Royal West Surrey Rgt: India 1907-10?

[kellysgirl]

I am researching a soldier who served with the Royal West Surrey Regiment between 1905 to 1910. His service papers show that he swapped between the 2nd and 1st Bns but was posted out to India from 5 Feb 1907 (aged 19) to 20 Feb 1910 then after 7 months at home was to be posted to Gibraltar but received a dishonourable discharge. The Surrey history centre have advised me that the 1st Bn left India in 1909, stopping at Aden, before returning to England where they remained till 1914 and the 2nd Bn had been in South Africa, and were deployed in Gibraltar in 1904 so their dates do not quite fit in with the service record I have, which states he spent 3 yrs 16 days in India. The man had a pretty poor service record, with drunkenness, breaking out of barracks, being AWOL and deficiency of clothing equipment, so I'm guessing he found life boring and had little to do but drink. Would anyone know where the Royal West Surreys were based in India during this period, and what, if any, action they saw? I believe there was unrest, riots, attacks upon the houses of Europeans etc during this period, but no actual campaigns as such. May 1907 was the 50th anniversary of the Indian Mutiny and the British administration out there would have been expecting trouble. I saw on Rootsweb that another man in the regiment had sons born in Sialkot in 1904, Rawalpindi in 1906 and Agra in 1907, though this would only indicate that his wife was in those locations, not necessarily the soldier himself. Another snippet I found suggested they may have been based in Sialkot in 1906. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Maureene]

Hi
1st Queen’s 1895 - 1908
1895 - 1897 Ambala
1897 - 1898 Mohmand Expedition and Tirah Campaign
1899 - 1902 Rawalpindi
1903 - 1904 Peshawar
1905 - 1907 Sialkot
1908 Agra

Taken from
http://www.queensroyalsurreys.org.uk/re ... a54_1.html
which in turn is a link on the FIBIS Fibiwiki page 2nd Regiment of Foot.
http://wiki.fibis.org/index.php?title=2 ... nt_of_Foot

Cheers
Maureen

[kellysgirl]

Many thanks Maureen,

I lived in India for 8 months and in Pakistan for 2 years (diplomatic service) and know Sialkot, Peshawar and Agra (India) to some degree, so this is of great interest to me. I know less about Aden but will look it up. I suppose they were just peacekeeping (and drinking!).

Kind rgds,
enise

[FROGSMILE]

Many thanks Maureen,

I lived in India for 8 months and in Pakistan for 2 years (diplomatic service) and know Sialkot, Peshawar and Agra (India) to some degree, so this is of great interest to me. I know less about Aden but will look it up. I suppose they were just peacekeeping (and drinking!).

Kind rgds,
enise

Hello Denise, as you have surmised, the British soldier's lot at that time was a stultifyingly boring one, unless he was in action, and drink was a great problem, both in India and at home, although efforts were beginning to be made to change things with alcohol-free canteens (so-called Soldier's Homes), reading rooms, an Army Temperance Society (via which medals were awarded to those who forswore alcohol for set periods) and organised sport.

If you are really interested, there is a quite superb book that will carry you to a soldiers life at that precise time. It is titled "Old Soldier Sahib" and was authored by Private Frank Richards of 2 RWF, deftly edited by his sometime officer and mentor, the famous poet and author, Robert Graves. It has been re-printed in paperback several times and should be available online if you do a search, or you can try any reputable library and order it there.

India at that time (1904-1907) was undergoing some quite profound and far reaching changes in the organisation of its military, while at the same time trying to bring Tibet to heel in a rather one-sided conflict that we would be rather ashamed of today. Nevertheless, as always, the soldiers merely did as they were ordered by the Nation that they served. There was only one British unit involved and that was the Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment) - formerly 7th Regt of Foot.

The reorganization was essentially to merge the three Presidency Army's, Bengal, Madras and Bombay into one unified and de facto 'Indian Army' consisting of 4 commands, each led by a Lieutenant General: Bombay, Madras and then Bengal was split into Bengal and North West Frontier.

The average Tommy would have been oblivious to all this of course, but it did involve some changes for him as you might imagine and you will read about some of these in 'Old Soldier Sahib' - I do recommend it as an excellent read. The same period also began a degree of real agitation towards an Independence movement as the effect of several decades of educating Indians in Western European Liberal attitudes (both at home in Britain and in India) began to be felt.

You can also learn quite a lot about the various stations for British troops by making a search using the station's name and the word Cantonment - as in e.g. "The History of Sialkot Cantonment". It will result in much interesting reading.

[kellysgirl]

Very many thanks Frogsmile. That book sounds just the ticket (chitty?). I'll see if I can get a copy. Sialkot cantonement must have been a very different world from the Dublin slum in which 'my' soldier had grown up. He was 17 when he joined the Surreys and 19 when they sent him to India. The places I enjoyed most when in India myself were Rawalpindi & Peshawar, and the concept of cantonments, civil lines, military lines, etc still lives on in street names there. There are still military outfitters there who will make you up a tie of any regiment and you can still buy your solar topee and 'up country' gear in the bazaars.

[FROGSMILE]

Very many thanks Frogsmile. That book sounds just the ticket (chitty?). I'll see if I can get a copy. Sialkot cantonement must have been a very different world from the Dublin slum in which 'my' soldier had grown up. He was 17 when he joined the Surreys and 19 when they sent him to India. The places I enjoyed most when in India myself were Rawalpindi & Peshawar, and the concept of cantonments, civil lines, military lines, etc still lives on in street names there. There are still military outfitters there who will make you up a tie of any regiment and you can still buy your solar topee and 'up country' gear in the bazaars.

Hello Denise,
I hope that you can get the book, it will really bring his experiences alive for you and he and Frank Richards were there at the same time so it is totally contemporary. Nineteen was a young age to be arriving in such a strange place and you might imagine his wonder. Barrack rooms were tough places where the boot and a leather belt wrapped fist ruled the roost when no NCOs were about and he would have had to learn fast, albeit that his Dublin childhood would have prepared him well and he would have met many fellow Irishmen in the battalion.
I am very envious of your experiences in India and Pakistan, places I have always wished to see and your description of the bazaars and 'dhurzees' (bazaar tailors), is very evocative of the time concerned. I could almost taste the dust!

P.S. Yes "Chitty" (e.g. "chit in lieu" was a common phrase) was still common British Army parlance in the 1970s-80s, although I do not know if it still is now.

[kellysgirl]

With huge thanks to Frogsmile, Maureen and others who so kindly answered my queries on here, I am pleased to announce that my latest novel is now on sale in paperback and kindle via Amazon. 'Running with Crows - The Life and Death of a Black and Tan' by DJ Kelly tells the story of William Mitchell, the only member of HM Crown Forces hanged for murder during the Irish War of Independence. The culmination of my 2 years' research into Mitchell and his antecedents, it charts his childhood in Dublin's worst slum district, his adolescence in the tannery district of south London (Bermondsey) and his service with the Royal West Surreys in India and, via his difficult exeriences in the Great War, serving in the trenches with the 16th Lancers, to his fateful recruitment as a Black and Tan which led him ultimately to the scaffold.

I was able to draw on Frank Richards' books since he served in the same locations in India as Mitchell, as well as on my own experiences of living in those same locations (Sialkot, Delhi, Agra etc). Some of the stories in Richards' books were apocryphal and are still being recounted by locals to young diplomats visiting Pakistan and India today, so I hope I may be forgiven for adapting them to complement the true incidents reflected in the regimental diaries of the 'Scarlet Lancers'.

Do have a look at my very short book trailer on You Tube and keep an eye out for some very postive reviews which are shortly to be posted on Amazon. Regards to all.

[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Running-Crows-Life-Death-Black/dp/1782991867/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363007944&sr=1-1]

[FROGSMILE]

With huge thanks to Frogsmile, Maureen and others who so kindly answered my queries on here, I am pleased to announce that my latest novel is now on sale in paperback and kindle via Amazon. 'Running with Crows - The Life and Death of a Black and Tan' by DJ Kelly tells the story of William Mitchell, the only member of HM Crown Forces hanged for murder during the Irish War of Independence. The culmination of my 2 years' research into Mitchell and his antecedents, it charts his childhood in Dublin's worst slum district, his adolescence in the tannery district of south London (Bermondsey) and his service with the Royal West Surreys in India and, via his difficult exeriences in the Great War, serving in the trenches with the 16th Lancers, to his fateful recruitment as a Black and Tan which led him ultimately to the scaffold.

I was able to draw on Frank Richards' books since he served in the same locations in India as Mitchell, as well as on my own experiences of living in those same locations (Sialkot, Delhi, Agra etc). Some of the stories in Richards' books were apocryphal and are still being recounted by locals to young diplomats visiting Pakistan and India today, so I hope I may be forgiven for adapting them to complement the true incidents reflected in the regimental diaries of the 'Scarlet Lancers'.

Do have a look at my very short book trailer on You Tube and keep an eye out for some very postive reviews which are shortly to be posted on Amazon. Regards to all.

[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Running-Crows-Life-Death-Black/dp/1782991867/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363007944&sr=1-1]

That's great news Denise. I shall certainly be reading your book and will enjoy spotting some of the anecdotes to which you refer.