It was never my intention to give a detailed History about the First War of Independence, termed by our colonial Masters the Mutiny.
Sir Henry Lawrence was killed during this war. There is no doubt that he was thoroughly incompetent in handling the event and his actions can be described as disastrous.
The purpose of this post is to show the vengeance taken by those closely associated with Sir Henry Lawrence which will prove beyond peradventure that both Sir Henry and those he associated with were nothing more than genocidal savages and sadistic torturers whose cruelty went well beyond what any decent human-being could even imagine. Those passing through Lawrence School were not made aware of this History as it would have demolished the need to honour the ‘Founder’.
Let me start with a few quotes:
This from Jeremy Paxman’s Empire Series:
- In May 1857, in the Indian Mutiny the myth of Imperial power was shaken to the core
- British relief forces showed no mercy. There was savage retaliation. One British Commander alone executed 6000 men, flogged mutineers, made them lick blood from the slaughter house floor and then hanged them. In other cases mutineers were tied to the ground, branded with hot irons, told to run for their lives and when they did so were shot dead.
- When peace returned, British attitudes hardened. Rudyard Kipling called it wearing knuckle dusters under kid gloves.
This is from Will Durant:
‘We took’ said the London Spectator, ‘at least 100,000 Indian lives in the mutiny.’ This is what the English call the Sepoy Mutiny, and what the Hindus call the War of Independence. There is much in a name.
Here is what Charles Dickens had to say:
However ignored in the celebrations will be the reality that Charles Dickens, like many of his English and British contemporaries, was a genocidal racist. Thus Charles Dickens in a letter to Emile de la Rue on 23 October 1857 about the so-called Indian Mutiny of 1857 : “I wish I were Commander in Chief over there! I would address that Oriental character which must be powerfully spoken to, in something like the following placard, which should be vigorously translated into all native dialects, “I, The Inimitable, holding this office of mine, and firmly believing that I hold it by the permission of Heaven and not by the appointment of Satan, have the honour to inform you Hindoo gentry that it is my intention, with all possible avoidance of unnecessary cruelty and with all merciful swiftness of execution, to exterminate the Race from the face of the earth, which disfigured the earth with the late abominable atrocities.’
Dickins said to the same person about Indians:“You know faces, when they are not brown; you know common experiences when they are not under turbans; Look at the dogs – low, treacherous, merderous, tigerous villains.’ (Dickins’ spelling not mine).
Here are details of the parts played by some, but by no means all, Britishers, associated with Lawrence either personally and or administratively who took part in putting down the rebellion. Lawrence cannot be disassociated with what followed as he was part of the establishment:
John Nicholson
This savage, was a political officer under Sir Henry Lawrence and one of his young men: Lawrence School Sanawar had a House named after him!
Nicholson called for the mutineers to be punished severely. He proposed an Act endorsing a ‘new kind of death for the murderers and dishonourers of our women’, suggesting, ‘flaying alive, impalement or burning,’ and commenting further, ‘I would inflict the most excruciating tortures I could think of on them with a perfectly easy conscience.
Nicholson, who was happy to ‘flay’ captured soldiers (i.e., skin them alive) and visit all sorts of torture on them has been described as an ‘Imperial psychopath’ by well-know Historian Dalrymple. A simple search on the inter-net will reveal just how disgusting this character was as far as our Indian ancestors are concerned. Among the many atrocities he committed, one that stands out is his slaying of 120 rebels and capture of another 120 rebels. Of the latter, he had 40 put to death by ‘Blowing from a Gun’. Read about this method below.
General James George Smith Neill
On the way to Lucknow, Neill ordered the burning down of villages and indiscriminate killings of Indians whether they were combatants or not and was said to have personally executed many prisoners himself. See penultimate paragraph below relating to Cawnpore (modern day Kanpur).
These don’t sound like the acts of a “brave, resolute” soldier. By any modern definition, the deliberate targeting of civilians and execution without trial would more than meet the criteria for war crimes.
Some would argue that from a British point of view, his brutality was necessary and justified given the atrocity committed at Cawnpore, that his was an innately human reaction to gross inhumanity. But you cannot criticize one atrocity while erasing knowledge of another. If the British Empire was the civilizing force that it claimed to be then surely it would not have used the same brutal tactics of the “savages” they were fighting? But it did!
So notorious was Neill’s reputation in India that decades later in 1937, ten years before Independence, a statue that was erected in the Indian city of Madras in 1861 was taken down an put in the museum and placed in the anthropology section.
On 9 June1857, In Allahabad, Neil ordered the hanging of those SUSPECTED of being mutineers. He also allowed troops under his command to summarily execute non-combatants without due process and burn their houses. His own Sikh soldiers in Juanpur revolted upon seeing such atrocities.
Neil then turned to the besieged city of Cawnpore. In retaliation for the so called Bibighar massacre, Neil and his troops indulged in indiscriminate atrocities. He personally executed many prisoners of war. In one episode, he compelled randomly rounded up Brahmins from Cawnpore, who had nothing to do with the massacre, to wash up the blood of the Bibighar victims from the floor, an act of degradation, while they were whipped till they collapsed with cat-o-nine-tails by younger ensigns. They were then summarily executed by hanging.
The march from Cawnpore to Lucknow began on 18 September. Between 21 and 25 September there was heavy fighting and on 25 September, upon entering Lucknow, Neil was killed in action , shot in the head at Khas Bazar.
Major-General Sir Henry Havelock
Lawrence School Sanawar had a House named after Sir Henry Havelock
Just as the Indian Rebellion broke out he was chosen to command a column to quell disturbances in Allahabad, to support Sir Henry Lawrence at Lucknow and Wheeler at Cawnpore, and to pursue and utterly destroy all mutineers and insurgents. Throughout August Havelock led his soldiers northwards across Oudh, defeating all rebel forces in his path, despite being greatly outnumbered. His years of study of the theories of war and his experiences in earlier campaigns were put to good use. At this time Lady Canning wrote of him in her diary: “General Havelock is not in fashion, but all the same we believe that he will do well.” But in spite of this lukewarm commendation Havelock proved himself the man for the occasion and won a reputation as a great military leader. Havelock won adulation for his violent putdown of the Indian ‘mutineers’, who were fighting to retake their homeland.
Three times he advanced for the relief of the Lucknow, but twice held back rather than risk fighting with troops wasted by battle and disease. Reinforcements arrived at last under Outram, who assumed command. With Havelock commanding the assault, Lucknow was relieved on 25 September 1857. However, a second rebel force arrived and besieged the town again. This time Havelock and his troops were caught inside the blockade. He died in Lucknow on 24 November 1857 of dysentery, a few days after the siege was lifted.
There is a statue of Havelock in Trafalgar Square, London. The plaque on the plinth reads: To Major General Sir Henry Havelock KCB and his brave companions in arms during the campaign in India 1857. “Soldiers! Your labours, your privations, your sufferings and your valour, will not be forgotten by a grateful country.” The country is no longer grateful and quite rightly so! A road in Southall, UK, named after him has now been renamed Guru Nanak Road.
General Hugh Rose
The Governor General in Council. Group portrait, with some identifications supplied. The sitters are: (secretaries, standing behind, left to right): Edward Harbourd Lushington, Financial Secretary; Colonel (later Sir) Henry Norman, Military Secretary; Colonel (later Sir) Henry Durand, Foreign Secretary; Mr (later Sir) Edward Bayley, Home Secretary; Colonel (later Sir) Richard Strachey, Public Works Secretary. (Members of Council, seated, left to right): George Noble Taylor; Sir Charles Trevelyan; Sir Hugh Henry Rose (Lord Strathnairn); Sir John Lawrence (Lord Lawrence); Sir Robert Napier (Lord Napier of Magdala); Mr (later Sir) Henry James Sumner Maine; Mr (later Sir) Willaim Grey. [Montgomerie Collection: Views in India]. 1864. Source: Photo 25.(41).
Following the outbreak of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 Rose was given command of the Poona division. He arrived in September 1857, and shortly after took command of the newly created Central Indian Field Force made up mostly of sepoys and elements of the army maintained by the Nizam of Hyderabad. He marched from Mhow in January 1858, captured Rahatgarh after a short siege, defeated the Raja of Banapur near Baroda, relieved the City of Saugor, captured the fortress at Garhakota and then defeated the rebels in the Madanpur Pass.
Rose arrived at Jhansi on 21 March 1858 and during the siege defeated a relieving force under Tatya Tope at the Betwa on 1 April 1858. Most of Rose’s force was locked up in the siege and so he could only field 1,540 men against Tatya Tope’s army of 20,000 troops and 28 guns. With the advantage of Punjabi-Afghan sepoys he was able to rout the enemy, inflicting a total loss of 1,500 men and all of their stores. Jhansi was stormed and the city taken on 4 April 1858. The entire civilian population of the city was massacred. However the Queen, Rani Lakshmibai, who had defended the fort, made an escape to Kalpi. Rose went on to capture Lahore, Konch and Kalpi in May 1858.
William Stephen Raikes Hodson
Lawrence School Sanawar had a House named after Hodson and still has sports runs in his honour
At the outset of the Indian Mutiny, Hodson made his name by riding with dispatches from General Anson from Karnal to Meerut and back again (a distance of 152 miles in seventy-two hours) through areas full of hostile cavalry. Following this feat, the commander-in-chief empowered him to raise and command a new regiment of 2,000 irregular cavalrymen, which became known as “Hodson’s Horse“, and placed him at the head of the Intelligence Department.
In his double role of cavalry leader and intelligence officer, Hodson played a large part in the reduction of Delhi. His major achievement at this time was the capture of the Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah II. His major discredit was the execution of three Mughal princes: Bahadur’s sons Mirza Mughal and Mirza Khizr Sultan, and his grandson Mirza Abu Bakr. He executed them in cold blood!
The British knew that the old king of Delhi (also referred to as emperor of India) was proving to be a focus for the uprising and the mutineers. The king, his sons, and their army were camped just outside Delhi at Humayun’s Tomb. The General in command said he could not spare a single European. Hodson volunteered to go with 50 of his irregular horsemen. This request was turned down but after some persuasion Hodson obtained from Colonel (later General) Archdale Wilson permission to ride out to where the enemy was encamped. Hodson rode six miles through enemy territory into their camp, containing some 6,000 or more armed mutineers, who are said to have laid down their arms when he ordered them to. Some have seen this surrender as symbolic of the decline of the Turks and Mughals in India, which had started after Aurangzeb. However, the mutineers (or rebels) at Delhi were simply demoralised after their hard-fought defeat and severe privations.
The sons of the king had refused to surrender, demanding guarantees of safety. On the following day, with a few horsemen, Hodson went back and demanded the princes’ unconditional surrender. Again a crowd of thousands of mutineers gathered, and Hodson ordered them to disarm, which they did. He sent the princes on with an escort of ten men, while with the remaining ninety he collected the arms of the crowd. The princes were mounted on a bullock-cart and driven towards the city of Delhi. As they approached the city gate, a crowd of people again started to gather around them, and Hodson ordered the three princes to get off the cart and to strip off their top garments. He then took a carbine from one of his troopers and shot them dead before stripping them of their signet rings, turquoise arm bands and bejewelled swords. Their bodies were ordered to be displayed in front of a kotwali, or police station, and left there to be seen by all. The gate near where they were killed is still called the Khooni Darwaza, or “Bloody Gate”.
The actions were controversial even at the time. The future Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts, then a junior officer serving in the Delhi campaign, would later call it a “blot” and criticised “an otherwise brilliant officer” for exposing himself to criticism. However, see below paragraphs on Frederick Roberts. Other first hand accounts, such as William W. Ireland, also questioned the exigency of his actions. Hodson’s service record showed that he had often behaved in arbitrary fashion before, and he had previously been removed from civil duties by the then Governor General of India, Lord Dalhousie.
Bahadur Shah II was put on trial. However, as Hodson had previously guaranteed his life, he was exiled to Rangoon, Burma, where he died in November 1862 at the age of 87.
In 1855, two separate main charges were brought against Hodson. The first was that he had arbitrarily imprisoned a Yusufzai Pathan chief named Kader Khan, as well as his young son, on suspicion of being involved in the murder of Colonel Mackeson. The man was acquitted, and Lord Dalhousie removed Hodson from his civil functions and remanded him to his regiment because of his lack of judgment and gross negligence.
The second charge was an accusation of misappropriation of the funds of his regiment. He was tried by a court of inquiry, who found that his conduct to natives had been unjustifiable and oppressive, that he had used abusive language to his native officers and personal violence to his men, and that his system of accounts was calculated to screen peculation and fraud. However, a subsequent inquiry was carried out by Major Reynell Taylor: “Taylor’s investigation took two months, during which time he went through every item received or paid out by Hodson over the two years of his command”. By the end of his investigation into the record of Hodson’s accounts Taylor found “…it to be an honest and correct record from beginning to end. It has been irregularly kept, but every transaction, from the least to the greatest, has been noted in it, and is traceable to the individuals concerned”
During a tour through Kashmir with Sir Henry Lawrence he kept the purse and Sir Henry could never obtain an account from him; subsequently, Sir Henry’s younger brother Sir George Lawrence accused him of embezzling the funds of the Lawrence Asylum at Kasauli; while in a published letter says of the third brother, John Lawrence, 1st Baron Lawrence, “I am bound to say that Lord Lawrence had no opinion of Hodson’s integrity in money matters. He has often discussed Hodson’s character in talking to me, and it was to him a regret that a man possessing so many fine gifts should have been wanting in a moral quality which made him untrustworthy.” Finally, on one occasion Hodson spent £500 of the pay due to Lieutenant Godby, and under threat of exposure was obliged to borrow the money from a local banker named Bisharat Ali through one of his officers.
Throughout his career Hodson was dogged by accusations of financial impropriety. He was investigated on more than one occasion but nothing was ever proved. His detractors claim he was a looter; his supporters say that these accusations came from those who disliked his manner and his military success. William’s brother, the Rev. G. Hodson, stated in his book that he obtained the inventory of William’s possessions made by the Committee of Adjustment and it contained no articles of loot, and Sir Charles Gough, president of the committee, confirmed this evidence. This statement is incompatible with Sir Henry Daly‘s. Sir Henry Norman stated that to his personal knowledge Hodson remitted several thousand pounds to Calcutta which could only have been obtained by looting. On the other hand, again, Hodson died a poor man; his effects, which included a ring, watch, Bible and Prayer book, and a miniature, were sold for only £170. General remarked “there was nothing in his boxes but what an officer might legitimately and honourably have in his possession. His widow did not have money enough to pay for her passage home and she had to apply to the Compassionate Fund for assistance, which was granted. She was offered the use of an apartment by Queen Victoria at Hampton Court Palace, and left only £442 at her death.
Death
On 11 March 1858 Hodson’s regiment was in Lucknow and while storming the Begum’s palace (Begum Kothi) he was shot. His last words were “I hope I have done my duty”. On the evening of 12 March 1858, his body was buried in the garden of La Martiniere Lucknow. His grave is still located within the grounds of La Martiniere College (see below)The memorial bears the inscription “Here lies all that could die of William Stephen Raikes Hodson”. Also shown below is Jitu holding Hodson’s sword and beside Hodson’s Statue held in the National Army Museum, England
Frederick Roberts
Lawrence School Sanawar had a House named after Frederick Roberts
I have mentioned what Roberts had to say about Hodson. When read in isolation, this may give the impression that Roberts was not a big player in the suppression of the so called Mutiny and his actions in comparison to other Britishers weren’t as cruel. People may go on to assume that he would have had a relatively decent military career subsequently. This was far from the case. Roberts in due course became Commander-in-Chief of the British Army in India and certain degrading acts he carried out calls for condemnation. I can do no better than set these out:
Under his leadership as Commander-in-Chief of the Army in British India, he oversaw the system of brothels attached to each British Regiment. I have composed another post titled ‘Britain’s use of sex slaves’ which please read but briefly, these brothels used Indian slave girls, some as young as 14 to satisfy the lust of the British soldier posted to India. An area was set aside where 15 girls to a regiment were made available. The girls were paid 4 annas per use by a soldier and the number of soldiers per day would be 8 or more. From the meager sum earned, amounts were deducted for rent and food. At the end of the month, the poor girls earned a net amount equal today to £1! That was not all! The prostitutes had to undergo a humiliating medical examination every two weeks carried out by a male doctor and if found diseased, would be locked into a ‘Lock Hospital’ (yes, that is what it was called) until such time as they recovered. If they did not recover, they were thrown out, peniless, diseased and starving. Many starved to death for who would give shelter to a diseased prostitute? Astonishingly, the soldiers were not required to undergo any tests as the racist British thought a British soldier could not possibly carry venereal disease or syphilis. Not just that but they were encouraged by Roberts, ‘as a matter of honour’ to tell on prostitutes who were potential carriers of disease! The belief was that when the soldiers returned to Britain, they would not infect the women they married in Christian ceremonies! What a stupid belief and what hypocrisy; Christian soldiers going against the 7th Commandment ”You shall not commit adultery” doing that which is forbidden and returning to Britain and having Christian marriages!
Please see my Post ‘Britain’s use of sex slaves‘. I am though appending a brief extract here to show just how despicable Roberts was; he even lied to the House of Commons enquiry and blamed a subordinate but the evidence against him was overwhelming and he had to send a grovelling letter of apology.
On June 17, 1886, a military order, known among the opponents of State regulation as the “Infamous Circular Memorandum,” was sent to all the Cantonments of India by Quartermaster-General Chapman, in the name of the Commander-in-Chief of the army in India (Lord Roberts). But during the course of the enquiry of the Departmental Committee of 1893, its real author was discovered to be Lord Roberts himself, not his Quartermaster-General.
This Memorandum (Parliamentary Paper No. 197, of 1888) is a lengthy document, every part of which has painful interest; but we can only give a faint outline. It specified certain measures to be instituted as means for looking more carefully after the health of British soldiers, and the observations therein were to be heeded by the “military and medical authorities in every command” throughout India.
This order said (and military orders are well-nigh inexorable): “In the regimental bazaars it is necessary to have a sufficient number of women, to take care that they are sufficiently attractive, to provide them with proper houses, and, above all, to insist upon means of ablution being always available.” It proceeds: “If young soldiers are carefully advised in regard to the advantage of ablution, and recognise that convenient arrangements exist in the regimental bazaar [that is, in the chakla], they may be expected to avoid the risks involved in association with women who are not recognised [that is, licensed] by the regimental authorities.” In other words, young soldiers are not expected to be moral, but only to be instructed as to the safest way of practising immorality. This remarkable document goes on to suggest that young soldiers should be taught to consider it a “point of honour” to save each other from contagion by pointing out to their officers women with whom there was risk of disease. The document calls attention to the need of more women, and the necessity of making the free quarters “houses that will meet the wishes of the women”—in order, it is implied, that they may be the more easily lured to live in them.
This character served in the British Army for decades but in later life, he was involved in some grubby plot relating to Ulster. In 1914 he was on a visit to Indian troops fighting in France when he died. His body was returned to UK and he was given a State Funeral.
Major-General Sir Herbert Benjamin Edwardes
In February 1847, aged 28, Edwardes was detached on special duty as Political Agent to the remote trans-Indus district of Bannu, where he was to improve the district’s tax-revenue yield to Lahore, much lessened of late by evasion and non-payment. Here backed by a small force of Sikh troops, but largely on the strength of his own personality, he completely reformed the administration. This shows as I have been maintaining that Edwards was, like his mentor Sir Henry, a tax-extorter, willing and able to use armed forces in order to do so. After all, that was the purpose of the East India Company!
On the outbreak of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 at far away Meerut and Delhi, Edwardes received the sanction of Sir John Lawrence, the successor in the chief magistracy of the Punjab to his elder brother Sir Henry Lawrence, to raise native troops in the Punjab to form a moveable column to maintain order in the Punjab. Lawrence later sent the large part of these troops and other units previously raised by his brother and new units raised by himself to assist in the Siege of Delhi. It was this decisive action of Sir John Lawrence’s, in taking the risk to leave the Punjab undefended, a policy opposed by Edwardes, which earned for him, Sir John the sobriquet “The Saviour of India”.
Edwardes started writing the biography of Sir Henry but before he could complete it, he died. The biography, ‘Life of Sir Henry Lawrence’ was completed by Herman Merivale. This biography has assisted me in completing my blog.
Here is what our terrified Indian ancestors would have witnessed when our colonial oppressors went on a vengeance spree:
Even more terrifying was how Indian Soldiers were executed after the revolt:
Blowing from a gun
Following the ‘Mutiny’ during which Sir Henry was killed, the vengeful British executed ‘rebel’ Indian soldiers by a method known as Blowing from a gun. This is a means of killing in which the victim is typically tied to the mouth of a cannon which is then fired. George Carter Stent described the process as follows:
The prisoner is generally tied to a gun with the upper part of the small of his back resting against the muzzle. When the gun is fired, his head is seen to go straight up into the air some 40 or fifty feet; the arms fly off right and left, high up in the air, and fall at, perhaps a hundred yards distance; the legs drop to the ground beneath the muzzle of the gun; and the body is literally blown away altogether, not a vestige being seen.
British Kill Indians With Canon Executions
Watch this video as representing ‘Execution by Canon’ (YouTube will require you to sign in as some may find this video distressing).
Note: The ‘Clemency’ Canning mentioned in the video is Charles Canning, the Governor General of India to whom Sir Henry Lawrence reported.
This method of execution is most closely associated with the British colonial rule in India. Following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, “blowing from a gun” was a method the British used to execute rebels as well as for Indian sepoys who were found guilty of desertion.
The destroying of the body and scattering the remains over a wide area had a particular religious function as a means of execution in the Indian subcontinent as it effectively prevented the necessary funeral rites of Hindus. Thus, for believers the punishment was extended beyond death.
The Lawrence Schools catered for the offspring of the British monsters who carried out such executions. There were, sadly many Indians who helped the British, including in ‘Blowing from a gun’ but their children wouldn’t be allowed into any of the Lawrence schools, they were not white! So is there anything glorious about such a History?
Even in imminent death Indian soldiers exhibited bravery that would be the envy of the cowardly British:
Here is a quote from the above book: Nazir Khan one of the leaders of the ‘mutiny’ was treated by his captors with a savagery described by a British Officer as follows:
That pukka scoundrel Nazir Khan was brought into camp bound hand and foot upon a charpoy. No wild beast could have attracted more attention. He was for ever being surrounded by soldiers who were stuffing him with pork and covering him with insults. He was well flogged and his person exposed, which he fought against manfully, and then hung but as usual the rope was too weak and down he fell and broke his nose; before he recovered his senses he was strung up again and made an end of. He died game, menacing a soldier who rubbed up his nose with ‘If I had a talwar in my hand you would not dare do so.’
Post Script – Lawrence’s Young Men or Paladins of Punjab
Much has been made of Lawrence’s Young men or Paladins of Punjab. Whilst it is not my intention to write the the History of this period, I have included this bit to demonstrate that at all times Lawrence was acting, as were his young men, in the interests of his employers, the East India Company and as a consequence for the British Empire. Absolutely nothing to make India proud about these characters!
In 1846, following the victory of the East India Company in the first Anglo-Sikh war, Henry Lawrence was appointed Resident in Lahore. Lawrence had assisted Sir Frederic Currie, then acting as an agent for the Governor-General, Sir Henry Hardinge , in the drafting of the Lahore Treaty and Lawrence would subsequently hand pick a number of assistants to carry out his orders. These included contemporaries such as James Abbott, Frederick Mackeson and his brothers George Lawrence and John Lawrence. The majority though, were junior officers in their twenties taken directly from the Bengal Army. Some of the most prominent officers selected by Lawrence, were those he had served with in the First Anglo-Sikh War. The Battle of Sobraon alone included Herbert Edwardes, William Hodson and Harry “Joe” Lumsden.
Lawrence was always on the lookout for new recruits and carried around a notebook recording names and observations. Lawrence nurtured his proteges into a brotherhood of young men, sharing a vocation, very much a band of brothers, Paladins at the court of their mentor and master.
I have not made secret of the fact that Lawrence was a colonialist working for the East India Company and his job was to extort taxes for the benefit of that disreputable company. So let us see what some of his ‘young men got up to, particularly in relation to what the British call the Mutiny and its aftermath:
- James Abbott: This character is one after whom Abbottabad (famous as the hideout of Osama Bin Laden) in Pakistan is named. Between 1835 and 1836 he was assigned to the revenue surveys in Gorakhpur and later Bareilly. Revenue survey by its very nature was to survey for tax extorting! Henry Lawrence was also a revenue surveyor!
- Lewin Bowring: Went on to become Chief Commissioner of both, Mysore and Coorg.
- Neville Bowles Chamberlain: Ended his career as a Field Marshall. Earlier in his life he was forced to drop out of the Royal Military Academy Woolwich as he wasn’t performing well and ended up instead in India where he joined the Bengal Army. He took part in various battles including the so called Mutiny where he was wounded twice, and went on to have what the British might call a distinguished military career in India.
- John Coke: Another East India Company officer who played his part in supressing what the British called the Mutiny and he also went on to have what the British would call a distinguished military career.
- Henry Coxe: Joined the East India Company Army in Bengal in 1841 and went on to become a Major General. He played no part during the so called Mutiny.
- Henry Daly: Went on to become a General and participated in the so called Mutiny including the siege of Delhi and relief of Lucknow. He is the founder of Daly College, once the bastion of India nobility
- Herbert Edwardes: Played his part in supressing the so called Mutiny, went on to become a Major General. A loyal Lawrence man, it is his book Life of Sir Henry Lawrence, completed by Herman Merivale that has given me a lot of information for my blog.
- William Hodson: See other posts relating to this crook.
- George Lawrence: Brother of Henry Lawrence, reached the rank of Major General and ultimately of (honorary) Lieutenant General. For Indians, just another member of the Lawrence family who benefitted from India while giving very little or nothing in return.
- Harry “Joe” Lumsden: A career East Indian Company soldier ultimately ending as an Honorary Lieutenant General. This character was born on an East India Company ship in the Bay of Bengal! He did not play a major role in the suppression of the so called Mutiny but his younger brother William and friend John Nicholson (see above where I have described him as a savage) perished.
- Frederick Mackeson: Another East India Company Army career officer, he was at one time in line to be Resident at Lahore but was superseded by Henry Lawrence. It was Mackeson who escorted the Koh-I-Noor to England to be presented to Queen Victoria. He was assassinated and buried in Peshawar.
- Philip Melvill: Not much more than a career babu.
- John Nicholson: See above. I have described him as a savage and a savage he was!
- Richard Pollock: Another career babu who was initially commissioned into the East India Company’s Bengal Army. He was ultimately granted the rank of Major General.
- Reynell Taylor: A career Military Officer starting with the East India Company’s Bengal Army. There is no record of him playing a major role during the so called Mutiny but he was in charge of Kangara district which is a mere 150 miles from Sanawar. He finished as a Major General.
- Patrick Alexander Vans Agnew: Like Lawrence started life as a Lieutenant with the East India Company but, like a number of others, including Henry Lawrence, became a political officer. Such political officers always started their careers as Army Officers of the East India Company Army, later assuming administration roles. This political officer was sent to Multan with a view to collecting back dated taxes which had not been paid by the Governor Mulraj. In the course of this, he was assassinated by Mulraj’s men, when he was a day short of his 26th birthday. Sir Hubert Edwardes wrote to one of Agnew’s close relatives ‘If few of our countrymen in this land of death and disease have met more untimely ends than your brother, it has seldom been the lot of any to be so honoured and lamented.’ His death led to the 2nd Anglo-Sikh war.
Note Sir Hubert Edwardes’ comment on India ‘in this land of death and disease’! No Indian asked him to be there! If he didn’t like it, why didn’t he just up and leave?
If you have found this post interesting, here are some links with further information:
History from Encyclopaedia Britannica
What a skull in an English pub says about India’s 1857 mutiny