To flog or not!

It never ceases to amaze me what Parliament discusses. I came across volume 156 of  Hansard for the year 1860, and read the discussion about flogging in the Army and Navy.


Mr W. Williams started the debate stating that he can’t understand why flogging was allowed as it would prevent respectable men from joining the Army or Navy.

The argument for flogging was that it had to be maintained as otherwise there would be “total subversion of discipline.”

He goes on to state that for trivial offences the soldiers and sailors would receive worse treatment than convicted criminals and felons!

Apparently the maximum of lashes for the army was one thousand, but this number was reduced to three hundred after a soldier died from flogging, and reduced again by the Duke of Wellington to fifty lashes.

The descriptions of flogging a soldier would appear in newspapers. One such incident concerned a young soldier named Davis, “his back was covered with a mass of large, red, inflamed boils, which bled profusely at every stroke, and reddened the ground under his feet, upon which the cat was ordered to be withheld for a few moments.” Even after pleading for mercy and escaping the confines the punishment still continued.

An interesting note is that the cat used in the Navy was heavier than the Army and was wielded in a different fashion which meant that 50 lashes in the Navy was equivalent to 150 in the Army.

In seconding the motion Mr Bristow when asking a French officer if there is any flogging in the French Army, received the reply “Neither the French men nor the French soldiers are brutes.”

However, later on the debate it is mentioned how the French treated crimes in the Army. “Do not talk about our treating men as brutes, when the French shot where we flogged. In Berlin solders were punished by being placed in a room six feet by four, with a series of re-entering angles, so that it was impossible for him to stand.”

It is a fascinating but horrific debate and an insight into what Parliament discussed in the Victorian era.

War Horse, Army Donkey, Military Mule

I was pleased to be alerted to this blog entry which features a National Library of Scotland photograph.

The photograph, taken during World War I, shows a man with his arm around a mule . On the back he has written about his animal companion: "She is very stupid but I am very fond of her."

Michael Morpurgo's 2007 moving book War Horse is due out as a Steven Spielberg film this month. It tells the story of farm horse Joey's journey through the battlefields of the First World War.

Morpurgo was inspired to write the book after reading that millions of horses perished on the Western Front. Used in the thick of battle in cavalry charges and for pulling artillery, horses, mules and donkeys were seen as more reliable than
mechanised means.

Horses were very important in British India for the same reasons. The National Library's Medical History of British India website contains many digitised reports dedicated to the procurement of suitable breeding horses for serving the army. Horses imported from England often sickened and died en route. Those which survived were found to be unable to stand hard work in a tropical climate. In 1892 it was recorded that Indian-bred horses were hardier, with greater powers of endurance. Arab and Persian breeds had the same sought-after traits.

Horses, donkeys and mules who served in India, like their human counterparts perished from a variety of ailments and afflictions as this page shows.

Perhaps Michael Morpurgo would consider writing a book about one of these animals?

(Photograph is from the National Library of Scotland's Digital Gallery, First World War Official Photographs collection, image number 74549584)

Serving by the Code

One of my absolute favourite items that I have worked with in the Medical History of British India project is Code of medical and sanitary regulations for the guidance of medical officers serving in the Madras Presidency. This two volume work, published in 1870, gives copious detail about the career and duties of medical officers. There are details of pay and leave, travelling on duty, sanitary regulations, medical stores, hospital supplies, transport of troops and dress regulations. Click on the image to view a soldier's medical history form.
If your ancestor was a medical officer in Madras around this time then these books give a full picture of their working conditions. To those interested in colonial medicine the appendices give examples of forms used by the Government to collect information and aid administration.

Military menus

Today, while tidying some shelves, I found the Indian Manual of Military Cooking. This is dated 1906 and was prepared at the Indian Army School of Cookery.
I was surprised to find that some of the culinary choices were attractive, a far cry from the jail dietaries and hospital menus I have seen in other India Papers volumes. For example, there are recipes for Irish Stew, Hot Pot, Sea Pie, Toad-in-the-Hole, Rissoles, Roast Goose with Stuffing and Omelette with Fine Herbs.
There is a wide range of soups - tomato, pea, barley, lentil, vegetable and rice. Mrs. Lockhart's recipe for chutney consists of apples or apricots, raisins, onions, ginger, sugar, red chillies, garlic, salt; it may have proved a tasty accompaniment to the Turkish Pillau. The Army enjoyed plenty of desserts, including Plum Pudding, Apple Pies, Treacle Pudding, Current Rolls, Muffins, Pancakes, Jam Rolls and Arrowroot Blanc Mange.
Perhaps the aggressive TV chefs that we see lately should follow the instructions given to the Sergeant Cook on the first page: "Patience and tact are required, especially with young soldiers, in training them in their duties as cooks."

Tracing ancestors who served in India

Did you have an ancestor who served in India? Was he a surgeon or a major? Do you know which regiment your ancestor was in? If you have a starting point such as the date and occupation then by using the East India Register (shelfmark GIF.16, from 1802-1947) you can find out many details such as uniform colours, date of rank, retirement and descriptions of occupations. Some volumes contain records of births, marriages and deaths. It is possible to track someone's career through these records and build up a vivid picture of their life and work in India.
Find out about more resources by clicking on the India Papers Family History page.

In the army now

The first part of the Army Health collection is now available on microfilm, at Mf.IP.23-Mf.IP.32. You can read reports from areas of India such as Bengal, Bombay and Madras detailing the living conditions of the soldiers stationed there.
Adjusting to life in India was hard for the British soldier and often men did not achieve two years' service. The hot and humid climate, coupled with the heavy uniforms, gave rise to many cases of heatstroke, "The men become inert, spiritless and weak, lose flesh and appetite. No medicine is of any good." (Bengal, 1874)
The soldiers were vulnerable to diseases like cholera, rabies, malaria, plague, dysentery and typhus; these were seemingly more virulent due to the heat. To ward off the depression from cool nights following hot days "men received a draught of quinine, cinchona and arsenic and the spirit-drinkers had each a small ration of rum." (Bengal, 1876)
If the men (and their families) survived disease, they could be bitten by snakes or suffer from shoebite -"The contusions were nearly all caused by bad fitting boots when on the march." (Bombay, 1872).
Exercise and diet are recorded in much detail so as to monitor the general health of the men, "Athletic exercise, wrestling, single-stick, clubs, running, leaping &tc are much practised. A few men do a little gardening." (Bengal, 1876) The native soldiers seemed, one officer notes, to take fondly to English games such as cricket and football.
You can also browse through tables of mortality rates and hospital admissions, look at sick rates and invaliding statistics for different regiments and even discover how much rain fell. Click on the image to view a statistics page listing deaths of Madras officers. These reports give us a colourful picture, not only showing us what life was like for the troops but also how the Government was trying to sustain military authority through medicine and sanitation.

Medical History of British India Project

Have you heard of a bowel gang? Or why a woman was living in a rum-barrel in 1878? Do you wonder how vaccines are made? What was it like to be in the army in India in the last quarter of the 19th century? What did medical students study in Nagpur and how many passed their exams?

The answers to all these questions are contained in the Medical History of British India collection of the India Papers. The project involves microfilming the books and then digitising the film to produce images which can be viewed online. Each page of the 126 volumes will be available free of charge. The project is funded by the Wellcome Trust and forms Phase 2 of the web feature Disease prevention and Public Health Medical History of British India.
The items are rare, dating from ca1850 to ca1950 and are of interest to medical historians and genealogists as well as to the casual reader. The content is legible and makes for fascinating reading, not only from a medical perspective, but also from a social and geographical one. There are many tables of detailed information, plus drawings, photographs and maps. Although most volumes are in a report format, they offer an absorbing glimpse into a world long gone, and yet many of the issues resonate today. Click on the images to see a cholera map of India and patients suffering from kala azar.

As project manager and metadata creator I shall be sharing some of my finds each week in this blog. From hemp to hospitals, from monkeys to malaria, from research to rabies and from cholera to quinine, there is much to explore in this compelling collection.