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| Brig. Gen. John Nicholson FIBIwiki |
Brigadier-General John Nicholson CB (11 December 1821 – 23 September 1857), a Victorian era military officer under Henry Lawrence created a name for himself in the frontier provinces of the British Empire in India. Being a man with good political acumen, an army commander and excellent swordsman no less role was played by him in the settlement of the North-West Frontier (now in Pakistan) area and played a prominent role in the Indian Mutiny of 1957 that engulfed across many parts of north India that shook the basic foundation of British expansionism. He became the Victorian "Hero of Delhi" and his exploits during the Mutiny became subjects of many literary works and ballads, inspiring generations of young boys to join the army.
Native of Northern Ireland and privately educated in Delgany and later attended the Royal School Dungannon, with the help of his maternal uncle, Sir James Weir Hogg, a successful East India Company lawyer and for some time Registrar of the Calcutta Supreme Court, and later a Member of Parliament, Nicholson joined the British company's army in Bengal (the 41st Native Infantry at Benares) in 1839. As part of his job, he gained considerable language skill in Urdu (1845). He saw action in Afghan war 1840 and also Angelo-Sikh war in Punjab. He came under the influence of Henry Lawrence who was strict military officer and was held in great esteem by the Afghan tribes.
During the siege of Delhi in the Sepoy Mutiny, with fine strategy and tactics, he stormed into the city and surprised the rebels. Once he walked into the British Mess (in a tent) in Jullander city and coughed to get the attention of the fellow officers, etc. He told them about the reason of his late arrival, "I am sorry, gentlemen, to have kept you waiting for your dinner, but I have been hanging your cooks." He had been told that the regimental chefs had poisoned the soup with aconite. When they refused to taste it for him, he forced them to feed it to amonkey. Upon consuming it the monkey died on the spot. Having no other way, he went ahead to hang the cooks from a nearby tree without a trial".
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| Col. Nicholson cemetery, 1880. Delhi kunzum.com |
Nicholson had close rapport with his fellow Punjab administrators Sir Henry Lawrence and Herbert Edwards and the later was almost his own brother like and he won't mind riding hours together to spend time with him.
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| Col. Nicholson cemetery.1880 Delhi www.thequint.com/ |
When he died, he was just 35. Brigadier-General John Nicholson's tombstone, in Delhi's Kashmiri gate (no. 4) which was once a Mogul garden. His great services and untimely death while on war duty are commemorated on a white marble memorial plaque at the 1857 Memorial on the Ridge in New Delhi. Prior to independence, there a big state of Nicholson showing him with a naked sword in hand and surrounded by mortars, but was removed to his old school where one of the houses (yellow) is named after him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Nicholson_(East_India_Company_officer)
