It should be made clear that Sir Henry was not a military genius. His rank of Brigadier-General was not one given by the British Crown, the ultimate head of the British Military, but by the Governor General who was paid by the East India Company, a joint stock company whose objective was to make a profit for its shareholders. Whilst on a military campaign in Arakan, Burma (now Myanmar) in 1824, Sir Henry went down with Arakan Fever (a strain of Malaria). This remained with him for the rest of his life and rendered him physically weak and in no position to lead from the front on any military campaign. Sir Henry had been sent initially to Penang and then to Canton to recuperate but failed to do so. He was therefore invalidated out of the Bengal army.
Essentially, Sir Henry was a civilian company employee, not a military man. He was what was known as a ‘Political’, a term given by the East India Company to employees whose initial training was as military men in the company’s own military school but whose job was to be administrators and make a profit for the company. Sir Henry’s job of being a Revenue Surveyor was to ascertain what revenue could be collected within his area of appointment. He may well have been a good diplomat for the company and may have been kind to the people he dealt with, either European or some but not all Indian, however, a military man he was not!
Just how much in ill health Sir Henry was in can be gleaned from ‘The Journals of Honoria Lawrence India Observed 1837-1854’ : In 1828 While in London recuperating, Henry proposed marriage with Honoria through her cousin Angel Heath. Angel told Henry that as he had no money, no prospects and poor health, he must not think of marriage. In 1833 Henry was seconded from his Army post to a congenial civilian job as a revenue officer. Sir Henry and Honoria only got married in 1837. Sir Henry’s knighthood, granted in 1847 had nothing to do with Sir Henry’s knowledge of military matters.
Here is an extract from Brothers in the Raj by Harold Lee:
‘My health is better than it used to be,’ Henry wrote to George Clerk in October 1856, ‘but I am getting worn out and cannot stand the heat or exertion as I used to when I had more definite illness.’ His eyes were also failing, he told Clerk, and to another correspondent noted that he found it increasingly difficult to deal with ‘heat and bother.’ In fact, his health had deteriorated to the point that three doctors had given him medical certificates recommending that he take a leave. Armed with this unanimity of medical opinion, he applied for and was given permission by the Governor-General to spend several months on leave in England. He planned to leave Rajputana in February, and depart from Bombay in March.
At the time he wrote to George Clerk, Sir Henry was 50 years and 4 months old. It should have been patently obvious that he was not then and never would be in a fit state to lead a military expedition.
Here is a further extract from the same book:
Henry’s attitude toward his new assignment fluctuated between misgivings over his health and excitement at the opportunity vouchsafed him. ‘I have nearly given way more than once,’ he wrote (to) Charlotte, expressing his mixed feelings, ‘but the very offer of the Governor General is a sufficient salve for my Punjab sores.’ In Mount Abu, he had already been in touch with with officials in Lucknow, and his excitement during these weeks may perhaps be judged by a letter to Major Thuillier, written in late February. ‘One of my first official requisitions, ‘ he wrote, ‘will be for surveys, surveys, surveys.’
Sir Henry’s intent was to carry out surveys on a massive scale and thus extract/extort as much tax as possible for the coffers of his employers, the East India Company! The possibility of being involved in any Military expedition, particularly in the front line, was furthest from his mind! And yet, he embarked on just such a Military expedition and that too just 8 months after he had been given medical certificates from 3 doctors recommending he take a leave! At the time he undertook the disastrous Military expedition, he had just turned 51!
Here is what happened:
Sir Henry had been appointed Chief Commissioner and Agent to the Governor-General in Oudh on the 14 March 1857. Oudh had been annexed by the East India Company a few months earlier and the conquered people were not happy about this
The ‘Mutiny’, which was not directly related to the annexation, began on the 10 May 1857 in Meerut. On 19 May 1857, at his own request to the Governor General Lord Canning (who was 6 years younger than Lawrence) he was appointed Brigadier-General which meant that he had complete charge of Oudh, military as well as civilian. Prior to 14 May 1857, Lawrence was a Colonel.
A book can be written about the period between Lawrence’s appointment as Chief Commissioner on 14 March 1857 and his death on 4 July 1857 but that is not the point of this post. So here are relevant extracts from Lawrence’s own correspondence and other reports together with my comments showing why it is inappropriate to honour him by having a founder’s day.
Extract from Letter dated May 27 1857 to Lord Canning:
‘We got sixty prisoners in all, and I am now trying them and others by three drum-head courts-martial. Yesterday evening we had several large gatherings in the city, and towards evening, they opened fire on the police and on a post of irregulars. The former behaved admirably, and thrashed them well, killed several and took six prisoners………………… This evening we hung two men – one a Seepoy who murdered poor Lieutenant Grant, son of the Madras Commander-in-Chief, and a spy. To-morrow I shall get the proceedings of other courts, and will probably hang twenty or thirty.
Note the casual way in which Lawrence was going to hang twenty or thirty! Astonishing! These were not enemies of us Indians; they were OUR kith and kin!
During the siege, obviously intelligence used to be received from various human sources. ‘About this time, a very respectably clad and somewhat aged Hindoo called on the Brigadier-General, and stated to him that, being a well-wisher to the British Government, he had come to tender his advice, which was, that a number of monkeys should be procured, and that they should be kept at the Residency, and attended and fed by high-caste Brahmins, and that this measure would not only be the means of propitiating all the Hindoo deities in our favour, but that it would also tend to make the British rule in India again popular with the natives. Sir Henry put on his hat, and, rising, said in a courteous tone for which he was ever remarkable: ‘Your advice, my friend, is good. Come with me, and I will show you my monkeys.’ And, leading the way, he walked into a newly completed battery, and laying his hand on the 18-pounder gun which occupied it, observed: ‘See! here is one of my monkeys; that,’ indicating a pile of shot, ‘is his food; and this’ (pointing to a sentry of the 32 Foot) ‘is the man who feeds them. There! Go and tell your friends of my monkeys.’
Note: The Brahmin wasn’t as far fetched as Lawrence thought! Hindus revere monkeys and equate them with Hanuman the monkey God. Hindu soldiers would have avoided any attack on a building housing monkeys! But Lawrence was obviously not as well versed in Hindu culture as he could have been.
In June 1857, Henry Lawrence had been told that a large party of mutineers had reached Chinhut, about 8 miles east of his Residency at Lucknow. He was well aware of the ‘strike first’ principle, and on the 30th he took part of HM’s 32nd foot, two companies of sepoys, some Indian irregular Horse and a few European volunteer cavalry, together with a battery of British-manned guns, a battery and a half of Indian manned guns and an elephant-drawn 8-inch howitzer- about 700 men in all to meet them. The little column came under accurate artillery fire as it approached Chinhut, and although Lawrence’s guns replied, with the 8-inch howitzer making very good practice, they could not check a force that outnumbered them perhaps 10 to one. John Lawrence, riding with the volunteer cavalry that day, saw how:
It was one mass of moving men, regiment after regiment of the insurgents poured steadily towards us, the flanks covered with a foam of skirmishers, the light puffs of smoke from their muskets floating from every ravine and bunch of grass to our front. As to the mass of troops, they came on in quarter-distance columns, their standards waving in our faces, and everything performed as steadily as possible. A field day or parade could not have been better.
The mutineers were doing exactly what would have been expected of them if their officers had been British, coming on quickly in columns and not getting bogged down in a firefight. Lawrence’s Indian manned guns overturned (by design or accident) trying to get across the road embankment; the 32nd lost its commanding officer and about a third of its men, and many of the loyal seepoys made off. The howitzer had to be abandoned, and the column straggled back towards Lucknow: had it not been for a brave charge by the volunteer horse most would have been killed.
The action at Chinhut cost Lawrence 365 casualties, almost half of them British: as no quarter was given, the number of dead, including 118 Europeans was depressingly high. 263 Casualties were Indian!
Just how incompetent Sir Henry was is evidenced by the fact that he led his men riding on a horse drawn buggy (watch at 4 minutes 34 seconds of the video ‘Revealed: The Bitter Siege’ below). Further, the men he led were in no fighting state as the following extract (in blue) from the book ‘The Victoria Crosses That Saved An Empire’ by Brian Best:
When the rebels heard of the events at Cawnpore, they decided to move on Lucknow. Sir Henry Lawrence learned of this on 29 June and decided to send a force to prevent any further advance on the city. What happened the following day condemned the population of the Residency to 139 days of hellish incaseration in what was an overcrowded and insanitary prison.
Sir Henry Lawrence was to be commended for his foresight in preparing defences and amassing stores and provisions. Unfortunately, he lost all credit by his handling of an unnecessary battle. Acting on dubious information that an enemy force of fifty cavalry and 500 infantry with one gun was approaching the city, Lawrence assembled an expedition consisting of 300 men of the 32nd, 170 Native Infantry, thirty six Volunteer Horse, eighty-four Oudh Irregular Cavalry and eleven guns.
During the night of the 29th, many of the soldiers had drunk raw spirits and, in the morning, the majority were suffering severe dehydration. Because of a misunderstood order, the start was delayed. When the column finally started, the men were marching with the sun in their eyes as it approached its mid-day zenith. The men of the 32nd had not eaten breakfast and the native bisti wallahs (water carriers) had deserted. In another oversight, Lawrence did not order a reconnaissance and his small force blundered into mutineers at Chinhat. Instead of the small force he had expected, Lawrence was confronted by a well-organised enemy of 800 cavalry, 5,500 infantry and 15 guns.
Outnumbered ten to one, Lawrence’s native gunners and cavalry deserted. The soldiers of the 32nd were in no fit state to fight, suffering dehydration from excess drinking and debilitated from lack of food and water. Lawrence sent in skirmishers as he deployed his artillery. In an exchange of fire lasting about fifteen minutes, the enemy appeared to pull back. In fact they were sending a flanking force of cavalry around the British right flank.
The 32nd was ordered to take a nearby village but having occupied it, were too weak to resist the counter-attack. The enemy threatened to completely overwhelm the British force. Lawrence belatedly handed the command to Colonel Case, commanding the 32nd and returned to the Residence to organise its its defence. With little option but to retreat, the British made their way to a bridge over the Kukrail stream, the only way back to Lucknow. The rebel cavalry raced to cut off this retreat, but were confronted by the thirty-six Volunteer cavalrymen who threw the rebels into confusion, allowing a significant part of the force to cross.
The retreat was a shambles, but several rear-guard actions enabled the the survivors to reach the the safety of the Residency. Exhausted, dehydrated men were helped along by comrades but several died of heatstroke. The seepoys loyal to the British, especially the 13th BNI, saved many British Soldiers, even at the cost of abandoning their own wounded men. One such selfless act led to the award of the Victoria Cross.
When at last they reached the Residency, the 32nd had left behind almost half their number dead or wounded, including their colonel, William Case. Command of the regiment and the whole of the military defence now devolved on Lieutenant-Colonel John Inglis.
Jitu’s words: Lawrence, a sickly man led from the front, and that too on a horse drawn buggy a ‘ragtag and bobtail’ military contingent of 700 men, starving, dehydrated and in no fit state to fight. 365 of them perished. Had Lawrence not been killed, he would have been court-marshalled! And here we are honouring such an incompetent East India Company employee with elaborate military parades year after year after year!
Sir John Fortescue , eminent Historian of the British Army said ‘In principle Lawrence was no doubt right to take the the offensive but he should have left the business of commanding in the field to his officers.‘
Charles Raikes, a senior official of the East India Company wrote:
That all Oudh should have risen against her new masters was a misfortune for which neither Lord Dalhousie nor Sir Henry Lawrence can be held fairly to blame. The former, had he stayed in India, would have taken good care to fill up the place of Outram with someone fitter than a mere Bengal civilian to confront the unwonted difficulties of such a post. On the other hand, had Lawrence been sent a year earlier to Lucknow, the force of his statesmanship and the charm of his personal sway might, perhaps have done much to reconcile the bulk of his new subjects……
What the above paragraph shows is that Lawrence may well have been a good diplomat but he was simply not fit to be a senior military man! Charles Raikes a Senior Official of East Indian Company describes Lawrence as a mere Bengal Civilian!
Sir Henry’s venture to take the ‘enemy’ head-on led to his being routed, and militarily, was a disaster . Sir Henry retreated to the Residency and this is how Colonel Wilson describes what happened there: ‘During the first day (July 1), the enemy threw an eight-inch shell from the howitzer they had captured from us, into the room in which Sir Henry and Couper were sitting. It burst between them, and close to both; but without injury to either. We now urged Sir Henry to leave the Residency and go elsewhere, or at least go down below into the lower storey. This, however, he then declined to do, as he laughingly said that he did not believe the enemy had had an artilleryman good enough to put another shell into that small room.‘ It was rather stupid of Sir Henry to underestimate the ‘enemy’. After much persuasion, Sir Henry agreed to move on the night of 2 July after he had rested awhile as he was totally exhausted. At around 8.30 P.M., the fatal shot came, ‘a sheet of flame, a terrific report and shock, and dense darkness, is all I can describe. I fell down on the floor, and perhaps for a few seconds was quite stunned; and then got up, but could see nothing for the smoke and dust. Neither Sir Henry nor his nephew made any noise, and in great alarm, I cried out, Sir Henry, are you hurt? Twice I thus called out without any answer. The third time, he said in a low voice ‘I am killed’.
Sir Henry’s left leg had been blown, almost clean off. The bombardment continued and Sir Henry was moved around so as to avoid getting hit again. Amputating the leg would have led to immediate death so that wasn’t done. Instead he was made as comfortable as possible with the help of chloroform, opiates and stimulants. The doctors thought only of euthanasia as his injury was so grave that he would not survive more than 48 hours. He kept drifting in and out of consciousness but at about 8 am on 4 July, he died.
Here is a talk given by Dr Tom Shannon, a descendent of Alexander Lawrence, Sir Henry Lawrence’s brother: At minute 40.37 He specifically mentions that uncle Henry was in bad health. Why then did he lead from the front, an army to take on the ‘rebels’? He was putting not only his own life but also the lives of his own soldiers in jeopardy!
Here are illustrations of the tower where Sir Henry decided to see out the siege. The first picture shows the tower intact and the second shows it shattered. Even a civilian, a non-combatant would have realised that the tower was the place most vulnerable to attack. Attacked it was! Twice! The first attack penetrated the walls but wasn’t fatal for Sir Henry. Quite arrogantly and foolishly, he didn’t move out immediately citing as his reason the inability of an Indian rebel to fire a shell accurately to replicate the first attack. He was wrong; the rebels did have that skill and Sir Henry paid with his life for that foolish assessment.
Below is a photograph of Bailey Guard Gate, at the entrance to The Residence
Here is a review of a book called ‘Brothers in the Raj’:
‘In mid-nineteenth century British India, John and Henry Lawrence achieved formidable reputations as founders of the paternalist tradition of rule in the Punjab, and became heroes of the Great Revolt of 1857-58. Henry, the elder, first came to India as a soldier, was invalided home, then returned to pursue a career as a surveyor, then as a political agent. John, four years younger, became a civil servant, and eventually joined his brother in the Punjab. However, their disagreement over the manner in which the Punjab should be ruled led to Henry’s removal to Rajasthan, then to Lucknow, where he died during siege of the Residency. John, still in Lahore, organized the recapture of Delhi from the mutineers, and in the 1860’s returned to India as Viceroy. In this first-length joint biography, Harold Lee makes his central them the congruence between the brothers’ differing personalities and views on how the Punjab should be ruled.’
Note from Jitu: A person who contracted Arakan Fever in 1824, a disease that lasted a lifetime, was invalided home, was initially turned down for marriage to Honoria as a result of poor health and then had no front-line duties or training as a soldier for 27 years could not possibly lead his forces to take on well armed and well trained rebel forces. Such a proposal would be laughed out of court!
Here is a further irony:
In his speech as Chief Guest at Founder’s celebrations in 1983, Filed Sam Manekshaw said, perhaps in jest:
‘This school was started by an Officer junior to myself – Major- General Sir Henry Lawrence’. If only the Field Marshall knew: It was Brigadier General Sir Henry Lawrence, which is a rank lower that a Major General, and that too in the East Indian Company Army (Bengal Presidency) and that too acquired a mere 56 days before his death! Whereas the Field Marshall got hit by 9 bullets in Burma in 1942, Sir Henry was bitten by a mosquito and picked up Arakan Fever (Malaria) also in Burma which rendered him far too weak to be a front-line soldier!
Here is what a Historian has to say about Lawrence’s Military Competence: Note 4 minutes 34 seconds: Lawrence went on a military expedition on a horse drawn buggy! (Video top left).
Post Script – The Indians who should be honoured instead of Sir Henry Lawrence
Below is a photo of the Rani of Jhansi
In contrast here is what the Historian Lance Geiger has to say about Lawrence in the has to say about the military competence and bravery of Rani of Jhansi.
Lawrencians should honour ladies such as these who were INDIANS rather than Sir Henry Lawrence who was an employee of the East India Company