Orders, Decorations and Medals

The Cabul and Punjab campaign pair to Major Joseph Ferris, 2nd Sikh Local Infantry, who raised and commanded “Ferris’s” Jezailchis and received the C.B. and Dooranee Empire for services in Afghanistan

Cabul 1842, unnamed as issued, fitted with original steel clip and straight bar suspension; Punjab 1848-49, no clasp (Major J. Ferris, C.B. Commg. 2nd Regt. Sikh Local I..) final part of unit hidden by claw, good very fine (2) £1800-2200

Ex Brian Ritchie Collection 2005.

Joseph Ferris, the son of a Customs and Excise officer, was born at Penzance, Cornwall, on 3 May 1807. He was nominated for a Cadetship in the Bengal Army in 1823 by James Pattison, Esq., on the recommendation of John Innes, Esq., and sailed for India aboard the Hero of Malown in August 1824. He joined the 28th N.I. at Berhampore, and the following July was posted to the 20th N.I. at Barrackpore. Promoted Lieutenant that same month and Captain in October 1834, he was occupied with regimental duties until May 1838, when he was appointed to command a detachment assigned to escort a mission to Ranjit Singh, the ‘Lion of the Punjab’. On the return of the mission from Lahore in July, he rejoined his regiment, which, in November, was detailed for service with the Army of the Indus. However, on the decision to reduce the size of that force by two brigades, one of which included the 20th N.I., he went with the regiment to Ludhiana in January 1839. The following month, Ferris was given command of two companies detailed to escort guns and treasure to Peshawar, where he was involved in the raising and organization of several irregular corps for Shah Soojah-ool-Moolk. In command of his detachment of the 20th N.I. and leading the principal regiment of the irregular levies, the 1st Shah’s Jezailchis, (a body composed of 320 border Pathans armed with the traditional matchlock of the region, the jezail), Ferris played a distinguished part in the forcing of the Khyber Pass and in the reduction of Ali Musjid.

During Sir John Keane’s advance to Cabul, Ferris was ordered to garrison Ali Musjid with the Grenadier Company of the 20th N.I. and the 1st Jezailchis. Having held out against several Afridi attacks, his services were placed at the disposal of Macnaghten, the British Envoy to the reinstalled Shah Soojah, and, on 1 October 1839, Ferris was confirmed in command of the Jezailchis. The corps was considerably strengthened and, in 1840, continued to carry out duties on the Line of Communication with its headquarters at Peshbolak in the Shinwari country between the Khyber and Jellalabad. He led his corps - ‘Ferris’s Jezailchis’ - throughout Brigadier Shelton’s Nazian Valley expedition of February 1841, when it was ‘prominently engaged ... and suffered considerable loss’. Shelton’s despatch of 24 February, reporting an operation against the Sangu Khel Shinwaris, records: ‘The conduct of Capt. Ferris and the men of his corps (Jezailchees) [sic] was conspicuous throughout the day; they attacked the enemy with great gallantry and pursued with determined bravery, over almost inaccessible heights, driving the enemy before them under a galling fire’ (Calcutta Gazette 1 April 1841). For his services in the Nazian Valley, Ferris was awarded the Order of the Dooranee Empire, 3rd Class.

In November 1841, immediately after the Afghan backlash against the British in Cabul, Ferris was attacked at Peshbolak by all the neighbouring tribes. Having only 250 men with him (the greater part of his corps having been detached to Gandamak), he took up a position in a ruined fort which he defended against attacks from the 13th to the night of the 16th, when having lost fifty men, his ammunition ran out. Faced with no alternative but to evacuate the fort, he cut his way through Afghan lines during the hours of darkness and next morning reached Girdi Kas where he and the surviving members of his party were received by the friendly Mohmand Chief of Lalpura, Torabaz Khan. Ferris’s difficulties throughout the ordeal were complicated by the presence of his wife and her sister, and by the fact he had in his charge a large sum of public money which he was forced to abandon. Finally, with the assistance of Torabaz Khan, Ferris and his party were conducted by the Tartara route to Peshawar which was reached on the 21st.

Over the course of the next few months, Ferris was busily engaged at Peshawar recruiting, reforming and refitting his corps which, at 400-strong in April 1842, played a prominent part in the advance on Jellalabad with the army under Sir George Pollock. In reporting the successful forcing of the Khyber Pass in the face of stiff opposition on 5 April, Pollock made special mention of ‘Captain Ferris commanding the Jezailchees [sic], whose conduct excited the delight and admiration of all who beheld them.’ He further added that ‘much of the success of the day to be attributed to their gallantry skill and perseverance in this most difficult description of warfare’ (London Gazette 7 June 1842).

On 16 April 1842, Ferris was rejoined by the detachment formerly at Gandamak, which, in the meantime, had been besieged with Sale’s garrison at Jellalabad. Pollock was then delayed and while he tried to impress on the Governor-General the urgent need to advance to Cabul forthwith, Ferris and his corps took part in the Shinwari Expedition under Brigadier-General Monteath in July, being present at the storming of Secunder Khan’s fort at Mazenia. In his despatch dated the 27th, Monteath reported: ‘I should be unjust were I not to say that the conduct of Captn. Ferris, his Native Commandant, Hyder Ali, and the whole corps of Jezailchees [sic] was highly distinguished’ (Calcutta Gazette 31 August 1842 and London Gazette 11 October 1842).

When Pollock finally moved on Cabul in August, Ferris’s Jezailchis were attached to the column under Major-General John McCaskill and took part in the rout of Mohamed Khan’s army in the Tazeane Pass, the action at Haft Kotal and the unopposed re-occupation of Cabul on 15 September. On the 19th, he advanced with Sale’s force to Urgundeh to receive the British prisoners taken by Akbar Khan during the disastrous retreat from Cabul ten months earlier. On the conclusion of the operations in Afghanistan, Ferris returned with Pollock’s force to Peshawar where the majority of the Jezailchis were paid off and discharged, before marching with the remainder to Ferozepore. On 27 December 1842, he was awarded the C.B. in recognition of his services in Afghanistan, and was promoted Brevet Major.

After six months’ leave, Ferris rejoined the 20th Native Infantry at Nasirabad and served there until September 1843, when he was appointed Commandant of the Bundelkhund Military Police at Banda, into which some Jezailchis had enlisted. This unit was disbanded in August 1847 and, while waiting to rejoin the 20th N.I., he was unexpectedly given command of the 2nd or Hill Regiment of Sikh Local Infantry, a forerunner of the Punjab Frontier Force. This newly raised unit acquitted itself honourably in the Punjab Campaign under Ferris’s leadership, participating in General Wheeler’s operations against insurgents under Ram Singh, in the Jullundur Doab and beyond the Beas. The Hill Regiment, which was to survive to Independence as the 2/12th, Punjab Frontier Force, took part in the dispersion of a large body of Sikhs at Dinanagar in November 1848, and in the defeat of Ram Singh at Bassu, near Nurpur, in January 1849. Following the cessation of hostilities, Ferris returned with the regiment to its station at Kot Kangra and then, in May 1849, moved to Dharmsala, where a new cantonment was being formed.

Ferris’s promising career was cut short at the age of forty-six by his sudden death on 14 August 1853. He was interred in the Lower Cemetery at Dharmsala and a monument to his memory was erected over his grave by the officers of his regiment. Four years later a greater tragedy was to overtake his family. Ferris’s sister, the wife of Colonel Stephen Williams of the 56th N.I., was one of the ladies slaughtered at Cawnpore in June 1857. Her husband died of apoplexy soon after General Wheeler’s entrenchment became besieged, while she herself was severely injured by a gunshot wound to the face. She lingered in disfigurement and agony for two days, attended by her eldest daughter who was suffering from a bullet wound through the shoulder blade before being massacred at Satichura Ghat. The youngest of her daughters was seen on that frightful day, standing amidst the carnage at the waters edge, telling a Sepoy who was about to bayonet her that her father had always been kind to Sepoys. The Sepoy turned away, but, as he did so, a native armed with a club delivered a fatal blow to the child’s head.