Brief Biography of Herbert Edwardes

Mark Condos is a Senior Lecturer in Imperial and Global History in the Department of War Studies

Herbert Benjamin Edwardes (1819-1868) was a British military officer and colonial administrator in India. Born on 12 November 1819 in the tiny Shropshire village of Frodesley, Edwardes was the second son of Reverend Benjamin Edwardes and was raised in a deeply religious family. In 1836, he began his studies at King’s College London in classics and mathematics, though his true passion was for poetry and modern literature. Edwardes initially had no interest in either India or a career in the army, but after his studies at King’s he was barred by his guardians from attending the University of Oxford to study law. In need of employment, he directly petitioned Sir Richard Jenkins, the Chairman of the East India Company and an old family friend, for a position. Jenkins granted Edwardes a direct appointment to the Bengal Fusiliers, without Edwardes having to attend the Company’s military seminary at Addiscombe. After arriving in India in early 1841, Edwardes began studying Urdu, Hindi, and Persian, and qualified as an interpreter in 1845.

During the First Anglo-Sikh War (1845-46), Edwardes served as aide-de-camp to General Sir Hugh Gough, the British Commander-in-Chief. He participated in the battles of Mukdi on 18 December and 1845 and was wounded at the battle of Sobraon on 10 February 1846. After the war, Edwardes was hand-picked by Colonel Sir Henry Lawrence, the newly-appointed Resident to the Sikh court in Lahore, to serve in his administration. Edwardes possessed a deep respect and affection for Henry Lawrence and became one of the exemplars of what would eventually become known as the ‘Punjab School’ of colonial governance. The Punjab School represented a deeply authoritarian, paternalistic form of colonial governance that championed a highly personalized style of rule, emphasizing the strength of individual character and the executive authority of individual officers. In Autumn of 1846, Lawrence despatched Edwardes to the court of the newly-established maharajah Gulab Sigh Jamwal, the ruler of Jammu and Kashmir. Edwardes helped the maharajah to suppress a revolt led by Shaikh Imam-ud-Din, the erstwhile governor of Kashmir during the period of Sikh rule.

Following his success in Jammu and Kashmir, Edwardes was as assigned as political agent and tasked with collecting taxes on behalf of the Sikh kingdom in Bannu, situated along the frontier between Punjab and Afghanistan. In 1847, Edwardes led two expeditions into Bannu and recounted his experiences in a book entitled A Year on the Punjab Frontier (1851). In the opening of the book, Edwardes rather immodestly declared his success in effecting the ‘bloodless conquest of the wild valley of Bunnoo’, bragging that ‘a barbarous people’ had been ‘brought peacefully within the pale of civilization’ by ‘one well-intentioned Englishman’.¹ Edwardes had extremely negative views of the Bannuchis, viewing them as ‘bad specimens of Afghans’. ‘Except in Sindh’, he continued, ‘I have never seen such a degraded people’.² These racist attitudes were typical of Victorian British officials, particularly during the so-called ‘Age of Reform’, a period marked by a combination of evangelical fervour and utilitarian zeal aimed at reforming India’s so-called ‘backward’ cultures, societies, and religions. Alongside collecting revenue in Bannu, Edwardes constructed roads, canals, encouraged agricultural pursuits, and helped to settle disagreements between local leaders. Though Edwardes was keen to present this as a ‘bloodless conquest’, his methods intimately depended on threats as well as physical violence, backed up by the Sikh soldiers under his command. He understood that the new infrastructure he was developing was not just for the benefit of the region’s inhabitants but was also a means of strengthening his control over it. As he put it, ‘cutting a good military road through the very heart of the valley’ was a way of ‘laying it open to either war or commerce’. ³ Edwardes also demolished fortresses belonging to local leaders and built a new fort at the capital as well as a military cantonment to garrison troops from the Sikh kingdom. Edwardes was a firm believer in the use of collective punishments when it came to ensuring the payment of taxes, dealing with crime, or ensuring the cooperation from the local inhabitants.⁴

Edwardes fought again during the Second Anglo-Sikh War (1848-49), raising a troop of Pakhtun irregulars and winning a series of victories against the Sikh army and their supporters. Edwardes became particularly famous for his defeat of Diwan Mulraj Chopra, the Sikh governor of Multan, and was fêted in both India and back home in Britain.⁵ King’s College was particularly keen to emphasize its connection with the now famous soldier. The Archbishop of Canterbury and President of the university, John Bird Summer, noted with pride that the ‘gallant Major Edwardes passed three years in the college, of which he is still an associate’.⁶ Edwardes subsequently wrote to the university’s governing council, ‘stating the advantages he received from his education in the college, and his conviction that it was complete and effectual to all who properly availed themselves of it’.⁷ Edwardes also won favour for his devout evangelicalism. During his time in Punjab he did his best to spread Christianity and helped found mission at Peshawar in 1853, run by the Church Missionary Society.

During the Indian Uprising of 1857, Edwardes raised and led a mobile column of Pakhtun and Punjabi soldiers which was instrumental in maintaining British control over this strategically vital province. Edwardes’ soldiers helped to disarm mutinous regiments of Indian sepoys from the Bengal Army and also ruthlessly pursued and destroyed sepoys who had successful mutinied or deserted. Like many other colonial officers, Edwardes supported the use of exemplary punishments designed to terrify Indians into submission, including the iconic practice of ‘cannonading’, where Indian mutineers and rebels would be tied to the mouths of artillery guns and literally blown to pieces. Following the execution of 40 men in this manner on 10 June 1857, Edwardes wrote: ‘All this is very dreadful, but right and necessary’.⁸

Edwardes returned to England in 1859, living in London and Eastbourne. He was awarded the rank of Knight Commander in the Order of Bath (KCB) in 1860, as well as a honourary doctorate in law (LLD) from the University of Cambridge. In 1862, Edwardes returned to Punjab and was appointed Commissioner of Ambala and agent of the Cis-Sutlej states. During this time, he continued to campaign ardently for the spread of Christianity in India. In early January 1865, Edwardes left India for the final time. He spent most of rest of his life in London and continued to pursue charitable endeavours. He was vice-president of the Church Missionary Society and supported the London City Mission. On 24 May 1866, Edwardes was awarded the rank of Knight Commander in the Order of the Star of India (KCSI). This was a relatively new order, established by Queen Victoria in 1861 to honour loyal Indian princes and rulers, and, of course, British colonial officers and administrators themselves. Edwardes was promoted to the rank of major-general on 22 February 1868 and died less than a year later, on 23 December 1868. He was buried in Highgate cemetery in Middlesex.

In death, Edwardes is commemorated with a mural tablet at Westminster Abbey as well as a tablet in the chapel of King’s College London. A marble bust to Edwardes also stands just outside the Asia, Pacific, and African Collections reading room of the British Library. This became the main depository of the India Office Records, wherein one can still access Edwardes’ original correspondence and other official documents from his time in India.

Sources

Condos, Mark, The Insecurity State: Punjab and the Making of Colonial Power in British India, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).

Edwardes, Emma, Memorials of the Life and Letters of Major-General Sir Herbert B. Edwardes, 2 vols, (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, and Co., 1886).

Edwardes, Herbert, A Year on the Punjab Frontier in 1848-49, 2nd ed. 2 vols, (London: Richard Bentley, 1851).

Moreman, T.R, ‘Edwardes, Sir Herbert Benjamin’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004; 2018).

The Times (London)