Pair: Major-General A. R. E. Hutchinson, Bengal Staff Corps and Political Agent for Gwalior

Indian Mutiny 1857-59, no clasp (Captn. A. R. E. Hutchinson) regimental details erased; Empress of India 1877, silver, unnamed, very fine (2) £700-800

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Collection of Medals formed by the late Tim Ash.

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Alexander Ross Elliot Hutchinson was born at Calcutta on 28 November 1825, son of John Ross Hutchinson, of the Bengal Civil Service. He was a direct entry Cadet of 1842/43 and arrived at Fort William, Calcutta, on 22 November 1843, where he was posted to the 13th Bengal Native Infantry. He served with the Army of the Punjab in 1848-49, and was present at the affair at Rumnuggur, the passage of the Chenab, and action at Goojerat (Medal with clasp).

At the commencement of the Indian Mutiny in 1857 Lieutenant Hutchinson, 13th Bengal N.I., was the Bheel Agent and Political Officer at the small Station of Bhopawar, Headquarters of the Bheel Corps. When the Bheel Corps mutinied, Captain Hutchinson, with his wife, the daughter of Sir C. N. Hamilton, Agent to the Governor-General for Central India, and their small daughter, together with Dr Chisholm and Mrs Stockley, the wife of the commander of the Bheel Corps, were forced to flee from the station disguised as Parsees. After many adventures the party was rescued by Holkar, the ruler of Indore, and escorted to the British Station at Mhow, itself in a precarious state due to the mutiny of the troops. All of this, and more, is recorded in Hutchinson’s memoirs of his Mutiny services held by the Indian Office Library (IOR MSS Eur. D.685).

During Hutchinson’s long period of subsequent service as Political Agent to the Maharajah Scindia of Gwalior he was both a participant and a witness to many glittering spectacles of the British Raj, culminating in the great Delhi Durbar of January 1877 for the proclamation of Queen Victoria as Empress of India. Sold with a comprehensive file of research including copies of his Indian Mutiny memoirs.