Indian-born British medical officer, naturalist and author. Henry Bellew was born at Nusserbad, the son of Captain Henry Walter Bellew of the Bengal Army. Bellew trained at St. George's Hospital in London before serving in the Crimean War in 1854-1855. He then joined the Bengal Medical Service as an assistant surgeon, being promoted to surgeon in 1867 and deputy surgeon-general in 1881. After some months working on the Punjab frontier, in 1857 he was sent on a mission to Kandahar. Here he worked during the Indian Mutiny and in his spare time managed to collect plants. In the 1860s Bellew served in Mardan (now in northern Pakistan) with the Corps of Guides. Following this he worked in nearby Peshawar as a civil surgeon.

Bellew was later appointed chief political officer in Kabul and subsequently became Surgeon-General in India, in which post he remained until his retirement in 1886. In 1870 he married Isabella Jane, daughter of Major R. Guthrie MacGregor of the Royal Artillery. They had two daughters and a son. As well researching the natural history of regions where he served, Bellew completed several ethnographic publications and works on the Pashto language. He died at Farnham Royal, Buckinghamshire.

Sources:
D. Power, rev. James Falkner, 2008, "Bellew, Henry Walter (1834–1892)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edn:
www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/2052, accessed 9 December 2011.