Who among the following British Commanders suffered defeat in the famous Battle of Chinhat during the 1857 Revolt?

Correct — A, Henry Lawrence. Sir Henry Lawrence, Chief Commissioner of Oudh, led a column out of Lucknow on 30 June 1857 to check a rebel advance and met it at Chinhat, about ten kilometres east of the city. His force was outnumbered, his native gunners went over to the other side during the action, and the column broke and fell back on the Residency. The defeat cost him his field guns and his freedom of movement, and the siege of the Lucknow Residency began the next day; Lawrence himself was mortally wounded there by a shell on 2 July and died two days later.

• (b)Captain Hearsey — The Hearsey name belongs to the opening scene of the revolt, not to Chinhat. General John Hearsey commanded at Barrackpore in March 1857 when Mangal Pandey attacked his officers on the parade ground.
• (c)Francois Sisten — Not a commander at Chinhat. The name appears in accounts of the period as a European in Indian service, and it is offered here because it sounds plausible next to the real ones.
• (d)Charles Ball — Charles Ball wrote about the revolt rather than fighting in it; his History of the Indian Mutiny is a contemporary narrative. Mistaking a chronicler for a commander is the trap the option is built on.

Awadh was annexed in 1856 on the doctrine of misgovernment, and the resentment of its dispossessed taluqdars and of the sepoys recruited from its villages made it the fiercest theatre of 1857. Chinhat is the hinge: a British sortie that failed, turning what might have been a mobile defence of Lucknow into a five-month siege of one walled compound. Begum Hazrat Mahal proclaimed her young son Birjis Qadr as ruler of Awadh while the Residency held out.

Names in 1857 questions cluster by place, so anchor each battle to its commander. Chinhat and the Residency belong to Henry Lawrence; Barrackpore and Mangal Pandey to General Hearsey; the recapture of Lucknow to Colin Campbell; Kanpur to Wheeler, Nana Sahib and Tantia Tope. The 1857 papers also mix in writers about the revolt with participants in it, which is what makes Charles Ball a live option here.

• The Battle of Chinhat was fought on 30 June 1857, close to Lucknow; Maulvi Ahmadullah Shah of Faizabad is named as the rebel leader there in UPSC's own NDA 2018-I key.
• Sir Henry Lawrence was Chief Commissioner of Oudh; he was fatally wounded in the Residency on 2 July 1857 and died on 4 July.
• The siege of the Lucknow Residency followed at once and ran until the final evacuation in November 1857.
• Begum Hazrat Mahal led the revolt in Lucknow in the name of her son Birjis Qadr.
• Awadh had been annexed in February 1856 by Lord Dalhousie on the ground of misgovernment.

• Confusing Sir Henry Lawrence of Lucknow with his brother John Lawrence, later Viceroy.
• Treating a writer on the revolt as a commander in it.
• Placing Chinhat after the siege rather than as the action that caused it.

A who-commanded-where item, answered by knowing the two or three names attached to each theatre of the revolt.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The siege of the Residency at Lucknow in 1857 began immediately after which engagement?

  • (a)Battle of Chinhat
  • (b)Battle of Aong
  • (c)Siege of Arrah
  • (d)Battle of Betwa

  Answer(a) Battle of Chinhat — the defeat on 30 June 1857 forced the garrison back into the Residency.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Who proclaimed her son Birjis Qadr as the ruler of Awadh during the revolt of 1857?

  • (a)Rani Lakshmibai
  • (b)Begum Hazrat Mahal
  • (c)Zeenat Mahal
  • (d)Rani Avantibai

  Answer(b) Begum Hazrat Mahal — she led the rebel administration at Lucknow.