Captain James Dundas, VC (1842-1879)
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Captain James Dundas, VC (1842-1879)
August 28, 1983
Captain James Dundas, VC is commemorated by a stained glass window and plaque in the South Quire Transept. Dundas lost his life during General Roberts’ advanced on Kabul in the autumn of 1879.
Stained glass located in the South Quire Transept - south wall, upper tier, west. Clayton & Bell, in place by 1883 (Palmer 1897, 106). David advancing to do battle with Goliath. Goliath, dressed in medieval armour and chain mail and carrying a spear, is looking down on the boy David who, carrying his sling, is advancing to do battle with him. Inscription 'This day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand'. One of three representations of Old Testament military episodes.
James Dundas was born on 12th September 1842. From Addiscombe College he was appointed lieutenant in the Royal Engineers, 8th June 1860. He embarked for India in March 1862 and was posted to the Sappers and Miners at Rurki; appointed to the Public Works Department, Bengal, he was shortly promoted to be Executive Engineer. His next appointment was to the right brigade of the force employed in Bhootan, 1865, during which he won the Victoria Cross (vide his citation and account of the campaign).
In December 1864 long-standing frontier disorders forced the British to send a small force to Bhootan, a mountainous territory on the borders of Tibet in the north-eastern quarter of India. Under the command of Brigadier-Generals Mulcaster and Dunsford, the expedition was formed of native infantry and cavalry, together with the Royal Artillery with mortars and Armstrong guns, while three companies of Her Majesty's 48th and 80th Regiments and some native infantry were held in reserve at Darfeeling. Advancing in four columns with the guns drawn by elephants and bullocks, the force encountered sporadic but determined resistance from the Bhootanese, who opposed it with matchlocks, bows and arrows, stones thrown from slings and other similar primitive weapons.
In each case their stockades and defences were soon demolished by the Armstrong guns and mortars, and the defenders were put to flight. Towards the end of December, the British occupied Dewangiri, leaving a garrison under Col.Campbell. Hearing that the main Bhootanese force was massing at a hill-fort at Bishensing, Gen.Mulcaster set out on a 50 mile march with a force of 2,000 men and 150 elephants, only to find that on arrival the fort was a single house occupied by a single lama. At the end of January Col.Campbell was attacked by a force using the usual primitive weapons. The fighting continued throughout the night, and in the morning Campbell, though sick led a charge against the enemy who fought with great obstinacy.
In the end they broke and fled, but continued to hover around the camp, cutting off the water supply and the lines of communication with Assam. Col.Campbell sent for reinforcements only to be told that he had he had enough men to hold the place.
At the beginning of February Campbell began to evacuate the post, dividing his force so that some would carry the sick and wounded, some the two twelve pounder howitzees and the rest to form advance and rear guards. The country was extremely difficult, rocky, mountainous and covered with undergrowth in which it was easy to get lost in the dark. The forced panicked and the retreat became a rout. The wounded were left behind and the guns abandoned and thrown over a ravine. Eventually most of the force reached safety, having lost everything. Other forces suffered small defeats and these coupled with Campbell's retreat decided the authorities in Calcutta to set up a Field Force under Brigadier-General Tombs.
It was during this attack on Dewangiri that Captain Dundas gained his Victoria Cross (vide his citation).
This included five batteries of artillery, the 55th Regt. and the 80th. Regt. and four regiments of Native Infantry.
During March 1865 many fierce actions were fought, but as the rainy season was approaching it was essential that the campaign be brought to an end.
An advance guard attacked a central stockade flanked by two others at Dewangir1. Sikh and Pathan infantry climbed over the palisade of the central stockade and began an indiscriminate slaughter of the Bhootanese and killed 120 of them before British officers and men of the 55th Regiment gave the wounded water and helped them to escape.
At the end of the campaign Dundas again joined the Public Works Department, and went to England on leave in 1870 and again in 1871, having succeeded by the death of his uncle, The Right Honourable Sir David Dundas, to the estate of Ochtertyre, in Stirlingshire.
He rejoined his appointment in India early in 1878. In the summer of that year - at the risk of his own life - he saved a native from death in a burning house in the Simla Bazaar.
For many years he worked with General Sir Alexander Taylor KCB.
In the spring of 1879 he was specially selected for transfer to the Secretariat of the Government of India in the Public Works Department, but he preferred service in the field.
In the summer of 1879 he found his way to the front on the fresh outbreak of the war in Afghanistan.
When General Roberts advanced on Kabul in the autumn of 1879, he selected Dundas to accompany the Field Force as Commanding Royal Engineer. The manner in which the Engineers carried out the duty of providing shelter for the troops after the retirement into the Sherpur Cantonments at the close of the year received the warm acknowledgement of the General. On 23rd December 1879
Captain Dundas and Lieutenant Nugent of the Royal Engineers had gone out with a party of Sappers to blow up the towers of two villages, south-east of Sherpur, from the walls of which the enemy had harrassed the troops. Unfortunately they used an Afghan fuse, taken from the stores found in the Bala Hissar, and being faultily constructed, it exploded the mine too soon, and both officers were killed. His body was recovered by his comrades the same day.
Sir Alexander Taylor wrote of Captain Dundas:
"In him the Corps has lost one of its 'very best.' A man of high abilities, well cultivated - a modest, high-minded English gentle-man, brave, gentle and courteous. I do not know that he ever gave offence to anyone; far less do I believe that he ever had an enemy.
To me he was an invaluable professional assistant, and I owe much to his varied and accurate engineering knowledge, to his trustworthy character and universal popularity."
From the notebooks ‘The Naval and Military Memorials of Rochester Cathedral’ (1979)
by Roy Trett, OBE, TD,
Rochester Cathedral Chapter Library
A brief biography is available on Wikipedia
The medieval tombs of the Presbytery and Quire Transept have had a tortured history which many effigies apparently moved and several defaced along with the medieval memorials and brasses over the Early Modern period.
Rochester Cathedral features an exceptionally large collection of Colonial-era military memorials and artefacts. This series has begun to highlight the stories behind these collections and their place in our global heritage.
