拍品专文
C.B. London Gazette 22.3.1859.
Colonel William Thomas Hicks, C.B., was born in 1808, attended Addiscombe between 1823-25 and was appointed a 2nd Lieutenant in the Bombay Artillery in December of the latter year. But it would not be until the Punjab Campaign that he witnessed active service, when he was employed as a Captain of Ordnance at the siege of Mooltan, services that resulted in him being Mentioned in Despatches (London Gazette 7.3.1849 refers), and given the Brevet of Major in June of the same year.
By the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny, Hicks had attained the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, and in due course was appointed as C.O. of Artillery in the Central India Field Force. He subsequently served with distinction at the capture of Gwalior and in the engagement at Kotah-ki-Sarai, commanding on the latter occasion a Squadron of the 8th Hussars, who 'overcame and slew numbers, captured two guns and continued to charge right through the Phool Bagh Cantonment, leaving bungalows and camp equipage in our possession' (Hicks' Despatch, London Gazette 18.4.1859 refers). Hicks was also able to confirm that 'the Queen of Jhansi, disguised as a man, was killed by a Hussar' in the same incident, thus ending a chapter of the Mutiny which has long since attracted the attention of numerous historians, among them Kaye and Malleson:
'When her comrades failed her, her horse, in spite of her efforts, carried her along with the others. With them she might have escaped but that her horse, crossing the canal near the cantonment, stumbled and fell. A Hussar close upon her track, ignorant of her sex and her rank, cut her down. She fell to rise no more. That night her devoted followers, determined that the English should not boast that they had captured her even dead, burned the body ... Thus died the Rani of Jhansi ... Whatever her faults in British eyes may have been, her countrymen will ever believe that she was driven by ill-treatment into rebellion; that her cause was a righteous cause; and that the treatment she received at the hands of Lord Dalhousie was one of the main causes of the disaffection in Bundelkhand and Central India in 1857-58. To them she will always be a heroine'.
Hicks was twice Mentioned in Despatches by Brigadier M.W. Smith (London Gazettes 18.4.1859 and 2.9.1859), and awarded the C.B. Advanced to full Colonel in January 1859, soon after being placed on the Retired List, he died at Plymton in October 1892.
Colonel William Thomas Hicks, C.B., was born in 1808, attended Addiscombe between 1823-25 and was appointed a 2nd Lieutenant in the Bombay Artillery in December of the latter year. But it would not be until the Punjab Campaign that he witnessed active service, when he was employed as a Captain of Ordnance at the siege of Mooltan, services that resulted in him being Mentioned in Despatches (London Gazette 7.3.1849 refers), and given the Brevet of Major in June of the same year.
By the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny, Hicks had attained the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, and in due course was appointed as C.O. of Artillery in the Central India Field Force. He subsequently served with distinction at the capture of Gwalior and in the engagement at Kotah-ki-Sarai, commanding on the latter occasion a Squadron of the 8th Hussars, who 'overcame and slew numbers, captured two guns and continued to charge right through the Phool Bagh Cantonment, leaving bungalows and camp equipage in our possession' (Hicks' Despatch, London Gazette 18.4.1859 refers). Hicks was also able to confirm that 'the Queen of Jhansi, disguised as a man, was killed by a Hussar' in the same incident, thus ending a chapter of the Mutiny which has long since attracted the attention of numerous historians, among them Kaye and Malleson:
'When her comrades failed her, her horse, in spite of her efforts, carried her along with the others. With them she might have escaped but that her horse, crossing the canal near the cantonment, stumbled and fell. A Hussar close upon her track, ignorant of her sex and her rank, cut her down. She fell to rise no more. That night her devoted followers, determined that the English should not boast that they had captured her even dead, burned the body ... Thus died the Rani of Jhansi ... Whatever her faults in British eyes may have been, her countrymen will ever believe that she was driven by ill-treatment into rebellion; that her cause was a righteous cause; and that the treatment she received at the hands of Lord Dalhousie was one of the main causes of the disaffection in Bundelkhand and Central India in 1857-58. To them she will always be a heroine'.
Hicks was twice Mentioned in Despatches by Brigadier M.W. Smith (London Gazettes 18.4.1859 and 2.9.1859), and awarded the C.B. Advanced to full Colonel in January 1859, soon after being placed on the Retired List, he died at Plymton in October 1892.