1849 - Arrival of the 70th
The Indian Mutiny and the Aftermath
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| The
Colour of the 70th Foot, later 2nd Bn The East Surrey Regiment. (Click to enlarge) |
The 70th Surrey Regiment now appeared upon the Indian scene, arriving at Calcutta from England in May 1849. It was stationed initially at Dum Dum and Calcutta before moving to Cawnpore and then in 1854 further north to Ferozepore. In all those places it suffered greatly from cholera and other diseases. In December 1856 it moved to Peshawar in the Punjab where it was based during the Indian Mutiny which broke out in 1857. The Sepoy Revolt, as it was called in England, was confined to the Bengal regiments of the Company’s forces; there were many atrocities; Lucknow was besieged for one hundred and fifty days before relief; Delhi was captured and the aged Mughal Emperor declared the mutineers’ leader. But the rebels lacked unity and political leadership and after eighteen months the mutiny was crushed.
The
70th was initially involved in disarming suspect regiments after
the first serious outbreaks occurred at Meerut and Delhi, and
then in the unenviable task of executing the mutinous leaders.
Subsequently its role was to guard access to the Khyber Pass,
and to provide a stabilizing influence in the area. The duties
were arduous as the disarmed regiments could not be used, and
volunteers from the Regiment helped to form a mounted unit called
the Peshawar Light Horse. In July 1858 the 70th moved to Nowshera
and then to Rawalpindi before marching to Cawnpore in January
1860. Later that year it moved by rail to Allahabad and Barrackpore,
near Calcutta, a welcome relief from previous arduous journeys
by road and river. Early in 1861 it embarked for service in New
Zealand. Cholera broke out during the voyage and twenty six soldiers,
four wives and one child were buried at sea.
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| The Residency, Lucknow. (Click to enlarge) |
Lucknow, The Residency and the Memorial Pillar. (Click to enlarge) |
The Regiment’s first tour of India was a period of many changes. The East India Company was finally wound up in 1858. Its administrators became the Indian Civil Service which was directly responsible to the Governor-General and his Council at Calcutta. The imposition of British ideas and institutions by well-intentioned Governor-Generals, which had so offended Indian religious susceptibilities in the years leading up to the Mutiny, was replaced by a less evangelical approach that sought to introduce a democratic form of local government, to improve communications and irrigation, and to encourage light industry. The Bombay and Madras Armies remained substantially as they were but in the Bengal Army cavalry regiments had mutinied and been disbanded; irregular cavalry which had remained loyal took their place as regular regiments; many old infantry regiments and those which had been raised in the Punjab during the Mutiny were retained, but with considerably fewer British officers; recruiting was largely from the north, and Nepal in the case of the Ghurka regiments. (It was not until 1904 that the system of having separate armies under the Commander-in-Chief was replaced by one Indian Army).
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