Charles J. Dunphie of Commons. Charles Dunphie was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. Coming to London, he studied medicine at King's College Hospital, where he was a favourite pupil of Sir William Fergusson, but soon took to literature and journalism. For some years he was on "The Times" staff, and when the Crimean War broke out in 1853 he was offered the post of its special correspondent. But having lately married, he persuaded his colleague and countryman, William Howard Russell, to go in his stead. During the war, he was one of the founders of the "Patriotic Fund Journal" (1854-55), a weekly miscellany
Crimean War of Balaclava, which saw the ill-fated Charge of the Light Brigade. This scrutiny later led to the abolition of the sale of commissions. The Crimean War was a contributing factor in the Russian abolition of serfdom in 1861: Tsar Alexander II (Nicholas I's son and successor) saw the military defeat of the Russian serf-army by free troops from Britain and France as proof of the need for emancipation. The Crimean War also led to the realisation by the Russian government of its technological inferiority, in military practices as well as weapons. Meanwhile, Russian military medicine saw dramatic progress: N. I.