The Brian Ritchie Collection of H.E.I.C. and British India Medals

The unusual campaign group of five to Major-General Henry Francis, Bengal Artillery

(a) Sutlej 1845-46, for Sobraon 1846 (1st Lieut. Hy. Francis, 4th Battn. Artillery) slightly later impressed naming

(b) Punjab 1848-49, 2 clasps, Mooltan, Goojerat (1st Lieut. H. Francis, 4th Tp. 3rd Bde. H. Arty.)

(c) Order of the Medjidie, 4th class breast badge, silver, gold and enamel, soldered repair to the reverse

(d) Turkish Crimea, Sardinian issue, contemporary tailor’s copy, unnamed

(e) Indian Mutiny 1857-59, 1 clasp, Lucknow (Capt. H. Francis, 1st Bn. Bengal Art.) mounted on a contemporary silver bar for wearing, contact marks, otherwise nearly very fine or better (5)
£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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Collection

Ex Tamplin Collection, Sotheby, February 1985.

Henry Francis, the son of William Francis, a hop merchant of 6 Coopers Row, Tower Hill, London, was born on 5 August 1823. He was educated at the Mercers’ School, College Hill, and was nominated for a Cadetship in the Bengal Service by John Masterman, M.P., on the recommendation of his father. He was examined and passed by the H.E.I.C.S. in November 1841, and was appointed Second Lieutenant in the Bengal Artillery on 8 January 1842. He left Portsmouth with about thirty other Cadets in the Conquerer on the 30th of that month and apart from a brief glimpse of the Madeira Islands never saw land until reaching Madras five and a half months later. He was posted to the 2nd Battalion and then the 4th Battalion, Bengal Artillery, at Kurnaul, and immediately found ‘soldiering very jolly, and India A1’. Promoted Lieutenant on 3 July 1845, he was at Delhi in December that year when he was summoned to join Captain Waller’s Battery of elephant-drawn old iron 9-pounders, ‘reamed’ up to 12-pounders, at Kurnaul which had been ordered to join the Army of the Sutlej. On the 18th his battery was at Pehoa where, in the evening, Sir Hugh Gough’s army could be heard engaged in the Battle of Moodkee some 150 miles away.

Shortly afterwards the battery arrived at the front and Francis experienced his first day under fire when he was engaged in an artillery duel with the Sikh guns. A few days later he had a lucky escape when, in the presence of the Commander-in-Chief, the breech of an 18-pounder blew off and carried away his trousers - ‘I was looked at curiously and told to go to camp ...’ On 10 February 1846, after a night of filling shells and cutting fuses by candle light, he was present at Sobraon, the final engagement of the Sutlej Campaign in which the Sikhs suffered some ten thousand casualties.

The suicide of a subaltern in the 4th Troop, 3rd Brigade, Bengal Horse Artillery, gave Francis his next posting and he spent much of the next two years hunting and getting into debt. But thanks to his father’s intervention he was a ‘free man’ by early 1848, when 4.3., H.A., suddenly received orders to cross the Sutlej and assist Lieutenant Herbert Edwardes, Van Cortlandt (qv) and their frontier levies in bringing Mulraj, the refractory Governor of Mooltan, to book. However, the defection to Mulraj of Shere Singh, whose father had raised the standard of rebellion in the Punjab, caused the besieging forces under Sir S. Whish to temporarily withdraw. The siege was resumed towards the end of the year, and Francis found himself spending stretches of up to thirty hours with the siege train. After the fall of Mooltan in January 1849, Francis and his troop proceded by forced marches of eighteen miles for fourteen days to join the main army, under Lord Gough, in time to take part in the Battle of Goojerat on 21 February.

After a breakfast of ‘tea and cigars’, Francis took to the field with eager anticipation, and at the start of the action galloped three quarters of a mile ahead of the British line with his Troop to commence firing. As he dismounted in order to carrry out the subaltern’s duty of laying the guns and cutting the fuses, a Sikh round shot passed under his arm and killed his horse just as he was handing the reins to a driver. The ensuing duel with the Sikh guns continued for half an hour during which the Troop started to sustain casualties from the enemy’s cannon shot - ‘each wound was death or terrible mutilation’. While calmly looking on and correcting the fire through his glass, the troop commander, Captain Anderson, was killed, and the command devolved on Francis, who also continued to carry out his ‘sub’s’ duty. Having replenished the Troop’s supply of ammunition, word reached Francis that his guns were again required at the front. Two companies of the 32nd Foot were wheeled back to make way and he galloped through with two guns. Ahead he saw about 3,000 ‘Singhs’, and unlimbering his guns at 400 yards, poured 38 rounds of cannister into their midst. The enemy fled and Francis advanced into their camp. Here he attempted to take a Sikh prisoner, but the man refused to comply and fired into the Troop. The Troop Staff Sergeant rode at him and received a cut from the Sikh’s tulwar. Francis intervened and ‘hit the Sikh over the head’, then, as his opponent cut his horse’s ear off, he jumped down from the saddle, ran round him and, giving him ‘the point’, knocked him off balance. But before Francis could take him into custody, his gunners pounced and killed the Sihh.

Francis’s services at Goojerat were duly recognised in the despatch of Major G. Whish, dated 22 February 1849: ‘... after the death of Captain Anderson, the four guns of his troop were well commanded by Lieutenant Francis, and I heartily concur in the testimony he bears to the admirable conduct of the officers and men of the troop, they worked the guns with a rapidity and precision that would have been impossible except from their uniform calmness and steadiness under a heavy fire from the enemy at both positions, first at 1,000 yards, then at 500...’ (London Gazette 19 April 1849).

In February 1854, Francis arrived in England, having been granted leave on a medical certificate, and became engaged to be married to a Miss Helen Goodman. However, before taking the plunge, he volunteered and was accepted for duty with the Turkish contingent in the Crimea, where he served from March 1855 to June 1856, and in consequence of which he was appointed to the 4th Class of the Order of the Medjidie. In 1858, he was granted Royal Licence and permission to accept and wear the insignia (London Gazette 2 March 1858).

Returning to Reigate in Surrey, he married in August 1856, and returned to India, reaching Calcutta in October 1857, having been promoted Captain by Brevet on 8 January and Captain in his corps on 1 February. He served in the suppression of the Mutiny in the command of 4 Company, 1st Battalion, Bengal Artillery, and was present at the Alumbagh, near Lucknow, in Febuary 1858; at the siege and fall of Lucknow; in the Rohilkhund Campaign; the affair at Ruiya on 7 April 1858; and the capture of Bareilly in May. Francis was thanked for his services in Brigadier-General Walpole’s despatch of 16 April 1858 (London Gazette 17July 1858). He was advanced to the rank of Brevet Major on 26 April 1859, and with the disappearance of the H.E.I.C. forces, which to Francis’s mind was ‘a most indiscreet and also a most wrong act’, he was transferred to the Royal Artillery. He became Lieutenant-Colonel in January 1865, after which he obtained leave and returned to England.

He afterwards served in India with the 16th Brigade, the 24th Brigade, and the 19th Brigade which he commanded. He became Brevet Colonel on 24 January 1870, and then served with F Brigade. He was promoted Colonel in his corps on 1 August 1872. In 1873, he came home and served the remainder of his career in England. He retired on 31 December 1878 with the honorary rank of Major-General. General Francis died at his residence, The Red House, Sandgate, Kent, aged 68 years on 24 January 1892.

Refs: Naval & Military Gazette; Notes left by the late Major-Gen Henry Francis (published London 1894); Somerset House Wills.