I have been interested in war memorials for a long time and have wondered vaguely when they were first erected and, in particular, when the names of the fallen of all ranks were listed and commemorated.
Without knowing it I had seen a likely candidate. A friend, thank you both for your Christmas card, in W9 may have a definitive answer.
TO THE MEMORY OFTWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FIVEOFFICERS, NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS AND PRIVATESOF THE XXIV REGIMENTWHO FELL ATCHILIANWALLA 13 JANUARY 1849THIS MONUMENT HAS BEEN ERECTEDBY THEIR SURVIVING COMRADESA.D. 18531849 JAN XIII”Here is an early photograph.
The railings and cannon have been removed but the location, where I have often been, is recognisable. A more recent photo makes it more obvious and also shows the names of some of the 255 men killed at the Battle of Chilianwala in Punjab (today part of Pakistan).
Folk go to Royal Ascot even if they are not much interested in the Sport of Kings, although today it is the Queen who follows the racing. Likewise you don’t have to be a gardener, or even employ one, to enjoy being jostled in the crowd at the Chelsea Flower Show. To digress, I think Lord Emsworth’s dislike of the metropolis kept him away but he did attend flower and agricultural shows in Shrewsbury. Extra digression: the Royal Horticultural Society flower show only started being held in Chelsea in 1913, although the RHS had been founded in 1804 and its original garden was part of Lord Burlington’s Chiswick estate.
When you visit there is a large, usually overpoweringly hot and crowded, central marquee. I thought it was constructed around the obelisk and it protruded through the roof but this photograph disproves my memory. A bit of delving and digging in the rich compost called AI suggests that the obelisk was only completely enclosed when the tent was changed to a modular structure in the 1990s.
Two of my ancestors are commemorated on this monument, Brigadier John Pennycuick and his son Ensign Alexander Pennycuick. The battle of Chillianwallah against the Sikhs was a devastating defeat for the British who were ordered to advance through dense vegetation unable to see their enemy. Queen Victoria was appalled and the death of the Brigadier, defended by his son, suffering from fever, carried into the battle on a litter, and only recently arrived from Britain, became notorious at the time. Lord Lucan after the Charge of the Light Brigade was consoled by General Airey who remarked ‘it is nothing to Chillianwallah’. The canon, used at the battle, are still at the Hospital and can be seen in the background of your photograph. The monument is in the fine tradition of the British commemorating their greatest defeats handsomely.
I am going to Matins in the Wren Chapel tomorrow and will look for the names of the gallant Pennycuicks.
My great great grandfather was a surviving comrade of those commemorated on the Obelisk. Colonel Andrew Higgins CIE fought at the battle of Chillianwallah as a young officer. He subsequently left the regular army and helped found the Volunteer movement in the Punjab. He went on to command the 1st Punjab Volunteer Rifle Corps and lived in Lahore for 50 years. He was a friend of John Lockwood Kipling, Principal of the Lahore School of Arts and Curator of the Lahore Museum. His son Rudyard served in the Lahore Volunteers and asked my great great grandfather for permission to marry one of his daughters. Permission was refused.