John Curwen Pottinger

Founded in 1841 to educate the sons of gentlemen, Cheltenham College became one of the great public schools of the Victorian era. Its Rifle Corps was enrolled in 1862 but it was not until the following year that Cheltenham made their first appearance at the annual national rifle meeting held in Wimbledon ‘for the promotion of marksmanship in the interests of Defence of the Realm.’
This portrait of John Curwen Pottinger (1846-1909) comes from an album of carte-de-visite portraits all showing members of the school’s Rifle XI during the mid-1860s. The album was compiled by John Reid (1844-1889), afterwards John James Reid, son of Sir James John Reid, Chief Justice of Corfu. Reid was Captain of the Rifle Corps from November 1863 to June 1864. After finishing his education at Cambridge’s Trinity College and at Edinburgh University, he was called to the Scottish bar; he died in Edinburgh on 10 November 1889, age 45.

John Curwen Pottinger was born at Ahmednuggur in India on 31 October 1846, a son of General John Pottinger CB. He left Cheltenham College in June 1863 and in January 1867 he joined the Royal Engineers as a Lieutenant. He later returned to India where he was employed by the Indian Public Works Department. He married Hannah Katharine James on 3 February 1880 at Redgrave in Suffolk. He died in London in 1909, aged 61, and was buried in Richmond Cemetery.

Photographed by Charles Richmond Pottinger [no relation] of Cheltenham.