The
Indian Rebellion of 1857 is also known as India's First War of Independence,
the Great Rebellion, the Indian Mutiny, the Revolt of 1857, the Uprising
of 1857, the Sepoy Rebellion and the Sepoy Mutiny. The rebellion began
on 10 May 1857 in the town of Meerut when a group of sepoys, native
soldiers employed by the British East India Company's army, mutinied
because of perceived race-based injustices and inequities. The uprising
was soon converted into insurrection or civilian rebellion against the
company which was mainly centered on north central India along the several
major river valleys draining the south face of the Himalayas but with
local episodes extending both northwest to Peshawar on the north-west
frontier with Afghanistan and southeast beyond Delhi.
The
main conflict occurred largely in the upper Gangetic plain and central
India, with the major hostilities confined to present-day Uttar Pradesh,
Bihar, northern Madhya Pradesh, and the Delhi region. The rebellion
posed a considerable threat to British East Indian Company power in
that region, and it was contained only with the fall of Gwalior on 20
June 1858. Some[who?] regard the rebellion as the first of several movements
over ninety years to achieve independence, which was finally achieved
in 1947.
Other
regions of Company-controlled India—Bengal province, the Bombay
Presidency, and the Madras Presidency—remained largely calm.[3]
In Punjab, the Sikh princes backed the Company by providing both soldiers
and support. The large princely states, Hyderabad, Mysore, Travancore,
and Kashmir, as well as the states of Rajputana did not join the rebellion.
In some regions, such as Oudh, the rebellion took on the attributes
of a patriotic revolt against European presence. Rebel leaders, such
as the Rani of Jhansi, became folk heroes in the nationalist movement
in India half a century later, however, they themselves "generated
no coherent ideology" for a new order.The rebellion led to the
dissolution of the East India Company in 1858, and forced the British
to reorganize the army, the financial system, and the administration
in India. India was thereafter directly governed by the Crown in the
new British Raj.
[Tract
above taken from Wikipedia
- Indian Rebellion of 1857]
The
information held in this database lists those British subjects or servicemen
who died during the conflict. It is a work in progress drawn from various
sources including individual graves, memorials, plaques, medal rolls
and other relevant sources, it does not necessarily include everybody
only those that have been found in the various sources available. This
database contains fatalities only, if you are looking for casualties
wounded then please read I.T. Tavender's book "Casualty Roll
for the Indian Mutiny 1857-1859"; if you are looking for British
burials in India outside the scope of the Indian Rebellion then please
read George William De Rhé-Philipe and Miles Irving's "Soldiers
of the Raj". (Both these books have been used as sources of
reference).
Database
contains 3,562 records -
24 September, 2026
