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91-763: The presidency armies, like the presidencies themselves, belonged to the Company until the Indian Rebellion of 1857 , when the Crown took over the Company and its three armies. In 1895, the three presidency armies were merged into a united Indian Army . The origin of the British Indian Army and subsequently the army of independent India lies in the origins of the Presidency Armies which preceded them. The first purely Indian troops employed by

182-527: A commitment for general service. However, serving high-caste sepoys were fearful that it would be eventually extended to them, as well as preventing sons following fathers into an army with a strong tradition of family service. There were also grievances over the issue of promotions, based on seniority. This, as well as the increasing number of British officers in the battalions, made promotion slow, and many Indian officers did not reach commissioned rank until they were too old to be effective. The final spark

273-411: A few months before his untimely death from illness in 1827. His mother was granted a viscountcy in her own right, becoming the 1st Viscountess Canning, largely in tribute to her late husband. Charles Canning was educated at Christ Church, Oxford , where he graduated B.A. in 1833, as first class in classics and second class in mathematics. In 1836 he entered Parliament , being returned as member for

364-541: A humane and sensible measure, the Resolution made Canning unpopular at a time when British popular opinion favoured collective and indiscriminate reprisals. The Encyclopædia Britannica of 1911 continues, "While rebellion was raging in Oudh he issued a proclamation declaring the lands of the province forfeited, and this step gave rise to much angry controversy. A secret despatch, couched in arrogant and offensive terms,

455-426: A large capacity for hard work but also general administrative ability and much zeal for the improvement of the service. He retained his post under Lord Palmerston's ministry until July 1855, when, in consequence of the departure of Lord Dalhousie and a vacancy in the governor-generalship of India, he was selected by Lord Palmerston to succeed to that great position. This appointment appears to have been made rather on

546-537: A member of the ministries of William Pitt the Younger and the Duke of Portland (most notably having been Foreign Secretary from 1807 to 1809), but as of Charles's birth was out of government due to personal and policy differences with several leading figures. Over Charles's youth, his father returned to government and held several senior posts, including a second stint as Foreign Secretary 1822-27 and Prime Minister for

637-444: A result of the land reforms that came in the wake of annexation of Oudh . It is mentioned that throughout Oudh and Bihar Rajput Taluqdars provided the bulk of leadership and played an important role during 1857 in the region. As the rebellion gained ground, the taluqdars quickly reoccupied the lands they had lost, and paradoxically, in part because of ties of kinship and feudal loyalty, did not experience significant opposition from

728-556: A statesman-like manner explaining and vindicating his censured policy" and in 1858 he was rewarded by being made the first Viceroy of India . The Encyclopædia Britannica of 1911 adds, "In April 1859 he received the thanks of both Houses of Parliament for his great services during the rebellion. He was also made an extra civil grand cross of the Order of the Bath , and in May of the same year he

819-638: Is little evidence that the sepoys' allegiance was affected by this. However, changes in the terms of their professional service may have created resentment. As the extent of the East India Company's jurisdiction expanded with victories in wars or annexation, the soldiers were now expected not only to serve in less familiar regions, such as in Burma , but also to make do without the "foreign service" remuneration that had previously been their due. A major cause of resentment that arose ten months prior to

910-504: The Anglo-Nepalese War of 1814–16 and brought the defeated Gurkhas under British influence. In 1854, Berar was annexed, and the state of Oudh was added two years later. For practical purposes, the company was the government of much of India. The Indian Rebellion of 1857 occurred as the result of an accumulation of factors over time, rather than any single event. The sepoys were Indian soldiers who were recruited into

1001-538: The Indian Rebellion of 1857 . Irregular cavalry were raised by the " silladar system " employed by rulers of Indian states. Irregular cavalry regiments had very few British officers. In addition, native artillery and pioneers (referred to later as Sappers and Miners) were also raised. Between 1796 and 1804, a regimental system on a two battalion basis was introduced. The battalions were only theoretically linked together and shared no esprit de corps . The number of British officers went up to 22 per battalion, which diminished

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1092-533: The Madras Army and Bombay Army were "more localized, caste-neutral armies" that "did not prefer high-caste men". The domination of higher castes in the Bengal Army has been blamed in part for initial mutinies that led to the rebellion. In 1772, when Warren Hastings was appointed Fort William 's first Governor-General, one of his first undertakings was the rapid expansion of the company's army. Since

1183-1089: The Martial Race system. Another change resulting from the Indian Rebellion of 1857 was that henceforward artillery was confined to the British Army. In 1895, the separate Presidency Armies were at last abolished and a fully unified Indian Army came into being. As before, its British officers were not members of the British Army, though as young subalterns they did serve for a year with a British Army regiment as part of their training before taking up permanent commissions with their Indian Army regiment. Indian Rebellion of 1857 The Earl Canning George Anson   † Sir Patrick Grant Sir Colin Campbell Sir Henry Havelock   † Surendra Bikram Shah Randhir Singh 6,000 British killed, including civilians The Indian Rebellion of 1857

1274-491: The Vellore Mutiny was sparked by new uniform regulations that created resentment amongst both Hindu and Muslim sepoys. After the turn of the 19th century, Governor-General Wellesley began what became two decades of accelerated expansion of Company territories. This was achieved either by subsidiary alliances between the company and local rulers or by direct military annexation. The subsidiary alliances created

1365-660: The princely states of the Hindu maharajas and the Muslim nawabs . Punjab , North-West Frontier Province , and Kashmir were annexed after the Second Anglo-Sikh War in 1849; however, Kashmir was immediately sold under the 1846 Treaty of Amritsar to the Dogra Dynasty of Jammu and thereby became a princely state. The border dispute between Nepal and British India, which sharpened after 1801, had caused

1456-626: The rebellion and took major administrative decisions even during the peak of the Rebellion in 1857, including establishing the first three modern Universities in India, the University of Calcutta , University of Madras and University of Bombay based on Wood's despatch . Canning passed the Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act, 1856 which was drafted by his predecessor Lord Dalhousie before

1547-565: The upper Gangetic plain and central India , though incidents of revolt also occurred farther north and east. The rebellion posed a military threat to British power in that region, and was contained only with the rebels' defeat in Gwalior on 20 June 1858. On 1 November 1858, the British granted amnesty to all rebels not involved in murder, though they did not declare the hostilities to have formally ended until 8 July 1859. The name of

1638-504: The 11th Bengal Native Infantry) escorted trusted British officers and women and children to safety before joining the revolt. Some officers and their families escaped to Rampur , where they found refuge with the Nawab. The British historian Philip Mason notes that it was inevitable that most of the sepoys and sowars from Meerut should have made for Delhi on the night of 10 May. It was a strong walled city located only forty miles away, it

1729-405: The 84 regular infantry and cavalry regiments. Thus 75% of the cavalry regiments was composed of Indian Muslims, while 80% of the infantry was composed of Hindus. The sepoys were therefore affected to a large degree by the concerns of the landholding and traditional members of Indian society. In the early years of Company rule, it tolerated and even encouraged the caste privileges and customs within

1820-463: The Bengal Army had accepted an obligation to serve overseas if required. As a result, the burden of providing contingents for active service in Burma, readily accessible only by sea, and China had fallen disproportionately on the two smaller Presidency Armies. As signed into effect by Lord Canning , Dalhousie's successor as Governor-General, the act required only new recruits to the Bengal Army to accept

1911-507: The Bengal Army liable to service overseas. Although it was intended to apply only to new recruits, the serving sepoys feared that the Act might be applied retroactively to them as well. A high-caste Hindu who travelled in the cramped conditions of a wooden troop ship could not cook his own food on his own fire, and accordingly risked losing caste through ritual pollution. Several months of increasing tensions coupled with various incidents preceded

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2002-493: The Bengal Army, that some sort of rebellion over the cartridges was imminent. Despite the objections of the civilian Governor-General's staff, he agreed to postpone the musketry practice and allow a new drill by which the soldiers tore the cartridges with their fingers rather than their teeth. However, he issued no general orders making this standard practice throughout the Bengal Army and, rather than remain at Ambala to defuse or overawe potential trouble, he then proceeded to Simla ,

2093-676: The Bengal Army, which recruited its regular infantry soldiers almost exclusively amongst the landowning Rajputs and Brahmins of the Bihar and Oudh regions. These soldiers were known as Purbiyas . By the time these customs and privileges came to be threatened by modernising regimes in Calcutta from the 1840s onwards, the sepoys had become accustomed to very high ritual status and were extremely sensitive to suggestions that their caste might be polluted. The sepoys also gradually became dissatisfied with various other aspects of army life. Their pay

2184-582: The British Army, but its 'Native' regiments were not. The three separate Presidency Armies therefore continued to exist, and their European officers continued to be listed as members of the Bengal, Madras or Bombay Army rather than the British Army . However, the Presidency Armies began to be described collectively as the Indian Army . Following the Rebellion recruitment of 'Native' Regiments switched to

2275-580: The British by providing both soldiers and support. The large princely states, Hyderabad , Mysore , Travancore , and Kashmir , as well as the smaller ones of Rajputana , did not join the rebellion, serving the British, in the Governor-General Lord Canning 's words, as "breakwaters in a storm". In some regions, most notably in Awadh, the rebellion took on the attributes of a patriotic revolt against British oppression. However,

2366-659: The British sought to destroy the religions of the Indian people, and forcing the native soldiers to break their sacred code would have certainly added to this rumour, as it apparently did. The company was quick to reverse the effects of this policy in hopes that the unrest would be quelled. On 27 January, Colonel Richard Birch, the Military Secretary, ordered that all cartridges issued from depots were to be free from grease, and that sepoys could grease them themselves using whatever mixture "they may prefer". A modification

2457-870: The British were watchmen employed in each of the Presidencies of the British East India Company to protect their trading stations. These were all placed in 1748 under one Commander-in-Chief , Major-General Stringer Lawrence who is regarded as the "Father of the Indian Army". From the mid-eighteenth century, the East India Company began to maintain armies at each of its three main stations, or Presidencies of British India , at Calcutta (Bengal), Madras and Bombay . The Bengal Army, Madras Army, and Bombay Army were quite distinct, each with its own Regiments and cadre of European officers. All three armies contained European regiments in which both

2548-669: The East India Company army defeated Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II . After his defeat, the emperor granted the company the right to the "collection of Revenue" in the provinces of Bengal (modern day Bengal , Bihar, and Odisha ), known as "Diwani" to the company. The Company soon expanded its territories around its bases in Bombay and Madras; later, the Anglo-Mysore Wars (1766–1799) and the Anglo-Maratha Wars (1772–1818) led to control of even more of India. In 1806,

2639-505: The Flagstaff Tower also set out for Karnal on foot. Some were helped by villagers on the way; others were killed. The next day, Bahadur Shah held his first formal court for many years. It was attended by many excited sepoys. The emperor was alarmed by the turn events had taken, but eventually accepted the sepoys' allegiance and agreed to give his countenance to the rebellion. On 16 May, up to 50 British who had been held prisoner in

2730-548: The Indian firm of Gangadarh Banerji & Co. By January, rumours abounded that the Enfield cartridges were greased with animal fat. Company officers became aware of the rumours through reports of an altercation between a high-caste sepoy and a low-caste labourer at Dum Dum . The labourer had taunted the sepoy that by biting the cartridge, he had himself lost caste, although at this time such cartridges had been issued only at Meerut and not at Dum Dum. There had been rumours that

2821-758: The Peel administration was broken up, Lord Canning filled the post of First Commissioner of Woods and Forests . He served on the Royal Commission on the British Museum (1847–49). He declined to accept office under the Earl of Derby ; but on the formation of the coalition ministry under the Earl of Aberdeen in January 1853, he received the appointment of Postmaster General . In this office, he showed not only

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2912-528: The Queen's proclamation in growing avowals of a new nationalism. Although the British East India Company had established a presence in India as far back as 1612, and earlier administered the factory areas established for trading purposes, its victory in the Battle of Plassey in 1757 marked the beginning of its firm foothold in eastern India. The victory was consolidated in 1764 at the Battle of Buxar , when

3003-565: The Viscount Canning and Clemency Canning , was a British statesman and Governor-General of India during the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and the first Viceroy of India after the transfer of power from the East India Company to the Crown of Queen Victoria in 1858 after the rebellion was crushed. Canning is credited for ensuring that the administration and most departments of the government functioned normally during

3094-408: The abolition of sati and the legalisation of widow remarriage were considered by many—especially the British themselves —to have caused suspicion that Indian religious traditions were being "interfered with", with the ultimate aim of conversion. Recent historians, including Chris Bayly , have preferred to frame this as a "clash of knowledges", with proclamations from religious authorities before

3185-401: The actual rebellion. On 26 February 1857 the 19th Bengal Native Infantry (BNI) regiment became concerned that new cartridges they had been issued were wrapped in paper greased with cow and pig fat, which had to be opened by mouth thus affecting their religious sensibilities. Their Colonel confronted them supported by artillery and cavalry on the parade ground, but after some negotiation withdrew

3276-608: The alarm. When his Adjutant Lt. Henry Baugh came out to investigate the unrest, Pandey opened fire but hit Baugh's horse instead. General John Hearsey came out to the parade ground to investigate, and claimed later that Mangal Pandey was in some kind of "religious frenzy". He ordered the Indian commander of the Quarter Guard Jemadar Ishwari Prasad to arrest Mangal Pandey, but the Jemadar refused. The quarter guard and other sepoys present, with

3367-409: The arsenal. Six of the nine officers survived, but the blast killed many in the streets and nearby houses and other buildings. The news of these events finally tipped the sepoys stationed around Delhi into open rebellion. The sepoys were later able to salvage at least some arms from the arsenal, and a magazine two miles (3 km (1.9 mi)) outside Delhi, containing up to 3,000 barrels of gunpowder,

3458-473: The artillery, and cancelled the next morning's parade. On 29 March 1857 at the Barrackpore parade ground, near Calcutta , 29-year-old Mangal Pandey of the 34th BNI, angered by the recent actions of the East India Company, declared that he would rebel against his commanders. Informed about Pandey's behaviour Sergeant-Major James Hewson went to investigate, only to have Pandey shoot at him. Hewson raised

3549-432: The bazaar attacked off-duty soldiers there. About 50 Indian civilians, some of them officers' servants who tried to defend or conceal their employers, were killed by the sepoys. While the action of the sepoys in freeing their 85 imprisoned comrades appears to have been spontaneous, some civilian rioting in the city was reportedly encouraged by Kotwal (chief police officer) Dhan Singh Gurjar . Some sepoys (especially from

3640-647: The cities of Delhi and Lucknow were laid waste in the fighting and the British retaliation. After the outbreak of the mutiny in Meerut, the rebels quickly reached Delhi, whose 81-year-old Mughal ruler, Bahadur Shah Zafar , was declared the Emperor of Hindustan . Soon, the rebels had captured large tracts of the North-Western Provinces and Awadh (Oudh). The East India Company's response came rapidly as well. With help from reinforcements, Kanpur

3731-496: The company's army. Just before the rebellion, there were over 300,000 sepoys in the army, compared to about 50,000 British. The East India Company's forces were divided into three presidency armies : Bombay , Madras , and Bengal . The Bengal Army recruited higher castes , such as Brahmins , Rajputs and Bhumihar , mostly from the Awadh and Bihar regions, and even restricted the enlistment of lower castes in 1855. In contrast,

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3822-423: The condemned soldiers berated their comrades for failing to support them. The next day was Sunday. Some Indian soldiers warned off-duty junior British officers that plans were afoot to release the imprisoned soldiers by force, but the senior officers to whom this was reported took no action. There was also unrest in the city of Meerut itself, with angry protests in the bazaar and some buildings being set on fire. In

3913-472: The cool hill station where many high officials spent the summer. Although there was no open revolt at Ambala, there was widespread arson during late April. Barrack buildings (especially those belonging to soldiers who had used the Enfield cartridges) and British officers' bungalows were set on fire. At Meerut , a large military cantonment, 2,357 Indian sepoys and 2,038 British soldiers were stationed along with 12 British-manned guns. The station held one of

4004-465: The difficulties this might cause: unless it be proven that the grease employed in these cartridges is not of a nature to offend or interfere with the prejudices of religion, it will be expedient not to issue them for test to Native corps. However, in August 1856, greased cartridge production was initiated at Fort William, Calcutta , following a British design. The grease used included tallow supplied by

4095-463: The evening, most British officers were preparing to attend church, while many of the British soldiers were off duty and had gone into canteens or into the bazaar in Meerut. The Indian troops, led by the 3rd Cavalry, broke into revolt. British junior officers who attempted to quell the first outbreaks were killed by the rebels. British officers' and civilians' quarters were attacked, and four civilian men, eight women and eight children were killed. Crowds in

4186-495: The fall of Delhi, many Company administrators hastened to remove themselves, their families and servants to places of safety. At Agra, 160 miles (260 km) from Delhi, no fewer than 6,000 assorted non-combatants converged on the Fort . Charles Canning, 1st Earl Canning Charles John Canning, 1st Earl Canning , KG , GCB , KCSI , PC (14 December 1812 – 17 June 1862), also known as

4277-507: The feudal nobility, rural landlords called taluqdars , and the peasants . The nobility, many of whom had lost titles and domains under the Doctrine of Lapse , which refused to recognise the adopted children of princes as legal heirs, felt that the company had interfered with a traditional system of inheritance. Rebel leaders such as Nana Sahib and the Rani of Jhansi belonged to this group;

4368-421: The formal disbanding helped foment the rebellion in view of some historians. Disgruntled ex-sepoys returned home to Awadh with a desire for revenge. During April, there was unrest and fires at Agra , Allahabad and Ambala . At Ambala in particular, which was a large military cantonment where several units had been collected for their annual musketry practice, it was clear to General Anson, Commander-in-Chief of

4459-531: The ground of his father's great services than from any proof as yet given of special personal fitness on the part of Lord Canning. The new governor sailed from England in December 1855 and entered upon the duties of his office in India at the close of February 1856. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica of 1911, "In the year following his accession to office, the deep-seated discontent of

4550-680: The idea of sepoy battalions for the Bengal Presidency. These would be Indian soldiers, armed, dressed, and trained the same as the " red coats " (British soldiers), and commanded by a nucleus of British officers. The Madras Presidency followed suit with six battalions in 1759, followed by the Bombay Presidency in 1767. Recruitment in all cases was done locally, with battalions each drawn from single castes, and from specific communities, villages, and families. Regular cavalry regiments were raised in 1784, of which only three survived

4641-459: The importance of native officers. Control by Regimental commanders was excessive and exasperating to the battalions, and the system was reverted in 1824. Thereafter, units were formed into single battalion regiments, which were numbered per their seniority of raising. Following the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and the consequent takeover of power by the British government from the East India Company , its European regiments were amalgamated in 1860 with

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4732-462: The improvements brought about by British rule. Many Indians rose against the British; however, many also fought for the British, and the majority remained seemingly compliant to British rule. Violence, which sometimes betrayed exceptional cruelty, was inflicted on both sides, on British officers, and civilians, including women and children, by the rebels, and on the rebels, and their supporters, including sometimes entire villages, by British reprisals;

4823-504: The largest concentrations of British troops in India and this was later to be cited as evidence that the original rising was a spontaneous outbreak rather than a pre-planned plot. Although the state of unrest within the Bengal Army was well known, on 24 April Lieutenant Colonel George Carmichael-Smyth, the unsympathetic commanding officer of the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry , which was composed mainly of Indian Muslims, ordered 90 of his men to parade and perform firing drills. All except five of

4914-430: The latter, for example, was prepared to accept East India Company supremacy if her adopted son was recognised as her late husband's heir. In other areas of central India, such as Indore and Sagar , where such loss of privilege had not occurred, the princes remained loyal to the company, even in areas where the sepoys had rebelled. The second group, the taluqdars , had lost half their landed estates to peasant farmers as

5005-405: The men on parade refused to accept their cartridges. On 9 May, the remaining 85 men were court martialled , and most were sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment with hard labour. Eleven comparatively young soldiers were given five years' imprisonment. The entire garrison was paraded and watched as the condemned men were stripped of their uniforms and placed in shackles. As they were marched off to jail,

5096-542: The officers and men were Europeans, as well as a larger number of 'Native' regiments, in which the officers were Europeans and the other ranks were Indians. They included Artillery, Cavalry and Infantry regiments, so historical sources refer to the Bengal/Madras/Bombay Artillery/Cavalry/Infantry (the latter often termed "Native Infantry" or "N.I."). From the mid-eighteenth century onwards, the Crown began to dispatch regiments of

5187-547: The outbreak of the rebellion was the General Service Enlistment Act of 25 July 1856. As noted above, men of the Bengal Army had been exempted from overseas service. Specifically, they were enlisted only for service in territories to which they could march. Governor-General Lord Dalhousie saw this as an anomaly, since all sepoys of the Madras and Bombay Armies and the six "General Service" battalions of

5278-424: The palace or had been discovered hiding in the city were killed by some of the emperor's servants under a peepul tree in a courtyard outside the palace. The news of the events at Meerut and Delhi spread rapidly, provoking uprisings among sepoys and disturbances in many districts. In many cases, it was the behaviour of British military and civilian authorities themselves which precipitated disorder. Learning of

5369-402: The peasant farmers, many of whom joined the rebellion, to the great dismay of the British. It has also been suggested that heavy land-revenue assessment in some areas by the British resulted in many landowning families either losing their land or going into great debt to money lenders, and providing ultimately a reason to rebel; money lenders, in addition to the company, were particular objects of

5460-479: The people broke out in the Indian Rebellion of 1857 . Fears were entertained, and even the friends of the Governor-General to some extent shared them, that he was not equal to the crisis. But the fears proved groundless. He had a clear eye for the gravity of the situation, a calm judgment, and a prompt, swift hand to do what was really necessary. ... He carried the Indian empire safely through the stress of

5551-405: The presence of missionaries as a sign of official intent, were convinced that the company was masterminding mass conversions of Hindus and Muslims to Christianity. Although earlier in the 1830s, evangelicals such as William Carey and William Wilberforce had successfully clamoured for the passage of social reform, such as the abolition of sati and allowing the remarriage of Hindu widows, there

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5642-522: The rebel leaders proclaimed no articles of faith that presaged a new political system . Even so, the rebellion proved to be an important watershed in Indian and British Empire history. It led to the dissolution of the East India Company, and forced the British to reorganize the army, the financial system, and the administration in India, through passage of the Government of India Act 1858 . India

5733-456: The rebellion, while others held back but also refused to obey orders to take action against the rebels. In the afternoon, a violent explosion in the city was heard for several miles. Fearing that the arsenal, which contained large stocks of arms and ammunition, would fall intact into rebel hands, the nine British Ordnance officers there had opened fire on the sepoys, including the men of their own guard. When resistance appeared hopeless, they blew up

5824-580: The rebellion. He also passed the General Service Enlistment Act of 1856 . After the rebellion he presided over a smooth transfer and reorganisation of government from the East India company to the crown, the Indian Penal Code was drafted in 1860 based on the code drafted by Macaulay and came into force in 1862. Canning met the rebellion '"with firmness, confidence, magnanimity and calm" as per his biographer, Sir George Dunbar. Canning

5915-452: The rebels' animosity. The civilian rebellion was also highly uneven in its geographic distribution, even in areas of north-central India that were no longer under British control. For example, the relatively prosperous Muzaffarnagar district, a beneficiary of a Company irrigation scheme, and next door to Meerut , where the upheaval began, stayed relatively calm throughout. " Utilitarian and evangelical -inspired social reform", including

6006-432: The regular British Army to India, to reinforce the Company's armies. These troops are often referred to as "H.M.'s Regiments" or "Royal regiments". By 1824, the size of the combined armies of Bengal, Madras, and Bombay was about 200,000 and had at least 170 sepoy and 16 European regiments. In 1844 the combined average strength of the three armies was 235,446 native and 14,584 European. In 1757, Robert Clive came up with

6097-515: The requirements of their religious rituals. Consequently, these soldiers dined in separate facilities; in addition, overseas service, considered polluting to their caste, was not required of them, and the army soon came officially to recognise Hindu festivals. "This encouragement of high caste ritual status, however, left the government vulnerable to protest, even mutiny, whenever the sepoys detected infringement of their prerogatives." Stokes argues that "The British scrupulously avoided interference with

6188-587: The revolt and testimony after it including on such issues as the "insults to women", the rise of " low people ' under British tutelage", the "pollution" caused by Western medicine and the persecuting and ignoring of traditional astrological authorities. British-run schools were also a problem: according to recorded testimonies, anger had spread because of stories that mathematics was replacing religious instruction, stories were chosen that would "bring contempt" upon Indian religions, and because girl children were exposed to "moral danger" by education. The justice system

6279-794: The revolt is contested , and it is variously described as the Sepoy Mutiny , the Indian Mutiny , the Great Rebellion , the Revolt of 1857 , the Indian Insurrection , and the First War of Independence . The Indian rebellion was fed by resentments born of diverse perceptions, including invasive British-style social reforms, harsh land taxes, summary treatment of some rich landowners and princes, and scepticism about

6370-408: The sepoys as ordinary petitioners, but others in the palace were quick to join the revolt. During the day, the revolt spread. British officials and dependents, Indian Christians and shop keepers within the city were killed, some by sepoys and others by crowds of rioters. There were three battalion-sized regiments of Bengal Native Infantry stationed in or near the city. Some detachments quickly joined

6461-459: The sepoys from Bengal – many of whom had fought against the Company in the Battles of Plassey and Buxar – were now suspect in British eyes, Hastings recruited farther west from the high-caste rural Rajputs and Bhumihar of Awadh and Bihar, a practice that continued for the next 75 years. However, in order to forestall any social friction, the company also took action to adapt its military practices to

6552-487: The single exception of a soldier called Shaikh Paltu , drew back from restraining or arresting Mangal Pandey. Shaikh Paltu restrained Pandey from continuing his attack. After failing to incite his comrades into an open and active rebellion, Mangal Pandey tried to take his own life, by placing his musket to his chest and pulling the trigger with his toe. He managed only to wound himself. He was court-martialled on 6 April and hanged two days later. The Jemadar Ishwari Prasad

6643-492: The social structure of the village community which remained largely intact." After the annexation of Oudh (Awadh) by the East India Company in 1856, many sepoys were disquieted both from losing their perquisites, as landed gentry, in the Oudh courts, and from the anticipation of any increased land-revenue payments that the annexation might bring about. Other historians have stressed that by 1857, some Indian soldiers, interpreting

6734-624: The storm, and, what was perhaps a harder task still, he dealt wisely with the enormous difficulties arising at the close of such a war. ... The name of Clemency Canning, which was applied to him during the heated animosities of the moment, has since become a title of honour." He was derisively called "Clemency" on account of a Resolution dated 31 July 1857, which distinguished between sepoys from regiments which had mutinied and killed their officers and European civilians, and those Indian soldiers who had disbanded and dispersed to their villages, without being involved in violence. While subsequently regarded as

6825-487: The three "Presidencies" into which the East India Company divided India for administrative purposes maintained their own armies. Of these, the Army of the Bengal Presidency was the largest. Unlike the other two, it recruited heavily from among high-caste Hindus and comparatively wealthy Muslims. The Muslims formed a larger percentage of the 18 irregular cavalry units within the Bengal Army, whilst Hindus were mainly to be found in

6916-659: The town of Warwick in the Conservative interest. He did not, however, sit long in the House of Commons; for, on the death of his mother in 1837, he succeeded to the peerage and entered the House of Lords . His first official appointment was that of Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs , in the administration formed by Sir Robert Peel in 1841, his chief being the Earl of Aberdeen . This post he held till January 1846; and from January to July of that year, when

7007-500: Was a major uprising in India and modern day Pakistan in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company , which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown . The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the form of a mutiny of sepoys of the company's army in the garrison town of Meerut , 40 miles (64 km) northeast of Delhi. It then erupted into other mutinies and civilian rebellions chiefly in

7098-453: Was addressed to Canning by Lord Ellenborough , then a member of the Derby administration, which would have justified the Governor-General in immediately resigning. But from a strong sense of duty, he continued at his post, and ere long the general condemnation of the despatch was so strong that the writer felt it necessary to retire from office. Lord Canning replied to the despatch, calmly and in

7189-409: Was also made to the drill for loading so that the cartridge was torn with the hands and not bitten. This, however, merely caused many sepoys to be convinced that the rumours were true and that their fears were justified. Additional rumours started that the paper in the new cartridges, which was glazed and stiffer than the previously used paper, was impregnated with grease. In February, a court of inquiry

7280-486: Was captured without resistance. Many fugitive British officers and civilians had congregated at the Flagstaff Tower on the ridge north of Delhi, where telegraph operators were sending news of the events to other British stations. When it became clear that the help expected from Meerut was not coming, they made their way in carriages to Karnal . Those who became separated from the main body or who could not reach

7371-479: Was considered to be inherently unfair to the Indians. The official Blue Books, East India (Torture) 1855–1857 , laid before the House of Commons during the sessions of 1856 and 1857, revealed that Company officers were allowed an extended series of appeals if convicted or accused of brutality or crimes against Indians. The economic policies of the East India Company were also resented by many Indians. Each of

7462-452: Was created a Knight of the Garter . As he died without issue the titles became extinct." Prior to the rebellion, Canning and his wife, Charlotte, had desired to produce a photographic survey of Indian people, primarily for their own edification. This project was transformed into an official government study as a consequence of the rebellion, after which it was seen as useful documentation in

7553-427: Was held at Barrackpore to get to the bottom of these rumours. Native soldiers called as witnesses complained of the paper "being stiff and like cloth in the mode of tearing", said that when the paper was burned it smelled of grease, and announced that the suspicion that the paper itself contained grease could not be removed from their minds. Civilian rebellion was more multifarious. The rebels consisted of three groups:

7644-536: Was provided by the ammunition for the new Enfield Pattern 1853 rifled musket . These rifles, which fired Minié balls , had a tighter fit than the earlier muskets, and used paper cartridges that came pre-greased. To load the rifle, sepoys had to bite the cartridge open to release the powder. The grease used on these cartridges was rumoured to include tallow derived from beef, which would be offensive to Hindus, and lard derived from pork, which would be offensive to Muslims. At least one Company official pointed out

7735-505: Was raised to the dignity of an Earl , as Earl Canning . ...By the strain of anxiety and hard work his health and strength were seriously impaired, while the death of his wife was also a great shock to him; in the hope that rest in his native land might restore him, he left India, reaching England in April 1862. But it was too late. He died in London on 17 June. About a month before his death he

7826-488: Was relatively low and after Oudh and the Punjab were annexed, the soldiers no longer received extra pay ( batta or bhatta ) for service there, because they were no longer considered "foreign missions". The junior British officers became increasingly estranged from their soldiers, in many cases treating them as their racial inferiors. In 1856, a new Enlistment Act was introduced by the company, which in theory made every unit in

7917-661: Was retaken by mid-July 1857, and Delhi by the end of September. However, it then took the remainder of 1857 and the better part of 1858 for the rebellion to be suppressed in Jhansi, Lucknow, and especially the Awadh countryside. Other regions of Company-controlled India— Bengal province, the Bombay Presidency , and the Madras Presidency —remained largely calm. In the Punjab , the Sikh princes crucially helped

8008-441: Was sentenced to death and hanged on 21 April. The regiment was disbanded and stripped of its uniforms because it was felt that it harboured ill-feelings towards its superiors, particularly after this incident. Shaikh Paltu was promoted to the rank of havildar in the Bengal Army but was murdered shortly before the 34th BNI dispersed. Sepoys in other regiments thought these punishments were harsh. The demonstration of disgrace during

8099-498: Was the ancient capital and present seat of the nominal Mughal Emperor and finally there were no British troops in garrison there in contrast to Meerut. No effort was made to pursue them. Early on 11 May, the first parties of the 3rd Cavalry reached Delhi. From beneath the windows of the Emperor 's apartments in the palace, they called on Bahadur Shah II to acknowledge and lead them. He did nothing at this point, apparently treating

8190-410: Was thereafter administered directly by the British government in the new British Raj . On 1 November 1858, Queen Victoria issued a proclamation to Indians, which while lacking the authority of a constitutional provision, promised rights similar to those of other British subjects. In the following decades, when admission to these rights was not always forthcoming, Indians were to pointedly refer to

8281-405: Was very firm during the rebellion but after that he focused on reconciliation and reconstruction rather than retribution and issued a clemency proclamation. Born at Gloucester Lodge, Brompton , near London, Canning was the youngest child of George and Joan Canning . His mother was the daughter of Major-General John Scott . Meanwhile, his father was a Tory Member of Parliament who had been

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