Robert Phayre (Indian Army officer)

(22 January 1820 – 28 January 1897) was a General in the Indian Army who served most of his military career in India including in the First Afghan War, the Second Afghan War, the Indian Mutiny and who was Resident at Baroda from 1873 to 1874 during which period Maharaja Malhar Rao Gaekwad, precipitated the Baroda Crisis and then attempted to poison Phayre, by putting arsenic and diamond dust in his sherbet.

Robert Phayre was educated at Shrewsbury School and commissioned as Ensign in the East India Company's service on 26 January 1839, being posted to the 25th Bombay Native Infantry, and became lieutenant on 1 December 1840.

In March 1857 he was appointed Quartermaster-General to the Bombay Army, and acted in this capacity throughout the Indian Mutiny, his services being warmly commended by Sir Hugh Rose (later Lord Strathnairn) on 15 May 1860.

He made strong representations of the gross tyranny and cruelty of the Gaekwad Maharaja]], Malhar Rao which precipitated the Baroda Crisis, and a commission which investigated his charges found that they were substantially proved.

The Baroda trial followed, and by order of the Secretary of State for India, Lord Salisbury, Malhar Rao was deposed on 10 April 1875 and exiled to Madras, where he died in obscurity in 1882.

But the Indian Government had previously decided to change the Resident at Baroda and Phayre, declining to resign, was superseded by Sir Lewis Pelly on 25 November 1874.

Having been promoted Major-General on 1 January 1880, he was then appointed to the command of the reserve division of the army engaged in the Second Anglo-Afghan War and had charge of the line of communication by Quetta to Kandahar.

Phayre took an active part in religious and philanthropic movements, and published some pamphlets, including The Bible versus Corrupt Christianity (J. Kensit, 1890), The Foundation of Rock or of Sand : Which?

[2] A son was Robert Phayre (1853–1886) who joined the Indian Civil Service in 1871 and who was to die fighting insurgents in Upper Burma after his party had been surprised by rebels.