Patrick Alexander Vans Agnew

Patrick Alexander Vans Agnew (1822–1848) was a British civil servant of the East India Company, whose murder in April 1848 during the Siege of Multan by the retainers of Dewan Mulraj led to the Second Sikh War and to the British annexation of the Punjab region.

Background

Vans Agnew was the second son of Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick Vans Agnew, a Madras officer of considerable reputation, and afterwards a director of the East India Company.

India

After a very successful career at Haileybury College, where he gave evidence of superior talent and of judgment and force of character in advance of his years, Agnew joined the Bengal civil service in March 1841, and in the following year commenced his official life as assistant to the commissioner of the Delhi division. In December 1845 he was appointed assistant to Major George Broadfoot, the superintendent of the Cis-Sutlej states, and was present at the Battle of Sobraon early in 1846. He was subsequently employed in settling the boundaries of the territory of Maharaja Gulab Singh, the new ruler of Kashmir, and in a mission to Gilgit.

Chain of Events

In the spring of 1848, being then assistant to the resident at Lahore Sir Henry Lawrence, he was sent to Multan with instructions to take over the government of that province from Mulraj, the Nazim or governor, who had applied to be relieved of it, and to make it over to Sardar Kahan Singh Mann, a Sikh noble sympathetic to British interests, remaining himself in the capacity of political agent to introduce a new system of finance and revenue. On this mission he was accompanied by Lieutenant William A. Anderson, of the 1st. Bombay Fusilier Regiment,^[1] who had been his assistant on his mission to Gilgit, and also by Sardar Kahan Singh Mann, the governor designate, and an escort of Sikh troops. The mission reached Multan on 18 April 1848. On the following day Agnew and Anderson were visited by Mulraj, and some discussion, not altogether harmonious, took place as to the terms upon which the province should be given over, Agnew demanding that the accounts for the six previous years should be produced. On 20 April, the two English officers inspected Multan Fort and the various establishments, and on their return to their camp in company with Mulraj were attacked and wounded (Anderson severely) by the retainers of Mulraj, who immediately rode off at full speed to his country residence. The two wounded Englishmen were placed by their attendants in an idgah, or fortified mosque, where, on the following day, their Sikh escort having gone over to the enemy, they were brutally murdered by the adherents of Mulraj.

This incident, so important in its political results, produced a profound sensation throughout India. Both the murdered officers, though young in years (Agnew would have been twenty-six had he lived one day longer), had already established a high reputation in the public service. Anderson had some time previously attracted the favourable notice of Sir Charles Napier in Sind, and the duties upon which Agnew had been employed, including his last most responsible and, as the event proved, fatal mission, sufficed to show the high estimation in which his services were held. Nor was it only as a rising public servant that Patrick Vans Agnew's death was mourned. In private life his brave, modest, and unselfish nature had won the esteem and affection of all who knew him. "If," wrote Sir Herbert Edwardes to one of his nearest relatives, "few of our countrymen in this land of death and disease have met more untimely ends than your brother, it has seldom been the lot of any to be so honoured and lamented."

Monument

A monument was erected for Vans Agnew and Anderson, over their graves after the Siege of Multan. It stands in Ibne-Qasim Bagh, a park in Fort Kohna, Multan, at 30°11′55″N 71°28′29″E / 30.19861°N 71.47472°E / 30.19861; 71.47472.

References

^ Anderson, G.; Sudebar, M. (1918). The Expansion of British India (1818-1858) (PDF). G. Bell & Sons, Ltd. p. 71. Retrieved 8 June 2024. Inscription on Monument in Multan: Beneath this Monument lie the remains of PATRICK ALEXANDER VANS AGNEW, of the Bengal Civil Service and WILLIAM ANDERSON, Lieutenant, 1st Bombay Fusilier Regiment, Assistants to the Resident at Lahore, who, being deputed by the Governor to relieve, at his own request, Diwan Mulraj, Viceroy of Multan, of the fortress and authority which he held, were attacked and wounded by the garrison, on April 19, 1848; and being treacherously deserted by the Sikh escort, were, on the following day, in flagrant breach of national faith and hospitality, barbarously murdered in the Eedgah, under the walls of Multan. Thus fell these two young public servants at the ages of 25 and 28 years, full of high hopes, rare talents, and promise of future usefulness, even in their deaths doing their country honour. Wounded and forsaken, they could offer no resistance but hand in hand calmly awaited the onset of their assailants. Nobly they refused to yield, foretelling the day when thousands of Englishmen should come to avenge their death, and destroy Mulraj, his army and fortress. History records how the prediction was fulfilled. Borne to the grave by their victorious brother soldiers and countrymen, they were buried with military honours, here, on the summit of the captured citadel, on the 26th of January, 1849. The annexation of the Punjab to the British Empire was the result of the war, of which their assassination was the commencement.

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Agnew, Patrick Alexander Vans". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.

[1] Anderson, G.; Sudebar, M. (1918). The Expansion of British India (1818-1858) (PDF). G. Bell & Sons, Ltd. p. 71. Retrieved 8 June 2024. Inscription on Monument in Multan: Beneath this Monument lie the remains of PATRICK ALEXANDER VANS AGNEW, of the Bengal Civil Service and WILLIAM ANDERSON, Lieutenant, 1st Bombay Fusilier Regiment, Assistants to the Resident at Lahore, who, being deputed by the Governor to relieve, at his own request, Diwan Mulraj, Viceroy of Multan, of the fortress and authority which he held, were attacked and wounded by the garrison, on April 19, 1848; and being treacherously deserted by the Sikh escort, were, on the following day, in flagrant breach of national faith and hospitality, barbarously murdered in the Eedgah, under the walls of Multan. Thus fell these two young public servants at the ages of 25 and 28 years, full of high hopes, rare talents, and promise of future usefulness, even in their deaths doing their country honour. Wounded and forsaken, they could offer no resistance but hand in hand calmly awaited the onset of their assailants. Nobly they refused to yield, foretelling the day when thousands of Englishmen should come to avenge their death, and destroy Mulraj, his army and fortress. History records how the prediction was fulfilled. Borne to the grave by their victorious brother soldiers and countrymen, they were buried with military honours, here, on the summit of the captured citadel, on the 26th of January, 1849. The annexation of the Punjab to the British Empire was the result of the war, of which their assassination was the commencement.

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