CHESNEY, FRANCIS RAWDON British general and explorer, the son of Capt. Alexander Chesney, was born at Annalong, Co. Down, Ireland, on March 16, 1789. He received a cadetship at Woolwich, and was gazetted to the Royal Artillery in 18o5. But though he rose to be colonel-commandant of the 14th brigade Royal Artillery (1864), and general in 1868, Chesney is chiefly remembered for his connection with the Suez canal, and with the exploration of the Euphrates valley. His re port in 183o on the feasibility of making the Suez canal was the basis of Lesseps' great undertaking. In 1831 he introduced to the home Government the idea of opening a new overland route to India by a daring journey along the Euphrates from Anah to the Persian gulf. In 1835 he was in command of a small ex pedition for which parliament voted L20,000 to test the navigabil ity of the Euphrates. After encountering difficulties from the opposition of the Egyptian pasha, and from the need of trans porting two steamers (one of which was lost) in sections from the Mediterranean over the hilly country to the river, they ar rived by water at Bushire in the summer of 1836, and proved Chesney's view to be practicable. In 1847 his period of service was completed, and he went home to Ireland, but in 1856 and again in 1862 he went out to jhe East to take a part in further surveys and negotiations for the Euphrates valley railway scheme. He died on Jan. 3o, 1872.
The chief works of Chesney are: The Expedition for the Survey of the Rivers Euphrates and Tigris (185o) ; Observations on . . . Fire-arms 0852); The Russo-Turkish Campaigns of 1828 and 1829 (1854) ; Narrative of the Euphrates Expedition (1854). See The Life of Gen. F. R. Chesney by his wife and daughter, ed. S. Lane-Poole (1885).