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

The Indian Mutiny medal to Sergeant William Hilton, Superintendent and Drill Instructor at La Martinière College, later described in the Bengal Directory as one of the ‘Illustrious Citizens of Lucknow’

Indian Mutiny 1857-59, 1 clasp, Defence of Lucknow (Serjt. Hilton) small edge bruisie, otherwise extremely fine £2000-2500

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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William Hilton was born circa 1806 at Eltham, Kent, and enlisted in the Royal Artillery at nineteen years of age on 27 September 1825 for a period of unlimited service. He gave his occupation as ‘Labourer / Hatter’ and was described as five foot nine and three quarter inches tall, with dark brown hair and hazel eyes. He sailed for India aboard the ship Thames on 18 May 1826 and landed on 17 June following. Commencing service with the 1st Troop, 3rd Brigade, he was promoted Corporal in 1833 and Sergeant in 1840. He spent the next nine years serving in the Commissariat Department, returning to the Artillery on 9 May 1849, prior to being discharged and pensioned on 6 October of that year. His portrait photograph, taken in 1884, shows him wearing a second medal, probably for the Sutlej campaign.

Hilton next found employment as Superintendent at La Martinière College at Lucknow, where his wife became the school matron. In exchange for 50 rupees a month, Hilton, who still held the title of Sergeant, carried out the duties of porter cum drill instructor, and was able to enroll his own son, Edward, at the College. On 17 May 1857, as the storm of rebellion brewed in the city, the Principal of the Martinière, George Schilling (see Lot 65), obtained from Sir Henry Lawrence, a dozen muskets, bayonets and ammunition, with which the 100 or so souls living in the College might defend themselves, in the first instance from their own ‘guard’ of Oudh Military Policemen, whose loyalty was uncertain in the extreme. In his account The Mutinies in Oude Martin Gubbins (qv), the Financial Commissioner at Lucknow, states that ten Martinière boys ‘big enough to handle muskets’ were armed and daily drilled ‘in the use of arms by one of the masters who had been in the army’. Numbered among these willing recruits, of whom three were big enough to rank as fighting men during the defence of the Residency entrenchment, was the seventeen year-old Edward Hilton. At first it was Schilling’s intention to hold out in the school, but, on 17 June, Lawrence, realising that it would be impossible to support such an isolated position, ordered the College to be abandoned and summoned the staff and pupils to join him in the Residency entrenchment.

As soon as the siege began the scholars immediately distinguished themselves serving throughout the defence not only in a military capacity but in a variety of other ways. Edward Hilton, for instance, successively filled the posts of corn grinder, chief conservancy officer at the Martinière Post, and superintendent of the pupils attending the sick and wounded in the General Hospital, and it was while filling this latter post that his father fell grievously ill. This must have occurred early in the siege as Schilling later reported to the Trustees of the Martine Charities that ‘Mr Hilton, the Sergeant Superintendent was unfortunately so ill during the whole siege as to be unable to render the assistance he otherwise would have done’. Edward was then recalled from the General Hospital by Mr Schilling to look after his father, but presumably he shared this work with his mother and his sister, and continued to fulfill his duties in the defence of the Martinière Post, which for the first month was conducted solely by the masters and armed boys. Later a party of three Privates and a Corporal of H.M’s 32nd was detailed assist, and later still the party was increased to six Privates and a Sergeant. Sergeant Hilton, according to his son who later published an account of the siege, had several narrow escapes, one of which was from a bullet which passed through the back of his chair from which he had risen only a moment before. Likewise, Hilton’s wife had an unfortunate experience when a wild 24-pounder shot fired from Phillip’s Garden Battery smashed through the wall of her room. Although the shot missed Mrs Hilton it dislodged a brick which hit her on the head.

Hilton and his family were eventually evacuated from the Residency entrenchment on the night of 19 November by troops under Sir Colin Campbell. Edward, however, was ordered back to the Residency with the other boys who bore arms by Brigadier Inglis, and after spending a further night in the old garrison, was instructed to go with a school fellow, called Nichols, to the Dilkusha with two ponies and collect money and other valuable property belonging to the College. On their way back, they were caught in an artillery duel between one of Shannon’s guns and a rebel battery positioned in a mango tope. The ponies ran off scattering rupees, and were only captured with the greatest of difficulty.

Sergeant Hilton recovered from his illness to continue as Sergeant Instructor at Martiniére College, and was still serving there in 1868, at which period he was described in the Bengal Directory as one of the ‘Illustrious Citizens of Lucknow’ who attended the parade for the laying of the foundation stone of the Lucknow Memorial.

Edward Hilton subsequently became a Barrister-at-Law in Lucknow.

Refs: IOL L/MIL/10, 122, 176; IOL L/MIL/9/30; IOL L/MIL/10/301; Bengal Directories 1854-68; The Martinière Boys in the Bailey Guard. By One of Them (E. H. Hilton); The Tourost’s Guide to Lucknow (E H. Hilton); The Mutinies in Oude (Gubbins).