguese archipelago that lies between and , just under 400 km north of Tenerife, Canary Islands, in the north Atlantic Ocean and an outermost region of the European Union...

 forcing Gillespie to come ashore by a small boat and he then contracted yellow fever

Yellow fever

Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....

 in his first night on the island. After recovery, he rejoined his regiment and fought against the forces of the French republic

French First Republic

The French First Republic was founded on 22 September 1792, by the newly established National Convention. The First Republic lasted until the declaration of the First French Empire in 1804 under Napoleon I...

 in the Caribbean

Caribbean

The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

 at Tiburon Peninsula

Tiburon Peninsula

The Tiburon Peninsula , or simply "the Tiburon", is a region of Haiti encompassing all of Haiti's southern coast. It starts roughly at the southernmost of the Haiti-Dominican Republic border and extends westward near Cuba, forming a large headland. Four of Haiti's ten departments are located...

, Port-au-Prince

Port-au-Prince

Port-au-Prince is the capital and largest city of the Caribbean nation of Haiti. The city's population was 704,776 as of the 2003 census, and was officially estimated to have reached 897,859 in 2009....

, Fort Bizotten and Fort de l'Hôpital.

Being made Adjutant-General of St. Domingo, he was at home alone when eight men broke into his house to burgle it. Armed only with his sword, he killed six of them while the other two fled.

India, Java, Sumatra, Nepal

In 1804 he was acquitted by a court martial of suspected involvement in a fraud scandal after which he transferred to India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, travelling overland through Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

, Greece and Baghdad

Baghdad

Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...

 to take command of the 19th Light Dragoons

19th Light Dragoons

The 19th Light Dragoons was a cavalry regiment of the British Army created in 1781 for service in British India. The regiment served in India until 1806, and in North America during the War of 1812, and was disbanded in Britain in 1821.-Formation:...

. During the Vellore Mutiny

Vellore Mutiny

The Vellore Mutiny on 10 July 1806 was the first instance of a large-scale and violent mutiny by Indian sepoys against the British East India Company, predating the Indian Rebellion of 1857 by half a century...

 of 1806 Gillespie set out with a relief force from the 19th within a quarter of an hour of the alarm being raised. Dashing ahead with twenty men, he saw the surviving British troops, about sixty men of the 69th commanded by NCOs and two assistant surgeons, holding the ramparts but out of ammunition. As he was unable to gain entry through the defended gate (which was in control of the mutineers), Gillespie climbed the wall onto the battlements to take command with the aid of a rope and a sergeant's sash which was lowered to him. To gain time for the rest of the 19th to arrive he led the 69th in a bayonet-charge along the ramparts, engaging in close combat with the enemy. With the rest of the 19th now arrived Gillespie ordered them to blow in the gates with their galloper guns and then made a second charge with the 69th clearing the space just inside the gate to permit the cavalry to deploy. The 19th and Madras Cavalry then charged and slaughtered any enemy who stood in their way.

In 1811 he took the city of Batavia in Dutch Java. He was subsequently appointed Commander of the Forces in British-occupied Java and in 1812 he deposed the Sultan of Palembang in Sumatra, and took the royal Javanese city of Yogyakarta. On his return to India he killed a roaming tiger that was prowling on Bangalore

Bangalore

Bengaluru , formerly called Bengaluru is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is nicknamed the Garden City and was once called a pensioner's paradise. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and...

 racecourse. Two years later, at the beginning of the Gurkha War

Gurkha War

The Gurkha War , sometimes called the Gorkha War or the Anglo–Nepalese War, was fought between the Kingdom of Nepal and the British East India Company as a result of border tensions and ambitious expansionism...

, he led a column to attack a Nepalese hill fort at Kalunga, repulsing a Gurkha

Gurkha

Gurkha are people from Nepal who take their name from the Gorkha District. Gurkhas are best known for their history in the Indian Army's Gorkha regiments, the British Army's Brigade of Gurkhas and the Nepalese Army. Gurkha units are closely associated with the kukri, a forward-curving Nepalese knife...

 counter attack. Gillespie then tried to follow them back into the fort with a dismounted party of the 8th Dragoons

8th King's Royal Irish Hussars

The 8th King's Royal Irish Hussars was a cavalry regiment in the British Army, first raised in 1693. It saw service for three centuries, before being amalgamated into The Queen's Royal Irish Hussars in 1958....

. Although this failed, Gillespie renewed the attack with companies of the 53rd Foot. Thirty yards from the fort he shouted the words, "One shot more for the honour of Down" and charged with the men when a Gurkha

Gurkha

Gurkha are people from Nepal who take their name from the Gorkha District. Gurkhas are best known for their history in the Indian Army's Gorkha regiments, the British Army's Brigade of Gurkhas and the Nepalese Army. Gurkha units are closely associated with the kukri, a forward-curving Nepalese knife...

 sharpshooter

Marksman

A marksman is a person who is skilled in precision, or a sharpshooter shooting, using projectile weapons, such as with a rifle but most commonly with a sniper rifle, to shoot at long range targets...

 shot him through the heart and he died within seconds of falling. With his death the attack faltered causing the next senior officer to call a retreat.

Memorial

A large statue of Major General Sir Rollo Gillespie was constructed under the oversight of John Fraser, the first County Surveyor of Down, and was unveiled on 24 June 1845 (St. John's Day) in the Town Square of Comber

Comber

Comber is a small town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It lies 5 miles south of Newtownards, at the northern end of Strangford Lough. It had a population of 8,933 people in the 2001 Census. Comber is part of the Borough of Ards...

. Fifty lodges of the Masonic Order were present, in what is believed to be the biggest Masonic gathering in Irish history. It was calculated that 25,000 to 30,000 people crowded into the town to witness the ceremony. The column is 55 feet high. At the foot of the column are many Masonic symbols and his famous last words "One shot more for the honour of Down"