Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The interesting, unusual and well-documented Indian Mutiny Medal awarded to Mr James Burton, Volunteer Cavalry, a member of the ill-fated Burton family of Kotah, Rajasthan; despite being a civilian, he was Mentioned in a General Order for his part in the defence of Neemuch Fort in November 1857; later, he succeeded in identifying and tracking down some of the ringleaders responsible for the murder of his father and two of his younger brothers; Government took more than five years to issue his medal

Indian Mutiny 1857-59, no clasp (Mr James Burton.), together with another, also no clasp, but renamed in contemporary engraved serif capitals (James E. Burton, Volunteer Cavalry) good very fine £1,600-£2,000

Provenance: Norman W. Collet; Tim Ash Collection 1985. For more details on provenance and research, see Indian Mutiny 1857-59 Mr James Burton – an Enigma? by Captain T. Ash M.B.E., OMRS Journal June 2011, pp 82-87, and The Great Uprising in India, Untold Stories. Chapter Two: The Kotah Residency Murders by Rosie Llewellyn-Jones, 2007, pp 66-95.

James Edmond Burton was born in Fort William, Calcutta on 20 November 1834 and was baptised in his father’s quarters in the Ramparts Barracks. He was the second son of Charles Aeneas Burton, a young Ensign of the 40th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry, and his wife Elizabeth, who had nine children in quick succession, three of whom died in India during their childhood. Both James’s father and his grandfather had served as officers in the Bengal Native Infantry. When the Indian Mutiny broke out in May 1857, James was 22. His father (now 47) was a Brevet Major who, since 1845, had been Resident and Political Agent for the Rajput Princely State of Kotah, about 150 kilometres from Jaipur.

The striking architecture, romantic hill forts and labyrinthine walled cities of the Rajput States perfectly complemented the rugged landscape, but the region was arid, lacked natural resources and offered few lucrative commercial opportunities that foreigners could exploit. As a consequence, a mutual tolerance developed between the majority of the Rajput rulers and the East India Company. This tolerance depended on mutual non-interference. Few Europeans settled in Rajputana, but those who did tended to stay for many years. James Burton lived with his parents, brothers and teenage sister in the Kotah ‘Agency Bungalow’, which had been built by the East India Company in an imposing compound beside the Chambai river, just outside the perimeter walls of Kotah city. It was a substantial two-storied Residency, which the Burton family had occupied for over ten years. The children had grown up there.

James’s elder brother, Charles William Burton (aged 23), had recently entered the Bengal (Uncovenanted) Civil Service as an Assistant Superintendent at Neemuch, 150 kilometres south-west of Kotah. Neemuch, also known as Nimach, contained a large military cantonment and garrison, the base for three regiments of the Bengal Army. Major Burton had a house there, for the benefit of Charles William and probably in due course some of the other Burton boys, as they seemed destined also to join the Bengal Civil Service alongside Charles William.

Under the treaty between the Maharao of Kotah and the H.E.I.C., the Maharao undertook to recruit, pay and train in the European style a Contingent of several thousand soldiers. which could be summoned to serve elsewhere in India as part of the H.E.I.C.’s forces. The Kotah Contingent was a separate entity from two other forces belonging to the Maharao - the Royal Bodyguard and the Kotah State Army. The Indian Mutiny began in Meerut on 10 May 1857, and soon afterwards the Maharao was requested to send his Contingent to Agra (over 800 kilometres away) to fight the mutineers.

As an experienced soldier, Major Burton was well aware that, due to the sudden emergency of the rebellion, he could at any time be ordered to some other place in India, and might be absent from Kotah for an indefinite period. He moved his family from the Kotah Residency to the Burton house in Neemuch cantonment, where there were many other Europeans who would normally be able to ensure their safety and well-being. Then he left, travelling to the cantonment at Deoli, where 3,000 men of the Kotah Contingent were based, as it was his responsibility to make sure that those going to Agra set out promptly and in good order. (Once the Contingent arrived at Agra, it briefly stayed loyal, but when the British ordered an attack on other mutineers converging on Delhi, the entire Kotah Contingent - except for 40 men - joined the Uprising on 4 July.)

Meanwhile, in Neemuch, as Mrs Burton related in a letter to her brother in England: “Reports of coming danger and mutiny among the three regiments here began to spread, fires at night took place, false alarms were constantly raised, the natives fled from the bazaars, and a repetition of the horrors of Meerut and Delhi was hourly expected.” On 3 June 1857, all three of the Bengal regiments stationed at Neemuch mutinied. The Burton family and some friends fled on horses and camels over ten kilometres to the fort at Jewud [Jawad], which was the area for which Charles William Burton was Assistant Superintendent. The five brothers took turns to stand guard and protect the fugitives.

The same alarming reports had reached Major Burton even before the mutiny at Neemuch took place. He put together a strong escort from those troops at Deoli cantonment who had not left for Agra, rode out and arrived at Jewud fort late on 4 June. The Neemuch mutineers put a price of Rs 1,000 on his head and Rs 500 on those of each of his sons. His troops stayed loyal and Major Burton was able to bring the European refugees back to Neemuch cantonment. They found it deserted, as the mutinous Bengal army regiments had left to march on Delhi. The civil lines, the Treasury, the Jail and the Bazaar had been thoroughly ransacked, vandalised and looted, and many buildings set ablaze.

Mrs Burton reported: “Our own servants assisted in the plunder and they loaded four of our horses to carry away the most valuable part of our property… we are not yet out of danger. It hangs over every white face in this portion of unhappy India.” The summer months were spent repairing the damage done to the cantonment buildings and preparing fortifications in case of an attack by rebels. Loyal troops from the Bombay Presidency arrived at Neemuch on 18 July to replace the departed Bengal regiments. Major Burton was superceded as de facto commander of the local military forces and Political Agent for the Neemuch area. He found many of the British officers in charge of the Bombay regiments to be disagreeable, and they often quarrelled with him.

“Don’t sleep, no smoking” and a sharp slap on the cheek

In late September 1857, word came from the Maharao that it was safe for Majot Burton and his family to return to the Residency at Kotah. Their friends in Neemuch advised them to find excuses not to go, as the countryside was still dangerous. Kotah was relatively isolated, with no dependable troops nearby that could be counted on for support in a crisis - the Bombay officers adamantly refused to provide either an escort or bodyguards to ensure the Political Agent’s safety. Major Burton nonetheless decided to return to Kotah, as he could no longer tolerate the Bombay officers and he trusted the Maharao’s ability to protect him.

Mrs Burton disagreed, preferring to stay on with Charles William and their friends at Neemuch. It was decided that the two youngest boys, Arthur (who was 20) and Francis (who was 19), would return to Kotah with Major Burton. Their sister would naturally stay with her mother. Charles William had official duties to attend to, so James Edmond, as second eldest, was asked to take charge of the family at Neemuch. That left Cecil Morton, also 20, who was the twin brother of Arthur. He too stayed with his mother. As Major Burton and his youngest sons arrived at Kotah on 13 October, the Maharao ordered a 130-gun salute to be fired, in honour of the Capture of Delhi by the British. The Major reported to his wife that “The Maharao came to see me…he is very civil and kind and so is everybody else… all is quiet here but I use every precaution and have about 150 select men near the house, four sentries round the house by night and two by day, and I never stir without the revolver.” The next day, Major Burton rode out on an elephant to visit the Maharao at his Palace, followed by his sons, who shared a second elephant.
Two days after the Burtons returned, at around 11 am on 15 October, elements of both the Maharao’s personal Bodyguard and the Kotah State Army, made up of infantry, cavalry and artillery, arrived at the Agency Compound and stormed it, murdering some of the staff who lived and worked in the outbuildings and terrorising the rest. Some of Major Burton’s 150 “select” guards precipitously fled. The remainder simply stood aside, watching as the Residency was surrounded and then attacked. Witnesses reported that there was gunfire from midday until 5pm, when Major Burton and his two sons were killed in a room on the upper floor. The Major’s body was decapitated and his head put on public display.

The plundered and heavily damaged Residency compound was repaired after the Mutiny, eventually becoming successively the State Guesthouse, and then, after the Indian government cancelled the privileges of the rulers of the Princely States, the private home of the former royal family, who converted part of it into the luxury Brijraj Bhawan Palace Hotel. The room where the Burtons were murdered is supposed to be haunted. Some British State Guests who occupied it before Independence complained of being unable to sleep, as they experienced ‘’discomforting and oppressive feelings of overwhelming fear”. In the 1980s the Yuvrani reported that the white-haired ghost of Major Burton would appear in the room, though he did not seem to cause the royal family any anxiety (“The Maharajas of India” by A. Morrow p 106-7 refers). The hotel staff reluctantly confirm this, adding that Major Burton’s ghost also wanders the compound at night, telling the chowkidars (sentries/security guards) “Don’t sleep, no smoking” and following up with a sharp slap across their cheek.

“Vengence is Mine, saith the Lord.”

The inscription on the memorial to the murdered Burtons summarises the feeling of James Edmond, his surviving siblings and their mother when news of the deaths reached them at Neemuch:
”Sacred to the memory of… Three defenceless Englishmen who on the 15th October 1857, the year of the Indian Mutiny, were barbarously surrounded in the Residency by the bloodthirsty soldiers of the Maharaja of Kotah. For five hours these gallant men, a father and two sons, kept the whole of the miscreants at bay, when alone and unaided they were finally overpowered and foully massacred. This tablet is erected by a broken-hearted wife and mother. ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. I will repay.’”

Even before they learnt of the murders, the three Burton brothers at Neemuch had volunteered to serve with the Bombay Brigade in the fight against the mutineers, and the senior officers from the Bombay Presidency had agreed that they should become members of the “Officer’s Volunteer Corps”. Although no complete regiment of the Bombay Army mutinied in the same way as the Bengal regiments had done, documents with the lot record that both the Bombay Native infantry and Cavalry units at Neemuch had by this time shown some signs of mutiny, and that individual native soldiers regularly deserted to join the rebels. Consequently, the Bombay officers could no longer feel superior to their colleagues from Bengal, and were beginning to understand that they needed to employ every available reliable man who could assist the work of suppressing the Mutiny, which still affected much of north central India.

Nimbhaira, a walled town to the north of Neemuch, not far from Charles William’s domain at Jewud, was held by a rebel force. It was decided that a sortie should be made from Neemuch to capture the town, and an all-arms battlegroup commanded by Colonel Jackson of the 2nd Bombay Light Cavalry, consisting of 150 British and Native infantry, 150 Native cavalry and three artillery pieces, together with Cavalry Volunteers Charles William and James Edmond Burton, arrived outside the walls of Nimbhaira on 20 October. There was a delay while a summons for surrender of the town was made, and the attack began at half past one in the afternoon, despite heavy rain. The four-hour exchange of fire between the two sides cost the assaulting force two dead and seventeen wounded, two severely. Charles William Burton was slightly wounded. Colonel Jackson ordered his artillery to cross thick mud and by dusk they had closed up to within 100 yards of the walls. He hoped to blow open the gates and mount a general assault, but postponed the attack until next day. The mutineers abandoned the town during the night and retreated northwards.

The journey from Kotah to Neemuch took at least a week. The news of the murders would have reached the Burtons around the end of October, just as a new threat to their lives materialised. The main elements of the Bombay regiments were away from Neemuch, conducting field operations, when, on 8 November, a force of several thousand mutineers with cannons advanced on Neemuch from the south. This development forced nearly 800 people from the cantonment to move into the fort, a small square with 18 foot-high walls and a quadrangular bastion at each corner. The majority of those entering the fort were families and servants; after deducting the sick, there were 327 fighting men, including “two sons of the late Major Burton”, one of whom was James Edward.

The fort was commanded by Captain Simpson of the 2nd Bombay Light Cavalry. It was closely besieged for 14 days, culminating in a determined effort to capture the fort by escalade over the walls on the night of 21st-22nd. This escalade was repulsed with many casualties inflicted on the rebels, but another was planned for the following night. However, on 22 November the rebels were recalled by their paymasters, and the siege was lifted. Captain Simpson reported that, throughout the siege: “James Burton, son of the late gallant Major Burton… volunteered to perform the duties of Officer of the Watch”. Captain Simpson mentioned James’s “able assistance” in his official report on the Siege of Neemuch Fort, which led to an Expression of Thanks and approbation for his services “at this critical period” from the Commander in Chief of the Bombay Army (General Order, 17 December 1857).

“I will repay”

As a reward, all three Burton brothers were offered Commissions in the Bombay Army. Charles William transferred from being Assistant Superintendent to become a Lieutenant in the Bombay Army. Both James Edmond and Cecil Morton decided to remain civilians, and joined the Bengal Civil Service. Cecil became Assistant Commissioner at Jullundur in the Punjab. His widowed mother remained in India with Cecil until she died at Jullundur on 18 May 1881, aged 81. It was James who spearheaded the family’s quest to discover who had been responsible for the murders at the Kotah Residency.

The Burton family began to ask questions almost immediately after learning about the deaths. Eldest son Charles William wrote a letter which was published in The Times on 19 December 1857, when central India was still in a state of anarchy. In the early phases of the Uprising, mutinous sepoys had usually marched to Delhi, but by August 1857 this was no longer possible. It was reported that “the whole city [of Kotah] is in the hands of the mutinous soldiers” led by Lala Jai Dayal, Adjutant Agbudin Khan and Risaldar Mehrab Khan, that the Maharao was shut up in his palace and unable to exercise control over his subjects, that many more mutineers had arrived after escaping from Delhi, and that there were “about 5,000 insurgents in the city, they do what they like and take what they like… They say they intend to fight when the English come to attack them.”

Although it was not safe for him go to Kotah yet, James was able to access many local contacts, especially among those who had left the city to seek safety elsewhere, and they provided him with a reasonably clear picture of what had occurred on October 15. The family focused on two questions: Had the Maharao been the guiding hand behind the murders? and, Who had led the assault on the Residency and carried out the murders?

The 1st Brigade of the Bombay Army captured Kotah by storm on 30 March 1858. Lieutenant Charles William Burton was present, and the attack was led by British troops of the 83rd Foot, veterans of the attack on Nimbhaira and the Siege of Neemuch. Immediately afterwards, an official Commission of Inquiry was convened to investigate the Maharao. Its report to Government on 17 April 1858 found unanimously that the Maharoa was not complicit in the murders, but held him responsible for the Burtons’ return to Kotah at a dangerous time, for being indifferent as to their fate and for failing to intervene or send help when the Residency was under attack. It also recommended that a price be put on the heads of the actual murderers. The most prominent were Lala Jai Dayal, who had worked at the Residency as a senior local assistant (vakeel) before Major Burton had dismissed him for “being addicted to liquor and other debaucheries”, Mehrab Khan, a risaldar of the Royal Bodyguard who organised and led the mutiny of the Bodyguard and the Kotah State Army, and Salabat Khan, who was decorated by Jai Dayal for gallantry shown when attacking the Burtons.

In the aftermath of the capture of Kotah, the Maharao regained his authority, and those rebel leaders who fell into his hands were blown from cannon. Many had escaped and fled to Gwalior, then Lucknow and eventually to the forests of southern Nepal. “The ringleaders were eventually tracked down, mainly through the efforts of James Edmond Burton, who became a police assistant at Lucknow, and who used his native contacts in Kotah as informants.” (The Great Uprising, Untold Stories p 93 refers). The men were captured, brought to the former Residency Compound in Kotah and executed on a gallows erected in the garden. The final hanging in front of the Residency, that of Salabat Khan, took place on 28 October 1861.

In the mid-1870s James Edmond Burton, District Superintendent of Police, Bankipore, Lucknow, Oude, travelled to England. On 18 November 1875 James (who was now 41) married Harriet Hammond at Kennington, London. Three months later he died of pneumonia on 25 February 1876. Harriet was pregnant, and when her child was born, she named him James Edmund Burton. Sadly, the child died at the age of three.


Footnote:

The renamed medal to James E. Burton, Volunteer Cavalry – an Enigma?

The medal contemporarily but unofficially engraved to ‘James E. Burton, Volunteer Cavalry’ was almost certainly intended and used for wear, logically by the person who had taken the trouble to have a name engraved in contemporary serif capitals. The value of the medal has always been too low to be attractive to a fraudster who renames medals to cheat collectors. Burton is of course a common name and Volunteer Cavalry is a relatively generic nomenclature. As the two medals were separated for many years, it is not possible to be absolutely certain that the renamed medal belonged to, and was worn by, James Edmond Burton of Kotah and Lucknow. However, the story behind the issue of his official medal (named to Mr James Burton) makes it highly likely, perhaps conclusive, that it was James who commissioned and wore the renamed medal. All three of the surviving Burton brothers were officially awarded Mutiny medals, but the back-story behind those awards is highly suggestive.

The most straightforward one concerns the medal to Charles William Burton. Major-General Lawrence C.B. was requested to submit a list of European Officers “serving under my orders in Rajpootana whom I considered entitled to the decoration. In this Roll the name of Lieutenant Charles Burton, Assistant Superintendent at Neemuch, duly appeared.” This Roll was submitted on 27 September 1858, and Charles William duly received his medal.

Major-General Lawrence continued: “Messrs. James and Cecil Burton were not in the Service, and being in no way under this Agency, or the Neemuch Commissionership, their names were not included in my Recommendation Roll.” A separate Roll, dated 17 September 1859 (copy with lot) was submitted by Captain Simpson, commander of the fort at Neemuch during the siege, listing Volunteers J. E. Burton and C. M. Burton.

By the early 1860s, most Indian Mutiny Medals had already been manufactured, named and distributed. James made an enquiry about his and Cecil’s awards in 1861/62, to which the Military Secretary in London replied on 8 May 1862 that they had been sent out to India on 21 November 1861 “and which the Bombay Government will be desired to return without delay”. When no medals appeared, James sent a follow-up letter on 13 June 1863. Cecil wrote to Government on 11 July 1863, requesting that the medals for himself, James and Charles be sent to him. The Bombay Government responded “that application for medals of Messrs James and Cecil Burton was made to the Home Government in October 1859 and was repeated in June 1863.” James wrote again about the medals on 13 November 1863. Finally, on 7 April 1864, the Bombay Presidency received a letter from Calcutta “intimating that the two India Mutiny Medals for Messrs James and Cecil Burton have been forwarded.” A resolution that the medals be sent to the Adjutant-General for transmission to the Messrs. Burton appears to close the correspondence in the India Office records.

It is unclear from the files whether the lengthy muddle and delay in providing James’s medal was caused by the negligence of Government in London, Calcutta or Bombay. Perhaps the first application by the Bombay government in 1859 was lost; perhaps the Military Secretary’s department simply assumed that the medal had been sent out to India as part of a batch that were despatched in November 1861, when in fact no medal named to James yet existed; or perhaps the medal disappeared while in transit in late 1861 without the authorities noticing that it had vanished, and a new one had to be prepared after the application from Bombay was repeated in 1863. As the naming on James’s official medal was not as per the Roll, i.e. Volunteer J. E. Burton, it may well have been copied off some later order or piece of correspondence.

Be that as it may, it is highly probable that, at some point prior to 1864, James grew frustrated and embarrassed at not yet being in possession of his official medal, and decided to pay for an unofficial ‘interim’ decoration, one that was identical in its outward appearance and which he could proudly wear on suitable occasions.