RECORDS of CLAN CAMPBELL IN THE MILITARY SERVICE OF THE HONOURABLE EAST INDIA COMPANY 1600 - 1858 COMPILED BY MAJOR SIR DUNCAN CAMPBELL OF BARCALDINE, BT. C. V.o., F.S.A. SCOT., F.R.G.S. WITH A FOREWORD AND INDEX BY LT.-COL. SIR RICHARD C. TEMPLE, BT. ~ C.B., C.I.E., F.S.A., V.P.R,A.S. LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, E.C. 4 NEW YORK, TORONTO> BOMBAY, CALCUTTA AND MADRAS r925 Made in Great Britain. All rights reserved. 'Dedicated by Permission TO HER- ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCESS LOUISE DUCHESS OF ARGYLL G.B.E., C.I., R.R.C. COLONEL IN CHIEF THE PRINCESS LOUISE'S ARGYLL & SUTHERLAND HIGHLANDERS THE CAMPBELLS ARE COMING The Campbells are cowing, o-ho, o-ho ! The Campbells are coming, o-ho ! The Campbells are coming to bonnie Loch­ leven ! The Campbells are coming, o-ho, o-ho ! Upon the Lomonds I lay, I lay ; Upon the Lomonds I lay; I lookit down to bonnie Lochleven, And saw three perches play. Great Argyle he goes before ; He makes the cannons and guns to roar ; With sound o' trumpet, pipe and drum ; The Campbells are coming, o-ho, o-ho ! The Camp bells they are a' in arms, Their loyal faith and truth to show, With banners rattling in the wind; The Campbells are coming, o-ho, o-ho ! PREFACE IN the accompanying volume I have aimed at com­ piling, as far as possible, complete records of Campbell Officers serving under the H.E.I.C. With this object, besides Army Lists, General Orders, contemporary newspapers and journals, I have consulted original documents and have extracted unpublished items of interest. As the work has been in hand for many years, and as the plan has been modified from time to time, some want of uniforru.ity in the scheme will be observed. I have endeavoured, however, to tell the story of the military career of each officer and to give his parentage, issue, and dates of birth and death whenever available. Where discrepancies occur be­ tween MS. and printed accounts, the reading of the original document has been followed. In recording certain incidents (happily very fe,v), reflecting on the conduct of those concerned, I have had no intention of wounding the susceptibilities of their descendants, who will, I am convinced, admit that a strict adherence to official documents is necessary and that approbation and censure should be impartially recorded ; otherwise the accounts would be valueless. As regards the spelling of personal and place-names in India, no consistency has been possible, since the documents of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries follow a different system of transliteration from that now in use. In consequence names have been reproduced exactly as given in the MS. or other records, b ... Vlll PREFACE but in the cases where an account is given in my own words the spelling of the'' Imperial Gazetteer'' has been followed. · In the list of Can1pbel1 Officers of the H.E.I.C. will be found one who should not strictly be ranked as such. This non-commissioned officer has been included for his special services (see No. 41). The dates covered by the biographies coincide roughly with the life of the H.E.I.C. from 1704, when the :first Campbell Officer in India is discoverable (as sergeant, see No. 1), up to November 1858, when the armies of India were taken over by the Crown, though naturally the services of those who were appointed in 1858 extend beyond the limits of the control of the Company. In the compilation of these records during the last fifteen years, I desire to express my thanks for advice and assistance to Sir William Foster, C.I.E., late Registrar, now Historiographer, India Office, and to the officials in charge of the Military Records in that building for their ever-ready help ; to Mr. A. D. L. Cary, O.B.E., late Parliamentary Librarian and Archivist, War Office Library, and latterly Librarian, Royal United Service Institution, and Major H. G. Parkyn, O.B.E., 5th Rifle Brigade, the present Librarian of that Institution ; also to the following : the late Mr. R. Powell, of the Public Record Office, London ; Mr. R. Dane, formerly Sergeant-Major ·R.E., latterly Library Clerk R.U.S.I.; Mr. W. E. Govier, formerly Rifle Brigade, latterly principal attendant, the Library, War Office; Mr. George Sheppard, formerly Q.M.S., R.E., now Library Clerk, R.U.S.I.; Mr. Henry M. Paton, Record-searcher, Edinburgh. But my especial thanks are due to Miss L. M. Anstey, Searcher of Records at the India Office, and her colleague, Miss Alice J. Mayes, for the care, interest, patience, skill and time which they have devoted to the work, and without • PREFACE 1X whose help it is safe to say this book could not have seen the light of day, and these well-nigh forgotten Campbells, many of whom have long since passed beyond the Veil, would not have been unearthed and resuscitated. Further, I desire to express my thanks to the Press for careful printing and reading. I am also greatly indebted to my brother officer Francis J. Grant, Esq., W.S., Rothesay Herald and Lyon Clerk, for much information, as well as to many descendants of the officers concerned for furnishing me with private letters and first-hand information, which has been acknowledged in each case in the text. Finally, my warmest thanks are due to my kinsman, that distinguished Indian soldier, General Sir Frederick Campbell, K.C.B., D.S.O., Colonel 40th Pathans (now 5th Battn. 14th Punjab Regiment), and his brother, Major Campbell of Fairfield, for their favourable opinion of, and kind interest in the work, and for their offer of financial assistance towards its production-an encouragement which finally determined me to under­ take its publication. In conclusion, I venture to hope that, in spite of all its deficiencies, the volume may fill a gap in the history of the Clan and may be of some use to students of Indian Military History. DUNCAN CAMPBELL OF BARCALDINE INTRODUCTION THE object of this book is, as the preface says, to compile as complete a record as possible of the members of the Clan Campbell who served as military officers under the Honourable East India Company, and Sir Duncan Campbell's enquiries show that their services covered the whole existence of that Company from 1708, the year of its incorporation, to 1858, the year of its dissolution. The book, therefore, relates to a com­ plete period of Indian history-a rare occurrence. My friend, Sir Duncan Campbell, has done me the honour to ask me to write an account of the Company's military history in order to explain the nature of the services that the Clan was called upon to perform in India, and as their services were conterminous with the life of the Company itself, it is necessary to give briefly the story of its rise and of the subsequent political conditions of India up to the Mutiny. In 1556 the great Emperor Akbar assumed, at thirteen years of age, the rule of the kingdom in Northern India left him by his father Humayun in a parlous con­ dition, and he spent the whole of a long reign till 1605 in consolidating the Mogul Empire he had created. But even before the arrival of the Moguls in 1526 under Akbar's grandfather, Babur, the Portuguese under Vasco da Gama had arrived in India in 1498, and his successor the great Afonso D'Albuquerque had by 1510 created a province with a magnificent city, Goa, as its capital. At this place the Portuguese set up an .. Xll INTRODUCTION important maritime State, which had the monopoly of European trade till 1595, when, greatly owing to the proselytising policy of Philip II, as King of Spain and Portugal, the Portuguese rule fell, and never again became of any serious consequence thereafter. By the end of Akbar's reign, first the Dutch and then soon afterwards the English arrived to join in the Indian trade with Europe, and came into conflict with the Portuguese and each other. It cannot be said, however, that at this time they had any influence of consequence in India. But on December 31, 1600, Queen Elizabeth gave her Charter to the " Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading to the East Indies," and thus was founded the first of those great Companies that eventually became the ruling power in India, known to the Indians as Kampani Bahadur. The three great successors of Akbar-the Great Moguls Jahangir, Shahjahan, Aurangzeb-were the chief rulers in India during the whole of the seventeenth century, the last dying in 1707, the year before the amalgamation of the English Companies under the style of'' The United Company of Merchants of England trading to the East Indies," commonly known as the Honourable East India Company (H.E.I.C.) The full title of the original corporation, generally known as the Old Company, was, as above said, the " Governor and Company of Merchants of London_ trading to the East Indies,'' and with some difficulty it maintained its monopoly of trade for nearly a hundred years, until the New Company, properly" The English Company or General Society trading with the East Indies," obtained incorporation from William III in 1698. These two bodies, the Old and the New, carried on an unprofitable business in rivalry for ten years, when, as previously stated, they amalgamated in 1708.