author
R. D. (Robert Dwarris) Gibney
1826–1906
A retired Indian Army major who turned lived experience into vivid history and fiction, he wrote with the authority of someone who had seen military life up close. His work ranges from a firsthand account of the 1857 uprising in Oudh to regimental and volunteer histories rooted in Victorian Britain.
1 Audiobook
The history of the 1st Batt. Wilts Volunteers, from 1861 to 1885
by R. D. (Robert Dwarris) Gibney
About the author
Born in Cheltenham in 1826, Robert Dwarris Gibney served in the army from 1842 with the 59th Bengal Native Infantry. According to Victorian fiction reference sources, he saw action during the Indian Uprising of 1857 before being sent home because of ill health.
That military background shaped his writing. He is known for My Escape from the Mutinies in Oudh (1858), a firsthand narrative of survival during the rebellion, and later wrote both fiction and local military history, including Earnest Madement: A Tale of Wiltshire and The history of the 1st Batt. Wilts Volunteers. Sources also note that he later assumed the name "Dwarris."
Gibney spent his later years in Britain and died in Falmouth on April 18, 1906. He remains an interesting figure for readers drawn to memoir, Victorian military history, and fiction written by someone with direct experience of the world he described.