The Brian Ritchie Collection of H.E.I.C. and British India Medals

The campaign group to General W. G. Mainwaring, C.I.E., late Scinde Irregular Horse and 1st Bombay Europeans, Commanding the 30th Bombay Rifles at Maiwand

(a) Punjab 1848-49, 2 clasps, Mooltan, Goojerat

(b) India General Service 1854-94, 1 clasp, Persia (Lieut W. G. Mainwaring, Scinde Irreg. Horse)

(c) Indian Mutiny 1857-59, no clasp (Capt. W. G. Mainwaring, 1st Bombay Eurn. Fusrs.)

(d) Afghanistan 1878-80, no clasp (Lt. Col. W. G. Mainwaring, 30th Bo. N.I.) the first with naming erased for display purposes, nearly very fine, the remainder good very fine
£3000-4000

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 George Mainwaring, the second son of the Reverend Edward Mainwaring of Calverhall, Salop, was born on 24 April 1823, and was educated at Shrewsbury School under Dr Kennedy. He was nominated to the Bombay Service by the Earl of Hillsborough, on the recommendation of his father, and left England in February 1843, taking the overland route. Commissioned Ensign on 1 March, he arrived at Bombay in May and was directed to do duty with the 5th Bombay L.I. at Poona, prior to joining the 1st Bombay European Fusiliers in October. Promoted Lieutenant in January 1846, he was appointed Assistant Baggage Master with the Mooltan Field Force and was present at the storm and capture of the city in January 1849. Having joined Lord Gough’s army, he was present at the crowning victory of Gujerat, and joined the pursuit of the Afghans to the hills north of Peshawar. In March 1850 he was appointed Adjutant to the 1st Beeloch Battalion at Shirkarpore, and was promoted second in comand two years later. After a period of home leave he rejoined the Bombay Europeans in May 1856 and in January of the following year, while serving as Deputy Judge Advocate General, Scinde Division, he was ordered to proceed to Persia in charge of the 1st Troop, Scinde Irregular Horse. He returned to India in June 1857 and was serving as Fort Adjutant at Mooltan when 62nd and 69th Bengal N.I. were disarmed by Crawford Chamberlain (qv) of Skinner’s Horse.

He rejoined his regiment in November, and was promoted Brevet Captain in March 1858. The following month he was posted second in command of the 3rd Punjab Cavalry, and in September assumed command of the 30th Bombay Native Infantry (Jacob’s Rifles), with whom he was to serve for the next twenty years. By 1878, he had been promoted Colonel in the Bombay Staff Corps and was commanding the regiment at Jacobabad. In October of that year he left Jacobabad with his Headquarters for service in the Afghan War and joined the 1st Brigade of General Biddulph’s Army of Invasion at Quetta. Mainwaring commanded the station through the winter, supplying numerous escorts to Pishin, Kandahar, the Bolan Pass and the Mustung Valley. In April 1880, the regiment was ordered to Kandahar where it went into quarters in the Garkha village, and on 5 July it joined Brigadier-General G. R. S. Burrows’s Girishk Field Force, which set out to halt the advance of the pretender Ayub Khan from Herat.

Following the mutiny of the allied Afghan troops under the Wali of Kandahar and the capture of their smooth-bore guns and howitzers, Jacob’s Rifles marched with the rest of the force on Maiwand on 27 July, hoping to beat Ayub to the junction of the Ghazni road at the mouth of the Khakrez Valley. At about 11 a.m., after a march of several miles under a scorching sun, the Field Force moved through the village of Mundabad and crossed the ravine of the same name to reach an undulating plain where E/B Battery, Royal Horse Artillery, under Major G. F. Blackwood (qv), and the smooth-bores were going into action against Ayub’s leading units, which could now be seen heading for Maiwand. Major Heath, Burrows’ Brigade Major, galloped up and asked Mainwaring if he had established a reserve. The colonel replied that he had received no instructions to do any such thing, so naturally had not done so. Heath suggested that he should do so forthwith and watched while Mainwaring detached his whole left wing, comprising four companies under Major Iredell. The major was ordered to halt where he was; then, after letting the column get ahead, to follow two hundred to three hundred yards in rear. The British infantry line now consisted of the Bombay Grenadiers, under Colonel H. S. Anderson (qv), on the left, Jacob’ s Rifles in the centre, and the 66th (Berkshire) Regiment on the right. The British cavalry under Nuttall hovered on the left flank, and the guns, in the van, faced Ayub’s regular infantry in the Afghan centre and a swarm of ghazis coming forth from Maiwand village on the right.



The Rifles lay down to avoid the worst of the Afghan artillery fire. As Ayub deployed his forces in a huge horseshoe, Burrows ordered two companies of the reserve to extend the infantry line on the left of the Bombay Grenadiers, and sent the rest into the line on the left of the 66th. At about 12.30 p.m., in conjunction with a simultaneous attack on the Bombay Grenadiers by the Heratis, the Kabuli regular infantry advanced on the Rifles’ front. They were brought to a standstill by volley fire though not dispersed. The Kabulis then began to form up in extended order under some unsuspected cover close to the British line. ‘There they rested, and the best shots from Jacob’s Rifles tried their luck against such opportunity targets as they presented from time to time.’ This continued for the next half hour during which the Afghan artillery crept forward in leaps and bounds, making excellent use of the ground. Casualties began to mount in the Rifles’ ranks from ten well concealed guns situated at between three and six hundred yards range. All troops began to suffer severely from thirst, but Burrows being doubtful as to whether his Indian troops were capable of carrying out an organised withdrawal to the natural defences of Mundabad, where there was plenty of water in the ravine, reluctantly decided to stay put. At 1.30 p.m. the British smooth-bore battery ran out of ammunition, worsening Burrows’s position still further. Then, at 2 p.m., the enemy’s artillery began to slacken, raising the hopes of many stuck out on the roasting plain. It was, however, simply the lull before the storm.

‘In the main body of Jacob’s rifles nearly every man had expended his original allotment [of ammunition] and replenishment had been made as quickly as possible, but not fast enough.’ More casualties had been inflicted on Mainwaring’s men sent back to collect fresh supplies as ‘the recruit ammunition numbers refused to move’. The Snider rifles had become so hot that most Sepoys had wrapped cartridge paper around the metal so as to be able to hold them. Suddenly a horde of screaming ghazis and dense ranks of Kabuli infantry issued from the cover of a nullah in front of the 66th Foot. The 66th mowed them down in hundreds, until at last they swung left across the front of Jacob’s Rifles. They were heading for the horse artillery guns and some, however, charged beyond the guns into the confused ranks of the Bombay Grenadiers as they attempted to form company squares.

As the Kabuli infantry and ghazis took possession of the two 9-pounders, under Lieutenant Hector Maclaine (qv), Captain Beresford-Pierse of the 66th turned the rear rank of his left half-company about in order to fire volleys at them. But just as he was about to give the order to fire, numbers of Sepoys from Jacob’s Rifles were forced among his men causing total chaos. At about 3 p.m., a voice called out from mingled mass of 66th Foot, Jacob’s Rifles and Grenadiers, “Let’s try that village over there!”, and a dazed retreat towards Khig began.

The enemy caught up with them after two hundred yards and for the next three hundred yards a running battle was fought in which sixty British and Indian troops fell. Burrows galloped up and tried in vain to divert the retreat to Mundabad where he hoped the rearguard was still protecting the baggage behind strong defences. The confused troops did not want to hear and at length Burrows rode off to try and persuade the cavalry to make another effort. Eventually the Khig group came to their senses and returned a more discplined fire, with the result that only fifteen men were lost over the next five hundred yards to the near side of the ravine. On reaching it, order was again lost as the survivors literally threw themselves down the bank - one unfortunate colour sergeant impaled himself on his own sword. On the far side of the ravine Colonel Galbraith of the 66th tried to organise a stand but most of the leading men refused to listen, and, making their way through a series of walled gardens, began to stream towards the Kandahar road.

Gradually, with the arrival of more officers in one of the walled gardens, the tide was stemmed. Mainwaring, being the senior officer present, posted Beresford-Pierse with a drawn revolver at the a gap in the wall to discourage any further exit. ‘The ghazis now got into the next enclosure and there began a rapid exchange of fire at a distance of from twenty-five to thirty yards. Mainwaring’s problem was to persuade some soldiers to man the wall nearest to the enemy. While he was collecting a party together, suddenly he saw Burrows, who he believed to have been killed, ... trying to make some men who had taken shelter behind the back wall of the garden come back inside. Some sort of order began to form from chaos, but after about twenty minutes had passed it became clear that the enemy was beginning to outflank the garden with both infantry and cavalry. Besides, the guns were up and starting to open fire. Burrows knew that the walls would not stand up to artillery, and decided to move while there was still time. He ordered a bugler to sound the retire and set off across the plain.’

With discipline at an end, the survivors headed out over the desert plain. Fortunately the Afghans did not pursue vigorously, and concentrated their efforts in sealing Khig. After three or four miles Burrows caught up with the artillery and cavalry, and Lieutenant Geoghegan of the 3rd (Queen’s Own) Bombay Light Cavalry galloped back to fetch Mainwaring who, whether by choice or not, was bringing up the rear. Later in the retreat to Kandahar, Surgeon Kirtikar of the Rifles was concerned by his appearance, seeing him ride slowly on in an exhausted state. According to Kirtikar, Mainwaring and one of his company commanders, Captain Harrison, both had ‘the shadow of death pictured on their faces’. Jacob’s Rifles left the bodies of three officers and some 200 Native ranks on the field of Maiwand. They returned to Kandahar to man the Bar Durani Gate during the siege by Ayub’s forces. At the Battle of Kandahar on 1 September, the regiment formed part of the City Reserve, under Mainwaring’s overall command. Colonel Mainwaring was three times mentioned in despatches for his Afghan War services and left Kandahar with the Rifles in mid October, escorting some guns captured from Ayub Khan to Quetta. Promoted Major-General in 1885; Lieutenant-General in 1889; and General in 1894, Mainwaring took up residence in London on retirement, and died there in his eighty-third year on 21 December 1905.

Refs: Hodson Index (NAM); Who Was Who; IOL L/MIL/12/73, 89 & 95; IOL L/MIL/12/79; IOL L/MIL/12/80: IOL L/MIL/12/81; My God - Maiwand (Maxwell).