Author: Pogson, Wredenhall Robert
Biography:
POGSON, Wredenhall Robert (1787-1843: ancestry.co.uk)
He was born on 1 July 1787 at Sutton, Surrey, and baptised on 30 July, the fourth son of Bedingfield Pogson of Edwardstone, Suffolk, and his wife Elizabeth Philadelphia Pearce, who had married in London in 1780. (Sarah Pogson, q.v., was an illegitimate child of his paternal grandfather.) His father had inherited the Deep Bay and Cayon Estates on St. Kitts in the West Indies and his will of 1800 left it in trust to his wife and thereafter to be divided amongst his children. Wredenhall entered the army as a cadet in 1803 and arrived in India on 17 Mar. 1805. He served in various regiments before joining the 47th Native Infantry where he eventually became a Lt. Col. and Commanding Officer in 1840. Indian sepoys from his regiment mutinied in Oct. 1824 over conditions and broken promises. Although Pogson thought they had valid grievances, on the suppression of the mutiny he was the officer who gave the final order at the executions of eleven men. He prevented the execution of a twelfth man whose identity was in dispute and the sentence was subsequently commuted. He gave an account in his Memoir of the Mutiny at Barackpore (Serampore 1833). He also saw action at the siege and capture of Bhurtpoor (Bharatpur, Rajasthan) in 1825-6. As Capt. W. R. Pogson, he published a learned historical work on the history of the Rajas, A History of the Boondelas (1828), a Narrative During A Tour to Cateegaon (Serampore 1831) and a number of translations. (He was an accomplished linguist and served as an interpreter at the 1813 Court of Enquiry in Cawnpore.) His poem listed here recounts his journeys up the Ganges and Gogra in July 1834. He presented copies of his works (but not the poem) to the library of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1834-5 although they were incorrectly listed as by Major William Pogson and the error has carried through to many other library catalogues. He married Ann Cordelia Queiros, the daughter of a Lucknow merchant, on 28 Mar. 1815 at Cawnpore. They went on to have twelve children. He died at Sikraud, Benares, on 6 Aug. 1843 and was buried by the roadside as he had requested in his will. His family, friends, and fellow officers of the 47th Regiment erected a monument to him at Cantonment, Benares (near boundary pillar 18).(ancestry.co.uk 26 Feb. 2022; findmypast.co.uk 26 Feb. 22; Hodson 3: 544-45; Indian Mail v. 7, 7 Nov. 1843, 211; Essex Standard 25 Nov. 1843; GM Dec. 1843, 669; A. Fuehrer, List of Christian Tombs and Monuments… in the North-Western Provinces and Oudh [Allahad 1896], 92) AA
Other Names:
- W. R. Pogson