Talk:Siege of Cawnpore

Seige of Cawnpore - Survivors
I believe at least one survivor is not mentioned in this article at present.

Victims included Captain William Leonard Halliday who died from gunshot during a desperate attempt to obtain water for his dying wife, and his wife Emma Laetitia (nee Wyndham) Halliday, who died from smallpox about the time of the surrender. They had a baby daughter.

As I have heard it, a servant girl/nanny had heard that the attackers were preparing for a massacre and urged that the defenders not surrender. When she was ignored she obtained permission from whoever was caring for the baby (it seems by this time Captain Halliday was dead and mother Emma was in advanced stages of smallpox) to take the baby with her as she fled. The baby girl grew up & married in northern NSW, Australia. My late father corresponded with either her or her daughter - I am uncertain which until I can find his papers. In St Andrew's Church, Old Cleeve Somerset there is a large stained glass window dedicated to William Leonard Halliday, Emma Laettia and their two year old daughter also of Edward Vibart, Emily and their four children are also noted as having died in the 'massacre of Cownpore 1857

Are any writers of this article interested in following up this aspect? Cedric8 12:13, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi there - I put the majority of what is currently in the article there and have definately heard and read about this story. My main focus has been to get the main events out of the way first. Personally I think that would be a great addition to the survivors section. If you'd like to put something in there it'd be most appreciated. I still need to go through the article and tidy it up a bit. Thanks for the heads up! [Pagren 01/06/2007]

Freedom Fighter or Mutiner?
Both of the terms appear to be one sided and of course have sparked differing edits upon people's opinions. To satistfy both would is be plausible to use terms like "revolters" or "rebals" since such terms can be be neutral since applied to both bad and good (rebals is a positive term). Stabby Joe 22:10, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

This event is part of the First War of Indian Independence. Either way, on the main article First War of Indian Independence, Indian Patriots has been accepted as a reasonably correct term, asking to American Patriots on the American War of Independence page. A rebel is someone who rebels against an authority which is supposed to be there. How were the British supposed to be in India in the first place. Unless you give some good reasons, I shall change the term "rebels" to freedom fighters. I have also removed a lot of absolutely biased British commentary which has been comparing this to Alamo etc. without any sources. Jvalant 14:46, 9 July 2007 (UTC)


 * remember Talk:Indian_Rebellion_of_1857/Archive_2 and other sections.

Jvalant, as you well know there has been a long running argument about the use of the term freedom fighters on the Indian Rebellion of 1857 page. It was decided this was not allowed. Technically speaking Cawnpore was besieged by ex-sepoys not civilians so they technically could be referred to as Mutineers here. I don't want to get into an argument with you here because I know you'LL go on and on so I suggest we just replace all reference to Mutineers and change it to rebels. As Indian Rebellion has been seen as a neutral title it seems only logical that the term rebels be used. To tell the truth when I originally started this article I used the term Rebel and some arse changed it to mutineer so I'll keep a eye on this page. I am not surprised, however, that the paragraph on the butcher of the Fateghar fugitives has been removed...not to worry - I'll just put it back in. [Pagren 11/07/2007]


 * I am fine with rebels. However, I would require authentic non-British sources for putting in anything that comes across as a ridiculous British POV. Jvalant 15:54, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I think you just mean valid sources - they don't have to be non-British. GraemeLeggett 16:02, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, valid sources. When I said British, what I meant was that memoirs of some British soldier who actually participated in the War of Independence can't be accepted a "valid and neutral" source. Nor can those of an Indian soldier. I should have been clearer - my bad. Jvalant 16:13, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with what you're saying Jvalant and the point seems valid enough. However, we can't just leave out some sources because they might be biased or POV. most of the sources for the Indian accounts of cawnpore are biased pov from the post independence era. To combat this I suggest we include both POVs. Then again some accounts from the British seem pretty neutral, especially accounts of the Seige and Capture of Dheli. Jvalant - if you'd like to please include sources from the Indian side it would be most helpful. [Pagren 12/07/2007]

It would be quite idiotic to call the sepoy mutiny as a freedom struggle. And to paste the name of 'Indians' on the brutes who conducted it. For, the fact is that majority of the population in the geographical areas that currently comprise Pakistan, India and Bangladesh supported the British. In fact no sane person, even now, would come on the side of a native army group gone insane.

It these mutineers are patriots, then who are the rest of the people who sided with the English side over here? Are they the traitors. Stupidity of this level can only come from an 'Indian' academic mind. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.214.19.179 (talk) 14:19, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Nothing quite says Freedom fighter like ordering the slaughter of two hundred women and children that the man doesn't even have the stomach to watch despite forcing his men under pain of death to carry it out. As the word rebel seems to still be in the article I'm glad logic won out. Using 'Freedom Fighters' is never appropriate under any circumstances in any historical event as it implies that the writer has abandoned impartiality and supports one side. A notion especially important on a website like Wikipedia where impartiality and convoying pure information is key. And on top of that, as one person said and described in the wider page on the rest of the Rebellion, much of India didn't support the Rebellion and even helped the British. The person who brought this up seems to be the only biased one here, despite complaining about the opposite.

Rewrite
I've re-written the article (diff). I plan to add more information as I come across more books/journals. utcursch | talk 08:45, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

.......all I can say is that you've done a damn fine job. Good effort. The only thing I would suggest is that the info box has a bit of a change around (some of the terms and grammer sound innapropriate - I haven't heard Britishers used in a long time lol) and also we should change the naming from Kanpur to Cawnpore except in the first line where the modern name Kanpur (with a link to the article on the city) would be in brackets. Otherwise it seems silly calling the article the Siege of Cawnpore and then calling it Kanpur in the rest of the article. I've also suggested on the Indian Rebellion page that it might be a good idea to remove alot of the writeup on Cawnpore from the rebellion page to this page to cut down on duplication. Let me know what you think an I can try and make a start with that [Pagren 12/07/2007]

Excellent Job by Utcursch! I intended to do the rewrite myself but this is a far better one. I agree with Pagren that this page should eventually become the main centre of information for Cawnpore portion of the main page. However, I still feel there are portions which cannot be amalgamated one-on-one because differences exist between what is there and what exists here. Also someone is required to write a short and neutral summary for the main page to keep the representation there. --Bobby Awasthi 10:29, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

HELP! - Wierd Gap
Hi - I have no idea why this happens ON WIKIPEDIA but there appears to be a gigantic gap between the title of the article and the actual beginning of the script, resulting in it starting after the info box. Is there any way that anyone knows of to bring it back up to the top of the page again? It just looks silly like this. [PAGREN 16/07/207]

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as stub, and the rating on other projects was brought up to Stub class. BetacommandBot 19:51, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

violence / retribution
While I'm not going to revert the edit, the difference between "violence" and "retribution", but perhaps it should be discussed. --RichardMills65 (talk) 10:36, 1 April 2012 (UTC) ==File:Up to 1,000 British troops, their families and loyal sepoys were holed up in Gen Wheeler's entrenchment in Kanpur for three weeks in June 1857 where they were constantly bombarded by a local prince, Nana Sahib's army..jpg Nominated for Deletion== ==File:A hand-written caption identifies the man as Gungoo Mehter who was tried at Kanpur for killing many of the Sati Chaura survivors, including many women and children. He was convicted and hanged at Kanpur on 8 September 1859..jpg Nominated for Deletion==

British Soldier's Eyewitness Account of Aftermath of Cawnpore Massacre
This account was told to the English diarist Francis Kilvert on Wednesday, 22 January, 1873 by a former soldier, John Gough. (Citations given below.)

"Visited the Goughs. Gough came in. He is a pensioner. He was in the 19th Regiment and directly after landing in England after the Crimean War volunteered to go to India at the time of the Indian Mutiny. He landed at Calcutta and his regiment marched through Cawnpoor 48 hours after the Massacre. He said the scene was so horrible, so horrible, shocking and disgusting it could not be explained or described. Women's breasts had been chopped and sliced off and were still lying about with their other parts which had been cut out. Women were cut to pieces and mutilated in a vile and shocking manner. The most beastly ingenuity had been at work in mutilating the persons and violating and dishonoring the parts of the poor creatures...Numbers of the poor women had jumped down the great well with their children to avoid the horrors which were being perpetrated on the bodies of women all over the place. The soldiers were furious, almost ungovernable, as they marched through Cawnpoor and saw these shameful sights. If they had caught the rebels then no mercy would have been shown to those who showed none. The scene of shameful horror was indescribable. Gough saw 500 mutineers executed at once, the rank and file shot by musketry, the ringleaders blown from guns...Those who were blown from guns were tied with their arms fastened tightly to the wheels and their chests pressing against the muzzles of the cannon. A small square piece of wood was hung round their necks and came between the chest of the men and the muzzle of the gun. At the discharge the man was blown all to fragments but his arms remained tied to the wheels of the gun."

This account appears in Volume 2, pages 310-311 of KILVERT'S DIARY. Editor, William Plomer. Publisher, Jonathan Cape. Younggoldchip (talk) 18:52, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

unsupported by body
@Cinderella157 I legitimately cannot understand what you are saying? If the name was to be included; where exactly is the "body of article" where the name is meant to be mentioned? RevolutionaryPatriot (talk) 10:35, 16 July 2024 (UTC)


 * The text of the article and it is not just a mention but it should evidence how or why the commander was key or significant. Cinderella157 (talk) 18:15, 16 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Why is Azimullah Khan insignificant to Kanpur? RevolutionaryPatriot (talk) 09:16, 17 July 2024 (UTC)