Victoria Cross, Assistant Magistrate Ross Lowis Mangles, Bengal Civil Service, Indian Mutiny, 30 July 1857...

Victoria Cross awarded to Ross Lowis Mangles, Assistant Magistrate, Bengal Civil Service, for his actions at Bherera Ghat during the Indian Mutiny, 30 July 1857. In 1857 Mangles was an Assistant Magistrate at Patna, accompanying the 45th (Rattray's) Sikha in quelling a disturbance in Patna City, subsequently joining the Arah Relief Force as a volunteer. On the night of 29 July, the Arah Relief Force fell into an ambush and lost 300 of the 450 men. A retreat was made the next morning under terrible fire by the mutineers. At the first attack Mangles was wounded, but regardless he helped the surgeon to look after the injured men and fetched water for them. During the retreat, a soldier from the 37th was wounded and implored Mangles not to leave him there for the enemy. Mangles bound up the soldier's wound and for six miles carried him over swampy ground harassed by a pursuing enemy, until he got the wounded soldier to a boat. The soldier told the surgeon who treated him about Mangles' heroism and not until more than a year afterwards, when the Warrant of the decoration had been altered to include civilians, was Mangles awarded the VC. Mangles received his VC from Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle on 4 January 1860. Mangles was born in Calcutta, India on 14 April 1833 and died in Surrey on 28 February 1905.