The Indian Army's British Officer Corps, 1861-1921

261 Pages·2017·1.86 MB·English

by  Adam Prime

The Indian Army’s British Officer Corps,
1861-1921

Thesis submitted for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
at the University of Leicester

By
Adam John Prime BA, MA
School of History, Politics and International Relations
University of Leicester
February 2018

Word Count: 79,591
The Indian Army’s British Officer Corps,
1861-1921
Adam Prime

Abstract

The Indian Army underwent a process of reform and modernisation from 1861 onwards.
The aim was to create a desirable working environment for the Indian troops, who were
necessary for the defence of the subcontinent. This included providing Indian regiments
with a professional officer corps, consisting of British men of sufficient quality. By
creating a prosopography and combining this with thematic chapters, this thesis aims to
chart this process of reform up to 1914. The First World War placed demands on the
Indian Army which meant that progress was interrupted owing to an influx of new
officers. This created numerous challenges which had to be overcome during the conflict.
The effects of the First World War, the world’s first ‘total war’, on the Indian Army will
be assessed. As will the performance of Indian Army units in numerous battles and
campaigns between 1861 and 1921, analysing the role of the British officer on active
service. Away from the battlefield, the officers of the Indian Army were a diverse group
with many different backgrounds. The thesis aims to analyse these backgrounds and look
for trends within the officers’ origins. Familial ties to India or the military would have
helped officers assimilate to the subcontinent. Finally, the social lives enjoyed by officers
will be evaluated; sport, marriage, and family all impacted on an officer’s career. Overall,
this thesis aims to provide a thorough depiction of the Indian Army officer corps in the
period under consideration.

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Acknowledgements
The researching and writing of a PhD thesis could have been quite a lonely experience.
Luckily for me this was never the case, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to colleagues,
friends and family. My first thanks go to Clare Anderson, not only is she a helpful and
patient supervisor but she also an amazingly kind-hearted person. This process has been
greatly enhanced by the fact I have had the help and support of Clare. I would also like to
thank my second supervisor, Prashant Kidambi, for his advice and guidance. I owe a thank
you to many other academics belonging to the University of Leicester, in particular
Bernard Attard, Katherine Foxhall, Sally Horrocks, and Eliza Reidi. There has also been
a plethora of other people who have been keen to share information, offer advice, or
simply listen to my ramblings on the subject who I would like to thank, Rodney Atwood,
Jim Beach, Jerome Devitt, Brian Hall, Alan Jeffreys, Dan Lomas, Keith McLay, Kellie
Moss, Christopher Murphy, Douglas Peers, Katy Roscoe, Alaric Searle, John Mason
Sneddon, Alex Wilson, and Michael Woods. Over the last three and a half years I have
had the privilege of visiting a number other universities as well as museums and interested
groups to give talks. Each of these has seen me come away with new questions about my
own work and an expanded knowledge base. To the members of my local branch of the
Western Front Association I owe a particularly large thank you. Many members have
shown an interest in my work and shared books and articles with me.
Thank you to staff at the following institutions: Asian and African Studies, the
British Library; The Imperial War Museum; The National Archives, Kew; the Centre for
South Asian Studies, the University of Cambridge, I would particularly like to thank
archivist Kevin Greenbank; and, the Gurkha Museum, Winchester, where the regularly
refreshed filter coffee was greatly appreciated. The visits to Cambridge and Winchester
were facilitated by grants from the College of Arts, Humanities & Law, University of
Leicester, and Society for Army Historical Research. Thank you to both bodies for those
awards.
My final set of thanks are to my family. Seven and a half years of study have been
endured with unwavering support. Thank you to my Mum and Stepdad, Brendon, to my
brother and sister, my stepbrothers, and to both sets of grandparents. Most of the family
did not understand what I was doing – or why I was doing it – but that did not stop them
from being loving and supportive. Finally, I would like to thank my fiancée Becky who
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has been there for me from my first visit to Leicester to my handing in. Her love, patience
and support has known no bounds during this process. No number of sleepless nights or
frustrated rants have discouraged her, she had borne it all with grace and good humour. I
feel lucky every day to have her care and support.

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Table of Contents

Page
Chapter 1: Introduction 8
Chapter 2: ‘Dolphins’? Indian Army Officer Origins 41
Chapter 3: ‘By merit only’? Getting in and Getting on in the Indian Staff
Corps 54
Chapter 4: ‘For Heaven’s sake, my children, form square and steadily!’ The
Officer-Man Relationship 83
Chapter 5: ‘Over Drilled, Over Dressed, and Over Bothered’ Discipline and
Dissent 123
Chapter 6: ‘The jungle is no place for a woman’ Social and Sporting Lives
in India 155
Chapter 7: Conclusion 186
Appendix A: Officer Origins 192
Bibliography 238

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Note on Place Names
All places names and language references used in this thesis are the historical names used
during the period under study and as they appear in the original documents.

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Regimental Ranks of the Indian Army

Indian Cavalry Indian Infantry British Army
(equivalent)
Lieutenant-Colonel Lieutenant-Colonel Lieutenant-Colonel
Major Major Major
Captain Captain Captain
Lieutenant Lieutenant Lieutenant
2nd Lieutenant 2nd Lieutenant 2nd Lieutenant
Risaldar-Major Subadar-Major
Risaldar Subadar
Jemadar Jemadar
Daffadar Havildar Sergeant
Lance-Daffadar Naik Corporal
Acting Lance- Lance-Naik Lance-Corporal
Daffadar
Sowar Sepoy Private

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Chapter 1:
Introduction

Introduction
In light of the 1857 Rebellion it was decided that Indian Army units should be reorganised
along the lines of irregular units. The irregular system had been created in the early
nineteenth century by Europeans such as James Skinner, who had been in the employ of
the Mughal armies before joining the East India Company (EIC). Its purpose was to
placate the EIC’s Muslim troops and to attract further recruits by keeping the military
organisation akin to that of the Mughal forces. Irregular units had fewer European
officers and so gave greater responsibility to the Indian officers, perhaps as a result, these
irregular units had proved themselves loyal to the British during the rebellion. Indian
regiments of between five and six hundred sepoys had just six European officers, although
some pre-mutiny irregular units had as few as three. The idea behind this was that one
European officer with the correct approach could inspire the loyalty of a thousand native
troops, whereas thirty Europeans would make the Indian officer, or Viceroy
Commissioned Officer (VCO) as they became known, obsolete, giving private soldiers
neither the incentive to further himself nor anything in common with his superiors.1 The
concept was known as cultivated loyalty. The irregular system had worked for men such
as Sir John Jacob. Jacob had joined the EIC in 1828 and saw action in the First Anglo-
Afghan War and on the North-West Frontier. In 1841, he was given command of the
Scinde Irregular Horse, which became better known as Jacob’s Horse.2 Jacob
implemented the irregular system to good effect. His men were so devoted that when the
rebellion began they remained loyal despite Jacob not being in India at the time. Jacob
was a great advocate of this system and although he died in 1858 his ideas and opinions
were heeded by the commission that was set up after the British quelled the rebellion.

1 T.A. Heathcote, The Indian Army, Garrison of British Imperial India 1822-1922 (London; David &
Charles, 1974), pp. 52-5; Philip Mason, A Matter of Honour, An Account of the Indian Army its Officers
and Men (London; Jonathan Cape, 1974), pp. 326-8.
2 A biography of Jacob was published by Alexander Innes Shand, General John Jacob: Commandant of
the Sind Irregular Horse and Founder of Jacobabad (London; Seeley and Co. Limited, 1900).
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This was the Peel Commission – which took its name from Lord Jonathan Peel, Secretary
of State for War.
As a result of the post-1858 changes Indian officers thrived, proving themselves
more than capable of leading troops and commanding outposts miles away from their
European superiors. These men were picked ‘on the principle of efficiency’. In contrast,
prior to the 1857 Rebellion, promotion of sepoys was based largely on length of service.
This resulted in a large number of officers and non-commissioned officers (NCOs) being
upward of 60 years old. This had been one of the recommendations made by the Peel
Commission. Most of witnesses who gave advice to the commission agreed that
promotion by length of service was a significant problem for the EIC Army. Colonel John
Welchman of the 1st Bengal European Fusiliers wrote ‘promotion by seniority the bane
of the army’, whilst Major-General Low, a veteran of over 50 years’ service wrote ‘merit
and fitness should be more consulted in the promotion of native commissioned and non-
commissioned officers’.3 Equally, British officers were selected on the basis that they
had the right qualities for the task, rather than simply length of service. Before the 1857
Rebellion, age had been a similar problem in European officers. As Philip Mason put it:
‘They had encouraged officers to stay on in command of troops until they were gout-
ridden invalids of seventy.’4
This irregular system was never fully implemented. From 1863 onwards, a
battalion had seven British officers. The job of these men was largely supervisory, native
officers commanded companies (infantry) and troops (cavalry). By 1882 the number of
European officers per regiment had again risen and was now ten. It then rose to fourteen
in the year preceding the First World War. The number of Indian officers remained largely
unaltered, but their responsibility was much diminished.5 Yet, despite the failed attempt
to implement the irregular system across the three presidency armies and the rise in the
number of British officers per battalion there was a traceable process of reform within the

3 Royal Commission to inquire into Organization of Indian Army, ‘Report of the commissioners
appointed to inquire into the organization of the Indian army; together with the minutes of evidence and
appendix’. 2515 (London; Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1859), pp. xiv, xx. Henceforth ‘Report of the
Peel Commission’.
4 Mason, A Matter of Honour, p.313.
5 Heathcote, The Indian Army, p. 55; Michael Creese, Swords Trembling in their Scabbards: The
changing status of Indian officers in the Indian Army, 1757-1947 (Solihull; Helion & Co., 2015), pp. 27-
9.
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Indian Army officer corps aimed at improving the calibre of the men commanding Indian
soldiers, even if their numbers increased.
The purpose of this thesis is to account for the rise in professionalism and
modernisation within the Indian Army’s officer corps, and the Indian Army more
generally, from the aftermath of the 1857 Rebellion until the beginning of the First World
War. Under the EIC the military had been based on patronage and seniority, any attempts
at reform were little more than token gestures – there had been attempts to introduce
language examinations in the 1840s, for example, but these were given little credence.
This thesis aims to show that from 1861 onwards the military authorities in India began
to set standards for its officers. These professional standards changed as the Indian Army
moved further away from its Company origins. Standards were set regarding linguistic
proficiency, command capabilities and regimental work. This professionalisation aimed
to provide the Indian Army with a better quality of officer and add a level of uniformity
to the calibre of the officer corps.6 It was not just a case of creating a more uniform officer
corps, it was also the case that the authorities were looking to emulate the setup of the
major European powers. The British Army was an obvious benchmark, the two worked
closely together on the subcontinent, the Indian Army was subordinate to British needs,
and the Commander-in-Chief India was drawn alternately from the British and Indian
Armies. The British had their own benchmarks, however, when it came to reform. The
Prussian Army surprised Europe when it defeated the Austrian, 1866, and then French,
1870-71, armies. Forces began to look to the Prussian military system for examples to
follow – in Japan French military advisors were replaced by Germans. As such, much of
the concepts of modernisation relate to the Indian Army taking examples from other
military forces, particularly the British but also the Prussian.
The following is taken from a recent review of a recent book on the VCOs of the
Indian Army. The book is by Michael Creese, the reviewer is Kaushik Roy, himself a
prominent scholar on the history of the Indian Army.
We have had a substantial body of work on the Indian Army… We have solid studies
of the social composition of the Indian Army (Seema Alavi and David Omissi), civil-
military relations (D. Peers), tactical-operational analysis of the Indian Army
deployed along North-West Frontier (T.R. Moreman and Alan Warren), Afghanistan

6 James Hevia, The Imperial Security State, British Colonial Knowledge and Empire-Building in Asia
(Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 2012) pp. 48-50.
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