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

The Waterloo medal awarded to the Hon. George Anson for services as a 17 year old Ensign in the Scots Guards, who rose to become a General and Commander-in-Chief of the forces in India at the outbreak of the Mutiny in 1857

Waterloo 1815 (Ensign Hon. Geo. Anson, 2nd Batt. 3rd Reg. Guards) fitted with silver clip and steel ring suspension, edge bruising and contact wear, therefore good fine £4000-5000

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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The Hon. George Anson, the second son of the 1st Viscount Anson and brother of the 1st Earl of Lichfield, was born on 13 October 1797. He saw action only once during his long military career, as an Ensign in the Third Foot Guards (Scots Guards) at Waterloo. In 1818, while still a Guards officer he entered Parliament as Member for South Staffordshire. In 1853, he attained the rank of Major-General, and was appointed to the command of a division in Bengal. The following year he assumed command of the Madras Army and in early 1856 became Commander-in-Chief of the military forces in India. Thus, on the eve of the Mutiny he held the most important military post in British India.

‘A handsome man of great charm and many accomplishments, he had never been called upon to show any notable gifts in the exalted rank which he had attained. He reached that rank, indeed, more through his family connections and numerous friendships, his affability and knowledge of the world than through any obvious talents as a soldier. A member of the Jockey Club and a power in the higher circles of the Turf, he had won the 1842 Derby with a horse he had bought for £120. As much in demand in England as an arbiter of social disputes and affairs of honour as the Marquess of Hartington was to be, he caused great surprise when he chose to leave the country for India where he arrived with the reputation of being the best whist player in Europe, the husband of a ‘lovely young wife’, indeed ‘the finest gentleman, the handsomest and most fortunate man of the day’. In India he aroused a good deal of resentment by his obvious prejudice against the Indian Army, choosing all his aides-de-camp from Queen’s regiments and openly admitting that he never saw an Indian soldier ‘without turning away in disgust at his unsoldier like appearance’. But although he proved rather ‘a disappointment’ in Calcutta, Lord Canning had to admit it ‘would be very difficult to quarrel with anyone so imperturbably good, and so thoroughly a gentleman’.’

In April 1857 Anson personally encountered signs of trouble during a tour of inspection of the Musketry Depot at Ambala, where Captain E. M. Martineau, the depot commander, informed him of the Sepoys abhorrence to the new Enfield cartridges. In an attempt to allay the men’s fears for their caste and faith, Anson addressed the Ambala troops through an interpreter and temporarily suspended musket drill at the depot. He felt he had placated them, but Martineau continued to warn of mutiny and the Government insisted that firing practise was to be resumed without delay. Anson, meanwhile, in spite of several acts of incendarism at Ambala, went up to Simla for a few days shooting.

When news reached him of the massacres at Meerut and Delhi on 10 and 11 May, he was still way up country but he quickly realized the importance of sending British troops to Delhi and of wresting it at the earliest opportunity from the hands of the mutineers. The Adjutant-General, the Quartermaster-General, and the Commissary-General, told him that it was quite impossible to move any useful number of troops in that direction as the permanent transport establishments of the Army had been abolished some years before on the grounds of economy, and so outside his immediate circle it became the general contention that the delay was the result of indecision. In the third week of May there appeared the following anonymous item in a Lahore newspaper:

‘A COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF WANTED
To the Editor of the Lahore Chronicle

Dear Sir, - Will you oblige the Indian public by giving a prominent place to the following in your next issue? The exigency of the times requires it, and, I trust, you will not hesitate.
Yours faithfully,
....
Lost, strayed or stolen, the Commander-in-Chief of H.M’s and the Company’s forces in India. Any information that can be afforded as to his whereabouts will be most gratefully received and handsomely acknowledged by the State.
The general supposition is that he has fallen into one of the trenches of the camp at Meerut, where, if a search is made, he will no doubt turn up.’



Accusations of indecision, however, were later amply refuted by Sir Henry Norman (Ritchie 2-85) who was then a junior officer in the Adjutant-General’s office. He said of Anson: ‘suddenly placed in a more difficult position than has probably ever fallen to the lot of a British commander he met the crisis with fortitude and with calm endeavour to restore our rule where it had disappeared, and to maintain it where it still existed’. Urged into action by both Canning and John Lawrence, Anson simply overruled the many objections of his Staff and made plans to assemble a force at Ambala, proceed to Baghpat and join the troops under General Hewitt from Meerut, then press on over the last thirty miles to Delhi. The first part of this plan was duly accomplished, but at Karnal just outside Ambala, on 27 May, General Anson suffered an attack of cholera and died.

Refs: Dictionary of National Biography; The Great Mutiny (Hibbert).