Apparently the ensign, who had only been on the Rock a few days, was unaware that the macaques were revered by the soldiers of the garrison and that stringent orders were in force to protect them.

   The killing of the “ape” caused such a sensation that it even made headlines in London. The London Telegraph for 19th September 1872 reported:

    “Wandering over the Rock with a gun he espied an ape, and as he thought it would be interesting to send home a stuffed monkey [they are called Barbary Apes but in reality are Macaque monkeys], he shot it. Imagine the horror of the town and garrison when the lad came back through the streets bearing with him triumphantly the result of his day’s shooting.”

   The Telegraph reported that it was only the fact that the lad was an officer that “…the inhabitants did not dare to rush upon the sacrilegious wretch who had slaughtered a creature almost as holy as an officer”.

   When the ensign reached his barracks he was told of the fearful crime that he had committed and that he could expect to be severely punished.

   The matter was deemed to be so grave that only the Governor himself could deal with it. Fortunately for the ensign the Governor of the day was the kindly Sir William Fenwick Williams.

   Authorities from the town were so outraged at the killing of the monkey that they went to Government House and informed the Governor that they believed in “lex talionis” (the law of equal retribution) and demanded that the young man be executed to avenge the slaughtered ape.

   So serious was the crime that even the compassionate Williams considered cashiering the ensign but, after lengthy debate with the authorities from the town and senior officers, he handed out a jail sentence of three months. The real punishment for the young man, however, was the humiliation he suffered. The Telegraph reported that from that day forward he was “called by everyone ‘Du Chaillu’*” (see end of story).

   Williams was two years into his Governorship of Gibraltar (1872- 1876) when he passed sentence on the ensign. He was a 72 year-old bachelor and had developed into a Colonel Blimp-like figure but he was well liked.

   The Telegraph somewhat condescendingly wrote: “The Governor, Sir Fenwick Williams of Kars, makes an excellent commander. He and his predecessors have mainly devoted themselves to defending the apes to be found on the Rock against hostile attacks from the garrison and the town.”

   In his career as a soldier Williams did much more than ‘defend apes’. The ‘of Kars’ designation comes from Williams role in the last major operation of the Crimean War.

   In June of 1855 Emperor Alexander II of Russia ordered General Nikolay Muravyov to attack Kars the most eastern fortress of Northeastern Turkey. Williams was hailed a hero when the 30,000 Turkish troops under his command turned back an assault by 40,000 Russian soldiers. Kars and his men repulsed a second attack and the Russians suffered 6,000 casualties. Unable to accept such casualties Muravyov put Kars under siege.

   When heavy snowfall in late October made the arrival of Turkish reinforcements to Kars quite impracticable and with cholera raging in the city Williams decided to negotiate a surrender. He told Muravyov that if unconditional surrender were insisted upon, they would spike every gun, burn every flag, and then let him work his will on the town’s survivors. Muravyov was generous to such a spirited enemy; the garrison marched out with their flags and with their swords.

   Williams was given a comfortable imprisonment at Ryazan, and when the Crimean War ended a few months later he was presented to Czar Alexander II before returning to London in March 1856.

   There he was lionized. His defence of Kars had been one of the great achievements of the British army in a war in which achievements had been few. Williams was made a KCB and given an Oxford DCL; France gave him the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour; and the British parliament voted him an annual pension of £1,000 for life. He was made a major-general, given command of the Woolwich garrison, and elected to parliament for Calne in July 1856, a seat he held until April 1859.

   The likelihood that Williams was probably the illegitimate son of Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent (Governor of Gibraltar 1802-1820) didn’t hurt. Williams himself made no effort to discredit this possibility, which would have meant he was Queen Victoria’s half-brother.

   Officially Williams was the son of Maria Walker and Thomas Williams who was the commissary general and barrack master of the British garrison at Halifax, Canada.

   In May 1815 Williams entered the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich. Following his graduation he spent some years traveling. In 1825 he was made Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery and served on stations at Gibraltar and Ceylon. He was promoted 2nd Captain in 1840, 1st Captain in 1846, and brevet colonel in 1854.

   In 1841 he went to Constantinople with Captain Collingwood Dickson to reform the Turkish arsenal. In 1843 he was appointed British commissioner in charge of defining the Turkish-Persian border, a task that took nine years and for which he was awarded a CB in 1852.

   He later accepted appointment as commander-in-chief of the British forces in British North America, and was thus in a position to organize the defences of Canada when the American Civil War broke out in April 1861. A staunch supporter of independence for Canada Williams was Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia from 1864 to 1867 when the province became one of the first to join the Canadian Federation.

    In September 1870 Williams was made Governor and Commanderin- Chief of Gibraltar, and stayed there until 1876. His last official appointment was as constable of the Tower of London, in May 1881.

   Williams died at his hotel in Pall Mall on 26th July 1883 and is buried in Brompton cemetery.

   * Paul Belloni du Chaillu (1837- 1903) was an African traveller who was the first white man to see a gorilla and one of the most talked of men of his time. He was born on the island of Reunion off the east coast of Africa of a French father and a mulatto mother. Sent to Paris for his education, he later returned to Africa and began, like his father, to trade with the natives along the Gaboon River in West Africa.