Louis Edward Nolan

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Louis Edward Nolan (January 4, 1818 – October 25, 1854) was a Canadian-born officer in the British Army.

Nolan was born in Upper Canada, now Ontario, on January 4, 1818. He was the third, but second surviving son of Captain John Babington Nolan (70th Regiment of Foot) and his wife Eliza Harleston Hartley. They had met and married in Perth, Scotland, in 1813. It was Eliza's third marriage; she already had two sons from her previous marriages to Andrew Macfarlane and Charles Ruddach.

The family returned to Edinburgh in 1819. Babington Nolan left the 70th Foot in 1820 and retired on half-pay. Little is known of the years which followed, but by 1829, when Louis was eleven, the family was living in Piacenza, Italy, and shortly after moved on to Milan, then within the Austrian Empire. In 1832 his father obtained an unsalaried position as British Consular Agent and Vice-Consul there.

Louis Nolan and his brothers were sent for training in the Austrian Imperial army. In 1832 he became a cadet in the K.k. Friedrich Wilhelm III. König von Preussen 10. Husaren-Regiment, and trained at the Engineer Corps School in Tulln. Finishing his training in 1835, he was posted to his regiment and served in Hungary and Poland. By 1838 he was a Senior Lieutenant.

In 1838 Nolan went to London to see Queen Victoria's coronation. He also attended the military review at Hyde Park. Over the following months he became determined to follow his family's tradition by joining the British Army. He was gazetted Cornet in the 15th King's Hussars in 1839.

Nolan's subsequent career was divided between Bangalore and Madras in India, and the Cavalry Depot in Maidstone, Kent. He fell ill on arrival in India, and was sent home. On recovery, he began to train as a riding master at Maidstone. In 1841 he purchased his Lieutenancy, and returned to India in 1843. In 1844, Nolan was appointed Riding Master in his regiment. In 1849, Nolan was appointed ADC to General Sir George Berkeley, Commander-in-Chief at Madras. He purchased his troop in March 1850, two months after his father's death. He returned to Britain on leave in 1851, and began his first book, The Training of Cavalry Remount Horses: A New System, 1852.

From March to August 1852 he travelled around Europe researching the training of cavalry in several countries, as preparation for his next book. In October 1852 he commanded the regimental depot troop at Maidstone, and that November led his regiment's detachment in Wellington's funeral procession. He also worked on a saddle design, which was tested by the Mounted Staff Corps in the Crimea, and adopted after his death. His second book, Cavalry: Its History and Tactics, was published in 1853.

In 1854 Nolan was gazetted ADC to Brigadier-General Airey, before being sent to the Ottoman Empire to purchase horses for the army for the Crimean War. Nolan travelled around Turkey itself, Lebanon and Syria. He arrived in Varna, Bulgaria, in July, with nearly 300 animals.

On arriving in the Crimea, Nolan served as Airey's ADC and as an interpreter between the British and the French. However, he became increasingly bitter at the conduct of the campaign. Controversy continues to surround his delivery of the famous 'Fourth Order' and his death in the Charge of the Light Brigade in the Battle of Balaclava, October 25, 1854.