In transcribing the following paragraphs from the Internet Archive online version of The Imperial Gazetteer’s entry on British India — modern South Asia — I have expanded the divided the long entry into separate documents, expanded abbreviations for easier reading, and added paragraphing and links to material in the Victorian Web. The charts are in the original. This discussion of British India has particular importance because it immediately precedes the 1857 Mutiny and the subsequent major shift in its status as it came under the direct control of the British government rather than that of the East India Company, a private company.— George P. Landow]
The following Table exhibits the strength of the military forces in British India in 1845:
The Army
The total forces of the East India Company amounted therefore to 13,715 European, and 235,684 native troops, in all 249,399, officers, and rank and file. In addition, there were in 1845, 963 officers, and 27,149 rank and file belonging to her Majesty’s service. In the Punjab, there were maintained, in 1850, four local regiments of infantry, and one corps of cavalry, raised in that territory, besides a large police force. The Punjab military force consists, besides border corps, of five corps of infantry, five of cavalry, and three batteries of artillery. In the Punjab cavalry, Sikhs predominate; in the infantry, Mahometans. In the rest of the territory of British India, more than half of the native army consists of Hindoos; in Bengal they compose 83 per cent, of the Sepoy troops, and are mostly of the higher castes. In the Bombay army, six-eighths are Hindoos, but chiefly Sudras, or of the lower castes. In the Madras territories, the Mahometans are more numerous amongst the armed force than elsewhere; in the cavalry there are from six to seven in proportion to one Hindoo, and in the infantry about two to three or four Hindoos.
India Service Medals Illustrated on Cigaret Cards: (a) First India Medal, 1799-1826, (b) Punjab Frontier, 1895, (c) General Service India, 1854, and (d) Order of the Star of India. All from the George Arents Collection of the New York Public Library. [Click on images to enlarge them.]
The Navy
The Indian navy consisted, in 1848, of 39 steam-vessels, of an aggregate of 5044 horse-power, and burden of 18,360 tons; of which 11, aggregate 1000 horse-power, 4405 tons burden, belonged to Bengal; one, of 160 horse-power, and 411 tons burden, belonged to Madras; and 27, of 2884 horse-power, and a total of 13,544 tons burden, were attached to the pre sidency of Bombay; which was also the station of 14 sailing vessels, aggregate burden, 2826 tons. [II, 1275]
A ship in the Indus Flotilla. From the 1861 Illustrated London News.
Bibliography
Blackie, Walker Graham. The Imperial Gazetteer: A General Dictionary of Geography, Physical, Political, Statistical and Descriptive. 4 vols. London: Blackie & Son, 1856. Internet Archive. Inline version of a copy in the University of California Library. Web. 7 November 2018.
Last modified 5 December 2018