The Indian Rebellion (1857)

*2 Canadian Victoria Crosses were awarded during this conflict.

Also known as the Indian Mutiny of 1857  saw the large Indian Army rebel against the British authorities in India. It all began in May 1857, when the Bengal Army shot at their British officers and marched on Delhi. This mutiny encouraged rebellion throughout India. Very quickly public opinion in Britain opposed the conflict as heavy losses on both sides became gruesome killings of civilians. The conflict would end, with the British replacing the governing British East India Company with a new government; one not so inclined to push British values on the Indian population. While Canada was not technically involved, Able-Seaman William Neilson Edward Hall was. Rescued off a Slave ship during the war of 1812; went on to live in Hantsport, Nova Scotia. After a career with the American Navy; Hall joined the British Navy in 1852, and was sailed aboard the HMS Rodney during the Crimean War.  In 1857, he was aboard the HMS Shannon on its way to China when it was diverted to Kolkata (Calcutta); where he and his crew were to relieve the British garrison at Lucknow which was under siege. Hall was a member of one of four gun crews. As they tried to breach the walls of the Shah Mosque, the Indian Army began firing at the ship. Hall and and young officer, Lieutenant James Young were soon the only members of the four teams left alive. Hall and Young continued to load and fire the guns under fire until they successfully breached the walls, allowing the British garrison to escape. For his actions, Hall was awarded the Victoria Cross; becoming the first Black person, and Nova Scotian to be awarded the honor. (The BBC and Veterans Affairs Canada)

Another Canadian involved in the Indian Mutiny was Surgeon Herbert Taylor Reade. He was born in Perth, Ontario, on the 20th of September 1828. He was the son of Staff Surgeon George Hume Reade, who was Colonel of the 3rd Regiment of the Leeds Militia in Upper Canada, (today’s Ontario), and was killed during the Crimean War in 1854. Reade was in action at the Siege of Delhi on 14 September 1857, during the Indian Mutiny. "During the siege of Delhi, on the 14th of September, 1857, while Surgeon Reade was attending to the wounded, at the end of one of the streets of the city, a party of rebels advanced from the direction of the Bank, and having established themselves in the houses in the street, commenced firing from the roofs. The wounded were thus in very great danger, and would have fallen into the hands of the enemy, had not Surgeon Reade drawn his sword, and calling upon the few soldiers who were near to follow, succeeded, under a very heavy fire, in dislodging the rebels from their position. Surgeon Reade’s party consisted of about ten in all, of whom two were killed, and five or six wounded. Surgeon Reade also accompanied the regiment at the assault of Delhi, and, on the morning of the 16th September, 1857, was one of the first up at the breach in the magazine, which was stormed by the 61st Regiment and Belooch Battalion, upon which occasion he, with a sergeant of the 61st Regiment, spiked one of the enemy’s guns." - Victoria Cross citation, The London Gazette, 5 February 1861 (Veteran's Affairs Canada)