PREVIEW: ORDERS, DECORATIONS, MEDALS AND MILITARIA 14 SEPTEMBER

The famous Indian Mutiny ‘Siege of Lucknow’ Victoria Cross awarded to Irishman Thomas Henry Kavanagh will be sold by Mayfair-based Auctioneers Noonans on Wednesday, 14 September, 2022.

This was the first civilian V.C. of five to be awarded and is one of only two that is not currently in a museum, it is estimated at £300,000-400,000 in a sale of Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria. 

The siege of Lucknow arose after the sepoys of the East India Company’s Bengal Presidency Army rebelled following the annexation of the state of Oudh / Awadh by the British East India Company.
The annexation bred resent across the state while the sepoys increasingly felt that the Company was undermining their religious practices and beliefs.

Most notoriously, it was the introduction of the Enfield rifle that proved to be the flashpoint of the rebellion. The cartridges for the rifle, which the sepoys had to bite to open prior to loading the powder and bullet into the rifle muzzle, were thought to be greased with a mixture of beef and pork fat. Biting them would have been an outrage for both Hindu and Muslim Indian soldiers. After refusing to bite the cartridge, they were disarmed, with the uprising following soon after.

Kavanagh, who was born on July 15, 1821 in Mullingar, Co. Westmeath, Ireland, was employed as a clerk in the Lucknow Office prior to the Siege. In November 1857, he volunteered to leave the safety of the Residency disguised as a Sepoy (an Indian soldier serving under British or other European orders), accompanied by a Brahmin scout. The pair jostled past armed rebels through the narrow Lucknow streets and talked their way past sentries in the moonlight, crossed deep rivers, tramped through swamps and narrowly avoided capture after startling a farmer who raised the alarm. On finally reaching a British cavalry outpost, Kavanagh delivered Outram’s vital despatch to Sir Colin Campbell and ably guided his column to the relief of the Residency garrison. 

Oliver Pepys, Auctioneer and Medal Specialist (Associate Director) Noonans explains: “Kavanagh was decorated with the highest honour for undertaking an epic quest to escape the surrounded Residency at night, crossing enemy lines, making contact with the camp of the Commander-in-Chief, and then using his local knowledge to guide the relieving force through the city to the beleaguered garrison by the safest route.”

He continued: “The first of just five civilians to have been awarded the V.C., he was further rewarded with promotion to the gazetted post of Assistant Commissioner of Oude and was presented with his Victoria Cross by Queen Victoria in a special ceremony at Windsor Castle. A tour of England and Ireland further enhanced his celebrity while the publication of his account of the Siege, ‘How I won the Victoria Cross’ and Orlando Norrie’s painting of him donning his Indian disguise – one of the truly iconic images of the Defence of Lucknow – ensured that he became a Victorian legend, indeed few histories of the conflict are without an image of ‘Lucknow Kavanagh’.”