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

The Indian Mutiny medal to Lieutenant D. F. Sherriff, 2nd European Bengal Fusiliers, mortally wounded in action before Delhi

Indian Mutiny 1857-59, 1 clasp, Delhi (Lieut. D. F. Sheriff, 2nd European Bengal Fusrs.) good very fine £2500-3000

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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David Francis Sherriff, the only son of Captain David Sherriff, 48th B.N.I., and brother-in-law of Major-General H. M. Wemyss (see Lot 53), was born at Sitapur, Oudh, on 10 November 1835 and was educated at Glasgow and Ayr Academies. He was in India when nominated for the Bengal Army and formally entered the Service on 19 June 1855. Later the same month he was ordered to do duty with his father’s old regiment at Allahabad. In August he was posted to the 15th Bengal N.I. at Peshawar, but was permitted to join the 16th N.I. en route at Lahore. Promoted Lieutenant in June 1856, he was transferred the same month at his own request to the 2nd Bengal Fusiliers at Subathu and on the outbreak of the Mutiny marched with them to Ambala, where he and the greater part of the regiment joined the 2nd Ambala Brigade, Delhi Field Force. Accordingly Sherriff was present at the battle of Badli-ki-Serai and arrived with the rest of the Field Force on Delhi Ridge.

At 4:00 am on 12 August 1857, Sherriff fell in with the 2nd Bengal Fusilers before the city, and rendezvoused with a raiding force, comprising Coke’s Rifles, H.M’s 75th Regiment, and the 1st Bengal Fusiliers, under the command of Brigadier Showers. The object of the sortie was to take by surprise an enemy picquet near Ludlow Castle and capture any guns they came across. The sortie was divided into a left and right attack and Sherriff was detailed to take part in the former under Major John Coke. The approach was made with the utmost stealth, but scarcely had the last of the British sentries been passed when the party was met with a volley of musketry. Owing to the dark and the rebels poor aim no one was hit. Coke then ordered a charge, but as the enemy could not be found the advance was halted. Some light guns opened up from the other side of a garden wall. Sherriff, followed by a number of men, ran towards the wall hoping to find temporary shelter in its lee, but as he did so he was hit and mortally wounded. A bayonet charge followed and the enemy were driven off leaving four guns behind them for the high cost on the attacking side of 117 casualties.

Sherriff was taken to the rear. The Rev. John Rotton, a chaplain with the D.F.F., wrote of him: ‘His bravery was very conspicuous on this occasion: though but a boy, he was foremost in leading on his men in a resolute and daring manner. From the time he received his wound all conciousness forsook him, and he lingered in the hospital of his own regiment, where he had the very best care and the very best skill which Surgeon Edward Hare, a practitioner of deservedly great reputation, could bestow, until some time during the day of the 14th August when he expired’.

General Sir W. D. Harris, who as a young company commander, shared a tent with Sherriff on the Ridge, had this to say about his subaltern’s last hour of consciousness: ‘He was so heavy a sleeper that I had always the greatest difficulty in getting him out of bed to go to parade, which took place at dawn every morning. The adjutant told me he had not been warned for this duty, but as my company was going he would go with it. On the serjeant calling me I roused him, and he at once started up, asking what was the matter, and on my telling him, commenced to dress. This struck me as so unusual that I joked him about it, and his apparent eagerness to be at the rebels. He did not reply to my badinage, but his silence did not then strike me as anything peculiar. About an hour afterwards he was shot through the head, and died in a few days, never recovering conciousness. Had he any sort of presentiment of his approaching fate?’

Two monuments were subsequently erected to Sherriff’s memory in the Rajpura Cemetery, Delhi. They were inscribed:

Sacred to the memory of Lieutt D. Sherriff H.M. 2nd E.B.
Fusiliers killed in action against the rebels during the siege of
Delhi on 12th August 1857 erected by his brother officers as a
mark of their esteem and regard for him
+
In memoriam Lieut. David Sherriff 2nd Beng: Eur: Fusiliers
died 14th August of a mortal wound received before Delhi 12th
August 1857 beloved and mourned by all who knew him
Lord Jesus receive my soul

Refs: Hodson Index (NAM); IOL/MIL/10/61; IOL L/MIL/19/63; IOL L/MIL/10/65; IOL L/MIL/5/515; IOL L/MIL/17/2/480; Soldiers of the Raj (De Rhé-Phillipe); The History of the Bengal European Regiment (Innes); The History of the Royal Munster Fusiliers (McCance); The Chaplain’s Narrative of the Siege of Delhi (Rotton).