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Birth of Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings

Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings, Anglo-Irish politician and military officer, is born on December 9, 1754, at Moira, County Down. As Governor-General of India, he conquers the Maratha states and greatly strengthens British rule in India.

Rawdon-Hastings is the son of John Rawdon, 1st Earl of Moira, and Elizabeth Hastings, 13th Baroness Hastings, who is a daughter of Theophilus Hastings, 9th Earl of Huntingdon. He is baptised at St. Audoen’s Church, Dublin, on January 2, 1755. He grows up in Moira and in Dublin. He attends Harrow School and matriculates at University College, Oxford, but drops out. While there, he becomes friends with Banastre Tarleton.

He joins the British Army on August 7, 1771, as an ensign in the 15th Regiment of Foot. With his uncle Francis Hastings, 10th Earl of Huntingdon, he goes on the Grand Tour. On October 20, 1773, he is promoted to lieutenant in the 5th Regiment of Foot. He returns to England to join his regiment, and sails for America on May 7, 1774.

He serves in the American Revolutionary War (1775–81), first seeing action at the Battles of Lexington and Concord and the Battle of Bunker Hill. He is rewarded with an English peerage in 1783. He succeeds his father as Earl of Moira in 1793. When the Whigs come to power in 1806, he is appointed Master-General of the Ordnance, a post he resigns on the fall of his party in 1807. Taking an active part in the business of the House of Lords, he belongs to the circle of the Prince of Wales (later George IV), through whose influence he is appointed Governor-General of India, on November 11, 1812. He lands at Calcutta (Kolkata) and assumes office in October 1813. Facing an empty treasury, he raises a loan in Lucknow from the nawab-vizier there and defeats the Gurkhas of Nepal in 1816. They abandon disputed districts, cede some territory to the British, and agree to receive a British resident (administrator). For this success, in 1817 he is raised to the rank of Marquess of Hastings together with the subsidiary titles Viscount Loudoun and Earl of Rawdon.

He then has to deal with a combination of Maratha powers in western India whose Pindaris, bands of horsemen attached to the Maratha chiefs, are ravaging British territory in the Northern Sarkars, in east-central India. In 1817, he offers the Marathas the choice of cooperation with the British against the Pindaris or war. The Peshwa, the Prime Minister of the Maratha Confederacy, the raja of Nagpur, and the army under Holkar II, ruler of Indore, chose war and are defeated. The Pindari bands are broken up, and, in a settlement, the Peshwa’s territories are annexed, and the Rajput princes accept British supremacy. By 1818 these developments establish British sovereignty over the whole of India east of the Sutlej River and Sindh. Rawdon-Hastings also suppresses pirate activities off the west coast of India and in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. In 1819, Sir Stamford Raffles, under his authority, obtains the cession by purchase of the strategic island of Singapore.

In internal affairs, Rawdon-Hastings begins the repair of the Mughal canal system and brings the pure water of the Yamuna River (Jumna) into Delhi, encourages education in Bengal, begins a process of Indianization by raising the status and powers of subordinate Indian judges, and takes the first measures for the revenue settlement of the extensive “conquered and ceded” provinces of the northwest.

Rawdon-Hastings’s competent administration, however, ends under a cloud because of his indulgence to a banking house. Though he is cleared of any corrupt motive, the home authorities censure him. He resigns and returns to England in 1823, receiving the comparatively minor post of Governor of Malta in 1824. He dies at sea off Naples on November 28, 1826, aboard HMS Revenge, while attempting to return home with his wife. She returns his body to Malta, and following his earlier directions, cuts off his right hand and preserves it, to be buried with her when she dies. His body is then laid to rest in a large marble sarcophagus in Hastings Gardens, Valletta. His hand is eventually interred, clasped with hers, in the family vault at Loudoun Kirk.

In 1828, two years after Rawdon-Hastings’s death, members of the India House, to make some amends for their vote of censure, give £20,000 to trustees for the benefit of Hastings’s son.

(Pictured: “Portrait of Francis Rawdon, 2nd Earl of Moira, later 1st Marquess of Hastings (1754 – 1826)” possibly by Martin Archer Shee, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Ireland)


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Birth of William Cosgrove, Victoria Cross Recipient

William Cosgrove VC MSM, an Irish recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces, is born at Aghada, County Cork, on October 1, 1888.

Cosgrove is the son of Michael and Mary Cosgrove. He has four brothers, Dan, Ned, David and Joseph, and a sister Mary-Catherine. While they are still young their father emigrates to Australia, but later returns. In the meantime, his mother moves with his siblings to a cottage in nearby Peafield and they attend school at the National School, Ballinrostig. He begins work as an apprentice butcher at Whitegate. One of his daily chores is a morning delivery to Fort Carlisle (now Fort Davis) with a consignment of meat for the troops. It is from Fort Carlisle that he joins the army.

Cosgrove enlists in the Royal Munster Fusiliers on March 24, 1909, and is given the regimental number 8980. At the outbreak of war, the 1st Battalion of the Munster Fusiliers is stationed in Rangoon, Burma, as regular battalions are routinely stationed overseas. They leave Rangoon on November 21, 1914, and Cosgrove, now a corporal, lands in England on January 10, 1915. Upon landing they still wear their Indian issue uniforms and stand on the cold quay in their khaki drill shorts. The battalion is then assigned to the 86th Brigade of the 29th Division (United Kingdom), in preparation for the landings at the Dardanelles in Turkey.

During the Battle of Gallipoli, Turkey, the 1st Munsters, together with the 1st Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers and Royal Hampshire Regiment, are on the converted collier River Clyde when it runs ashore for the Cape Helles ‘V’ beach landing at 6:20 a.m. on April 25, 1915. On departing from the ship’s bay they are subject to fierce enfilading machine gun fire from hidden Turkish defences. One hundred or more of the Battalion’s men fall at this stage of the battle, with just three companies of Munsters making it to the shelter of the dunes. They are unable to advance due to the withering Turkish fire.

At daybreak on the following day it is decided to take the village behind the Sedd el Bahr fort overlooking the bay. Cosgrove leads a company section during the attack on the Turkish positions. Barbed wire holds them up and he sets himself the task of pulling the stanchion posts of the enemy’s high wire entanglement single-handed out of the ground, notwithstanding the terrific fire from both front and flanks with officers and men falling all around him. Thanks to his exceptional bravery, his heroic actions contribute greatly to the successful clearing of the heights. Turkish counter-attacks are held off. It is during this attack that his actions earn him the regiment’s first Victoria Cross of the war. He is also wounded during this action. Promoted to Sergeant, he sees no further action due to his wound, which is a contributing factor in his death years later.

Cosgrove transfers to the Royal Fusiliers in 1918, to the Prince of Wales’s Leinster Regiment in 1920, the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers in 1922, and later goes as an instructor to the Indian Territorial Force in 1928 to become 7042223 Staff Sgt Instructor. He comes home in 1935 pending discharge to pension. However, he is admitted to Millbank hospital and takes discharge before he is fit. After a short leave in Cork, he returns to London, where he is admitted to Middlesex Hospital. He is later transferred to Millbank hospital London, where he dies at the age of 47 on July 21, 1936.

In 1972, Cosgrove’s Victoria Cross medal is sold for a record price £2,300 to a private collector. When questioned about the high price which the medal fetches, the auctioneer replies “When one buys a gallantry medal, it is not just the medal one buys, but the act that won it.” His Victoria Cross, together with his other medals, are sold at an auction by Dix Noonan Webb held on September 22, 2006 for “the world’s most valuable auction of orders, decorations and medals.” A total of £1,965,010 is spent by 305 different buyers, a figure which represents “the highest amount ever realised by any numismatic auction in the UK.” The day’s highest price, £180,000, is paid by a collector for the Gallipoli landings Victoria Cross group of six, which includes the medal awarded to Sgt. William Cosgrove, Royal Munster Fusiliers.