Afghanistan and India in the 1880s
Photograph of Ex-Corporal Charles H Hartley, who served with the Bedfordshire & Hertfordshire Regiment in India and Afghanistan in the 1870s - 1880s. [ref.X550/1/77]
Born 1850, he enlisted in London on 4th October 1869. He joined the 2nd Battalion of the Regiment in Ship Street barracks, Dublin. He was at Colchester in 1872, and left Chatham for India with the 2nd Battalion in February 1876, on the Deccan, proceeding to Secunderabad. He was attached to the Indian Telegraph Staff from 1877 to 1880, after which he did duty beyond Khandahar 1880-1881 for which he received the [Afghan]medal. He was finally invalided home from the Battalion at Cannanore in 1881.
He wrote to the regimental magazine The Wasp in 1924: 'Embarked for India with the Battalion February 1876, and after obtaining certificates in telegraphy and signalling, was attached to the Indian Government Telegraph Department. Myself and three others, Wilson, Heath & May, voluntered for Afghanistan, and are (I believe) the only four men of the Bedfords who have the Afghan Medal 1878 - 1880'
He later reported on his time in India for the The Wasp:
Secunderabad; 'We commenced to look around and take notice. Bob Gentles found a scorpion in his boot. Moral: knock out your boots in the morning before shoving your feet in them. Little object lessons, having spiders in clothes, centipedes under boxes etc.
Then we had an earthquake. It happened about midnight and was really a big shake upl a case of get out quickly and watch the results from outside. Then the monsoons broke; a big hollow in the ground which was dry overnight was full of water and big frogs the next morning.
In January [1877] our Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India at a big Durbar held in Delhi.
In secunderabad, on Her Majesty's first birthday as Empress, we held a big review of the whole Garrison. The Nizam's troops took part and the parade made a very imposing spectacle, and gave the natives something to chin about anyhow....'
Why is this photograph at Bedfordshire & Luton Archives?
It is part of the X550 Bedfordshire & Hertfordshire Regiment collection.