Henry Shrapnel
{{short description|British Army officer}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2021}}
{{Infobox military person
|name = Henry Shrapnel
|image = henry-shrapnel.jpg
|caption = Portrait of Shrapnel, 1817
|birth_name =
|birth_date = {{birth date|1761|6|3|df=yes}}
|birth_place = Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire
|death_date = {{death date and age|1842|3|13|1761|6|3|df=yes}}
|death_place = Southampton, Hampshire
|death_cause =
|resting_place =
|resting_place_coordinates =
|branch = British Army
|service_years=1779–1825
|allegiance = United Kingdom
|rank = Lieutenant-General
|battles = {{Tree list}}
{{tree list/end}}
|unit = Royal Artillery
}}
Lieutenant-General Henry Scrope Shrapnel (3 June 1761 – 13 March 1842) was a British Army officer whose name has entered the English language as the inventor of the shrapnel shell.
Biography
Henry Shrapnel was born at Midway Manor in Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, England, the ninth child of Zachariah Shrapnel and his wife Lydia. He was commissioned as an Royal Artillery lieutenant in 1779, serving first in Newfoundland. He returned to England in 1784, when he began to experiment with hollow cannonballs filled with lead shot that burst in mid-air.{{cite web |title=Shrapnel, Henry (1761–1842) |author=John Sweetman |work = Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |year=2004 |access-date=2015-08-10 |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/index/25/101025473/ |publisher=Oxford University Press}}
In 1787 he was posted to Gibraltar where he began demonstrations of his anti-personnel weapon which impressed senior officers commanding the fortress.{{cite book| last=Knight| first=R. J. B.| title=Britain against Napoleon:The Organization of Victory, 1793-1815| publisher=Allen Lane an imprint of Penguin Books| location=London, England New York| year=2013| isbn=978-1-84614-177-5| page=47}} From Gibraltar, Shrapnel was sent to the West Indies in 1791.{{cite web |title=Shrapnel, Henry (1761–1842) |author=John Sweetman |work = Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |year=2004 |access-date=2015-08-10 |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/index/25/101025473/ |publisher=Oxford University Press}} Shrapnel served in Flanders, where he was wounded in 1793. He was promoted to major on 1 November 1803 after eight years as a captain.
In 1803, the British Army adopted a similar but elongated explosive shell which immediately acquired the inventor's name.{{cite journal|last1=Rich|first1=Norman M.|title=Shrapnel Wounds|journal=JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association|volume=202|issue=3|year=1967|pages=245|issn=0098-7484|doi=10.1001/jama.1967.03130160119038}} It has lent the term "shrapnel" to fragmentation from artillery shells and fragmentation in general ever since, long after it was replaced by high-explosive rounds. Until the end of World War I, the shells were still manufactured according to his original principles.
After his invention's success in battle at Fort Nieuw-Amsterdam, Surinam, on 30 April 1804,{{cite book| last=Hogg| first=Oliver| title=Artillery: its origin, heyday and decline| publisher=C. Hurst| location=London| year=1970| isbn=978-0-900966-43-9| page=180}} Shrapnel was promoted to lieutenant colonel on 20 July 1804, less than nine months later.
In 1814, the British Government recognized Shrapnel's contribution by awarding him £1,200 (£{{formatnum:{{Inflation|UK|1200|1814|r=-2}}}} in {{CURRENTYEAR}}) a year for life.{{Cite magazine|author=Long, Tony|date=March 2008|title=March 13, 1842: Henry Shrapnel Dies, But His Name Lives On|magazine=Wired|url=https://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/03/dayintech_0313 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080603202930/http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/03/dayintech_0313|archive-date=3 June 2008|url-status=live}} Bureaucracy, however, prevented him from receiving the full benefit of this award. He was appointed to the office of colonel-commandant, Royal Artillery, on 6 March 1827. He rose to the rank of lieutenant general on 10 January 1837.{{Cite DNB |wstitle= Shrapnel, Henry | volume= 52 |last= Vetch |first= Robert Hamilton |author-link= Robert Hamilton Vetch |pages = 163-165 |short=1}}
Shrapnel lived at Peartree House, near Peartree Green, Southampton, from about 1835 until his death.{{cite web|last=Vale|first=Jessica|title=Peartree House|url=http://www.bitterne.net/gentry/peartree.html|work=Lost Houses of Southampton|publisher=bitterne.net|access-date=22 June 2012|year=1980|archive-date=16 March 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140316112831/http://www.bitterne.net/gentry/peartree.html|url-status=dead}}{{cite web|title=Peartree House|url=http://www.plimsoll.org/resources/SCCLibraries/2964.asp|work=Port Cities: Southampton|publisher=plimsoll.org|access-date=22 June 2012|year=1930|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130129111337/http://www.plimsoll.org/resources/SCCLibraries/2964.asp|archive-date=29 January 2013|url-status=usurped}}
His sister Rachel Shrapnel married the reverend Thomas Tregenna Biddulph. Gen. Sir Michael Anthony Shrapnel Biddulph was his great-nephew.{{cite book |last1=Burke |first1=Bernard |title=A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain & Ireland |date=1898 |publisher=Harrison & sons |page=113 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YUtNAQAAMAAJ&dq=Michael+Anthony+Shrapnel&pg=PA113 |access-date=8 September 2024 |language=en}}
See also
References
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Category:Military personnel from Wiltshire
Category:People from Bradford-on-Avon
Category:British Army lieutenant generals
Category:Royal Artillery officers
Category:British Army personnel of the French Revolutionary Wars