NOTT, SIR WILLIAM English general, was the second son of Charles Nott, a Herefordshire farmer, obtained a cadetship in the Indian army and proceeded to India in 1800. In 1839, he held a command at Quetta and in November 1840 he captured Khelat, and in the following year compelled Akbar Khan and other tribal chiefs to submit to the British. On receiving the news of the rising of the Afghans at Kabul in November 1841, Nott took energetic measures. On Dec. 23, the British envoy, Sir William Hay Macnaghten, was murdered at Kabul ; and in Feb. 1842 the weak and incompetent commander-in-chief, General Elphinstone, sent orders that Kandahar was to be evacu ated. Nott at once decided to disobey, on the supposition that Elphinstone was not a free agent at Kabul ; and as soon as he heard the news of the massacre in the Khyber Pass, he urged the Government at Calcutta to maintain the garrison of Kandahar with a view to avenging the massacre and the murder of Mac naghten. In March he inflicted a severe defeat on the enemy near
Kandahar, and in May drove them with heavy loss out of the Baba Wali Pass. In July he received orders from Lord Ellen borough, the governor-general of India, to evacuate Afghanistan, Pollock, now commander-in-chief, to join him at Kabul. On Aug. 3o he routed the Afghans at Ghazni, and on Sept. 6 occupied the fortress, from which he carried away, by the governor-general's express instructions, the gates of the temple of Somnath; on the 17th he joined Pollock at Kabul. The combined army recrossed the Sutlej in December. (See AFGHANISTAN : History.) Nott was appointed resident at Lucknow and received the G.C.B. and a pension. He died at Carmarthen on Jan. 1,