The Monghyr Mutiny Medal is a possible early

campaign medal A campaign medal is a military decoration which is awarded to a member of an armed force who serves in a designated military operation or performs duty in a geographical theater. Campaign medals are very similar to service medals but carry a hi ...

of the British East India Company.

Robert Clive Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive, (29 September 1725 – 22 November 1774), also known as Clive of India, was the first British List of governors of Bengal Presidency, Governor of the Bengal Presidency. Clive has been widely credited for l ...

is known to have decorated a number of sepoys for their service in the

Monghyr Mutiny The Monghyr Mutiny (also known as the White Mutiny) occurred among European officers of the East India Company stationed in Bengal in 1766. The mutiny arose after the East India Company's governor of Bengal, Robert Clive, implemented an order to ...

. A campaign medal is listed in some sources as having been awarded, and both the National Army and Victoria and Albert Museums hold a medal depicting

Minerva Minerva (; ; ) is the Roman goddess of wisdom, justice, law, victory, and the sponsor of arts, trade, and strategy. She is also a goddess of warfare, though with a focus on strategic warfare, rather than the violence of gods such as Mars. Be ...

, which they attribute to this action. Other sources dispute this and identify the Minerva medal as being awarded by a Freemasons lodge in Leipzig. If awarded, the medal would have been the earliest of those issued by the company in India.

Background

The

, which took place in 1766, was a mass resignation of white officers of the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

Bengal Army The Bengal Army was the army of the Bengal Presidency, one of the three presidencies of British India within the British Empire. The presidency armies, like the presidencies themselves, belonged to the East India Company (EIC) until the Gover ...

, over the withdrawal of the

batta In the British Raj, batta or bhatta or bat-ta was a banking term and a military term, meaning (i) an agio or disagio, (ii) a special allowance made to officers, soldiers, or other public servants in the field, and (iii) any additional or extra cha ...

allowance. The mutiny was quelled without bloodshed by

, who was then Governor of Bengal, with a few loyal officers and a number of Indian sepoy troops. He is known to have commended the sepoys for their good behaviour and to have decorated a number of their officers and non-commissioned officers. The entire force also received two-months double pay.

Medal

A Monghyr Mutiny campaign medal is listed in Steward (1915) as having been awarded by the East India Company in 1766. The

National Army Museum The National Army Museum is the British Army's central museum. It is located in the Chelsea district of central London, adjacent to the Royal Hospital Chelsea, the home of the " Chelsea Pensioners". The museum is a non-departmental public bod ...

holds a silver medal that it states is "believed to have been issued on the recommendation of Robert, Lord Clive, to the Indian officers of two Indian battalions who succeeded in quelling a mutiny among the European troops at Monghyr in Bengal, in June 1766". The

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...

also holds one of these medals and describes it as having been given as a reward for service during the "batta disputes". It notes the medal is silvered by

electrotyping Electrotyping (also galvanoplasty) is a chemical method for forming metal parts that exactly reproduce a model. The method was invented by a Prussian engineer Moritz von Jacobi in Russia in 1838, and was immediately adopted for applications in ...

and that the obverse shows

, Roman goddess of wisdom, seated by some palm trees. The reverse shows laurel branches, the Latin inscription "non nisi digno" (only for the worthy) and the year "MDCCLXVI" (1766). The means of wearing the medal are not known but other early medals of the East India Company were worn suspended around the neck by means of a yellow cord. Chakravorty (1995) states that this was the "earliest medal issued by the Company on the Indian soil", while Clark (2016) notes that it was only awarded to Indian soldiers. The next known medal issued by the company is the

Deccan Medal __NOTOC__ The Deccan Medal was the first campaign medal instituted by the East India Company (EIC). It was awarded to native Indian troops who took part in the major campaigns in India between 1778 and 1784. It is sometimes referred to as the Carn ...

awarded in 1784. However, doubts have been raised with regards to this medal. The ''Freemasons' Quarterly Review'' of 1846 lists a medal struck by the ' (Minerva with the three palms) lodge of Leipzig. This medal had "Minerva sitting under three palms" on the obverse and the same wreathed date and motto as the museum examples on the reverse. The British Numismatic Society identified the medal as that of the Minerva Lodge of the Freemasons in 1927. The United Service Institution of India noted in 1929 that the motto and depiction of Minerva make the medal better suited to a non-military application and that it "may be discarded as a military decoration". They also noted that it does not resemble any other medal ever issued by the East India Company and is not mentioned in its official records.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * {{Campaign medals of the Honourable East India Company British campaign medals Medals of the Honourable East India Company Awards established in 1776