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Lot Essay
Sold with two editions of The Rifle Brigade Chronicle, both of which include special features on the recipient; original Menu and Programme for the Golden Commemoration of the Indian Mutiny, Albert Hall, 23.12.1907; and a worn single volume history of the Indian Mutiny by the London Printing and Publishing Company Ltd.
The following account of the recipient's military career appears in an interview for The Rifle Brigade Chronicle of 1927:
'Born on 19 January 1836, he [Williams] enlisted in the Rifle Brigade on 3 September 1855 and was sent to Malta in January 1856, on the road to the Crimean War. Peace, however, was proclaimed and they were sent back again without having taken any active part in the fighting. Mr. Williams went through the Indian Mutiny, and also saw service in Africa at Coomassie in 1874. At the time of his discharge in 1875, he was Colour-Sergeant in the 2nd Battalion, Rifle Brigade. On the lapel of his coat, Mr. Williams wore the Indian Mutiny Medal, Lucknow 1857-58, the Coomassie (West Coast of Africa) Medal; North West Frontier Indian Medal 1863-64; and a Long Service and Good Conduct Medal.
Mr. Williams' adventures during the Indian Mutiny are best described in his own words: "We left Aldershot in July 1857, and went on board a sailing ship at Portsmouth. When we got on board, Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort (her husband) came on the ship and inspected it and the accommodation. Soon afterwards we set sail and were taken in tow by a tug boat until we got in the Channel outside the Isle of Wight, the Queen and her husband accompanying us in her yacht "Osborne". We considered ourselves very highly honoured. Here the tug boat and the Queen left us to our fate on the high sea. It took us 129 days to get to India and we caught seventeen sharks on the way and boiled them down for the sailors to have a little pocket money when they got ashore. We never saw a bit of land from the time we left Land's End until we got to Sandheads, a hundred miles from Calcutta. We went through Calcutta, and up country to where the fighting was going on. We were present at Cawnpore and then went to Lucknow and we were about two months on the road escorting guns and supplies of all sorts up to the Siege of Lucknow. We crossed the River Goomtie under General Sir James Outram on 9 March 1858 and took part in the Siege of Lucknow, eventually capturing it on 27 March. I served in India until 1868 and enjoyed excellent health all the time I was there". Asked to give some account of the fighting, Mr. Williams replied, "The worst of the fighting was not at Lucknow, but afterwards. I was out in the jungle the whole of the Summer of 1858 watching the enemy who were trying to get in around Lucknow again. On the twelfth of June we were ordered to camp in the neighbourhood of Chinnett where other regiments joined us with more Artillery and more Cavalry. On the night of the twelfth of June we started for Runingungh".
Mr. Williams continues:
"We struck our tents and put everything ready to be loaded on the camels and elephants to be brought to us later. We started on the march at ten o'clock at night, and left a lot of patients in the hospital suffering from sunstroke. Another regiment was ordered from Lucknow up to Chinnett to take charge of the sick, and to load our baggage and send it on. On the morning of the thirteenth, somebody in the camp raised the report that the Sepoys were coming down on them, and those poor half-demented men, not knowing what they were doing, jumped out of their beds as they were, some of them naked, and ran away in every direction. They were later picked up dead all over the country. We went to Runingungh, and arrived there about 3 a.m., where they halted the soldiers and ordered each man a dram of rum - we had had nothing to drink all night, not even water. While waiting for the rum, my comrade, Henry Purnell, saw an Officer's native servant going with a little chattie to get water, so we followed him, and he soon found a well. We made him draw up some water for us and we had as much as we could drink, and filled our water bottles, and got him to give us a drop to wash the dust out of our eyes. Neither of us had any rum, and it was a good job we didn't, because the rum made the others more thirsty than before. Two hundred of them had sunstroke that day. We got home in 1868 after eleven years there".
Mr. Williams also showed me a number of exhibits that he had sent home from India while he was there. On the one side of the kitchen wall he showed me a case filled with different species of Indian butterflies, some of which he had caught himself during the years 1863-64, and in another case a number of relics were exhibited - a pipe which he smoked while in Coomassie (West Coast of Africa), the bowl of which was made from a palm nut and a bamboo stem. Another pipe, he explained, was given to him at a dinner given at the Albert Hall, London at Christmas 1907, to all the men still alive who had taken part in the Indian Mutiny. A native tooth brush and a couple of Gurkha knives were also included. The butterflies, he said, were brought home for him in 1865 by a comrade who lived at Bath and was returning home. Unfortunately, Mrs. Williams did not enjoy such good health as her husband, who is nearly ten years her senior. She told me that she had not gone outside her gate for a year and suffered severely with her back. Mr. Williams, on the other hand, takes long walks daily, but time is beginning to tell its tale on him, and he told me that his sight wasn't as good as it used to be. He is certainly the most remarkable man I have ever had the pleasure of visiting, and externally he looks well enough to last almost another century. It was almost with a pang of regret that I at last wished them good-bye and set out for home'.
Colour-Sergeant Williams was nearly 92 years of age at the time of the above interview in 1927, and was wearing 'a suit of white "khakhee" which was made in India in 1864', and a pair of white shoes that 'he said had been served out to him in February 1874 on the West Coast of Africa'. The same feature goes on to quote letters he sent home during the Ashantee War, some of which were re-published in The Times. He died in October 1933, aged 98 years.
The following account of the recipient's military career appears in an interview for The Rifle Brigade Chronicle of 1927:
'Born on 19 January 1836, he [Williams] enlisted in the Rifle Brigade on 3 September 1855 and was sent to Malta in January 1856, on the road to the Crimean War. Peace, however, was proclaimed and they were sent back again without having taken any active part in the fighting. Mr. Williams went through the Indian Mutiny, and also saw service in Africa at Coomassie in 1874. At the time of his discharge in 1875, he was Colour-Sergeant in the 2nd Battalion, Rifle Brigade. On the lapel of his coat, Mr. Williams wore the Indian Mutiny Medal, Lucknow 1857-58, the Coomassie (West Coast of Africa) Medal; North West Frontier Indian Medal 1863-64; and a Long Service and Good Conduct Medal.
Mr. Williams' adventures during the Indian Mutiny are best described in his own words: "We left Aldershot in July 1857, and went on board a sailing ship at Portsmouth. When we got on board, Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort (her husband) came on the ship and inspected it and the accommodation. Soon afterwards we set sail and were taken in tow by a tug boat until we got in the Channel outside the Isle of Wight, the Queen and her husband accompanying us in her yacht "Osborne". We considered ourselves very highly honoured. Here the tug boat and the Queen left us to our fate on the high sea. It took us 129 days to get to India and we caught seventeen sharks on the way and boiled them down for the sailors to have a little pocket money when they got ashore. We never saw a bit of land from the time we left Land's End until we got to Sandheads, a hundred miles from Calcutta. We went through Calcutta, and up country to where the fighting was going on. We were present at Cawnpore and then went to Lucknow and we were about two months on the road escorting guns and supplies of all sorts up to the Siege of Lucknow. We crossed the River Goomtie under General Sir James Outram on 9 March 1858 and took part in the Siege of Lucknow, eventually capturing it on 27 March. I served in India until 1868 and enjoyed excellent health all the time I was there". Asked to give some account of the fighting, Mr. Williams replied, "The worst of the fighting was not at Lucknow, but afterwards. I was out in the jungle the whole of the Summer of 1858 watching the enemy who were trying to get in around Lucknow again. On the twelfth of June we were ordered to camp in the neighbourhood of Chinnett where other regiments joined us with more Artillery and more Cavalry. On the night of the twelfth of June we started for Runingungh".
Mr. Williams continues:
"We struck our tents and put everything ready to be loaded on the camels and elephants to be brought to us later. We started on the march at ten o'clock at night, and left a lot of patients in the hospital suffering from sunstroke. Another regiment was ordered from Lucknow up to Chinnett to take charge of the sick, and to load our baggage and send it on. On the morning of the thirteenth, somebody in the camp raised the report that the Sepoys were coming down on them, and those poor half-demented men, not knowing what they were doing, jumped out of their beds as they were, some of them naked, and ran away in every direction. They were later picked up dead all over the country. We went to Runingungh, and arrived there about 3 a.m., where they halted the soldiers and ordered each man a dram of rum - we had had nothing to drink all night, not even water. While waiting for the rum, my comrade, Henry Purnell, saw an Officer's native servant going with a little chattie to get water, so we followed him, and he soon found a well. We made him draw up some water for us and we had as much as we could drink, and filled our water bottles, and got him to give us a drop to wash the dust out of our eyes. Neither of us had any rum, and it was a good job we didn't, because the rum made the others more thirsty than before. Two hundred of them had sunstroke that day. We got home in 1868 after eleven years there".
Mr. Williams also showed me a number of exhibits that he had sent home from India while he was there. On the one side of the kitchen wall he showed me a case filled with different species of Indian butterflies, some of which he had caught himself during the years 1863-64, and in another case a number of relics were exhibited - a pipe which he smoked while in Coomassie (West Coast of Africa), the bowl of which was made from a palm nut and a bamboo stem. Another pipe, he explained, was given to him at a dinner given at the Albert Hall, London at Christmas 1907, to all the men still alive who had taken part in the Indian Mutiny. A native tooth brush and a couple of Gurkha knives were also included. The butterflies, he said, were brought home for him in 1865 by a comrade who lived at Bath and was returning home. Unfortunately, Mrs. Williams did not enjoy such good health as her husband, who is nearly ten years her senior. She told me that she had not gone outside her gate for a year and suffered severely with her back. Mr. Williams, on the other hand, takes long walks daily, but time is beginning to tell its tale on him, and he told me that his sight wasn't as good as it used to be. He is certainly the most remarkable man I have ever had the pleasure of visiting, and externally he looks well enough to last almost another century. It was almost with a pang of regret that I at last wished them good-bye and set out for home'.
Colour-Sergeant Williams was nearly 92 years of age at the time of the above interview in 1927, and was wearing 'a suit of white "khakhee" which was made in India in 1864', and a pair of white shoes that 'he said had been served out to him in February 1874 on the West Coast of Africa'. The same feature goes on to quote letters he sent home during the Ashantee War, some of which were re-published in The Times. He died in October 1933, aged 98 years.