Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The rare Gold Albert Medal group of five awarded to Mr A. T. Shuttleworth, Deputy Conservator of Forests (Bombay District), late Indian Navy

Albert Medal, 1st Class, for Gallantry in Saving Life at Sea, gold and enamel, the reverse officially numbered ‘No. 14’ and inscribed (Presented in the name of Her Majesty to A. T. Shuttleworth. Wrecks of the “Berwickshire” “Die Vernon” and “Terzah” 1866 and 1867) the reverse of the crown with maker’s cartouche ‘Phillips Cockspur S’, fitted with silver-gilt riband buckle; India General Service 1854-94, 1 clasp, Persia (A. T. Shuttleworth, Captns. Clk. Ferooz S.F.) fitted with silver riband buckle; Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners Royal Benevolent Society, gold (Allen Shuttleworth, Esqr. 1867) fitted with silver-gilt riband buckle; Lloyd’s Medal for Saving Life at Sea, 1st large type glazed silver medallion, 73mm (Allen Thornton Shuttleworth Esq. late Indian Navy. 25th September 1867) lacking reverse lunette; Royal Humane Society, large bronze medal (Successful), (Mr A. T. Shuttleworth, 1 August 1866) fitted with bronze riband buckle, generally good very fine (5) £12,000-£16,000

Brian Ritchie Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, March 2005.

Allen Thornton Shuttleworth, the son of Digby Edward Shuttleworth, Indigo Planter, was born in the Meerpore district of Pubna on 21 October 1839. He was educated under Mr J. Whitely at Woolwich Common and was nominated for the post of Captain’s Clerk in the Indian Navy by Captain John Shepherd on the recommendation of his uncle. Shuttleworth was admitted into the Indian Navy on 12 December 1855, and having taken the oath ‘to be true and faithful to the said Company, and faithfully and truly execute and discharge the trust reposed in me, to the utmost of my skill and power. So Help me God’, he left Gravesend on the Cairngorm on the 24th. In a letter dated ‘31 December off the Isle of Wight’, the captain of the Cairngorm reported that they had commenced their voyage to Bombay. Shuttleworth landed after a four month voyage on 21 April 1856, and was appointed Captain’s Clerk on the 8-gun H.E.I. Company’s Steam Frigate Ferooz. He was then one of twenty-four Captain’s Clerks in the Service and was paid Rs. 50 per month, which if he attained the rank of Captain in 30 to 35 years time could be expected to rise to rise to Rs. 600-800 per month.

During the build up to war with Persia in 1856, Commander Rennie of the Ferooz was ordered to sail to Bushire with despatches for the Political Resident. The Ferooz left on 19 September 1856, but on reaching the Persian coast, Commander Rennie was advised to abandon his mission on account of ‘the excited state of the population’. Despite the warning, Rennie resolved to deliver his despatches on shore. C. R. Low, the author of the History of the Indian Navy, who was then a shipmate and contemporary of Shuttleworth’s, later recalled, ‘We remember, being then a Midshipman on board the Ferooz, how this judicious, as well as gallant, officer [Commander Rennie], who had ‘an eye to business’ whenever any fighting was on the tapis, took advantage of this last opportunity of reconnoitring Bushire, to take careful soundings both in going ashore and returning, to be of use in eventualities.’ Having returned to Bombay the Ferooz sailed again for Bushire in late November, this time towing two transports containing men of Major-General Stalker’s division. In the absence of any response to the British ultimatum demanding the Persian withdrawal from Herat, war was declared. The Union flag was hoisted at Kharrack for the first time in sixteen years and a Royal salute fired from the guns of the Ferooz. Offensive operations began in November with the capture of Bushire. Troops were landed at Hallilah Bay under covering fire from eight gun boats, and proceeded to storm fort of Reshire. That night Commander Rennie sent a boat with muffled oars to buoy a fourteen-foot channel off the batteries which next day enabled the Ferooz to take up a position 300 yards closer in shore than the other vessels. In the ensuing action the Ferooz was engaged in a duel with the Persian shore batteries until they were silenced and a breach effected in Bushire’s walls, whereupon the enemy flagstaff was hauled down and the garrison surrendered. The Ferooz then returned to Bombay while Lieutenant-General Sir James Outram led the expeditionary force in land and defeated the Persians at the battle of Khoosh-Ab.

Again returning to the Persian Gulf, the Ferooz was next involved in silencing the heavily fortified position at Mohammerah, on the junction of the Karoon and Shatt-ul-Arab, where a Persian Army, thirteen thousand strong, had assembled under the Shahzada. Batteries had been erected of solid earth, twenty feet thick, eighteen feet high, armed with heavy ordnance placed to sweep the entire river at the junction of the Karoon with the Shatt-ul-Arab. An attempt to place a mortar battery on an island failed when the island turned out to be a swamp, but the ingenious Commander Rennie, in defiance of the engineers who said the first shot would smash it, constructed a raft of casks and studding-sail booms, which, armed with two 8-inch and two 5-inch mortars manned by the Bombay Artillery, was towed into position opposite the forts. The ships of war were given the first task of silencing the batteries, which they accomplished at point blank range under heavy fire, then landed parties of seamen to storm the southern and northern forts. To quote General Havelock ‘the gentlemen in blue had it all to themselves, and left us naught to do’. The British loss was only ten killed and thirty wounded, owing largely to Rennie’s ‘happy thought’ of placing trusses in the sides of the Ferooz, from which vast numbers of bullets were shaken out. The bold step of closing at point blank range also took them under the elevation of the Persian guns.

Shuttleworth was not actively engaged in the Mutiny, but served in supporting naval operations in the 1800-ton H.E.I.C. Steam Frigate Assaye as Assistant Paymaster. Promoted Paymaster and transferred to the 300-ton Steam-gun boat Clyde in which he served the last three years of his career in the Indian Navy, Shuttleworth next took part in operations against the piratical Waghurs, who, having seized the island fort of Beyt and the fort of Dwarka, were levying large imposts from the pilgrims who came to worship at the great temple dedicated to Krishna. An expedition was mounted including H.M’s 28th Foot, 6th N.I. and a Marine Battalion, accompanied by the Ferooz, Zenobia, Berenice, Victoria, Clyde, Constance and the Lady Falkland.

On 5 and 6 October, the fort at Beyt, with earthwork walls 18-40 feet thick and 30-40 feet high, and lofty, massive towers with guns, was under continual bombardment from the naval ships. Troops were landed in an attempt to storm the fort, with boats’ crews and field pieces in support, but failed in the face of heavy fire from the defenders. The Waghurs, however, evacuated the fort soon after dark and it was occupied the next day. To launch the attack on Dwarka, the force then moved to Roopon Bunder, two miles up the coast to the only place where the surf permitted a landing. The beach, however, was covered by the guns of an imposing fort. On the 19th, the Clyde, towing a naval landing party in cutters from the Ferooz, Zenobia and Berenice, opened a bombardment, and successfully put the sailors ashore. Much to the surprise of the Colonel commanding the field force, who said he ‘would not have attempted a landing with less than a thousand men’, they took the fort by storm. On the 26th a Naval Brigade, supported by guns, was landed to storm the fort at Dwarka. The Waghurs attacked them during the night but were beaten off with great loss. The following morning the Waghurs abandoned the fort and cut their way out through piquets of the 28th Foot.

Officers and men engaged in the Waghur operations received war batta, and a commendation from the Governor General in Council and the Secretary of State for India: ‘I am desired to request you will be pleased to express to the officers and men who served in the Okhamundel Expedition, the high sense which his Lordship in Council entertains of the gallantry and zeal exhibited by all, and especially by the Naval Brigade, in the operations against Beyt and Dwarka.’

In the reorganisation of Indian affairs after the Mutiny, the Indian Navy amid much acrimony was abolished in August 1863, and responsibility for the defence of India against attack by sea passed to the Royal Navy. Shuttleworth was awarded a service pension and was accordingly ‘axed’. Three months later however he secured an appointment in the Indian Forestry Service in the Bombay Residency as Assistant Conservator of Forests, Belgaum and Dharwar. He soon proved successful in his new career and was promoted to Deputy Conservator for Kolaba and Suvarndurg in May 1865 and was transferred to Bombay. It was during this period in the mid to late 1860’s that Shuttleworth carried out an incredible number of life-saving achievements, possibly unique in the history of life-saving.

The coast off Alibagh, across the harbour from the main Bombay island, was clearly most treacherous to shipping coming into Bombay port. Drawing on his Indian Navy experience, Shuttleworth built two lifeboats and trained foresters and local kollee fishermen to man them. With the help of his crew and, on several occasions with the assistance of the local District Magistrate, Mr Elphinston, Shuttleworth risked life and limb in saving hundreds of lives from at least eight different wrecks and by warning other vessels in danger of running aground. His most daring and notable rescues were perhaps those of officers and men from the Berwickshire, the Die Vernon and Terzat, in respect of which he was awarded the Board of Trade’s highest award, the Albert Medal of the First Class (London Gazette 21 December 1867).

On 22 July 1866 he went in ‘a fisherman’s canoe’ to the assistance of the Berwickshire which had struck the Chawool Kadoo Reef, and ‘after two days exertions succeedied in landing six men in one of the ship’s boats. Mr Shuttleworth again proceeded to the ship with the fishermen in another boat in so dangerous a sea that some of the Berwickshire’s seamen who had landed and the coolies of Colaba to whom a large reward was offered declined to take a message to her. After rowing for three hours the boat having twice filled to the thwarts he reached the vessel and informed the captain of her true position and remained on board to give assistance.’ ‘On the 1st August the Die Vernon ran on the Chawool Kadoo Reef near Alibagh. Mr. Shuttleworth put off in a boat with ten native fishermen and by his coolness was the means of averting greater loss of life than that which unhappily took place. The boat was dashed against the vessel’s side and capsized throwing all her crew into the water and while endeavouring to save some of these Mr Shuttleworth was washed overboard. He however regained the vessel and was for two hours lashed to the mizzen rigging. He refused to forsake the captain and carpenter who were helpless and eventually succeeded in saving the captain. The carpenter was washed away and drowned.’

On 18 July 1867, he was called out again, this time to the wreck of the Terzat sailing from Newcastle, New South Wales, to Bombay, which was driven on to Kennery Island during a heavy gale. ‘Mr Shuttleworth put off in a life boat manned by fishermen and succeeded in bringing off the captain and thirteen men out of a crew of thirty one. Eight others came on shore on pieces of the wreck. This service was rendered by Mr Shuttleworth and his crew at great peril of their lives. The sea was breaking very heavily all round the ship and washing over her.’ In recognition of his rescue of the captains and crewmen from the Die Vernon and Terzat, Shuttleworth was also awarded, on 25 September 1867, Lloyd’s Medal for Saving Life at Sea in Silver, and his fishermen were granted a reward of £25. Additionally he also gained the Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners Royal Benevolent Society’s Gold Medal.

The Bombay Gazette commented that Shuttleworth’s conduct on these occasions was ‘an example of spirit which should and which does animate Europeans in India, and especially servants of the Government, not only in moments of great public emergency but at all times. It is the spirit which is ready to sacrifice self - in extreme cases like this, life - and which by force of character can raise the natives of this land towards the same level of fortitude and daring ... But in this case we are commenting on the higher motive - that of saving life - raises the action to one of the highest categories of nobleness. It is an example of the genuine old virtues, displayed in obedience to the sense of duty which is the salt in the lives of men and in the existence of empires.’

Shuttleworth moved progressively upwards through the Forestry Department and by early 1884 when he went on leave to officiate as a juror at the International Exhibition of Forestry at Edinburgh, he was classified 1st Grade (new scale). He returned to India from privilege leave in 1890 to become 1st Grade Conservator of Forests, Northern Circle, on 1 April 1892 before moving to the Central Circle with his headquarters at Poona. In 1895, he was appointed Additional Member of the Council of His Excellency the Governor General for making Laws and Regulations, and was deputed on Special Famine Duty under the orders of the Revenue Department from November 1896 to June 1897. During the famine he rendered conspicuous service in the direction and superintending of operations for the supply of fodder and grass, and for the saving of cattle in Western India. ‘The results achieved’ recorded the Advocate of India, ‘were of the highest importance, both as regards the decrease in mortality of cattle during the famine, and the lessons learned in what was practically a new field which must be invaluable in all future famines ... he brought a new art to grapple with famines.’ Shuttleworth retired in April 1899 after nearly 40 years distinguished service, a fact which was echoed by the Deccan Herald which declared that in his time he had ‘rendered the Government of this country and a large proportion of its inhabitants, services which for variety and extent of usefulness have perhaps seldom been surpassed.’

Shuttleworth settled at Stonar House, Sandwich, Kent, but moved to Walmer in 1910. He died on 4 January 1915, having had a sudden ‘heart seizure’ on Walmer station. A medical officer belonging to the Royal Naval Division who happened to be present tried to revive him, but his death was apparently instantaneous. He left five sons all of whom were commissioned in the British or Indian Armies.