Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The important and unique Indian Mutiny medal awarded to Henry Davis Willock, Bengal Civil Service, who was the only civilian recipient of a 3-clasp medal; General Sir Mowbray Thompson, the noted survivor of the Cawnpore entrenchment, stated “that Willock’s feats of arms were patent to all the force, who asserted that he had mistaken his profession and ought, without doubt, to have been a soldier”

Indian Mutiny 1857-59, 3 clasps, Defence of Lucknow, Lucknow, Central India (H. C. Willocks.) clasps mounted in reverse order, nearly extremely fine £2,000-£2,600

Provenance: Gordon Everson Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, March 2002.

Henry Davis Willock was born on Christmas Day 1830, at Oujoun, Persia, the second of 4 sons born to Sir Henry Willock of the Madras cavalry, later a Director and Chairman of the East India Company and his mother Elizabeth Ann, née Davis. Willock was educated at Kensington and at the East India College, Haileybury. He was appointed to the civil service and arrived in India in 1852, being posted to the North-West Provinces.

On the outbreak of the Mutiny Willock was Assistant Magistrate at Allahabad and commanded a company of volunteers, known as the ‘Flagstaff Division’, taking refuge in the Allahabad Fort. The Flagstaff boys made several sorties out of the fort led by Willock to quell disturbances. Under General James G. S. Neill, he took part at the storming and capture of Kydgunj.

Willock was granted a Special Commission which gave him extraordinary powers to restore law and order to the district [G.O. No: 1121, 15 June 1857 refers]. He volunteered for Major Renaud’s force, being the advance guard to relieve Wheeler's entrenchment at Cawnpore. The column left Allahabad on 30 June 1857, but made a series of halts to take punitive measures against the local inhabitants, later described as excessive in their brutality. Havelock's column departed Allahabad and met up with Renaud on 12 July 1857, at which juncture Willock was attached to Barrow's Volunteer Cavalry. He accompanied Havelock on his two unsuccessful advances to relieve Lucknow, serving at the actions of Futtehpore, Aong, Pundoo Nuddee, Cawnpore, Oonao (twice), Basserut Gunge (twice), Bithor, Mungalwar and the Alumbagh. At Cawnpore he was one of the first to enter the Bibigar in which the English women and children had been slaughtered on the orders of Nana Sahib. The force fought their way into the Residency on 25 September and remained until its final relief by Sir Colin Campbell in November 1857. A letter from Willock to his parents, published in The Times in February 1858, gives considerable detail of his experiences in the fighting to get into the city and of his part in its defence, a copy of which comes with the accompanying folder.

Returning to Cawnpore, then being besieged by the Gwalior contingent, Willock was appointed civil officer of Maxwell’s movable column, watching the banks of the Jumna in the Cawnpore and Etawah districts. He was present at the capture of Kalpi by Sir Hugh Rose’s Central India Field Force in May 1858, and at many minor engagements being mentioned in Brigadier Rowcroft's dispatch in which he states ‘that Willock gallantly led a small detachment of Goorkas to the attack and received a bullet through his hat, close over his head’. In June he was appointed civil officer with the field force watching the southern borders of Oudh, being present at the capture of the Tirhol and Dehaen forts.

General Sir Mowbray Thomson, the last survivor of the Cawnpore entrenchment, wrote that Willock’s ‘feats of arms were patent to all the force, who asserted that he had mistaken his profession and ought without doubt to have been a soldier.’ He thus participated in the suppression of the Mutiny from the first to the last, and he was the only civilian to receive the medal with the three clasps, Defence of Lucknow, Lucknow, and Central India. He was also thanked by Queen Victoria for his services during the mutiny.

Willock subsequently served at Shahjehanpur, Bareilly, and Bulundshahar as Magistrate and Collector, and as Judge at Benares, and finally, from 1876 to his retirement in April 1884, as Judge at Azimgarh. He was for some years a Major in the Ghazipore Volunteer Rifles, raised by Colonel J. H. Rivett-Carnac, C.I.E. After his retirement Willock lived at Brighton and subsequently in London. He died on 26 April 1903 at Tunbridge Wells, and was buried at Little Bookham, Surrey. (Ref Dictionary of National Biography; see also Dictionary of Indian Biography and Who Was Who in British India.

Willock’s entitlement to the medal and three clasps is confirmed in L/MIL/5/86 and L/MIL/5/77, the latter showing his middle initial incorrectly as ‘C’).