PRIVATE COLLECTIONS

The Library of a Victorian Adventurer: Sir James Edward Alexander (1803–1885)

5 February 2026

Dominic Somerville-Brown

Lyon & Turnbull were delighted to present the Library of General Sir James Edward Alexander (1803-1885) in February 2026, a rare collection of sketches and papers from travels in Canada, America and New Zealand in the mid-19th century, together with a selection of important military and historical artefacts. The collection attracted international interest to be 100% sold and achieve a quadruple-estimate total of over £275,000.

General Alexander was a Victorian soldier-scholar renowned for bringing Cleopatra's Needle to London. Documenting a life that spanned five continents, his books, manuscripts, artefacts, and sketchbooks record a career of extraordinary range - combining military service, exploration, authorship, and keen ethnographic observation - and offer a rare, first-hand view of the 19th-century world in motion.

Books & Manuscripts

Browse the results of the February 2026 edition of Books & Manuscripts online now.

General Alexander was a Scottish soldier, traveller and author whose career was one of extraordinary variety and accomplishment even by the standards of a decorated 19^th-century army officer. He saw active service in Burma, South Africa, the Crimea and New Zealand, was present with the Persian army during their final major war with imperial Russia (by whom he would later suffer imprisonment by on suspicion of espionage), documented the slave societies of the West Indies on the eve of emancipation, and received a knighthood for his exploration of the interior of southern Africa, in what is now Namibia. He spent over ten years in Canada, first with the Royal Engineers on surveying duty in the forests of Quebec and New Brunswick, then as aide-de-camp to two successive commanders-in-chief.

“It was saved from destruction purely by the timely intervention of General Alexander, who for ten successive years pleaded incessantly with the owner of the ground, with learned societies, and with the English Government, for the preservation and removal of the monument.”

Alexander’s spirit of adventure is memorialised today in the form of Cleopatra’s Needle, now situated on London’s Victoria Embankment. The Ancient Egyptian obelisk had been offered as a gift by Muhammad Ali Pasha of Egypt to the newly crowned George IV in 1820, but some 50 years later remained unclaimed and prostrate on the Alexandrian seafront. By this time it was rumoured that the owner of the surrounding land, a Greek merchant, was considering dismantling the obelisk for building material. According to one contemporary account, it was saved from destruction purely by ‘the timely intervention of General Alexander, who for ten successive years pleaded incessantly with the owner of the ground, with learned societies and with the English Government, for the preservation and removal of the monument’. An original fragment and fine marble model of the obelisk, both presented to Alexander by the engineer who organised the obelisk’s transport to England, are a highlight of the Five Centuries auction.

RED MARBLE PRESENTATION MODEL OF CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE AND A PRESENTATION FRAGMENT

mounted with a white metal plaque inscribed ‘This model of Cleopatra’s needle / is presented by John Dixon Esq CE / to General Sir James B Alexander CB & c / as a memento of / his valuable co-operation in securing / The obelisk to the British nation / June 1877'; together with a GRANITE FRAGMENT FROM CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE, mounted on a tapered ebony plinth base applied with a white metal cartouche inscribed ‘Portion of Cleopatra’s needle / from the butt, square / for the pedestal / to General Sir J. E Alexander CB. ‘ from / Captain Carter & John Dixon Esq CE / 1878’

Alexander also wrote or edited numerous books, including lively narratives of his travels, a translation of the Persian-language memoir of an 18^th-century Indian ambassador, and a biography of the Duke of Wellington.

Sir James Edward Alexander (1803-1885)

Sketchbooks of his travels in Canada, 1840s-50s

Alexander travelled to North America with the rank of captain in his new regiment the 14th foot in 1841. Between 1844 and 1845 he was detached to the Royal Engineers to help survey for a military road connecting Quebec and Halifax. Here a collection of sketchbooks that included: views of Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, ‘Canada West’ (i.e. Ontario), New York and elsewhere.

Eveline M. Alexander (1821-1906)

Albums of watercolours & sketches of Canada (Quebec)

Eveline Marie Alexander (1821-1906) was the wife of Sir James Edward Alexander. She was the daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Cornwallis Michell, who was appointed surveyor general of Cape Colony in 1828 and served alongside James Edward Alexander on the staff of Sir Benjamin D'Urban during the Cape Frontier War of 1834-5.

The heart of General Alexander’s library, however, is his collection of sketchbooks, altogether providing a rich pictorial chronicle of military and civilian life in the 19^th century and an astounding visual record of the people and places encountered across the world over a fifty-year career. Of major ethnographic importance, they contain extensive depictions of the Maori and striking watercolours of the Indigenous peoples of Canada. Despite the duties imposed by his profession, Alexander declared himself in his memoir of the First Taranaki War to be an ‘Aborigine-protectionist’, a sympathetic outlook in evidence in his attentive portraits. His extremely detailed Canadian albums preserve views of cities and settlements now doubtless changed beyond recognition.

Alexander, Sir James Edward (1803-1885)

Sketchbook of travels in Canada

Alexander travelled to North America with the rank of captain in his new regiment the 14th foot in 1841. Between 1844 and 1845 he was detached to the Royal Engineers to help survey for a military road connecting Quebec and Halifax, recalling in a statement written decades later in support of his candidature for the Order of the Bath that ‘the work was very trying; and [I] got no promotion or reward for this beyond 10s. a day when in the bush, 7s. when working at plans and reports’.

Alexander, Sir James Edward (1803-1885)

Sketchbook of New Zealand during the First Taranaki War, 1860-2

With the outbreak of the First Taranaki War in 1860 Alexander was ordered with his battalion to New Zealand, where he commanded the troops at Auckland until 1862. On his return to Britain he wrote an account of the conflict, Incidents of the Maori War (1863), in which he declared himself to be an ‘Aborigines-protectionist’, professing ‘friendly sentiments towards colonists and settlers, as long as they do not interfere with native rights, and believe, and act on the belief, that Divine Providence has given an inheritance to those of dark as well as fair complexions’

The portrait frontispiece to Alexander’s first book, Travels from India to England (1827), shows a refined, young gentleman of the Regency era. He lived to become a grandee of the Victorian military establishment, decorated with honours including a knighthood, the deputy lieutenancy of Stirlingshire, and a fellowship of the Royal Geographical Society.

Taken together, the books, sketchbooks, and artefacts assembled here reveal a life defined not only by action, but by sustained reflection and record. They chart the evolution of General Sir James Edward Alexander from a cultivated Regency traveller to a senior Victorian officer whose curiosity never dimmed, and whose commitment to documentation - textual, visual, and material - was unwavering.

Specialist

Dominic Somerville-Brown

Head of Books & Manuscripts (Maternity Cover)

Department