The Arbuthnott Papers

Born 1856 at Arbuthnott, Laurencekirk, the youngest son of John, ninth Viscount of Arbuthnott. Educated at Fettes College and Sandhurst; commissioned into the 19th Royal Hussars, 1876. Served in India and in the Mahdist War of 1882–85, fighting at Tel-el-Kebir, El Teb, Tamai, and Abu Klea, where he was lightly wounded. Rose to Lieutenant-Colonel; received the Egypt Medal and the Distinguished Service Order. Senior lecturer in Military Science at the Royal Military Academy from 1887. Inherited the title upon the death of his elder brother, John Murdo, 10th Viscount, in September 1893.

Soldier and explorer of the Royal Geographic Society. A close confidant and former protégé of John Murdo Arbuthnott, who guided him through his early years in India. Survived an attempt upon his life at the Royal Geographic Society in September 1893, in which he sustained the injury that cost him his right arm; spirited from St Bartholomew's to a Military Hospital on the south coast through Lord Arbuthnott's intervention. Returned to London in late September, in time to deliver the eulogy at the memorial for the fallen Vigilance Committee.

Born in Wiltshire, 1851, the son of a tenant farmer. Entered domestic service at fourteen, advancing through the household ranks of several minor gentry families before entering the service of John Murdo Arbuthnott in 1878. Accompanied his master to India and subsequently to the Arctic; learned rudimentary first aid from an army surgeon at the Calcutta Residency. Reserved, exacting, imperturbable. Retains the Webley revolver issued during his Indian service, polished weekly though seldom fired.

Born in Alexandria, 1864, the son of a Coptic deacon. Fled the Alexandria riots of 1882 with his mother and sisters; his father did not survive the journey. Enlisted in the Egyptian army in his early twenties, where he came to the attention of Lieutenant Sandy Arbuthnott, in whose service he has remained since. Carries an ancient ceremonial knife of the Coptic Church, and at his neck a golden ankh given him by his mother, from whom he had been parted in the riots of 1882.

Born and raised in Stepney, the twin brother of Martha Tomlinson. Joined the Bow Division of the Metropolitan Police at twenty-one. The chief surviving witness of the Ghost Station Massacre, in which he sustained the wounds for which he was hospitalised at St Bartholomew's, and from which he is now recently discharged. The Lord Mayor's commendation has lately advanced him to Sergeant. Loyal to a fault; once a promise is given, nothing short of death will make him break it.

Born in St Albans, 1826. Distinguished classicist, scholar of Roman and Carthaginian history, latterly retired from the universities and resident in London. A confirmed bachelor of mild eccentricities, given to puns and to a fondness for port. Outwardly a regular communicant of the Church of England; less publicly, a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Among his former students he counts the archaeologist William Matthew Flinders Petrie, whose gift of an ankh, unearthed near the Great Pyramid of Cheops, is among his most treasured possessions.