The Indian Mutiny medal to Sergeant William Chippington, 54th Regiment, a senior survivor of the Sarah Sands shipwreck

Indian Mutiny 1857-59, no clasp (Serjt. Wm. Chippington, 54th Regt.) nearly very fine £600-700

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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Sergeant William Chippington was on board the Sarah Sands, bound for India with 368 officers and men of the regiment together with a number of women and children, a total of some 500 persons with the crew, when that ship caught fire on 11 November 1857, some days after leaving Cape Town. For 18 hours the troops and loyal members of the crew fought the fire with admirable discipline, having successfully got all the women and children into the ship’s boats, some of which had already been launched by cowardly crewmen. The regimental colours, kept in the saloon, were saved by the bravery of half a dozen volunteers who reached them after repeated attempts. Several casks of powder blew up most of the ship aft of the mainmast but in the process also blew away much of the burning woodwork, enabling the fire to be finally extinguished. The uniforms of the soldiers had been almost scorched from their bodies, many had collapsed and others were terribly burned. Not one life was lost in this disaster and the ship eventually reached Port Louis at Mauritius. Many soldiers had been terribly burned, their uniforms having been almost scorched from their bodies by the intense heat and flames of the fire. Of the original strength of the 54th only 151 remained fit enough to proceed to India and earn the medal for service during the Mutiny.

Chippington’s papers do not appear to have survived but the musters show that he enlisted into the 54th Regiment on 21 February 1851, and that he was sent home from India to be discharged from the 54th Regiment, time expired, on 1 July 1861. In October 1862 he was appointed as a Sergeant to the Permanent Staff of the Londonderry Militia, and in January 1873, to the Donegal Militia, from which unit he was discharged ‘medically unfit for further service’ on 17 November 1885.

Ref: WO 97/2494.