Orders, Decorations and Medals

The early India and China campaign service pair awarded to Colonel J. Platt, Indian Army, who was butchered by mutineers of his own regiment - the 23rd Native Infantry - at Mhow in July 1857: his medals, papers and other personal effects appear to have remained in a bank vault until discovered by his descendants in 1989

Army of India 1799-1826, 1 clasp, Bhurtpoor (Lieut. J. Platt, 23rd N.I.), short-hyphen reverse die, officially engraved naming, in its original card box of issue, the lid ink-inscribed, ‘Lieut. J. Platt, 23 N.I.’; China 1842 (J. Platt, Captain, 2nd Reg. Bengal Vol.), fitted with contemporary silver swivel-bar suspension, minor edge bruising, otherwise extremely fine (2) £3000-3500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Ron Penhall Collection.

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John Platt was born at Kings Langley, Hertfordshire in April 1802, the son of a clergyman, and was appointed an Ensign in the 2/5th Native Infantry in July 1820. His introduction to the dangers of active employment in India was fairly swift, for in May 1823, while visiting an indigo planter, George Ravenscroft, at his house near Bhinga, he was wounded in an attack by dacoits. His host was killed.

Advanced to Lieutenant, Platt transferred to the 23rd Native Infantry in May 1824 and was subsequently present at the siege and capture of Bhurtpoor, while between February 1829 and June 1834, he acted as Quarter-Master and Instructor to his corps. He had, meanwhile, been advanced to Captain. Further active service followed in the First Opium War, when direct from furlough he was attached to the 2nd Volunteer Battalion, Bengal Army, following which, between December 1843 and December 1847, he served as Commandant of the 2nd Regiment of Oudh Light Infantry and was advanced to Major.

Having then witnessed further action in operations against Afridis in the Kohat Pass in early 1850, he was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel in his old regiment, the 23rd Native Infantry, in June 1853, and was commanding when the regiment mutinied at Mhow on the evening of 1 July 1857. Captain Charles Cooper, a Major in the 23rd Native Infantry, later wrote in his despatch:

‘It is with feelings of extreme pain that I fulfil the duty of reporting, for the information of His Excellency The Commander-in-Chief, the circumstances of the mutiny of the sepoys of the 23rd Regiment of Native Infantry, and the murder, by their hands, of Brevet-Colonel Platt, commanding the Regiment, and of Lieutenant and Brevet-Captain and Adjutant Fagan. On 1 July 1857, Colonel Platt received, about half-past 10 a.m., a pencil note from Lieutenant-Colonel Durand, Agent for Governor-General in Central India, at Indore, stating that the residency at that place was attacked by Holkar’s troops. Subsequent information came that Lieutenant-Colonel Durand had been overpowered, and that he, with several officers and ladies, had been obliged to flee for their lives from Indore, accompanied by a few faithful troops only. About noon, Colonel Platt dispatched the two Flank Companies of the 23rd Native Infantry, under command of Captain Trower, and accompanied by Lieutenant Westmacott, down the road to Bombay, with orders to bring back into the cantonments, at all hazards, two 9-pounder brass guns, belonging to the Maharajah, which had passed through Mhow two hours previously, with the assistance of a Troop of the 1st Light Cavalry, under Captain Brooke (who overtook the guns and brought them to a standstill till the infantry came up); this duty was satisfactorily performed, and the guns brought back into the fort at Mhow about 3 p.m.; no casualties having occurred in the detachment.

Meanwhile, Colonel Platt was taking every precaution for the defence of the cantonments, expecting an attack from Holkar’s troops, and placing full reliance on the loyalty and attachment of his regiment. The ladies and children, with the European battery of artillery, were ordered into the fortified square, and the officers of the 23rd Native Infantry were ordered to proceed, at dusk, to their men’s lines, and remain there all night, ready at any moment to turn out and repel any attack. At about a quarter past 10 p.m., several of them were sitting together, talking, in front of the lines of the Grenadier Company, when a shot was heard from the cavalry lines on the left, followed by several others. Immediately afterwards shooting commenced in the rear of the lines of the Grenadier Company of the 23rd Native Infantry, and was rapidly taken up from the right to left all along the lines of huts. The men were evidently firing on their officers, who, supposing the lines were attacked by Holker’s troops, went towards their respective cavalry lines and the Quarter-Guard to turn the men out to repel the attack. It soon, however, became evident what was the true state of the case, and finding they could do nothing, and as the parade ground was literally whistling with bullets fired from the lines at them, the officers made their escape to the fort; there they found Colonel Platt, who had not yet been down to the lines, and whom it was difficult to persuade of the fact the Regiment having mutinied, so confident was he of their loyalty.

However, the men of the Regiment on duty at the fort gate were immediately disarmed and turned out by the artillery, and four guns of the horse battery were immediately got ready, and went down to the sepoy lines. Colonel Platt, however, without waiting for them, ordered Captain Fagan, his Adjutant, to accompany him, and the two rode down together to the lines of the 23rd Native Infantry. They were never seen alive again; all night, after the return of the four guns, they were anxiously expected; but it now appears that they were shot down by the men by a volley whilst Colonel Platt was in the act of haranguing them, and before the guns had time to come up. Their bodies, as well as those of their horses, were found next morning, lying on the parade ground, in front of the bells of arms, literally riddled with bullets. Colonel Platt had been fearfully gashed by the cut of a tulwar across the mouth and the back of the head.’

Another witness to the bloody events at Mhow was an artillery officer:

‘I must not forget to mention that Colonel Platt was like a father to the men; and when he had an opportunity of leaving them and joining a European corps last summer, the men petitioned him to stay. He had been upwards of thirty years with them; and when the riot took place, he had so much confidence in them that he rode up to their lines before we could get out. When we found him next morning both cheeks were blown off, his back completely riddled with balls, one through each thigh; his chin smashed into his mouth, and three sabre-cuts between the cheek-bone and temple; also a cut across the shoulder and the back of the neck. Two others were killed - one native Indian and one cavalry officer. Total, three. I never saw such mangled bodies in my life, and never wish to see the like again.’

Sold with a fine array of original documentation and artefacts, including:

(i) Original commission warrants (12) covering the recipient’s advancements from Ensign through to Colonel, 1823-56, ranging from those issued by the H.E.I.C. (Bengal Establishment) to Regular Army examples dated at Windsor, several with damage / defects.

(ii) An assortment of letters addressed to the recipient in India from family, friends and solicitors (10), 1843- 1849, one of the former reporting on progress - or lack of it - with his son’s education (‘Fred is fonder of horses than of books ... I fear he will never make a Latin scholar, but as yet we must not give up hope ... ’), and most of the latter dealing with the Estate’s of his deceased father and mother.

(iii) Copies of the Overland Mail newspaper, 26 January and 10 February 1857 editions.

(iv) The recipient’s De la Rue & Co. sketchbook (or “improved Metallic Memorandum Book’), decorated dark green leather binding, brass retaining clip, the inside cover inscribed, ‘Captain John Platt, May 18th 1837’, around 20pp. with talented pencil sketches of horses and dogs; together with a watercolour portrait of a Victorian lady and another of William Parry Okedon, a Bengal Civil Servant, circa 1830; an old card chocolate-box, with Indian scene to front.

(v) Two of the recipient’s seals, one with entwined initials in addition to his family Arms, in gold, silver-gilt watch-fob style mounts.

(vi) A brass box of local Indian manufacture, with engraved / decorated front, the reverse retaining one metal strap for affixing to a belt or cross-belt, contained in an old linen pouch.