Siege of Khartoum population of Khartoum was about 34,000. Gordon's plight excited great concern in the British press, and even Queen Victoria intervened on his behalf. The government ordered him to return, but Gordon refused, saying he was honour-bound to defend the city. By July 1884, Gladstone reluctantly agreed to send an expedition to Khartoum. The expedition, led by Sir Garnet Wolseley, took several months to organise and only entered Sudan in January 1885, but by then the situation of the Egyptian garrison and civilians had become desperate, with food supplies running low, many inhabitants dying of hunger and the defenders' morale at
1885 Aylesbury by-election Rothschilds’ defection to the cause of Liberal Unionism. Ferdy Rothschild held his seat as a Liberal at the 1885 general election and retained it as a Liberal Unionist thereafter at every election until dying in office in December 1898. 1885 Aylesbury by-election The Aylesbury by-election, 1885 was a by-election held on Thursday 16 July 1885 for the British House of Commons constituency of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. The by-election was caused by the elevation to the peerage of the sitting Liberal MP Sir Nathaniel Rothschild (usually known as ‘Natty’) of the famous Rothschild merchant banking family. Rothschild had been one of