October

General Paolo Crescenzo Martino Avitabile

1791-1850

Governor of Wazirabad & Peshawar

This Neapolitan mercenary was born into a large family at San Lazzaro, near the town of Agerola in Italy. Having spent six years in Persia he acquired the rank of colonel and was decorated with the orders of ‘Two Lions & Crown’ and ‘The lion and the Sun’. On his arrival at Lahore he was offered employment by Maharajah Runjeet Singh in the arsenal foundries on a salary of 700 Rupees per month in 1827.

Remaining active in military service till 1829, he was then employed purely on civil administration duties becoming the Governor of Wazirabad in 1830. General Avitabile was instrumental in controlling the entire volatile region of the Peshawar valley with an iron hand especially after the death of General Hari Singh Nalwa in 1837. The following year he became Governor of Peshawar until 1842.

By September 1843 after the assassination of Maharajah Sher Singh, he resigned in disgust from the services of the ‘Lahore Durbar’ and finally left Calcutta for the last time reaching Naples in 1844. Here he was received by the King of Naples who honoured him with the ‘Cross of St Ferdinand’ and the title of ‘Honorary General of the Neapolitan Army’.

He was one of the few European officers that amassed a huge fortune during his tenure as Governor of Peshawar. One evening he was heard muttering that he had been poisoned and before the village doctor had arrived ‘Abu Tabela’ was already dead. He was buried in the church of San Martino and a brief obituary of his death was published in the Times newspaper on the 13 April 1850.

IMAGE AND CAPTIONS

200: General Paolo Avitabile

201: Ancestral mansion of General Avitabile that was demolished by the Nazis in

1945.

202: Residence used by General Avitabile formerly belonging to

General Hari Singh Nalwa at Peshawar.

203: Servants quarters within the residence built by General Avitabile in

Wazirabad.

204: The fortress residence of General Avitabile at Wazirabad.

205: This rare plaque that has survived marks the spot where the former

residence of General Avitabile once stood in Lahore.

206: N/A

207: Sword presented to General Avitabile by Maharajah Ranjit Singh, now in the

possession of the family occupying his residence in Pakistan.