Vellore Mutiny - Aftermath

Aftermath

After formal trial six mutineers were blown away from guns, five shot by firing squad, eight hanged and five transported. The three Madras battalions involved in the mutiny (the 1st/1st Madras Native Infantry, the 2nd/1st MNI and the 2nd/23rd MNI) were all disbanded. The senior British officers responsible for the offensive dress regulations were recalled to England and their orders were cancelled.

After the incident the incarcerated royals were transferred to Calcutta. The Governor of Madras, William Bentinck, was recalled, and the controversial interference with social and religious customs of the sepoys was abolished, as was flogging within the Indian regiments.

There are some parallels between the Vellore Mutiny and that of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, although the latter was on a much larger scale. In 1857 the sepoys proclaimed the return of Moghul rule by re-installing Bahadur Shah as Emperor of India in the same way mutineers of Vellore, nearly 50 years before, attempted to restore power to Tipu Sultan's sons. Anger against interference in religious beliefs of sepoys was also a common factor in both these events. The events of 1857 (which involved the Bengal Army and did not affect the Madras Army) caused the British crown to take over Company property and functions within India through the Government of India Act 1858 which saw the total dissolution of the East India Company.

The only surviving eyewitness account of the actual outbreak of the mutiny is that of Amelia Farrer, Lady Fancourt. Her manuscript account, written two weeks after the massacre, describes how she and her children survived as her husband perished.