Untold lives blog

On 18 June 1815, Henry Paget, Marquess of Anglesey, was struck in the right leg by a cannonball at the Battle of Waterloo.  Immediate amputation above the knee was required. Paget exclaimed “By God, sir, I’ve lost my leg!”, to which Wellington responded “By God, sir, so you have!” before turning back to the field.  The leg was buried with its own tombstone, which still survives, and became a Belgian tourist attraction.

Paget subsequently wore an articulated above-knee prosthetic which came to be named after him.  The “Anglesey Leg” (later known as the “American Leg”) had been invented by James Potts in 1800.  It consisted of a wooden calf and thigh socket, connected by a steel knee joint and finished with a flexible foot connected to the knee with catgut tendons.  Potts’ design was innovative for several reasons – most notably the tendon system which allowed for greater foot flexibility – and was a significant early milestone in aesthetic and practical prosthetic development.

David Copperfield and a man with a wooden leg from The Works of Charles Dickens  Images Online

In Charles Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop, freak show manager Mr Vuffin waxes lyrical on the subject of false limbs:

“Look at wooden legs.  If there was only one man with a wooden leg what a property he’d be!... If you was to advertise Shakespeare played entirely by wooden legs, it’s my belief you wouldn’t draw sixpence”

Wooden legs recur regularly throughout Dickens’ works, providing a piratical flourish to his most straight-faced of stories.  They are worn by Simon Tappertit in Barnaby Rudge, Mr Gamp in Martin Chuzzlewit, and Silas Wegg in Our Mutual Friend.  It is a preoccupation which speaks clearly of the regularity with which wooden legs and prosthetics were to be seen in Victorian society.  Adrienne E. Gavin has noted that Dickens, living in Chatham as a youth, would have been surrounded by the sailors and soldiers stationed there towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars and would consequently have seen large numbers of amputees and false limbs.

Most amputees of the time, whether soldiers or civilians, could be assured of some kind of replacement, however rudimentary.  In those pre-anaesthesia times, the process of first having the offending limb sawed off was an intimidating prospect and one with a mortality rate of about 30%.  Wealthy amputees could aspire to advanced prosthetics, known as “cork legs” (made in Cork Street), which offered jointed movement and expensive blends of materials such as ivory, steel, leather and vulcanized rubber.  The less fortunate had to make do with “peg” legs.  “Cork legs” developed a good deal over the course of the nineteenth century, with features such as ivory balls in rubber-socketed ankles for a fuller range of movement, whilst lightweight leather prosthetics were also developed which could be laced on like knee boots.  Advanced legs of this sort were not only superior in the natural movement they supplied but also were less liable than basic wooden legs to rotting and splitting mid-stride.

Some sporadic development of false legs continued into the American Civil War, which produced some 30,000 amputees, and again throughout World War I, but it was not until much later in the twentieth century that combined progress in mechanics, technology and surgical practice both advanced the quality and durability of prosthetic legs and lessened the overall need for them.


Julia Armfield
Former Intern, Printed Historical Resources


Coming soon: False arms…


Further Reading:

Adrienne E. Gavin , Dickens, Wegg and Wooden Legs

Antedecents: Lower Limb Prosthetic Devices

Gordon Philips, Best Foot Forward: Chas A. Blatchford and Sons Ltd, (Artificial Limbs Specialists), 1890-1990, (London: 1990)

Bertrand-François Mahé de La Bourdonnais is best remembered as the naval commander who captured the English settlement at Madras during the War of the Austrian Succession in September 1746. Having fallen out with his superior the Governor of Pondicherry Joseph-François Dupleix over the generous terms he offered to the English, La Bourdonnais returned to Europe and was captured at Falmouth. When cataloguing a volume of East India Company correspondence for 1747-1748, I discovered original intelligence reports submitted by the Admiralty and Post Master General to the East India Company. This correspondence adds significantly to La Bourdonnais’ own account of his capture published in 1748.

Falmouth, Cornwall (G.7046 plate 297) Images Online  

The initial report of La Bourdonnais’ presence at Falmouth was submitted to the Post Master General by George Bell on 4 January 1747. It recounts how La Bourdonnais left the East Indies in company of four French men of war which put in at Martinique following a hurricane. After sending his wife and family ahead with his treasure on board a schooner bound for Portugal, La Bourdonnais with four of his principal officers boarded a Dutch vessel bound for Holland, where he hoped to remain until he could settle matters with the French Court. Contrary winds forced the Dutch ship to put in at Falmouth where she waited ten days for provisions and an outward bound convoy. A local merchant learned that there were French officers on board the vessel and told Bell. Bell’s report led to the capture of La Bourdonnais and his retinue by HMS Mercury commanded by Captain Bladwell. In light of his generous treatment of the English at Madras, La Bourdonnais was treated well, granted parole and allowed to return to France.

Richard Scott Morel
Curator, East India Company Records  

Further reading:
IOR/E/1/34 ff. 283-284v: Mr George Bell dated at Falmouth 4 January 1747 to the Post Master General.

Bertrand-François Mahé de La Bourdonnais, The Case of M. de la Bourdonnais in a letter to a Friend (London, 1748).

Previous postings on this blog have mentioned the extracts from the letters of Indian soldiers serving in France during the First World War which are appended to the reports of the Censor of India Mails in France found in the India Office Records.

  Photo 24/1 Dome Hospital in Brighton  Digitised Manuscripts    Images Online

One interesting aspect of the letters is the description of English life by injured Indian soldiers who were recovering from their wounds in the various Indian military hospitals which had been established in Brighton and other parts of the south coast.  Here are some examples from October and November 1915.

A Ali, a storekeeper at one of the Brighton hospitals, wrote to his brother in Lyallpur of a trip he took with his father to London on 1 October.  They visited the Tower of London, St Paul’s Cathedral, which he described as absolutely magnificent, and the Zoological Gardens.  He was very impressed with the respect the police commanded, remarking that “If one policeman raises his hand every single person in that direction rich and poor alike, stands still where he is as long as his hand is raised.  There is no need to talk”.  Ali was also impressed with London’s shops, saying that “There is no need of asking as the price is written on everything”.  Ali and his father used the London Underground to get around, and he recalled his excitement: “Then we went in the train that goes under the earth, it was for us a strange and wonderful experience”.

The cost of living was a common topic for letters.  G R Chowam at the Kitchener Indian General Hospital in Brighton wrote that “Unlike India nothing cheap can be purchased here”.  Abdul Said, a Punjabi Muslim, wrote on 1 November to his brother in Jammu , commenting on how expensive the newspapers were.  He attributed this to the fact that “…everyone great and small reads the papers.  Several newspapers come out during the day”.  Like Ali, Abdul Said was impressed by English shops, noting how clean and tidy the butchers' shops were, and how “…every shopkeeper tries especially to keep his shop spick and span and everything is in perfect order”.

  Photo 24/2 Indian soldiers outside the Brighton Pavilion Hospital   Digitised Manuscripts    Images Online

The British weather was often noted by the Indian soldiers.  Abdul Said picked up on the very British custom of starting every conversation by commenting on the weather: “Now the winter has begun and the sun is always hidden.  If by accident it comes out, the day is regarded as we regard the day of Id, and whoever you meet that day will first of all praise the fine day & then go on to whatever else he has to say”.  Desraj at the Pavilion Hospital in Brighton complained that “It rains all the year round”.  One Indian Sub-Assistant Surgeon at Brighton reported that winter had already begun: “Weather is very wet and cloudy and it is raining day and night with few breakages…After 5pm it is so dark that no one could dare to go out of the huts”.

John O’Brien
Post 1858 India Office Records    


Further Reading:

IOR/L/MIL/5/825/7 Reports of the Censor of Indian Mails in France, October to November 1915

The collection of photographs of the Indian Army in Europe during the First World War by H D Girdwood, reference Photo 24, is available to view online

Other Untold Lives postings on the WWI Indian censored letters:

The Indian sepoy in the trenches

Letter from an Indian Soldier in France during World War I

In the context of the military history of the East India Company, what would you imagine is meant by the term 'Minor cadets'?  Unmemorable junior officers who failed to distinguish themselves on any field of battle?  Wannabe soldiers who fell foul of an entry regulation concerning minimum height?
 
The term relates to a practice which flourished very briefly in India in the last quarter of the eighteenth century.  As a privilege and reward for loyal service, in August 1777 the Company decided to authorize the appointment of the sons of officers and surgeons to cadetships in its armies.  The Directors in London did not foresee quite how this would be interpreted, with a number of fathers having their male offspring marked down as cadets before they could even walk or talk.  Lt.Col. Thomas Higgins of the Bengal Army, for example, had his son Edward granted a cadetship on 1 September 1783 when the boy was sixteen days old; Major Thomas Whinyates followed his example on 23 November that year with his son George, who had been born on 31 August, following in the footsteps of Major William Sands, whose eldest son William was appointed on 18 April 1782 aged four months and twelve days. Surgeon John Stormonth and Lt. Col. William Tolly had their sons appointed several days before their baptisms, in 1782 and 1780 respectively.  Mr. Showers saw his sons Nathaniel and Samuel given cadetships on the same day, 20 March 1780, before either boy had reached the age of six.

Baby in a cradle hanging from a branch  11646.h.32 Images Online 

The names and brief personal details of no fewer than 116 such minor cadets are given in  V.C.P. Hodson's List of the officers of Bengal Army.  In many cases Hodson tells us what happened to the cadets when they reached adulthood.  Robert Achmuty, Henry Gahagan and Warren Jackson perhaps disappointed their fathers by choosing careers in the law, whereas Henry's elder brother Frederick became a writer in the Madras Civil Service. Charles Hampton opted for the less martial attraction of running an indigo works in Berhampore.  Others did embark on military careers - Thomas Gibson, Robert Kelly and John Maclean all entered the Madras Army, and Emilius Smith served in the British Army's 36th Regiment of Foot, dying of wounds in October 1801.

 First necessary - a cot!    Necessaries for a Cadet  X 1186(n)

Possibly prompted by the establishment of the Board of Control in 1784 to rein in corruption in India,  the Company decided to reverse this aspect of its recruitment policy. Minutes dated 2 May 1786 stated:
 
We have hitherto as an indulgment to our Military Officers tolerated the appointment of their Infant Sons as Minor Cadets; but as We have great reason to believe this indulgence has been much abused and we are thereby put to great expense, We have come to the determination to put a stop thereto, and ... expressly forbid any such appointment in future ...
 
The pill was sweetened somewhat by the next sentence:
 
Whenever you wish to interest yourselves for the Sons of deserving Officers your recommendation of them to the Court of Directors will be properly attended to.
 
The closing of this loophole and the creation of the Board of Control did not end the favouritism embedded in the system as members of the Board as well as the Company Directors were permitted to nominate cadets until 1858, although the minimum age went up from fifteen to sixteen at the end of 1808.
 
Hedley Sutton
Asian & African Studies Reference Team Leader 

 Further reading

Appendix C of part IV of V.C.P. Hodson's List of the officers of Bengal Army (1947), Asian & African Studies Reading Room OIR355.332

More on Hodson's List: Bengal Army officers - names, nationalities, fatalities and a phantom

Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the problem of rotten teeth was a concern that spanned the classes, although with the price of early dentures ranging from between half a guinea to forty pounds, only those from the upper ranks could afford to do very much about it. Early false teeth were heavy and largely for show, incapable of allowing intelligible speech and seldom secure enough to permit chewing. Indeed, various social historians have claimed that the inadequacy of early dentures was one of the main reasons behind the Victorian upper class vogue for eating in one’s bedroom before dinner to insure against embarrassment at the table. Frequently made from ivory or bone and with no enamel to protect them, early dentures were highly susceptible to decay, which often led to infection and vile-smelling breath, and those that weren’t, though they were less prone to rotting, had a rather more unpleasant provenance.

Evanion Collection 6450   

On 18 June 1815, the French Army was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo. This culmination of some twelve years of war between France and the opposing European coalition may have effectively ended the political and military career of Napoleon and led to the deaths of in excess of 51,000 men, but it was not without its curious benefits. For during the first half of the nineteenth century, the most popular and profitable breed of dentures available were those made from genuine second-hand teeth, a sudden surfeit of which had just been rendered effectively up-for-grabs by the cull of 1815. These so-called “Waterloo Teeth” – a moniker which quickly became applicable to any set of teeth pilfered from the mouth of a dead soldier and continued in use throughout the Crimean and American Civil Wars – were vastly preferable to those more commonly used in the eighteenth century. These pre-war teeth were frequently acquired from executed criminals, exhumed bodies, dentists’ patients and even animals and were consequently often rotten, worn down or loaded with syphilis. The prospect of an overabundance of young, healthy teeth to be readily pillaged from the battlefield must have been a dentist’s dream.

Evanion Collection 5389

This fashion for “genuine” dentures, popular though it was, was nonetheless dogged by unappealing “graverobber” connotations and it was consequently during the mid-nineteenth century that more sustainable and palatable styles of false teeth came to the fore. Porcelain teeth, which had actually been in use as far back as the 1770s but had struggled with a tendency to chip, underwent a great transformation thanks to Claudius Ash, a silver and goldsmith who brought his expertise to dentures in the 1820s and 30s when he started manufacturing porcelain teeth mounted on gold plates, with gold springs and wire to hold them in place and make them easier to talk and eat with. Ash & Sons, which became a successful company, went on to devise dental plates made of vulcanite and silver, as well as sickle-shaped metal insets to stabilise single false teeth, aluminium and gold mesh dental strengtheners and silicate cement for fillings, among much else. It was from here that the manufacturing of false teeth really took off, with dentists’ advertisements from the British Library Evanion Collection showcasing the sudden diversity of materials and plates available – from platinum to 18 carat gold. That said, the use of the genuine article in the manufacturing of Victorian dentures did not let up throughout much of the late nineteenth century and it was not until the early twentieth century that one could be certain not to find anyone smiling at you with a set of dead men’s teeth.

Julia Armfield
Intern, Printed Historical Resources    



Further reading:
John Woodforde, The Strange Story of False Teeth, (London, 1968)

Stephanie Pain, “The Great Tooth Robbery” in The New Scientist  (London, 16 June 2001)

BBC H2G2, Waterloo Teeth, A History of Dentures  (August 24, 2005)

To whet our readers’ appetite for stories related to the commemoration of World War I over the next year or so, here are snippets of an 'untold life' pieced together from two sources in the India Office Records.
 
Joseph Alexander Faithful was a young Anglo-Indian who set out from Calcutta in the spring of 1914 to travel to Europe with the goal of training as a mechanical engineer. Working his passage as a deck hand on the S.S. Nordmark, he had no way of knowing that power politics were conspiring against him, and when he reached Hamburg in late July he was interned. This seems more than a little harsh, as he was then aged only sixteen and war between Britain and Germany was not formally declared until 4 August. Three long years later he was moved to Havelburg POW camp, but he had to endure two punishing stints working in the Steinforde salt mine near Hanover before the British Red Cross was able to arrange his transfer to England in May 1919, a full six months after the Armistice. 
 
However Joseph’s problems were not about to end. Drifting from one youth hostel to another, and with little or no contact with his family back in Calcutta, he eventually found accommodation in Stockwell Park Road, S.W.9, from where he sent plaintive appeals to the India Office asking for money to buy clothes to see him through the European winter, and to secure a place on a course in telegraphy (his experiences in the salt mine perhaps having put him off a career in engineering). Hanging over him all the while was the fear that some of the Indian nationals who had been imprisoned alongside him in Germany would smear him as someone who had worked a little too enthusiastically for his captors.  The file includes correspondence with the British Military Mission in Berlin and the Committee of Enquiry into Breaches of the Law of War as the mandarins in Whitehall attempted to confirm that he had been more sinned against than sinning. Joseph’s plight attracted a degree of sympathy and more than once a civil servant refers to him as "the lad" when arguing the merits of his case with his bureaucratic seniors.

IOR/L/F/8/20/1612  Articles of Agreement between Joseph Alexander Faithful and the Secretary of State for India

There is a happy ending to the story.  In 1921, Joseph Faithful signed articles of agreement for a post as a general service clerk in the Indo-European Telegraph Department at a salary of 300 rupees per month; furthermore, that staple of biographical information the ecclesiastical returns series shows that he later married in Karachi in June 1934. As Britain, India and Germany all began to come to terms from their different national perspectives with the aftermath of the War, and as the world reeled from the influenza epidemic that was to kill more people than the fighting itself, it is salutary to be reminded that history and archival sources encompass the fate of the ordinary as well as the great.
 
Hedley Sutton
Asian & African Studies Reference Services


Further reading:
Joseph’s story is taken from these files in the India Office Records -

IOR/L/MIL/7/18795

IOR/L/F/8/20/1612

IOR/N/3/151/183 Marriage to Hildred Joyce Dique

One night in June 1940, ‘Abd al-Razzaq Razuqi, the British Residency Agent in Sharjah put on a disguise and walked to the palace of Shaikh Sultan bin Saqr Al Qasimi, the ruler of Sharjah. After hearing reports that the Shaikh was playing German government radio broadcasts in Arabic so loudly that they could be heard 200 yards away, Razuqi - who is usually referred to as Abdur Razzaq in the India Office Records - wanted to establish for himself if the rumours were true.

After his visit Razuqi wrote to the British Political Agent in Bahrain, Hugh Weightman, explaining that “a large crowd gathers there [the palace] to hear the German news” and that “some people had been talking freely in the town about the mighty power of Germany and the collapse of France which would soon be followed by the complete crush of Britain”. He also reported that the slogans ‘Long live Hitler’ and ‘Right is with Germany’ had been chalked on walls in the town. Razuqi established that the primary source of this anti-British sentiment was the Shaikh’s secretary, Abdullah bin Faris. Razuqi wrote that although the Secretary was full of praise for the British government to his face, “behind the curtain” he had induced ordinary people under his influence to spread rumours about the victories of the Germans.

Although reports of German radio broadcasts in Arabic and the existence of pro-German sentiment in a desert town on the Persian Gulf coast may seem incongruous, given the large-scale propaganda efforts that the German government directed towards the Middle East during World War II, they are not in fact surprising. Between 1939 and 1945, the German government broadcast Arabic language programmes to the Middle East and North Africa seven days a week.

The Arabic broadcasts on German radio presented the Nazi regime as staunch supporters of anti-imperialism, especially against Britain. Unsurprisingly they found a receptive ear amongst individuals under the indirect control of British colonial authorities; and at a time when – after the fall of France in May 1940 – the prospect of Britain losing the war against Germany was real. Razuqi and his superiors were fully aware of the importance of quelling any anti-British/pro-German sentiment and took the matter seriously. Razuqi confronted the Shaikh about his activities, and demanded an explanation.

IOR/R/15/1/281 Shaikh Sultan sends letter to British agent proclaiming his loyalty to Britain July 1940 

Responding in July 1940, Shaikh Sultan sent a letter to Weightman proclaiming his absolute loyalty to Britain and wholly denying the accusations made against his secretary bin Faris. The Shaikh stated that “under all circumstances in this war we are the enemies of Germany and Italy and their followers”.

In October 1940, Razuqi reported to Weightman that after his warnings the Shaikh was now “avoiding all talks and topics about the Germans and Italians and is doing his best to show that he is the most loyal and sincere friend of the British government”.

IOR/R/15/1/281  Razuqi reports that the Shaikh and his secretary now refrain from Pro-Nazi talk 

This incident illustrates not only the surprising geographical and linguistic extent of German propaganda efforts during World War II, but also how dangerous British authorities considered such efforts, even in far-flung parts of its global empire, thousands of miles away from continental Europe, the main field of conflict at that time.

Louis Allday, Gulf History Specialist       Tweet @Louis_Allday
British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership

Qatar Digital Library

Gulf History Project

Today’s blog post commemorates the Battle of Waterloo which was fought on 18 June 1815. But it is not about those famous leaders the Duke of Wellington or Napoleon Bonaparte, or military tactics. It is the story of a horse stolen at Waterloo and the man who took her.

As the battle dust started to settle, Captain John Tucker of the 1st Battalion 27th Regiment of Foot decided to take advantage of the chaos and ‘forcibly took and converted to his own use a certain bay mare, belonging to some British regiment of dragoons, or regiment, or officer, or soldier in the British pay’.

The Battle of Waterloo from The wars of Wellington, a narrative poem (London, 1819)  Images Online 

Contrary to the orders of the High Command forbidding all profiteering, Tucker took the horse and removed the regimental mark from its side.  Man and horse then journeyed to Brussels. The whole affair would probably have gone unnoticed, but Tucker wanted to sell the mare and put an advert in Galignani’s Messenger, an English-language newspaper published in Paris at that time. That was unwise and the authorities took the horse back on 17 September 1815.

After rejoining his regiment in Paris, Tucker faced a court-martial on five charges of ‘scandalous and infamous conduct, unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentleman’. As well as the horse, he was accused of stealing the property of his fellow officer Captain Holmes who had been killed in the battle. Tucker was said to have opened Holmes’ ‘portmanteau, trunk, and canteen, and other baggage’, and to have taken the contents. He was found guilty of stealing the mare and guilty of ‘great impropriety’ concerning Holmes’ belongings. He was sentenced to be dismissed from the service. However Tucker was recommended to mercy and he was placed on half-pay.  His commanding officer Colonel Warren was criticised by the court for ‘living in habits of social intercourse with the prisoner’ and neglecting to press charges sooner. The court also suspected that the charges against Tucker had been brought because he had disagreed with his fellow officers over ‘irregular proceedings’ involving Lieutenant Alexander Fraser who was allowed to resign rather than face a court-martial. Fraser was later re-admitted to the regiment. The entire officer corps of the 27th Regiment of Foot received a reprimand from the court. 

Tucker’s half-pay punishment does not appear to have been implemented and he transferred to the 8th Regiment of Foot.  He left the Army in 1822 after a second court-martial found him guilty of threatening behaviour and being absent without leave.  In 1846 he published a life of the Duke of Wellington and he died in 1852.


Dorota Walker
Reference Specialist, Asian and African Studies     


Further reading:
Captain Hough, The practice of courts-martial (London, 1825)