Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A rare and emotive Indian Mutiny Medal awarded to Able Seaman Richard Southwell, who went forward under a heavy fire at the Shah Nujeff, to assist Lieutenant Nowell Salmon and Leading Seaman John Harrison - he was killed outright, thereby missing out on a V.C., which distinction was bestowed upon the aforementioned “Shannons” who lived to fight another day

Indian Mutiny 1857-59, 1 clasp, Relief of Lucknow (R. Southwell, A.B., H.M.S. Shannon), an official late claim with impressed naming in large capitals, as issued to the recipient’s widow in 1905, extremely fine £2500-3000

Ex Payne Collection, 1911

Richard Southwell was born in Allington, Wiltshire and entered the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class in November 1848. Joining H.M.S. Leander in October of the following year, he remained similarly employed until September 1856, in which period he was advanced to Able Seaman and was present with the Naval Brigade in operations before Sebastopol, thereby earning entitlement to the Crimea Medal & clasp. During his brief leave ashore, he married Martha Fryer at St. Mary’s, Portsea on 10 November 1856, just a fortnight before joining the Shannon, a new screw steam frigate of 51 guns, commanded by Captain William Peel, V.C., R.N

In early 1857 Peel received orders to prepare for service in China, where the exasperating behaviour of the Emperor and his officials in refusing to abide by the terms of the Nanking Treaty had brought the two countries to the brink of war. Peel was to proceed to Singapore, pick up the Ambassador Extraordinary, Lord Elgin, and convey him to the mouth of the Peiho River, where the latter was to make a last appeal to the Chinese before the Government resorted to full scale naval and military operations. The Shannon sailed on 17 March 1857, and reached Singapore on 11 June. On Elgin’s way out to Singapore, his P. & O. steamer had touched Galle in Ceylon to pick up Lieutenant-General the Hon. T. Ashburnham, who had been appointed to the command of the land forces in China. Ashburnham had sketchy reports of unrest among the Sepoys in India, but it was not until they reached Singapore that the full horror of the insurrection was revealed. Elgin then received an urgent request from the Governor General of India, Viscount Canning, appealing for the troops assigned to the China venture. Unable to contact his superiors in London, Elgin acted on his own authority and diverted the troops. He later won much credit for doing so, but this left only the Shannon to reinforce Sir Michael Seymour’s inadequate naval force on the China Station and press Britain’s claims against the Imperial government

Arriving at Hong Kong on 2 July, Elgin found that the French Ambassador, with whom he was to make his representations, was still on his way out, and that it would be sometime before he could carry out his mission. He therefore instructed Peel to sail for Calcutta so that he could have talks with Lord Canning. The Shannon entered the Hooghly on 8 August 1857, carrying a detachment of the 90th Light Infantry, picked up at Singapore after their own transport, the Transit, had been wrecked, and was welcomed by the European inhabitants with wild enthusiasm and no small sense of relief. Elgin lost no time in ascertaining the seriousness of the situation and on hearing of the chronic shortage of artillery, immediately offered to place the ship’s company and guns from Shannon at Canning’s disposal. A Naval Brigade was formed and on 13 August, Peel set out for Allahabad taking with him 408 officers and men, six 8-inch 65 cwt. 68-pounders with 400 rounds of shot per gun, a 6-pounder brass gun, a 24-pounder howitzer, eight rocket tubes, and a large quantity of siege train stores. The first part of the journey up the Ganges by river steamer was fraught with difficulties; mosquitoes, heatstroke, cholera and typhoid were omnipresent, and the usual lowerdeck problem of drunkenness was exacerbated by the searing heat of the Bengal summer. However, on marching out of Allahabad for Cawnpore on 28 October, “Peel’s Jacks” or “The Shannons” as they liked to be called, soon proved themselves ‘superb campaigners, able to march, fight, live off the land, handle guns and horses with equal ease, and soon won a fearsome reputation amongst the Sepoys, who firmly believed that the Jacks were all four feet high by five foot wide from snout to tail, carried 9-pounder guns over their heads, and ate human flesh as much as they could, salting down the rest for future consumption

By 15 November 1857, the Naval Brigade had reached the Alumbagh, just outside Lucknow, and came under the command of the recently arrived Commander-in-Chief, Sir Colin Campbell. Next day as Sir Colin strove to effect the relief of the Lucknow Residency, Peel’s Naval Brigade, which now consisted of about 200 sailors and marines, with six 24-pounder guns, two 8-inch rocket tubes mounted on ‘hackeries’ (bullock carts), was in action bombarding the thick loop-holed outer walls of the Shah Nujeff mosque. It quickly became apparent that it was going to be a tough nut to crack and Peel ordered his guns up to within a few feet of the outer walls ‘as if he had been laying Shannon alongside an enemy’s frigate’. In such an exposed position, “The Shannons” began to suffer casualties not only from the mutineers’ musket fire from the walls but also from a number of rebels in a tree who were tossing out grenades on to the gun crews below. Peel called for volunteers to climb the tree, dislodge the mutineers and spot enemy positions, and promised those who came forward the Victoria Cross. Three such men emerged, Lieutenant Nowell Salmon, R.N., Leading Seaman John Harrison and Able Seaman Richard Southwell. Southwell was killed, but Harrison and Lieutenant Salmon succeeded in climbing the tree and ejecting ‘the ruffians who were throwing grenades’. Both Harrison and Salmon were recommended for the Victoria Cross by Peel, and the awards were subsequently announced in the London Gazette of 24 December 1858. The citation read

John Harrison, Naval Brigade, and Nowell Salmon, Lieutenant (now Commander). Date of Act of Bravery: 16 November 1857. For conspicuous gallantry at Lucknow, on 16 November 1857, in climbing up a tree touching the angle of the Shah Nujjiff, to reply to the fire of the enemy, for which most dangerous service the late Captain William Peel, K.C.B., had called for volunteers

According to the published casualty roll, four “Shannons” were killed in action that day, Midshipman Martin Daniel, Leading Seaman John Matthews, Able Seaman G. W. Fairbourne, and Southwell. We know, too, from contemporary accounts that Midshipman Daniel was killed by a roundshot that tore away the right side of his head, so it remains a matter of speculation as to which of the three ratings met their end in the following circumstances

One of the sailors] ... had his leg carried clean off above the knee by a round shot, and although knocked head over heels by the force of the shot, he sat bolt upright on the grass, with the blood spouting from the stump of his limb like water from the hose of a fire-engine, and shouted, “Here goes a shilling a day, a shilling a day. Pitch into them boys, pitch into them! Remember Cawnpore, 93rd, remember Cawnpore! Go at them my hearties!” until he fell back ... dead’ (The Great Mutiny, by Christopher Hibbert, refers

But if Southwell’s gallantry went unrecognised - as a result of the limitations of the V.C’s warrant for posthumous awards - he was not forgotten: in December 1905, nearly 50 years following his death, his widow Martha claimed his Mutiny Medal with “Relief of Lucknow” clasp - one of about 30 such awards to the Shannon (the official roll refers); sold with an extensive file of research.