MONDAY 14 OCTOBER 2024 18.30-20.00 

Onward, Christian Soldier: Havelock's March to Cawnpore and Lucknow

Sir Mark Havelock-Allan KC

 

In mid-Victorian Britain, Major General Henry Havelock was the most celebrated military commander since Nelson and Wellington. His heroic march across northern India to relieve the beleaguered British garrisons at Cawnpore and Lucknow during the Indian Mutiny captured the public's imagination like no other since Waterloo.​

​

With his small force of 1500, Havelock set out from Allahabad in July 1857 to march through searing heat and monsoonal rain the 175 miles to Cawnpore and Lucknow. Opposed by tens of thousands of mutinous sepoys, he fought three battles to reach Cawnpore, arriving too late to save the garrison there, and a further five battles before he fought his way into the British Residency at Lucknow, preventing its fall and the massacre of everyone in it. In this lecture Sir Mark Havelock-Allan recounts the life and deeds of his soldier ancestor, who was as renowned for his evangelical fervour as his military achievements.​

​

Sir Mark Havelock-Allan KC is a retired judge. He is the great-great-grandson of Sir Henry Havelock and is President of the British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia.

​

AT University Women's Club, 2 Audley Square, Mayfair, London W1K 1DB

​

The lecture will be will be presented in the Library and preceded by drinks and book sales in the Dining Room and Garden from 5:30pm. For those who would like to stay, an optional two-course meal (main course, dessert and coffee) from 8pm to 9:30pm will follow in the Drawing Room. Tickets for the lecture cost £20 and for the lecture and meal £58.50. Drinks can be purchased separately from the pay bar in the Drawing Room before and after the lecture. Dietary requirements accommodated where notified to info@britishinindia.org.uk. 

All welcome. (Bookings for the lecture and meal close on 9 October and for the lecture on 14 October unless sold out.)

​​