British Reaction to the Sepoy Mutiny, 1857-1858 Approved
BRITISH REACTION TO THE SEPOY MUTINY, 1857-1858 APPROVED: Major /Professor mor Frotessar of History Dean' ot the GraduatGradua' e ScHooT* BRITISH REACTION TO THE SEPOY MUTINY, 1857-185S THESIS Presented to the Graduate Council of the North Texas State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS By Samuel Shafeeq Denton, Texas August, 1970 PREFACE English and Indian historians have devoted considerable research and analysis to the genesis of the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 but have ignored contemporary British reaction to it, a neglect which this study attempts to satisfy. After the initial, spontaneous, condemnation of Sepoy atrocities, Queen Victoria, her Parliament, and subjects took a more rational and constructive attitude toward the insurrection in India, which stemmed primarily from British interference in Indian religious and social customs, symbolized by the cartridge issue. Englishmen demanded reform, and Parliament-- at once anxious to please the electorate and to preserve the valuable colony of India--complied within a year, although the Commons defeated the first two Indian bills, because of the interposition of other foreign and domestic problems. But John Bright, Lord Edward Stanley, William Gladstone, Benjamin Disraeli, and their friends joined forces to pass the third Indian bill, which became law on August 2, 1858. For this study, the most useful primary sources are Parliamentary Debates. Journals of the House of Commons and Lords, British and Foreign State' Papers, English Historical Queen Victoria's Letters , and the Annual' Re'g'i'st'er. Of the few secondary works which focus on British reac- tion to the Sepoy Mutiny, Anthony Wood's Nineteenth Centirr/ Britain, 1815-1914 gives a good account of British politics after the Mutiny.
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