Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria, to include the Brian Ritchie Collection (Part III)

The Punjab campaign medal to Lieutenant-Colonel Henry V. Brooke, C.B., Commanding the 32nd Foot

Punjab 1848-49, 2 clasps, Mooltan,Goojerat (Lt. Col. H. V. Brooke, C.B. 32nd Foot) fitted with silver ribbon buckle, contact marks, otherwise nearly very fine £1500-2000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Brian Ritchie Collection of H.E.I.C. and British India Medals.

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Henry Vaughan Brooke was born in Dublin on 12 November 1807, and was commissioned Ensign in H.M’s 32nd Regiment on 12 July 1827. Promoted Lieutenant in 1830, Captain in May 1835, Major in July 1842, and Lieutenant-Colonel in September 1848, he commanded the 32nd in the Punjab Campaign of 1848-49. He was present throughout the siege operations at Mooltan, commanded the left column of attack at Soorjakhoond, and was present at the surrender of the fort of Cheniote, and at the Battle of Goojerat. For services in the Second Sikh War he was nominated a Companion of the Bath. Colonel Brooke went on Half Pay in January 1853 and on 20 June 1854 was appointed Aide-de-Camp to the Queen. He married well, Augusta Mary, daughter of General Sir Willoughby Cotton, Colonel of the 32nd, and Augusta, daughter of the 7th Earl of Coventry. Such are the bare facts of Brooke’s career. Happily, Private Waterfield (See Lot 62), who chronicled his sufferings and services in the 32nd Foot in the 1840’s and 50’s, made several mentions of Colonel Brooke in his Memoirs. He first mentions Brooke not unfavourably, but later his contempt is undisguised.

On 5 October 1848, before Mooltan: ‘In the evening the following promotions appeared in the Regimental Orderly Book for the information of the Regiment. Major Brooke to be Lieutenant-Colonel (vice Pattoun killed in action on the 12th of September); Captain W. Case to be Major ( vice Brooke promoted) ...’ On 8 November 1848 before Mooltan: ‘Colonel Brooke gave the Regiment a bottle of ale per man.’ Two days later: ‘Parade this morning for the whole of the men off duty of our Regiment. Private Thomas Howell of the Grenadier Company, after the Regiment formed square, was brought into the centre, and was presented with 50 Rupees (£5 British). It was given to him at the request of Lieutenant Edwardes, for his presence of mind on the 7th in saving a number of men belonging to Edwardes and Cortlandt [See Lot 60] from imminent danger. He was a man who spoke the language well. The Colonel wanted to promote Howell to the rank of Sergeant, but he declined it as it was his intention to lay claim to his discharge.’ Before Mooltan on 17 January 1849, Waterfield grumbled: ‘This morning we had an arms parade for the whole of the men off duty. Colonel Brooke kept us at drill, much against our inclination, for an hour.’

By 22 January the siege was all but over and the rebel commander Mulraj was expected to surrender: ‘The rain poured down in torrents, we were very soon wet to the skin, and the trenches was a regular puddle ... We fully expected that he [Mulraj] would not come out, for the enemy sent us a shot or two at intervals. Colonel Brooke had command of our Regiment and the grenadiers was in front, ready to storm the breach. Colonel Brooke roared out like a bull: “Come down, come down! What the Devil? Do you want to draw a fire on us.” He’s a true type of the Shakespeare Falstaff; there’s not a man in the Regiment that would not sooner be led into action by the youngest sublatern than by Colonel Brooke; for his appearance when in range of shot would tell where his mettle lies.’

Following the capture of Mooltan the regiment marched to join Lord Gough prior to Goojerat. Marching from Buckedar to Cheniote, on 8 February 1849: ‘This was a harassing march, for it was dark as it could possible be ... Colonel Brooke had the camel with the grog in front of the column, and told the men he would give them one dram per man when half way down, but he broke his word, as he had often done before. There was a dhooly loaded with eatables and drinkables for the officers; they had this at daybreak, and the men kept calling out for grog. Colonel Brooke said he would give it at the next halt, but the grog was still kept in front of the Regiment and there it stuck until we arrived in camp! He was not a man to his word; he would drink as much brandy on the road as would make six other men drunk.’ On 14 March 1849 with the Punjab campaign at its close Brooke went on furlough, leaving the regiment under the temporary command Major (later Sir) John Inglis, of Lucknow fame. Waterfield commented: ‘We were glad of the change; for the former was no favourite ... There is a strong contrast between him [Inglis] and Colonel Brooke; the latter makes his belly his God, and thinks no more about the comfort of his men, than Calcroft thinks of filling his office. I will relate in long how Colonel Brooke behaved to the Regiment when marching to Kasauli.’




‘The third march out from Peshawar, which was on the 6th of January [1854], our commissary was reported by the men to Colonel Brooke for serving out bad meat, and most unwholesome bread. The latter was black, dirty and sour; it was condemned by a board of officers, and it was optional to the men whether they eat it or threw it away, but after a soldier has marched fourteen or fifteen miles with a firelock and belts of forty or fifty rounds of ammunition, and has had to strike his tent, loaded the camels or elephants as the case might be, and then unloaded and pitched camp again, he is hungry enough to eat the worst description of food ... The baker had enough bread baked by 3 o’clock in the afternoon, but instead of serving it out to the men, according to the Colonel’s promise, the quartermaster let the baker proceed to the next camp, and then told the Colonel that if it were served out, the men would have to go without the next morning. The Colonel, poor weak vain mortal, said in his bully blustering manner: “Well, Well, Well, they must! They must go without. That’s all about it, Quartermaster.” So then Mr. Quartermaster would retire, laughing in his sleeve at his success, and by his conniving with the commissary to rob the men (for I can’t call it by any other name)...’

‘There are other things which tends to make the soldier disgust his profession, besides bad rations. Two mornings after the occurrence of the above, we were marching from Shumsahabad to Boorharni ... We came to this branch of the River Arah, which was about twenty yards wide and about three feet deep with a strong current. The column halted and our Colonel rode gently over, but was no sooner on terra firma than he bellowed out ‘Forward’ to the column. Some stript off their boots, socks, and trousers; others were carried over by natives for a small remuneration, and some would go through without stripping. The Regiment this morning was right in front, consequently the Light Company was in the rear of all. We had a young officer named Jolly, of French American descent and as conceited a little fop as ever carried one of Her Majesty’s Swords. This young Subaltern must needs act the tyrant, and make a man named Thomas Wood of the Light Company, who wanted to strip himself to cross the stream, walk with his trousers and boots on. The man as a matter of course, began to grumble, but walked across the stream with his clothes on, and as soon as he was on the other side Lieutenant Jolly confined him. And between this fop of a Jolly and a tyrannical Colonel the man was tried by a Regimental court-martial for insubordination. The Colonel did not approve of the court’s finding, so the court reassembled, (and it was rumoured that the prisoner was brought in ‘Not Guilty’), be that as it may, when the Colonel read the court-martial he did not read the court’s first finding, only the revised sentence, which was forty-two days imprisonment. He told the prisoner he ought to have been tried by a District Court-martial; he knew at the same time that he would have been brought in ‘Not Guilty’.’

From Kasauli the 32nd moved to Ambala to form a camp of exercise in January 1854 under the command of General Fane and sometimes Brigadier Sydney Cotton (Ritchie 2-41): ‘Colonel Brooke of the 32nd had command of the 1st Brigade, but he has such a blustering way, with his ‘Boo-woo-woo’, that it would sicken anyone to watch him. When he can’t remain collected during the evolutions of a field day, it’s high time that he should think about going on the half-pay.’

Refs: Hart’s Army List 1855; Burke’s Peerage 1890; Historical Records of the 32nd (Cornwall) Light Infantry (Swiney); The Memoirs of Private Waterfield.