The Evidence
What the record supports.
Drawn from the Lord Roberts Group research report on eyes, eyesight and blindness. Each finding is matched to its sources; where accounts disagree, the disagreement is shown, not smoothed over.
- Which eyeThe right eye
- The 1914 family biography identifies the right eye. Modern scholarly and regimental histories repeat the same account.Sources [1–3]
- WhenIn early childhood
- Sight was lost after a serious illness in India. The 1983 Commons claim that he was blind “from birth” conflicts with the earlier family narrative.Sources [1, 4]
- Cause“Brain fever”
- The historical phrase is kept in quotation marks. It is not precise enough to translate safely into a modern diagnosis such as meningitis.Sources [1, 2]
- ExtentSight lost, not the eye
- “Blind in one eye” is more precise than “one-eyed” or “lost an eye.” The sources describe loss of sight, not physical removal.Sources [3, 5]
Open archival leads: the original 1847 Addiscombe medical record, and the regimental paper cited by the Horsham Times in 1930.