Donald Richards - Cawnpore & Lucknow

CAWNPORE
AND
LUCKNOW

For my wife, Nancy

CAWNPORE
AND
LUCKNOW

A Tale of Two Sieges

D.S. Richards

First published in Great Britain in 2007 by
PEN & SWORD MILITARY
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS

Copyright D.S. Richards, 2007
ISBN 1-84415-516-1

The right of D.S. Richards to be identified as the author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library

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CONTENTS

On the last day of December 1600, Elizabeth I granted the Company and Merchants of London trading with east India a charter enabling them to conduct business in gems, indigo, camphor and spices. Twelve years later, with the permission of the Moghul Emperor Jahangir, they were then able to set up a permanent trading post at Surat on the west coast. Thus Britain set foot in India as merchants and until the late eighteenth century the East India Company was content to prosper by sea and in quiet trade. The French had also established a number of trading stations in India, notably at Pondicherry and at Chandernagor in Bengal, and until 1730 relations between the two rival companies were reasonably peaceful. Later, increasing tension between France and England in Europe persuaded the French East India Company to enlist native soldiers to protect their interests. John Company was quick to respond by raising a similar army and when war came, Robert Clive gained an impressive victory at Plassey in June 1757 over the combined forces of the French and the Nawab of Bengal, Suraj-ud-daula, and established the East India Company as the principal trader on the subcontinent.

During the latter half of the century the East India Company, with the support of the British Government, extended its power and influence by assuming responsibility for the armies of the three presidencies of Bengal, Madras and Bombay. They were largely composed of native infantrymen or sepoys, and by cavalrymen known as sowars. Each regiment had its complement of native officers or jemadar, a rank equal to lieutenant, but all were subordinate to the most junior of British officers in the native regiments and were not even allowed to give orders to a British sergeant major. In addition to the Companys native regiments, there were also British Army regiments stationed in India, but by 1856 the ratio of British soldiers to Indian, was no better than one in six.

To the north-west of Bengal lay the Moghul kingdom of Oudh which had yet to feel the full impact of British rule, whilst further south, although the predominately Muslim faction had been brought under control, people nevertheless harboured a sullen resentment of the British. The many religions of India, together with the caste system, puzzled and appalled the average Englishman. The majority of Indians were Hindus and the caste system governed their entire social and emotional behaviour unlike Islam whose followers embraced the Koran and looked upon Allah as being all powerful.

It is perhaps not easy 150 years on to appreciate that the political, social and economic welfare of some 250 million souls was supervised by a few hundred young English administrators supported by less than 13,000 British troops. The precariousness of such an administration was recognized at the time by a few discerning individuals such as Sir Charles Metcalfe who wrote: Our domination of India is by conquest; it is naturally disgusting to the inhabitants and can only be maintained by military force. It is our positive duty to render them justice, protect their rights, and to study their happiness. It was a difficult balance to maintain in the face of widespread resentment, and John Sherer, a magistrate in Cawnpore, had no doubt as to the malign influence the Brahmins had on the Hindu soldiers. The Brahmins have always been the inimical force which is discontented with British supremacy, he wrote. Not because it is British, but because it is Western because the political principles of the West are all opposed to any belief in caste that is, caste as understood in India.