Siege of Lucknow

The siege of Lucknow was the prolonged defence of the British Residency within the city of Lucknow from rebel sepoys (Indian soldiers in the British East India Company's Army) during the Indian Rebellion of 1857. After two successive relief attempts had reached the city, the defenders and civilians were evacuated from the Residency, which was then abandoned.

The evacuation[edit]

Although Outram and Havelock both recommended storming the Kaisarbagh palace to secure the British position, Campbell knew that other rebel forces were threatening Cawnpore and other cities held by the British, and he ordered Lucknow to be abandoned. The evacuation began on 19 November. While Campbell's artillery bombarded the Kaisarbagh to deceive the rebels that an assault on it was imminent, canvas screens were erected to shield the open space from the rebels' view. The women, children and sick and wounded made their way to the Dilkusha Park under cover of these screens, some in a variety of carriages or on litters, others on foot. Over the next two days, Outram spiked his guns and withdrew after them.

At the Dilkusha Park, Havelock died (of a sudden attack of dysentery) on 24 November. The entire army and convoy now moved to the Alambagh. Campbell left Outram with 4,000 men to defend the Alambagh,^[7] while he himself moved with 3,000 men and most of the civilians to Cawnpore on 27 November.

was a silent film, filmed in 1911 at Prospect Camp, St. George's Town and other locations in Bermuda by the Edison Company and released in 1912.^[11]^[12]

The Relief of Lucknow

The siege, with significant differences, was fictionalised in 's The Siege of Krishnapur. He made extensive use of memoirs and journals of survivors of the Siege, such as those of Mrs Julia Inglis and Mrs Maria Germon.

J. G. Farrell

's Jessie Brown or the Relief of Lucknow was a play written immediately after the events and was very popular in the theatre, playing for twenty years.

Dion Boucicault

's 1891 In the Heart of the Storm is set partially in Lucknow during the siege.

Maxwell Gray

's In Times of Peril and George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman in the Great Game also contain lengthy scenes set in the Residency during the siege.

G. A. Henty

's non-fiction book Following the Equator devotes an entire chapter to the rebellion, quoting extensively from Sir G. O. Trevelyan.

Mark Twain

's Shadow of the Moon (copyright 1956/1979) is a fictional account of the last days of East India Company rule in India with many scenes set in Lucknow and environs. Most of the latter part of the book is set in Lucknow during the Siege.

M. M. Kaye

The plot of 's Ruby in the Smoke relies heavily on fictional events that supposedly occurred during the siege.

Philip Pullman

's Recalcitrance is mostly based on the part played by commoners during the siege. It describes the siege as well as the final relief. It is almost entirely based on the events in Lucknow. It also describes the part played by Raja Jai Lal Singh, a commander of revolutionary forces whose contributions were highlighted for the first time by the author through newspaper articles. His contributions caused a memorial park to be built around the place where this mysterious revolutionary soldier was hanged at the end of the Great Uprising of 1857. The novel was first published in 2008 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the mutiny.

Anurag Kumar

Valerie Fitzgerald's novel Zemindar is set in the lead up to and siege of Lucknow with the evacuation, seen from perspective of women in the Residency.

[13]

In the British television series (Season 2, Episode 1), the Dowager Countess, Violet Crawley, tells her granddaughter during World War I, "War deals out strange tasks. Remember your great-aunt Roberta...She loaded the guns at Lucknow."

Downton Abbey

The arrival of the second relief force is the subject of "The Relief of Lucknow", by .^[14]

Robert Traill Spence Lowell

's poem The Capture of Lucknow also describes the events of the second relief.^[15]

William McGonagall

The 1981 Indian film depicts the siege from the perspective of a nautch dancer in Lucknow.

Umrao Jaan

"The Defence of Lucknow" presents the whole narrative from the imperialist point of view.

Alfred Lord Tennyson's

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the : Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Indian Mutiny, The". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 14 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

public domain

Edwardes, Michael, Battles of the Indian Mutiny, Pan, 1963, 0-330-02524-4

ISBN

Forbes-Mitchell, William. The Relief of Lucknow. London: Folio Society, 1962. 200654

OCLC

A History of the Indian Mutiny Volumes 1–3, Edinburgh and London: William Black and Son, 1904, reprinted 2006, ISBN 978-81-206-1999-9 and ISBN 978-81-206-2001-8

Forrest, G. W.

(2015). Victoria's Scottish Lion: The Life of Colin Campbell, Lord Clyde. UK: History Press. p. 496. ISBN 978-0-75095-685-7.

Greenwood, Adrian

Hibbert, Christopher, The Great Mutiny, Christopher Hibbert, Penguin, 1978, 0-14-004752-2

ISBN

Porter, Maj Gen Whitworth (1889). History of the Corps of Royal Engineers Vol I. Chatham: The Institution of Royal Engineers.

Wolseley, Field Marshal Viscount, Story of a Soldier's Life Volume 1, London: Archibald Constable & Company 1903

Bartrum, Katherine Mary. , London: James Nisbet & Co., 1858. Online at A Celebration of Women Writers.

A Widow's Reminiscences of the Siege of Lucknow.

Lady, 1833–1904, The Siege of Lucknow: a Diary, London: James R. Osgood, McIlvaine & Co., 1892. Online at A Celebration of Women Writers.

Inglis, Julia Selina

Rees, L. E. Ruutz. , Oxford University Press, 1858. Digital copy on Google Books.

A personal narrative of the siege of Lucknow

First person accounts:

Other:

. Archived 30 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine.

Pakistan Defence Journal

26°51′38″N 80°54′57″E / 26.8606°N 80.9158°E / 26.8606; 80.9158