Harry Rawson

Admiral Sir Harry Holdsworth Rawson, (5 November 1843 – 3 November 1910) was a British naval officer in the Royal Navy. He is chiefly remembered for overseeing the Benin Expedition of 1897, a British punitive expedition against the Kingdom of Benin (in modern-day Nigeria). Rawson's force looted and burned the palace, exiled the Oba, and plundered a large number of the Benin Bronzes and other royal treasures. Rawson was appointed Governor of New South Wales, serving from 27 May 1902 to 27 May 1909. Early life Harry Rawson was born at Walton-on-Hill, Lancashire, on 5 November 1843, the son of Christopher Rawson, of a landed gentry family of The Haugh End and Mill House. He was educated at Eastman's Royal Naval Academy and at Marlborough College. In October 1871 in Cheshire, England, he married Florence Alice Stewart Shaw, daughter of John Ralph Shaw, of Arrowe Park, Cheshire. The couple had five children. He was a long-standing Freemason, and served as Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory.