The Memsahib and the Mutiny: an English Lady's Ordeals in Gwalior and Agra During the Indian Mutiny 1857

The British travelled to live in India throughout the years of the Empire. It was always an adventure, a journey to an unknown, exotic, alien and sensuous sub-continent. In was in that spirit that Mrs Coopland in company with her Reverend husband first set foot in Calcutta. Little did they realise that the strangeness of their new home would be the very least of their experiences. The Coopland's were bound for Gwalior in North Central India where he would take up a living in the shadow of one of the largest and most formidable fortresses in Hindustan. All too soon rumours of mutiny within the ranks of the sepoy army spread through the land and the Coopland's and their neighbours were gripped with palpable fear as rumour became fact as one night the conflagration swept over them and all of Gwalior in its appalling blood red terror. This is an astonishing story of suffering, endurance and survival by a gentlewoman set adrift in a maelstrom of violence far from home. Mrs Coopland's tension filled experiences make gripping reading throughout and her account cannot be recommended too highly.