BIHT Zoom Lecture: Tuesday 16 December 2025, 18:30-20:00 GMT
Valerie Haye, of the British in India Historical Trust, has sent the following details of a zoom lecture being given on Tuesday 16 December by Peter Stanley:
A Combined Movement: British Officers and Officials and the Suppression of the Santal Rebellion of 1855
Peter Stanley
Tuesday 16 December 2025, 18:30-20:00 GMT (ZOOM)
‘The Santal Rebellion of 1855 was in its day the most serious uprising that the East India Company ever faced. As the 1855 monsoon began, the Santals, nomadic settlers in Bengal, just 100 miles from Calcutta, rose in rebellion against oppressive landlords and money-lenders. Over the next six months, a dozen regiments of Bengal Native Infantry devised innovative tactics in a novel jungle campaign. Some 10,000 Santals died, about a fifth in combat, the rest of sickness and starvation, before the uprising failed at year’s end.
The rebellion has been little examined by historians. Peter Stanley’s book Hul! Hul! was the first to look at the rebellion as military history. It presents a new analysis, revising the customary view of it as ‘simply murder’. Although the suppression of the uprising depended crucially on the resilience and discipline of the regiments committed, it was aided by both technological innovation and the collaboration of military officers and civilian officials.
Peter Stanley is Honorary Professor at the University of New South Wales Canberra. He has published widely on the history of the Indian Army, including White Mutiny, Hul! Hul! The Suppression of the Santal Rebellion in Bengal, 1855 and John Company’s Armies: The Military Forces of British India, 1824-57.
Lectures are broadcast via Zoom and are available UK-wide and to an international audience. Lectures are recorded and uploaded to YouTube for two weeks. Links are emailed to all ticket-holders.
Tickets for this lecture cost £5. Click here to book tickets (online, by post, or by bank transfer)’.
Valerie Haye, British in India Historical Trust
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