Nigel Anthony Collett (born 20 October 1952) is a former lieutenant-colonel in the British Army and author of The Butcher of Amritsar . He is a contributor to the Asian Review of Books and to China Daily and is a moderator for the Hong Kong International Literary Festival, for which he was instrumental in promoting the first event which had a focus on gay and lesbian writing in 2008. [1]
Collett attended the Commonweal School, Swindon, England from 1963 to 1970 [2] and St Peter's College, Oxford, taking a Bachelor of Arts in Modern History in 1973. He served in the Devonshire and Dorset Regiment and in 1974 attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst . In 1983–84 he attended the Army Staff College, Camberley. In 2002 he earned a Master of Arts in Biography at the University of Buckingham. [2]
From 1981 to 1982 he served as a company commander with the Western Frontier Regiment on secondment to the Land Forces of the Sultan of Oman. In 1983 he was an instructor with the British Military Advisory Team in Zimbabwe. In 1984 he was promoted to major and transferred to the 6th Queen Elizabeth's Own Gurkha Rifles, and was posted to Hong Kong, where he served from 1985 to 1992, including tours as brigade major 48 Gurkha Infantry Brigade and brigade major Brigade of Gurkhas. In 1991, he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel and was given command of the 6th in Hong Kong and was garrison commander for the British Forces in Brunei from 1992 to 1993.
Since 1994, he has been managing director of Gurkha International Manpower Services Ltd and Gurkha International (Hong Kong) Ltd, both in Hong Kong; website www.gurkha.com.hk. He is vice chairman of the Hong Kong and China Branch of the Royal British Legion and vice chairman of the Asia Africa Committee of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce. [3]
Brigade of Gurkhas is the collective name which refers to all the units in the British Army that are composed of Nepalese Gurkha soldiers. The brigade draws its heritage from Gurkha units that originally served in the British Indian Army prior to Indian independence, and prior to that served for the East India Company. The brigade includes infantry, engineering, signal, logistic and training and support units. They are known for their khukuri, a distinctive heavy knife with a curved blade, and have a reputation for being fierce and brave soldiers.
The Gurkhas or Gorkhas, with the endonym Gorkhali, are soldiers native to the Indian subcontinent, chiefly residing within Nepal and some parts of North India.
Colonel Reginald Edward Harry Dyer, was an officer of the Bengal Army and later the newly constituted British Indian Army. His military career began in the regular British Army but he soon transferred to the Presidency armies of India.
The Third Anglo-Afghan War began on 6 May 1919 when the Emirate of Afghanistan invaded British India and ended with an armistice on 8 August 1919. The Anglo-Afghan Treaty of 1919 resulted in the Afghans gaining control of foreign affairs from Britain and the British recognizing the Durand Line as the border between Afghanistan and British India.
The Royal Gurkha Rifles (RGR) is a rifle regiment of the British Army, forming part of the Brigade of Gurkhas. Unlike other regiments in the British Army, RGR soldiers are recruited from Nepal, which is neither a dependent territory of the United Kingdom nor a member of the Commonwealth.
British Forces Overseas Hong Kong comprised the elements of the British Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force stationed in British Hong Kong. The Governor of Hong Kong also assumed the position of the commander-in-chief of the forces and the Commander British Forces in Hong Kong took charge of the daily deployment of the troops. Much of the British military left prior to the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997. The present article focuses mainly on the British garrison in Hong Kong in the post Second World War era. For more information concerning the British garrison during the Second World War and earlier, see the Battle of Hong Kong.
The 7th Gurkha Rifles was a rifle regiment of the British Indian Army, before being transferred to the British Army, following India's independence in 1947 and after 1959 designated as the 7th Duke of Edinburgh's Own Gurkha Rifles.
The action at Kalmas was a battle between the British Army and a group of guerrilla fighters in Afghanistan in 1916.
William Hunter, Lord Hunter, was a Scottish advocate, judge and Liberal Party politician.
The Jallianwala Bagh massacre, also known as the Amritsar massacre, took place on 13 April 1919. A large, peaceful crowd had gathered at the Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, Punjab, British India, during annual Baishakhi fair, to protest against the Rowlatt Act and the arrest of pro-independence activists Dr. Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr. Satya Pal. In response to the public gathering, the temporary brigadier general R. E. H. Dyer, surrounded the people with his Gurkha and Sikh infantry regiments of the British Indian Army. The Jallianwala Bagh could only be exited on one side, as its other three sides were enclosed by buildings. After blocking the exit with his troops, he ordered them to shoot at the crowd, continuing to fire even as the protestors tried to flee. The troops kept on firing until their ammunition was exhausted. Estimates of those killed vary from 379 to 1,500 or more people and over 1,200 other people were injured of whom 192 were seriously injured. Britain has never formally apologised for the massacre but expressed "deep regret" in 2019.
General Sir Charles Harington Harington, was a British Army officer most noted for his service during the First World War and the Chanak Crisis. During his 46 years in the army, Harington served in the Second Boer War, held various staff positions during the First World War, served as Deputy Chief of the Imperial General Staff between 1918 and 1920, commanded the occupation forces in the Black Sea and Turkey, and ultimately became Governor of Gibraltar in 1933.
The Sedition Committee, usually known as the Rowlatt Committee, was a committee of inquiry appointed in 1917 by the British Indian Government with Sidney Rowlatt, an Anglo-Egyptian judge, as its president, charged with evaluating the threat posed to British rule by the revolutionary movement and determining the legal changes necessary to deal with it.
The 16th Indian Division was an infantry division of the Indian Army during the First World War. It was formed in December 1916, during the First World War. It was the only war formed division of the British Indian Army that was not sent overseas, instead it was sent to guard the North West Frontier. The division took over the responsibilities of the 3rd Lahore Divisional Area when it was disbanded in May 1917.
The community of Nepalis in China consists of Nepalese immigrants and expatriates to China as well as Chinese citizens of Nepalese descent.
The Butcher of Amritsar: General Reginald Dyer is a 2006 historical biography written by Nigel Collett, a former Gurkha officer, which covers the life of Reginald Dyer. The book's title refers to the 1919 massacre at Jallianwala Bagh in which 379 people were shot by troops under the command of Dyer. It is the second biography written on Dyer, the first having been written in the 1930s with co-operation from Dyer's widow.
The Memorial to the Brigade of Gurkhas on Horse Guards Avenue, Whitehall, London, was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II on 3 December 1997. This was the first memorial to Gurkha soldiers in the United Kingdom, and was occasioned by transfer of their headquarters and training centre from Hong Kong to London in 1997. The sculptor was Philip Jackson, working from a statue of 1924 by Richard Reginald Goulden in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and the plinth was designed by Cecil Denny Highton.
The Yarahmadzai (Shahnavazi) is a Baloch tribe from Iranian Balochistan. The main population of the tribe is settled in an area called Sarhad in the city of Khash. The population of the Yarahmadzais is an estimated 30,000 and they are divided into three smaller groups, Sohrabzai, Hossenzai and Rahmetzai.
Sardar Bahadur Sir Arur Singh Shergill was Sikh magistrate and civil judge who served as the manager of Darbar Sahib and the 10th Jathedar of the Akal Takht, as a sarbarah appointed by the British Raj from 1907 to 1920.
The following is a hierarchical outline for the British Armed Forces at the end of the Cold War. It is intended to convey the connections and relationships between units and formations.
The Hong Kong Logistic Support Regiment RLC was a British Army regiment and affiliated to the Royal Logistic Corps. It was raised on 8 April 1994 to provide logistical support in British Hong Kong prior to the handover of Hong Kong to China. The regiment was disbanded on 31 May 1997, giving it the nickname of the "1000-Day Regiment" as its 1,181 days of operation made it probably the shortest lived peacetime regiment in the British Army.