BRITISH ARMY INDIAN MUTINY MEDAL TO LIEUTENANT HENDERSON BENGAL ENGINEERS

Offered is a Indian Mutiny Medal, impressed named to Lieutenant W. HENDERSON. BENGAL ENG^RS;. Comes with copies of service papers and basic research.

William Henderson was born at 49 School Hill, Aberdeen on 13 April 1828, the son of a physician. He received his education at Marischal College, gaining high marks in Moral Philosophy. Nominated for the 1845 Season at Addiscombe by Henry Shank, one of the H.E.I.C.'s Directors, he passed his Public Examination at East India House, Leadenhall Street on 29 May 1845.

Commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the Bengal Engineers on 11 June 1847, he departed Southampton aboard the steamer Indus on 20 January 1849 and arrived at Fort William, Calcutta on 7 March. His initial posting was to the Sappers & Pioneers at Loodianah. On 10 April 1851 Henderson was appointed to the 6th Division, Civil Engineers' Department, Punjab, his first project being the Lahore to Peshawar Road (East India Register, refers). He oversaw construction of the Rawalpindi stretch, and was promoted to Lieutenant on 1 August 1854. He served with the Bengal Engineers during the Indian Mutiny. Rather than taking a year's furlough, as he was entitled, Henderson became Assistant Field Engineer with the Sitana Expedition of April/May 1858. He was mentioned in Sir Sidney Cotton's dispatch for his services, and advanced to 2nd Captain on 27 August. He died in Scotland on 30 August 1859, and did not live to claim his India General Service Medal with 'North West Frontier' clasp.

Sitana Expedition 1858 (one of three being 1852, 1858 & 1863).

The greatest trouble in the post-Mutiny period came from a group of people living at the foothills of the Mahabun Mountain, north of Attock.

For many years previously a number of violent fanatical outlaws, chiefly from the lower provinces of Bengal, hundreds of miles away, had fled from our territories, and settled amongst the independent Afghan tribes who live in the countries across the border. These outlaws, occasionally reinforced by disaffected Mohammedans from the plains, lived chiefly in a village called 'Sitana' on the lower slopes of the Mahabun mountain, about forty miles north of the old Mogul fortress of Attock, and on the western side of the Indus—hence their name of Sitana fanatics. Their ordinary occupation consisted of incursions into the plains of Eusofzye, and in robbing and murdering peaceful traders in our territories.

Over a period of four years between 1849 and 1853, James Abbot had become increasingly concerned by the growing threat these ‘enthusiast’ posed to his neighbouring district of Hazara, and had asked for armed check-posts to be set up along the Indus. In order to crush their resistance the British sent a military expedition in 1852. They were defeated but the British failed to eliminate their movement.

In 1858 the Sir Sydney Cotton led an expedition against them and burnt some of their villages; but as they were harboured, and probably to some extent encouraged, by their Afghan neighbours, and as the country of their adoption was devoid of roads and almost inaccessible, they soon re-established themselves in the large new village of Mulka, high up on the slopes of the mountain, and re-commenced their depredations.