The Mutiny of 1857 was by far the most violent rebellion to have unfolded in British India. In this uprising, both the rebels and loyalists committed numerous atrocities and war crimes in an attempt to gain the upper hand. Their primary objective was to wipe the other out and their primary weapon was terror.
Not surprisingly the annals of this conflict are full of gruesome massacres, sadistic murders and equally horrifying retributions. In fact, no other rebellion to have erupted in British India comes close to surpassing 1857 when it comes to bestial killings.
Meerut was the first city to experience the horrors of the mutiny. It was here that the 20th Bengal Native Infantry had started the rebellion and a mob had set the trend – during what was an unplanned but instigated urban riot, unleashed in the name of religion.
The deaths in Meerut weren’t just restricted to European men, women and children. Like elsewhere across the Bengal Presidency, it had included Eurasians, native Christians, and native employees of the East India Company. Not to mention, common bystanders.
Among all these deaths, one such ghastly murder was that of Charlotte Britten Chambers. A woman, a housewife and a soon-to-be mother. Although her death was later eclipsed by the mass murder of women and children at Bibighar. Hers was, nonetheless, a gruesome death and a rallying call for vengeance.
The mutilation of Charlotte Chambers, on the first evening of the Mutiny of 1857.
Memoirs and records describe Charlotte Britten Chambers as a very pretty girl. An obituary published in the Gentleman’s Magazine reveals she was the youngest daughter of Thomes Britten, and her home was at Groves End St. John’s Wood, in Westminster, London.
While it is not clear when Charlotte arrived in British India. We do know she was married in Wuzerabad in 1854 and her husband was an Adjutant of the 11th Bengal Native Infantry. A military unit that in April had set out for Meerut to replace the 15th Bengal Native Infantry, recently transferred to Nasirabad, near Ajmir, in present-day Rajasthan.
The Chambers, probably, in Meerut by the 1st of May, 1857. Their Bungalow, located in the subaltern residential section of the cantonment, nestled between Meerut’s Saddar Bazaar and the barracks of the native regiments.
In this neighbourhood had also resided other officers, pensioners and older couples. Their numbers making-up a substantial part of the 600 European population that at the time had dwelled in Meerut – next to approximately 75,000 native inhabitants.
On the evening of the 10th of May, 1857 with her husband away on duty, the 23-year-old Charlotte had suddenly found her home besieged by an enraged mob. Pregnant with a child, alone and frightened she had stood transfixed in her veranda while homes around her had been set ablaze or were pillaged.
Her neighbour, one Mrs. Craigie having witnessed her plight had sent two of her native servants to bring her to safety. But by the time they were able to reach her, she had already become a victim of the carnage. As Mrs. Craigie later recalled, being told by her servant: Cut up horribly and lying in a pool of blood.
A case of personal vendetta.
The true nature of her death, however, had emerged the next morning, when her husband had returned to find her body stripped naked with their unborn child cut out of her womb, and placed on her breasts.
It was later discovered that she had been cut open from her crotch upwards with a meat cleaver by Mowla Baksh – a butcher from Meerut’s Saddar Bazaar.
Though Charlotte’s death was indeed horrific, it was not the random killing of a stranger as is common during an ethnic riot.
For as it turns out Charlotte and Baksh had known each other. As a butcher, Baksh had sold meat to the ladies in the cantonment, and Charlotte after her arrival had also purchased from him, right at her doorstep.
A few days before the outbreak, however, an altercation is believed to have taken place between the two – with Charlotte allegedly accusing Baksh of selling her bad-quality meat and even threatening to have his business curtailed by informing the other ladies. Baksh had not taken the insult lightly – as is evident from his later act of murder and desecration.
The ritualistic manner of her murder, during the Mutiny of 1857.
The manner of her death explains Kim A. Wagner was not merely the result of a desperate struggle but a deliberate effacement. Many more bodies discovered in the aftermath were also found to have been disfigured, dishonoured and dehumanized – by the hands of the angry crowd or vengeful Sepoys and Sowars.
Furthermore, investigations carried out by the British Superintendent of Police, Major G.W. Williamson, confirm this view.
These investigations by G.W. Williamson in 1858 were a British undertaking to understand the cause of the riot. Especially to ascertain the validity of the rape charges that had been levied on the natives and Sepoys.
Disposition of Nusseebun, Mutiny of 1857.
In the disposition of Nusseebun, a Muhammadan nurse (Ayah) employed by the MacDonalds to care for their children, Williamson had discovered that not every perpetrator in the mob was of the same mind when it came to murdering women and children.
Incidentally, while Nusseebun had been unable to save Mrs. MacDonald, she along with a Dhobi (washerman) and Chaprassi (guard) had managed to save all three children.
The mob asked me who I was. I told them the house I lived in had been burnt, and I had the captain’s child. They enquired where the parents of the child were. I told them the father had been shot on parade and the mother killed near. They said, the men were wretches to kill a woman. They told me to go or someone else would kill me and the child.
No: 36 Disposition of Nusseebun, a nurse in the service of the late Mrs MacDonald, 1858
From Nusseebun’s testimony, it becomes clear that mob frenzy wasn’t the only factor behind the murders. It also depended on who the perpetrators were and what type of relation they had with their victims.
The men Nusseebun had met that night were rioters too, yet were critical of Mrs. MacDonald’s murder. In stark contrast to Baksh, who appears to have belonged to those men who knew their victims, and had taken the opportunity to settle scores.
Baksh’s motives.
What destructive urge had driven Baksh to mutilate Chambers so horribly never surfaced. Nor had the authorities delved into it at the time. In spite of the agitated mood prevailing in the loyalist camp. A makeshift court had singled him out as a ‘Badmash’ after he had been identified by a domestic servant on the 14th of May, 1857 and punished him with the death sentence.
Butchers were generally known for committing such heinous acts in the 18th century. Mentions Wagner: During sectarian riots, butchers, due to their profession, were always at the forefront of such killings.
Yet Baksh’s exact reasons remain a mystery, and we have no way of ascertaining if Baksh had a history of such criminal acts. Whether his was a case of a wounded patriarchal male ego, insulted as it was by a woman. Or if Chambers had falsely accused him and thus provoked him.
A crime that goes beyond nationality and time.
What makes Chamber’s murder even more frightening is that her case goes beyond nationality, race, religion and time. Seller-buyer arguments still occur in almost all parts of the world, even in modern times.
Women especially take the lead in bargaining for better prices and venting their anger over deals. Normally such interactions produce no harmful side effects to either party. Yet there remains the possibility of a sadistic crime taking shape.
Though the fear of legal punishment keeps destructive human tendencies in check. What happens when the law is corrupt or completely breaks down can be gleaned from the Mutiny of 1857.
Many perpetrators like Baksh had found the courage to commit the crimes as a part of the mob. They had been emboldened by the participation of the Sepoys by their side.
One of many cases, to have occurred during the Mutinity of 1857.
Charlotte’s case wasn’t the only one of its kind in Meerut. In fact, from eyewitness accounts and the stories of survivors, it emerges that the majority of the victims were known to the perpetrators, and in some cases even trusted.
They were people the victims had met and greeted on the streets, employed in their service or visited for daily needs.
These had included the grocers, cobblers and milkmen. Not to mention household stewards, cooks, sweepers, watchmen and domestic servants. Some of whom are known to have taunted and ridiculed their victims, before murdering or simply robbing them of their valuables.
Charlotte’s murder also wasn’t the only case of mutilation. Several bodies of European soldiers, men and women were found in a state of nudity and very much desecrated.
One soldier was discovered with his stomach cut open and his intestines hanging out. A girl of nine was found with her cheeks cut off and her arms hacked off.
A neighbour of the Chambers, a Mrs. Dawson, who was afflicted with smallpox had been burned alive.
Although rape was largely ruled out. Two women, nonetheless, were found to have been dishonoured. But since their names were never disclosed it is not known if Charlotte was one of them.
Recurring occurrences during 1857.
The gruesome murders of women and children had not stopped with Meerut. It had continued in several other places across the Bengal Presidency. Most notably in Delhi and Cawnpore. With the latter cantonment witnessing the infamous Bibighar massacre – which had occurred just about a month after the death of Charlotte Chambers.
In England, these killings had profoundly affected the British press and the public. Questions had been raised over their nude and mutilated remains. Ultimately the press had come to play an instrumental role in demanding vengeance for their deaths and dishonourments –see Farbound.Net story: Good Journalism but instigating journalism.
In the brutal retaliation that had followed these killings, the Sepoys and the native populace involved had been made to suffer terribly for such murders. The intensity of reprisals had increased as more such crimes had emerged.
The British civil servant and historian John William Kaye writes:
An Englishman is almost suffocated with indignation when he reads that Mrs. Chambers and Mrs. Jennings were hacked to death. But it may also be recorded against our people that mothers, wives and children with less familiar names fell miserable victims to the first swoop of English vengeance.
John William Kaye
Charlotte was buried at the Meerut Cantonment Cemetery in 1857 (see Memorials Find A Grave.com) Her service was overseen by Reverend John Rotton and was likely attended by the survivors of her neighbourhood and her husband’s colleagues from the army.
Women’s journals.
In popular women’s writing, Charlotte’s murder has often assumed hyperbolic proportions. Possibly as a result of the confusing and exaggerated reports women authors may have been privy to. One such writer was Maria Germon, the wife of an Army captain.
In a journal, Maria published in 1870. Charlotte’s murder is mentioned to have happened in Delhi, not Meerut. The perpetrator Mowla Baksh likewise is not hanged for his crime but roasted alive by sweepers.
Such embellishments may also have been deliberate by the authors to reflect their notion of ideal justice.
In the words of Wagner, for the humiliation suffered by the 85 skirmishers and perhaps the general resentment against company rule – British men, women and children had paid for it with their lives.
