Henry Montgomery Lawrence

Henry Montgomery Lawrence, engraving after unknown photographer. NPG D5026

In 1833 he was appointed an assistant to the Revenue Survey of India by Lord William Bentinck based at Gorakhpur. He was tasked with mapping out and marking the boundaries of villages and fields in certain large districts, classifying them in accordance with the quality of soil and extent of holdings and to investigate and record the rights of claimants.[13] He soon perceived the urgent need for more canals, and more and better roads, urging that "the farmer, the soldier, the policeman, the traveller, the merchant, all want more roads. Cut roads in every direction."[14] During his time with the Survey, Lawrence was known for his zeal, discouragement of cheating and at times harsh treatment of bribe taking. In 1837, the secretary to the Board of Revenue remarked to the Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Provinces:[15]

"Captain Lawrence is one of the most experienced and zealous of the officers employed in the survey, and has conducted the process of double survey more successfully than perhaps any other...Captain Lawrence is prepared to guarantee a complete survey of three thousand square miles per annum when the villages average one square mile each."

Lawrence went on to successfully accomplish this guarantee, and earned the nickname "Gunpowder" from James Thomason for his "explosive force which shattered all obstacles". In 1835 his father died, and as such his military pension also ceased, leaving his mother Letitia penniless. Lawrence, along with his brothers, took on the responsibility of remitting allowances for their mother. In July 1837, his sweetheart Honoria Marshall arrived in Hooghly and they married at the Mission Church in Calcutta on 21 August. Honoria accompanied Lawrence to Gorakpur where she became an enthusiastic assistant in his work.[16] By the close of 1837, Lawrence had completed his work in Gorakpur and set out for Allahabad the next district on his list. He continued with the survey until August 1838 when he was ordered to stand ready to rejoin his troop amid talk of war with Afghanistan.

In October 1838, in the run up to the First Anglo-Afghan War, Lawrence departed Allahabad to join Alexander Burnes's Horse Artillery, part of an 'Army of the Indus.'[17] At the time he received an offer of a hundred rupees a month from a Calcutta paper to act as a correspondent during the war, agreeing on the condition of anonymity, that he would not supply any information that was not above board, and that the money would be divided between the Calcutta Orphan Asylum and the Benevolent Institution.[18] When the army was ordered to stand fast, he instead became assistant to Sir George Russell Clerk, adding to his political experience in the management of the district of Ferozepore.[19] At Ferozepore, Lawrence was collector, magistrate, civil and military engineer, universal provider and paymaster to troops that passed through the district. He was called upon to settle a boundary dispute on the British side of the Sutlej, and so impressed where neighbouring chiefs of his sagacity and fairness a number of barons across the border and in the Cis-Sutlej states sought his assistance to settle their own boundary disputes.[20] In June 1839 Maharaja Ranjit Singh died and talk of war with the Sikh Empire began. Lawrence, spent much of the period acquainting himself with knowledge of the history and culture of the Sikh Empire, and penned a romance of the Punjab to aid those who cared to learn more about the region.[21]

When news of disaster came from Kabul in November 1841 he was at first tasked with pushing up supports for the relief of Sir Robert Sale and the garrison of Jalalabad. He was to prepare the way for a relief force through the four hundred miles between Ferozepur and the Khyber. He requested the assistance of guns from the Sikh authorities, who agreed on the condition of the willingness of the gunners themselves, who at first proved unwilling. He relocated to Peshawar where he was responsible for getting the Sikh allies in hand, and helping to prepare the army of Sir George Pollock. He had hoped to accompany Pollock in the Kabul Expedition in 1842, however his fellow agent Frederick Mackeson was preferred. Instead he was allowed to remain with his old corps until the Khyber Pass was won.[22] At the conclusion of the war, he returned to Ferozepur where the Governor General of India met the victorious armies of Pollock, Sale and Nott.

In January 1843, Lawrence left Ferozepur when he was appointed superintendent of Dehradun. It soon emerged that military officers were barred from this post, and so he was instead transferred to Ambala as the assistant to the envoy at Lahore. Soon after taking charge, he was instructed to lead a military expedition in Khytul and was thereafter ordered to administer the region. Despite his short time in Khytul, Lawrence introduced a number of reforms including reduced taxes, the abolition of forced labour, a prompt system of justice and punishing bribery and corruption. In addition where required he remitted the land tax owed by a cultivator until he could improve his condition, and made the cultivator undertake public works such as digging wells in lieu of payment.[23] Lawrence soon became somewhat disappointed by his lack of recognition for his contribution in the war and constant moving between jobs[24] Later that year however he was elevated to the rank of Major and appointed to the well-salaried and prestigious post of the Resident of Nepal.[25]

Following Sobraon, Lawrence counselled the Governor-General not to annex the Punjab but instead reconstruct the Sikh Empire, fenced in and fortified by British bayonets.[32] This was provided for in the Treaty of Lahore, whereby a British garrison was to be based in Lahore to further this purpose. Lawrence spent the next three months as the agent in Lahore.[33] In his diaries, Lawrence would later write of his intentions in his role:[34]

"The basis of our arrangements, however, was: first, the reduction of the army to the lowest number required to defend the frontier and preserve internal peace, and to pay that army punctually; second, to strike off the most obnoxious taxes and, as far as possible, equalise and moderate the assessment of the country and insure what was collected reaching the public treasury; thirdly to have a very simple code of laws, founded on the Sikh customs, reduced to writing and administered by the most respectable men from their own ranks."

During this time, he assisted in the sale of Kashmir to Gulab Singh, the Raja of Jammu as war indemnity, a move which caused considerable unrest in Lahore. When a rebellion broke out, presumed to have been instigated by Lal Singh in support of the existing Sikh governor, Lawrence personally accompanied a body of Sikh troops to Kashmir in support of Gulab Singh.[35] Through his support of Gulab Singh, Lawrence was able to wield significant power over the new Maharajah of Jammu and Kashmir, inducing the leader to abolish sati, female infanticide and child slavery throughout his dominions, and attracting considerable financial support for his later philanthropic endeavours.[36]

The terms of the initial treaty had permitted British troops to remain until the end of 1846. However at the request of the Lahore Durbar that troops remain until the new Maharajah reached 16, the Treaty of Bhairowal was signed. A key condition of the Treaty was that a Resident British officer, with an efficient establishment of assistants, was to be appointed by the Governor-General to remain at Lahore, with "full authority to direct and control all matters in every Department of the State. Maulvi Sayed Rajab Ali of Jagraon (Ludhiana Dist) a close confidant of Sir Henry Lawrence played an important role in these negotiations".[37] Lawrence was appointed to the role of Resident, and began assembling a team of officer assistants, who would become known as Henry Lawrence's "Young Men".

In 1848, following a year of relative peace in the Punjab, Lawrence was granted sick leave and accompanied Henry Hardinge to England where he was made a Knight Commander of the Bath on Hardinge's recommendation.[38] In March, Lawrence was officially replaced as the British Resident at Lahore by Sir Frederick Currie. The murder of two of his assistants, Patrick Vans Agnew and W.A. Anderson in Multan, and the outbreak of the Second Anglo-Sikh War hastened his return to India.[39] He was present at the Battle of Chillianwala, and although lacking an official capacity, he played a key role in persuading Lord Gough not to withdraw his troops after the battle.[40] The war was won by the East India Company and the Punjab became a province of the Bengal Presidency.

The new Punjab province was to be administered under the superintendence of a Board of Administration and Lawrence was made its president. He was assisted on the Board by his brother John and Charles Grenville Mansel, under whom he retained his troop of hand picked assistants. As President, Lawrence travelled extensively in the province, each year travelling three or four months, each day riding usually thirty to forty miles. At each station he would visit public offices, gaols, bazaars, receive visitors of all ranks, inspect the Punjab regiments and police, and receive daily petitions sometimes numbering in the hundreds.[41] In his diary he noted that under his administration they had raised five regiments of fine cavalry and infantry, six regiments of very good military police and 2,700 cavalry police, planted thousands of trees, ensured serais were ever-present on main roads, police posts every two or three miles, and steps were taken in education.[42]

Despite the success of the Board of Administration, internal tensions had arisen and the new Governor General, Lord Dalhousie, preferred to invest power in the hands of single administrator. Part of the reason for this was Lawrence's insistence on compensating the Sikh nobility and aristocracy who had suffered ruin following defeat in the Second Anglo-Sikh War. Lawrence, mindful of the potential for discontent to be sewn by disgruntled aristocrats, liberally offered financial assistance, a policy opposed by both his brother John and Dalhousie[43] Both Lawrence and his brother John tendered their resignation, however Dalhousie chose John as his new Lieutenant-Governor. Dalhousie explained his decision by stating that after some years of military administration in the Punjab, there was now a need for a civil administration to which John Lawrence would be more suited.[44] The decision deeply hurt Henry who felt he had proved his self-taught civil administrative abilities over the course of the previous twenty years.[45]