An Indian Mutiny Medal 1857-1859, 1 clasp: Lucknow awarded to Able Seaman William Wood, Royal Navy who was one of the 284 men from the crew of the 51 gun steam frigate Shannon who saw service ashore with the Naval Brigade under Captain Sir William Peel and was present in the operations at Lucknow which lasted from November 1857 to March 1858. Five men from Shannon’s Naval Brigade won the Victoria Cross during the Indian Mutiny.
Indian Mutiny Medal 1857-59, 1 clasp: Lucknow (Wm. Wood, A.B., Shannon).
Condition: Minor contact marks, Good Very Fine.
Provenance: Dix Noonan Webb, 1 December 2010
William Wood was born at Liverpool in February 1829. Previously a merchant seaman, he joined H.M.S. Shannon as a supernumerary at Calcutta on 31 August 1857.
He served aboard the frigate Shannon during the Indian Mutiny which was under the command of Captain Sir William Peel, V.C., K.C.B., the distinguished Crimean War Naval Brigade Officer and son of the former Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel. With the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny in May 1857, Smith was landed with the Naval Brigade formed from the crew of Shannon. Smith then took part in the operations at Lucknow which lasted from November 1857 to March 1858. 284 men from Shannon were present with the Naval Brigade at Lucknow.
The Naval Brigade took with it both guns and howitzers from the Shannon which were to be towed up the Hoogly on a flat, as the towing vessels were of but small power and shallow draught, and as the current was strong, progress was slow; and Peel did not reach Allahabad, near the junction of the Jumna with the Ganges, until the second half of October. By the 20th the strength of the brigade assembled there was 516 of all ranks. Of these about 240, under Lieutenants Wilson, Wratislaw, and Hazeby, were left in garrison at Allahabad. On October 23rd 100 more, under Lieutenants Vaughan and Salmon, with four siege-train 24-prs., went to Cawnpore, and thence joined the army before Lucknow; and on the 27th and 28th the rest of the brigade, with four 24-prs. and two 8-in. howitzers, followed, and was presently amalgamated with a small force which, under Lieutenant-Colonel Powell, of the 53rd regiment, was marching in the same direction. Late on October 31st the column camped near Fatehpur, and, on the following day, marched twenty-four miles and defeated 4000 of the enemy at Kudjwa, capturing two guns. Powell fell, and Peel took command, and completed the rout of the mutineers, ultimately securing a third gun. The British lost 95 in killed and wounded, among the latter being Lieutenants Hay, R.N., and Stirling, R.M.; but the rebels lost 300 in killed alone. Peel then pressed on for Cawnpur. Writing to Sir Michael Seymour on 6th November, from a camp between Cawnpur and Lucknow, he said: "Since that battle was fought, with the exception of one day's rest for the footsore men who had marched seventy-two miles in three days, besides fighting a severe engagement, we have made daily marches.... At Cawnpur I was obliged to leave Lieutenant Hay with fifty men to serve as artillerymen for that important position.... I am much gratified with the conduct of all the Brigade; and there is no departure whatever from the ordinary rules and customs of the service."
Peel and Vaughan rejoined one another on November 12th before Lucknow, which had been relieved by Havelock and Outram, who, however, were so weak in force that they had been soon afterwards themselves besieged with the original defenders. On the 14th, when the Brigade's guns were in action, one of them burst, killing Francis Cassidey, captain of the main-top, and wounding several other men. On November 16th, during the successful attack on Secunderabagh, Midshipman Martin Abbot Daniel was killed by a round-shot, and Lieutenant Salmon was severely wounded. Salmon, however, won the Victoria Cross for that day climbing up a tree touching the angle of the Shah Nujjif, to reply to the fire of the enemy, for which dangerous service Peel had called for volunteers. Boatswain's Mate John Harrison displayed similar gallantry, and was similarly rewarded. The total loss of the Brigade on that occasion was 4 killed and 18 wounded. Fighting went on almost continuously until the 25th, when the relief was fully accomplished and the town evacuated. It was quickly occupied by the rebels, strongly fortified and heavily garrisoned.
Sir Colin Campbell, accompanied by the Naval Brigade, repaired to Cawnpur. On November 28th, on the way thither, a party of 36 bluejackets, with two 24-prs., under Lieutenant Hay, Mate Garvey, and Naval Cadet Lascelles, who was then acting as A.-d.-C. to Captain Peel, was engaged, in company with the 88th regiment, and did distinguished service. It was at about that time that Captain Oliver John Jones joined as a volunteer.
In the fighting near Cawnpur, between December 6th and December 9th, the Brigade had a share; and on January 2nd, 1858, it behaved with great gallantry at the action at Kallee-Nuddee. Lieutenant Vaughan was attacked while repairing a bridge across the river, which he then promptly crossed with three guns. On the further side he held in check a body of cavalry, and, himself aiming and firing one of his guns, made such good practice at the rebel gun which had originally annoyed him, that in five shots he dismounted the piece, destroyed its carriage, and blew up its ammunition waggon. Towards the end of the day Captains Peel and Jones, with three men of the 53rd regiment, while passing through a captured battery, were unexpectedly attacked by five sepoys who had lain in ambush. All the assailants were killed, the last falling to Jones’s revolver.
During the subsequent marching, the Brigade excited the admiration of the army by the manner in which it moved its guns. If a weapon drawn by bullocks stuck in heavy ground, the seamen never failed to extricate it, manning both wheels and drag-ropes, and, if necessary, getting an elephant to push behind. The cheerfulness, too, of the Brigade was much remarked on; and, doubtless, it contributed to the keeping up of the spirits of all engaged throughout a terribly trying time.I
n the fighting previous to the final capture of Lucknow in March, 1858, Peel and his men took a very active part, being present on the 3rd at the action at the Dilkoosha. On the 9th, while looking out for a suitable spot on which to post some guns for breaching the Martinière, the leader of the Brigade was severely wounded in the thigh by a musket-ball. His six 8-in. guns and two 24-prs. were chiefly employed in battering the Begum's palace; and it was while riding to them with a message on March 12th that Mr. Garvey was killed by a shell from one of the rebel coehorns. Captain Jones, on the same day, most devotedly exposed himself on the parapet of a battery in order to direct the fire of the guns behind it. On the 13th, when the guns had been placed in a somewhat more advanced battery, a coloured Canadian seaman named Edward Robinson betrayed extraordinary coolness in extinguishing a fire which had caught hold of some sandbags forming the face of the work. Under a storm of bullets from loopholes not forty yards away from him, he leapt out, and either quenched or tore away the burning canvas, being, however, severely wounded. He was awarded the Victoria Cross.
On the 14th, the Brigade, and especially a detachment under Commander Vaughan, Lieutenant Hay, Mate Verney, and Midshipman Lord Walter Kerr, took part in the blowing open of a gate leading to one of the courts of the Kaisarbagh; on the 16th the guns were advanced to the Residency; on the 22nd the rebels evacuated the town; and on March 29th the Brigade handed over the six 8-in. guns which it had brought up from the Shannon, and which were put into park in the small Imaumbarah, with the word "Shannon" deeply cut into each carriage.
The naval contingent from the Shannon saw no more fighting in India. The gallant Peel, slowly recovering from his wound, was to have been carried down from Lucknow in one of the King of Oude's carriages which had been specially prepared for him by the Shannon’s Carpenter. When he saw the gorgeous equipage, he declared that he preferred to travel in a doolie, like an ordinary bluejacket. Unfortunately, the doolie selected for him must have been an infected one; for, soon afterwards, he was attacked with small-pox, to which, being already weakened by his wound, he succumbed at Cawnpur on April 27th, aged only thirty-four. He was, perhaps, the most brilliant naval officer of his day.
Sir Edward Lugard, with whose division the Brigade served in the advance to Lucknow, and during the operations there, bore the following high testimony to the behaviour of Peel and his men: - "The men were daily - I may say hourly - under my sight; and I considered their conduct in every respect an example to the troops. During the whole period I was associated with the Shannon’s Brigade, I never once saw an irregularity among the men. They were sober, quiet, and respectful; and I often remarked to my staff the high state of discipline Sir W. Peel got them into. From the cessation of active operations until I was detached to Azimghur, I commanded all the troops in the city; and all measures for the repression of plundering were carried out through me, and, of course, every irregularity committed was reported to me. During that period not one irregularity was reported to me. Indeed, in the whole course of my life I never saw so well conducted a body of men.... Many a time I expressed to Peel the high opinion I had of his men, and my admiration of their cheerfulness and happy contented looks, under all circumstances of fatigue and difficulty."
The Brigade returned slowly to Calcutta, and on August 12th and the following days, rejoined the ship, which, on September 15th, sailed for England. Wood was discharged on 12 August 1858.
Medal and clasp signed for by the recipient on 10 August 1861.
