Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria, to include the Brian Ritchie Collection (Part I)

The Indian Mutiny medal to General Thomas Carey, Bengal Native Infantry, attached Quarter Master General’s Department, sole survivor of the ambush and murder of Captain Fletcher Hayes, Lieutenant Barbor and Mr Fayrer

Indian Mutiny 1857-59, 2 clasps, Relief of Lucknow, Lucknow (Major T. A. Carey, Qr. Mr. Genl. Dept.) toned, about very fine
£1500-2000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Brian Ritchie Collection of H.E.I.C. and British India Medals.

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Thomas Carey, the son of Thomas Carey of Rozel, was born in Guernsey on 16 February 1827. He was educated at Elizabeth College, Guernsey, and was commissioned Ensign in the 17th Bengal Native Infantry on 10 November 1843. He became Captain in September 1856, and in late May 1857 was at Cawnpore waiting to proceed to northern India. At Cawnpore he met his old friend Captain Fletcher Hayes (qv), the Military Secretary to Sir Henry Lawrence who had come down from Lucknow with a small force of some 300 men to make a situation report. On 27 May Hayes left Cawnpore to investigate the state of communications to the north, taking with him 240 troopers of the 2nd Oudh Irregular Cavalry. He was accompanied by Lieutenant Barbor, Mr Fayrer, a volunteer, and Carey, who, continuing his journey north, accepted Hayes’s invitation to join him. On the 31st, about one hundred miles from Cawnpore, Hayes learnt that a local Rajah had thrown aside British rule and left the body of Irregular Cavalry under Barbor and Fayrer and went off with Carey to consult with the civil authorities eight miles away at Mynpoorie concerning an attack against the rebel Rajah. See Lot 79 for Carey’s own account of the subsequent events, which was penned at Mynpoorie on Tuesday the 2nd of June 1857. Having witnessed the murder of Fletcher Hayes and made good his own escape, Carey continues:

‘Thus up to the sixth mile from home did I continue to fly, when, finding my mare completely done, and meeting one of our sowars, I immediately stopped him, jumped up behind, and ordered him to hasten back to Mynpoorie. After going about a mile on this beast we came up to poor Hayes’s horse, which had been caught; so on him I sprang, and he bore me safely back to the cantonments. It was indeed a ride for life or death; and only when I alighted at the magistrate’s Cutcherry, in which all the Europeans were assembled, did I feel at all comfortable. Men were immediately sent out to look for the body [Hayes] and bring it in, and ascertain the fate of Barbor, the adjutant, and young Fayrer, who were known to have left their last encamping ground with the men. In the afternoon poor Hayes’s body was brought in, his head most frightfully hacked about, his right hand cut off, and his left fearfully lacerated - his watch, rings, boots all gone, and his clothes all cut and torn to pieces. Poor fellow! It was a sad fate for such a good and clever man, and deeply do I feel the loss of one who was ever a kind friend to me, anxious to serve me by every means in his power; gladly would I have assisted him had I had it in my power; but what could I do against 200 infuriated fanatics? Poor Hayes was not eight yards from me when he fell, and one instant’s delay would have been certain death to me. One old Sikh sirdar with two followers, who stood aloof from these acts of murder, and one of Hayes’s servants, brought in his body, and from them I learned that poor young Fayrer’s and Barbor’s remains were also being brought in. A dastardly villain of a sowar, stole behind young Fayrer, as he was drinking at a well, and with one blow of his tulwar on his neck killed him; he fell back, his head half severed from his body. The old Sikh rushed forward to raise him, and ordered them to seize the murderer, when another man said, “What are you with these kaffirs; take care of yourself.” On raising up poor young Fayrer’s head the poor man breathed his last.’

‘Barbor fled up the road, several giving chase; he shot one horse and two of the sowars, when he was hit with a ball and then cut down, his property taken off, his horse seized, and then they all rode off towards Delhi. Fayrer was killed about ten minutes before we came up; then they killed poor Hayes, then Barbor. Thus you see, through the mercy of God, I escaped these poor fellows fate. I am now with eight others in the Cutcherry of Mynpoorie; we have lots of ammunition. It is a large pukka building, and from the top we can make a good fight if no guns are brought against us. We have 100 infantry and cavalry all round, and now have about 100 each or more, besides a few men of the 9th Native Infantry who remained true to their salt, and did not desert with the rest. The Gwalior Horse, Major Raikes seems very confident in; but since the last émeute in our men I do not place trust in a single native. Deeply do I feel for my unfortunate companions who left Cawnpore with me, full of hope, and anxious to be the first to cut our way through this Etah rajah’s country, and open the road for government to Allygurh, which has now been closed some days. We were all anxious to distinguish ourselves, and every day we tried to inspire our men, who swore they would follow us; and thus with a deceitful lying, outward show of entering heartily into our views, did they lead us on, and then became the murderers of those poor men who had never injured them, and promised them all sorts of rewards if they would fight well and stick to our side like men. Thus is our dream dispelled. I, the only one left of those four it is sickening to contemplate.’


Carey finally found refuge in the fort at Agra. He later served in the Quarter Master General’s Department and took part in the second relief of Lucknow under Sir Colin Campbell, and in the capture of Lucknow city. In 1866, he was appointed Commandant of the 36th Bengal Native Infantry before transferring as Commandant to the 8th Bengal N.I. in 1871. In February 1878, he was promoted Lieutenant-General, and the following November he was advanced to the rank of full General and retired. General Carey died at 6 Wetherby Place, South Kensington, on 23 May 1892.

Refs: Elizabeth College Register; Modern English Biography (Boase); History of the Indian Mutiny (Ball); The History of the Indian Mutiny (Forrest).