The Indian Mutiny medal to Colonel Sir William Jones, G.C.B., who commanded the 61st Regiment at Delhi and was later Colonel of the Duke of Cornwal’s Light Infantry

Indian Mutiny 1857-59, 1 clasp, Delhi (Col & Lieut.-Col. W. Jones, C.B. 61st Regt.) good very fine
£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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William Jones, the only son of William Jones of Glen Helen, Carnarvonshire, was born on 30 June 1805, at Hythe, Kent. He was educated at Sandhurst and was commissioned Ensign without purchase in H.M.’s 61st Regiment of Foot at the age of nineteen. He became Lieutenant in 1826 and served in Ceylon until 1829. Advanced to Captain in 1835, and Major in 1844, he began his first Indian tour the following year. During the Punjab Campaign he was present at the passage of the Chenab, and thereafter accompanied Sir Joseph Thackwell’s force which turned the enemy’s flank at Sadolopore. Promoted Lieutenant-Colonel on 29 December, he was present with the 61st at the battle of Chilianwala, and led it at Goojerat. In March 1849, he commanded the 61st and a troop of Bengal Horse Artillery in Gilbert’s pursuit of the enemy to the Khyber Pass. Awarded a C.B. for services in the second Sikh War, he returned to England in 1850, and rejoined his regiment in India in 1853.

May 1857 found H.M’s 61st, under Colonel Jones, garrisoning the important station of Ferozepore with a European artillery company, the 45th N.I., 57th N.I. and the 10th Bengal Light Cavalry. On the morning of the 13th, Brigadier James, the officer commanding Ferozepore, having heard of the events at Meerut, ordered a parade of the native infantry so as to determine for himself the state of their loyalty. He found them ‘haughty’, but dismissed them. He then conferred with their commanding officers, both of whom believed their regiments to be loyal. At noon, word reached Brigadier James, Colonel Jones and other senior officers, of the massacre of the Europeans at Delhi.

The brigadier made immediate arrangements for the Grenadier Company of the 61st to relieve the detachment of the 57th N.I. on guard duty at the magazine, which was situated inside the walls of the entrenchment near the town. He also arranged with Jones for the officers’ families, the European civilians, and the women and children belonging to the soldiery of the 61st to be accomodated in the regiment’s barracks. The 10th Light Cavalry who appeared to be loyal were instructed to move to the new arsenal and guard its magazine. All of these measures, which were carried out simultaneously and without the knowledge of the native infantry, were completed by 5 p.m., whilst Jones and the main body of the 61st stood by ‘in readiness to move on any point’. No explanation for the sudden change in the roster was given to the native detachment of the 57th at the magazine and they remained inside the entrenchment with the new guard.

In the early evening Brigadier James paraded the 45th and 57th Native Infantry and, having addressed them, was relieved to see them obediently march off in opposite directions. But the 45th, on being jeered by the townspeople as they passed through Suddur Bazaar in the neighbourhood of the entrenchment, suddenly broke into open mutiny and made a rush at its walls. The commanding officer of the 45th tried to control his Sepoys and succeeded in leading off some 150 men, but the rest were beyond reason. Brigadier James, fearing that the 57th would follow the 45th, spoke with Jones and ‘determined to maintain the barrack and intrenchment, and called in the 10th light cavalry to our support’. The mutineers of the 45th, meanwhile, called out to the detachment of the 57th inside the entrenchment who threw out ropes and put over ladders to assist them in scaling the outer fortifications. The mutineers then rushed the inner gate leading to the ordnance stores but here they were met by the Grenadier Company who fired a volley and killed six of the ringleaders. The rebels tried another gate but were again driven back with loss, and, dispirited by their failure, began to retreat over the walls, many of them falling in the attempt by the butt-ends of muskets of the 61st. At this point two more companies of the 61st arrived and drove off the mutineers with volley fire.

The 45th Native Infantry retreated towards the ice-pits, carrying their dead with them. They deposited the bodies at a Mussulman graveyard and for the next few hours they was comparative calm. But ‘as soon as night had thrown her veil of darkness over the scene,’ about 200 mutineers returned to the cantonment and set fire to numerous buildings including the Anglican Church, the Roman Catholic chapel, two hospitals, and the mess of the 61st in which the regimental silver was destroyed. The only resistance to the mutineers in this quarter came from ‘a young lad, the son of Mr. Hughes, a merchant,’ who shot a Sepoy as the chapel was set alight.





On the 14th, the 150 or so obedient men of the 45th laid down their arms to the 61st, while the mutinous majority departed in the direction of Delhi, carrying their regimental colours with them. The 57th on the other hand laid down their arms without hesitation. In closing his report on the outbreak to Colonel Chester, the Adjutant-General of the Army, Brigadier James wrote: “P.S. - Had I not on the 13th, required the families of officers and Europeans to leave the cantonment and take refuge in the portion of the barracks given up to them by Colonel Jones, they might have shared the fate of those at Meerut and Delhi.’ On 13 June, the whole of the 61st paraded to watch the handful of prisoners taken during the outbreak being blown from guns. Later the same day Jones and a wing of the regiment, comprising the Grenadier Company, Nos. 2, 3, 7 companies, and the Light Company, left Ferozepore to join the Field Force, 250 miles away on the Ridge before Delhi. They arrived 420-strong on 1 July, headed by their band playing Cheer, Boys, Cheer!

On the Ridge, Jones was appointed to the command of the 3rd Infantry Brigade, and served in that capacity during most the arduous weeks that followed, being conspicuous in the repulse of the enemy sortie on 9 July. On the evening of 13 September, after the two breaches made in the city walls were declared practible, orders were issued for the long-awaited assault. The army was divided in to four storming columns and a reserve column. The first or main column under Brigadier John Nicholson, was to clamber up the glacis of rubble beneath the breach near the Kashmir Bastion and drop down into the main-guard by St James’s Church. On the left of the first column, the second column, commanded by Jones, was to storm the breach by the Water Bastion; while the third column, under Colonel Campbell of H.M’s 52nd, was to advance towards the Kashmir Gate and then join Nicholson’s column near the main-guard. The fourth column, under Major Reid of the Gurkhas, was to attack the suburbs outside the Kabul and Lahore Gates, clear the enemy out of them, then enter the city through the Kabul gate which was to be opened by men of Jones’s column.

For half-an hour before dawn the darkness was illuminated by the constant flashes of shell bursts and rockets. Then suddenly the bombardment ceased and the signal for the assault was given. No sooner had the leading elements of Jones’s No. 2 Column emerged from the shelter of the old Custom House than it was met by a terrible discharge of musketry. Two engineer officers who were leading were severely wounded, and of the thirty-nine men who carried the scaling ladders, twenty-nine were killed or wounded in as many seconds. The ladders were immediately seized by their comrades who, after several attempts, succeeded in placing them against the escarp. ‘Then, amidst a shower of stones and bullets, the soldiers ascended, rushed the breach, and slaying all before them, drove the rebels from the walls.’

Having sustained severe casualties, the first three columns reformed inside the Kashmir Gate, ‘from which the first and second [columns] practically became one’. ‘Nicholson, being accidentally separated from his own column for a short time pushed on with Campbell’s past the church, in the direction of the Jama Masjid, while the amalgamated column under Jones’s leadership took the rampart route past the Kabul Gate (on top of which Jones had planted a British flag), capturing as they advanced all the guns they found on the ramparts, and receiving no check until the Burn Bastion was reached by some of the more adventurous spirits.’ Here the enemy, seeing their opponents to be few, made a stand and drove the ‘adventurous spirits’ back to the Kabul Gate, where Nicholson resumed command of his own column.

Despite the protestations of his surviving officers, Nicholson was determined to take the Lahore Gate beyond the Burn Bastion, and led two unsuccessful charges, as witnessed by Lieutenants Henry Wemyss (Ritchie 2-53) and Noel Money (Ritchie 2-103), down the narrow lane running inside the city wall. At the third attempt, Nicholson waved his sword above his head and jumped out into the lane with his back to the enemy, shouting at the men to follow him. A shot struck him in the back and he reeled round mortally wounded. Jones was now the senior officer on the spot and, denied reinforcements, had to abandon hope of making further headway that day. Indeed, many wondered whether the ground already captured could be held. During the six days of street fighting that followed Jones commanded both No. 1 and No. 2 Columns.

For his services at Delhi, Jones was mentioned in depatches and received the thanks of the Governor-General. He was also granted a good service pension of £100 per annum. After the fall of Delhi, the 61st were deemed unfit for service with the Flying Column commanded by Colonel Edward Greathed (Ritchie 2-51), and were left to serve in the city for the next eighteen months. The regiment finally returned to England in 1860. Colonel Jones was appointed a K.C.B. on 2 June 1869, and a G.C.B. on 29 May 1889. From 2 January 1871, until his death, he was Colonel of H.M’s 32nd (Duke of Cornwall’s) Light Infantry. Sir William Jones died at Lansdown Lodge, Lansdown Road, Dublin, on 8 April 1890.

Refs: WO 67/26; Dictionary of National Biography; Hart’s Army List 1855 & 1864; Forty-One Years in India (Roberts); The Great Mutiny (Hibbert); Cap of Honour - The Story of the Gloucestershire Regiment (Daniel).