Henry Curling

Who was Henry Curling?

Colonel Henry Thomas Curling was a Royal Artillery officer of the British Army who served between 1868 to 1902. He fought in the Anglo-Zulu war and during the Battle of Isandlwana was one of only a few British officers to survive; in fact he was the only British front line survivor. Afterwards he wrote a dramatic report on the battle and several letters home that described it further. After the Zulu war he saw service in Afghanistan, Aldershot and Egypt. The letters he wrote during the Zulu war were posthumously published in the book The Curling letters of the Zulu War: "there was an awful slaughter" co-authored by Adrian Greaves and Brian Best.