George Elliot

George Elliot was a Royal Navy officer who served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars and later became involved in the First Opium War. The son of the diplomat Hugh Elliot, he entered the navy young, rose through command and served in the Mediterranean and East Indies.

In 1840 he was appointed joint plenipotentiary and naval commander in China, but ill health and disagreement over policy limited his role. He later reached the rank of admiral. George Elliot died in Kensington.

Amitav Ghosh’s Flood of Fire brings Admiral George Elliot into the transformation of the opium dispute into open war with Qing China. As British and East India Company forces assemble, sail for the Pearl River and begin the naval operations of the First Opium War, Elliot represents the senior command structure behind the expedition in which fictional soldiers and sailors are caught up. His presence helps anchor Ghosh’s invented characters to the real decisions made by British commanders as coercive diplomacy gives way to bombardment, occupation and the seizure of strategic positions along the Chinese coast.