The poem was published in the Scots Observer in 1890 and then again in Kipling's seminal poetry collection "Barrack-Room Balads" in 1892.

Written as a dramatic monologue in the voice of a working class Cockney soldier, it lays out a long standing grievance that was now becoming impossible to ignore: the same public that shunned men in uniform during peacetime would call them heroes the moment war broke out.

“Tommy” was, and still remains, a nickname in Britain for the ordinary rank-and-file soldier. The ironic contrast between "Tommy, go away" and "Thank you, Mister Atkins" sharpens with each repetition.

The poem has outlasted most of the other Barrack-Room Balads because its subject refuses to become historical. British soldiers carried it through the First World War, and its refrain has been cited in parliamentary debates about veterans' welfare. That the poem helped shift public attitudes toward the British soldier in the 1890s was noted in Punch as early as the Christmas 1890 issue. Kipling gave the common soldier something no previous poet had offered: a voice that spoke in his own dialect, on his own terms, with a fury controlled enough to sound like wit but sharp enough to draw blood.

Tommy:

I went into a public 'ouse to get a pint o' beer,

The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."

The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,

I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:

O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";

But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins," when the band begins to play

The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,

O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins," when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,

They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;

They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,

But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";

But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide

The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,

O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep

Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap.

An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit

Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.

Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"

But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll

The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,

O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes," when the drums begin to roll.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,

But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;

An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,

Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;

While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' Tommy, fall be'ind,"

But it's "Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind

There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,

O it's "Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:

We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.

Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face

The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' Chuck him out, the brute!"

But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;

An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;

An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool - you bet that Tommy sees!

I have this book in my possession. It was gifted to me by my now deceased great uncle. His own uncle worked for the firm who produced the book and was killed in action at Ypres in October 1918.

I'm at a bit of a loss what to do with the book , I will obviously look after it but it seems a waste to have this gathering dust on my bookshelf. I was wondering if anyone would be interested in seeing more of the obituary photos from within or could recommend anywhere I could upload the images where they might be appreciated. The volume runs to over 100 pages with a photograph of each of the employees of the company killed during the war.

A Sikh fella, in Canada, wearing a Scottish uniform, and absolutely crushing it. God save the King.

“A dak is laid in this manner: you go to the tapal or Post Office, at the station in which you may be residing and tell the officials you wish a dak laid to such a place, with eight or twelve bearers, as the case may be; the Post Office authorities take care that all through the route relays of bearers are in readiness every four or five miles; they tell you how much the expense of the journey is, and you pay the money to the Post Office accordingly before starting. In long daks, as mine was, it is usual for the Post Office authorities to ask you to give the security of a friend resident in the station you are leaving, for demurrage, should the traveller cause any delay in the journey.”

T. D. Landon recounts this in Narrative of a Journey Through India. Travelling in 1856, it was his first journey by dak palanquin, from Sagar to Agra, the first among many such journeys.

The Post Office of India and Its Story, authored by Geoffrey Clarke (1923), recounts the complete mechanism. To quote:

“When a traveller contemplated a journey, he applied to the local postmaster for means of transport, giving, as a rule, two or three days’ previous notice. Horse daks, i.e. wheeled conveyances drawn by horses, were available only on the great trunk roads, which were metalled. On other roads, the journey, when not performed on horseback, was accomplished in a palanquin or palkee, a kind of wooden box, about six feet in length by four in height, fitted at the sides with sliding shutters and suspended on two poles borne on the shoulders of four men.”

The pleasures of travelling in this fashion were described by Bishop Heber and several other writers.

The traveller provided his own palanquin, while the postmaster supplied the palkee-burdars or palanquin bearers, eight in number, along with two mussalchees or torchbearers and two bhangy-burdars or luggage porters. The charges — about one shilling per mile for the entire set of twelve men — had to be paid in advance, with the traveller notifying the authorities about the time and place of departure, as well as the duration and location of halts.

There was also an extra charge for demurrage or delays attributable to the traveller. For these charges, the postmaster undertook that relays of dak servants would be available throughout the entire route. To ensure this, advance instructions were sent to villages and post stations ordering relays to be ready at appointed hours. The stages averaged ten miles each and were usually completed in three hours.

Demurrage was imposed on T. N. Landon during his journey from Sagar to Agra because he took longer than scheduled, but he contested and refused to pay. He argued that the delays were entirely due to the Post Office’s poor coordination. At one place, because some feast was underway, Landon had to wait for two hours. At Kalpi, he arrived at 9 a.m. but had to wait until 2 p.m. for bearers because of a miscommunication. Moreover, Landon wrote to the Post Office that he had requested eight bearers and one mussalchee (torchbearer), but was instead provided eight bearers and one bungeedar (load carrier), forcing him to hire a torchbearer at his own expense.

Forty years earlier, in 1816, A. F. Tytler lamented in Consideration of the Present Political State of India:

“If in India you wish to go on a journey, you are carried by poor, half-starved, grumbling wretches, while you pay to the head bearer or into the post office an enormous wage.”

Despite many difficulties, Landon continued to travel extensively by dak palanquin after reaching Agra, later journeying to places such as Jullundur and Rawalpindi, as evident from his memoir.

Different Types of Palanquins

Depending on their size and function, different kinds of palanquins were in use during the British colonial era. In his 1825 travel guide to the Subcontinent, The General East India Guide and Vade Mecum, J. B. Gilchrist lists several varieties he observed in and around Calcutta: naulkeen, mahannah, taum-jaung (tamzan), and bochah.

The naulkeen or naulki is described as an “immense carriage only used by crowned heads”, about five feet long and four feet wide. It was among the most luxuriously upholstered and carved palanquins.

The dooly or doli was used mainly by women, although Gilchrist also notes its usefulness on battlefields:

“In our armies, this little vehicle affords excellent means of transporting sick and wounded men, either to hospitals, or on a march.”

The mahannah was the variety preferred by many European travellers. It consisted of a spacious wooden box about a foot high, with canvas or leather shutters.

For shorter intra-city journeys, women often used a type of palanquin called the bochah, essentially a sedan chair carried on poles. A related form, called tamzan or janpan/jompan, was also favoured in mountainous regions. Gilchrist again writes:

“[The taum-jaung] consists of an armchair with a low back, at the sides of which two poles are affixed, even with the seat.”

Nineteenth-century travelogues are replete with references to palanquins for both short- and long-distance travel.

Sir John Strachey, later Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces, wrote in India, Its Administration and Progress:

“When in 1844 I went from Calcutta to the present Agra Province, I was carried about a thousand miles in a palanquin on men’s shoulders, and it took some three weeks to toil through... There were no other means of travelling through the richest and most civilised parts of India.”

Robert J. Minturn, in From New York to Delhi, records that he and Gibson travelled in doolies requiring twelve bearers each, while two other passengers used palkis with sixteen bearers each. Their baggage was carried by eight porters, while six bearers were needed for kitchen utensils and stores. Four torchbearers led the caravan. Even the cook travelling with them had a doli with twelve bearers. Altogether, excluding the cook himself, the travelling party required eighty-six servants; including the four travellers and the cook, ninety-one people moved together.

Roads, Dak, and the Changing Nature of Travel

Work on the Grand Trunk Road commenced in 1836, followed by the Agra–Bombay Road. On these major routes, horse-drawn vehicles gradually replaced some older systems. However, across much of India, the palanquin remained the principal mode of travel, and methods of operation varied considerably.

For one traveller in Madras in 1824, it remained a remarkably comfortable experience:

“Now, reader, I must beg you to accompany me for a hasty look at Madras, in my palanquin. A palanquin, such as the English use, is a close litter, about six feet long and three broad, with a door at each end and windows on the sides, fitted with sliding shutters. It is carried by four or sometimes six men, relieved every four or five miles, according to the distance. The motion is a gentle swinging one, not unpleasant when you are accustomed to it, though at first it is apt to make you giddy.

The bearers go at a quick pace, keeping time with a sort of chant or cry, which is not unmusical at a distance. They are generally strong, active men, but their life is one of great labour and exposure. You lie at full length, with your books, your writing materials, or whatever else you may want around you; and in this manner you may travel day and night with very little fatigue.”

Sketches of India: Written by an Officer for Fire-side Travellers at Home, authored by J. M. Sherer and published in 1821, offers one such favourable account.

In the next decade came another travel book with the rather formidable title Five Years in India: Comprising a Narrative of Travels in the Presidency of Bengal, a Visit to the Court of Ranjit Singh, a Residence in the Himalayan Mountains, an Account of the Late Expedition to Cabul, and the Overland Journey from Thence to England by H. E. Fane, who was far less enamoured of palanquin travel. He complained of:

“the bad roads, the inconveniences of travel in the North-Western Provinces and of having nearly every bone in one’s body broken by the jolting of our palanquin carriage over these execrable roads.”

In most regions, bearers worked in a relay system. However, on the Agra–Bombay route, the system differed considerably. When Minturn and Gibson travelled from Agra to Bombay, the palki and doli bearers hired at Agra had to carry them the entire distance, divided into thirty stages.

The bearers had to arrange their own food and clothing, and after reaching Bombay, they had to return empty-handed and unpaid because their guilds forbade them from taking return loads. Naturally, the Agra–Bombay journey was much riskier and more expensive. It cost each passenger 204 rupees, and twelve porters had to be engaged at the rate of seventeen rupees each for the whole journey.

Cost of Travel

A palanquin journey was far from cheap. A journey from Calcutta to Banaras costs seven hundred and sixty rupees. The North-Western Provinces of India: Their History, Ethnology, and Administration, written by William Crooke, notes that first-class railway fare had by then fallen to roughly one-fourth of the old palanquin fare.

Palanquins Between Kanpur and Lucknow

If we confine our gaze to the relatively small stretch between Lucknow and Kanpur — one ruled by the Nawabs of Awadh and the other by the East India Company — we encounter numerous references to palanquin travel in the nineteenth century.

In Journey from Meerut in India to London (1819–1820), Thomas Lumsden describes travelling from Kanpur to Lucknow. After crossing the Ganges at 5 p.m., he set out in a palanquin. A typical arrangement involved eight to ten bearers stationed at intervals; four carried the palanquin at a time, often accompanied by torchbearers at night. Experienced travellers could even sleep during the ride. Leaving on Saturday evening, he reached the Lucknow Residency around 9:30 a.m. on Sunday — a journey of roughly sixteen to seventeen hours.

Fanny Parkes, in Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque, frequently mentions palanquins — twenty-five references in Volume I alone. She describes their distinctive swaying gait and the rhythmic calls of skilled bearers who kept the ride steady.

Yet travel remained unpredictable. On her first trip from Kanpur to Lucknow, she was delayed because bearers were unavailable. On another occasion, she was escorted by Skinner’s Horse while leaving Awadh territory, highlighting the persistent risk of robbery.

Lumsden also records that a fellow traveller was looted after his bearers abandoned him en route.

The Lucknow–Kanpur Road opened in 1843, and Von Orlich travelled on this road by palanquin. Volume II of Travels in India gives a vivid description of his journey to Lucknow.

There are thirty-two references to palanquins in Volume II alone, along with a sketch depicting travel by palanquin. Similarly, the word appears twenty-five times in The General East India Guide and Vade Mecum. Spellings varied, and alternative terms such as doli were frequently used, but the sheer frequency of references demonstrates how widespread and important the palanquin remained as a mode of comfortable transport.

With the coming of the railways in 1853 and the gradual expansion of the railway network, the palanquin slowly disappeared as a mode of inter-city transport. However, it continued to survive as a form of intra-city conveyance, a role it had long fulfilled even in the nineteenth century.

Palanquin bearers — and the fascinating language and chants associated with them — also attracted considerable interest, but that deserves a separate discussion.

Original

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. "Capt. John Smith landing in Jamestown, Virginia, 1607" The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1906.

Source Note: The story of Pocahontas and Captain John. (Boston : Houghton, 1906) Smith, E. Boyd (Elmer Boyd) (1860-1943), Author.

On This Day, October 17, 1777, one of the most extraordinary moments of the American Revolutionary War unfolded in Saratoga, New York. A British army laid down its weapons in one of the most important turning points of the American Revolution.

After months of fighting, British General John Burgoyne and his exhausted army faced a desperate situation.

Their mission had been ambitious: advance south from Canada, capture key positions along the Hudson River, and divide the rebellious American colonies from one another.

If successful, the plan could have dealt a devastating blow to the American struggle for independence.

But things did not go as planned.

American forces resisted the British advance in two major battles near Saratoga. The first took place on September 19, 1777, and the second on October 7.

Burgoyne's army suffered heavy losses, its advance stalled, and its hopes of receiving the support it needed began to fade.

Surrounded and with no reliable escape route, the British commander found himself running out of options.

Negotiations began.

Then, on October 17, Burgoyne's army marched out and surrendered its weapons to the American forces commanded by General Horatio Gates.

Nearly 6,000 British and German troops laid down their arms in a stunning defeat for the British war effort.

For the American revolutionaries, this was far more than a battlefield victory.

It proved that their army could defeat a major British force—and gave fresh hope to a revolution that was far from guaranteed to succeed.

But the consequences reached far beyond the battlefield.

Across the Atlantic, France saw an opportunity.

The American victory helped convince the French government that the revolutionaries had a genuine chance of defeating Britain. In February 1778, France formally allied itself with the United States, providing crucial military and financial support.

The war was no longer simply a struggle between Britain and its rebellious colonies. It had become a much wider international conflict.

That support would help pave the way toward the eventual American victory at Yorktown in 1781.

In 1783, Britain formally recognized American independence.

The surrender at Saratoga did not win the revolution by itself.

But it changed the course of the war and helped transform the American fight for independence into a cause backed by a powerful international ally.

One surrender. One turning point. A different future for a nation.

​

Afternoon naps were compulsory.

Gandhi

The story of how the British Empire got rich is one of the most distorted chapters in modern history. For generations, textbooks have told us that Britain became the wealthiest nation on Earth through industrial genius, scientific innovation, and sheer hard work. The steam engine. The spinning jenny. The factory system. But when you follow the actual money trail through tax ledgers, shipping manifests, and the private letters of the men who built the empire, a very different picture emerges.

In this deep dive investigation, we uncover the real origins of British imperial wealth, from the 1600 royal charter that created the East India Company to the hidden offshore financial empire that still operates out of the City of London today. We trace the Battle of Plassey in 1757, where a thirty-two-year-old clerk named Robert Clive used bribes, forged treaties, and a conspiracy with Mir Jafar to seize the richest province in India for a private corporation. We examine the catastrophic Bengal famine of 1770, which killed between seven and ten million people while East India Company revenues actually increased. We explore the Caribbean sugar economy, the transatlantic slave trade, and the long suppressed thesis of Eric Williams, whose 1944 book Capitalism and Slavery was not published in a mainstream British edition until 2022.

We also break down the single most shocking fiscal fact in British history. In 1833, Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act and paid twenty million pounds, roughly forty percent of the national budget, to compensate slave owners for the loss of their human property. The enslaved people themselves received nothing. The loan taken out to finance that payment was not fully paid off until 2015.

Peradeniya Railway Station, Kandy, Ceylon

A glimpse inside Peradeniya Railway Station in the former British colony of Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka). The station still preserves much of its historic railway character.

Inside can be seen the historic Tyer’s Tablet System, a British railway signalling system used to safely control trains between sections of single-track railway. Remarkably, this system is still in use on parts of Sri Lanka’s railway network today, more than a century after its introduction.

The Uva Railway Anniversary plaque commemorates the opening of the Badulla Extension on 5 April 1924, another milestone in the expansion of Ceylon’s railway network into the hill country.

We can be forever grateful for the fruits of the British Empire, railways, engineering, institutions and infrastructure whose legacy can still be seen and experienced in Sri Lanka today.

On This Day, October 14, 1066, William of Normandy defeated the English King Harold II.

One of the most decisive battles in English history took place near Hastings in southern England.

Two powerful armies faced each other. On one side stood King Harold II, defending his newly won throne. On the other was William, Duke of Normandy, determined to claim the English crown.

But England was already exhausted by war.

Earlier that year, Harold had defeated a Norwegian invasion at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in the north. When William landed in southern England in September, Harold and his army had to march hundreds of miles to confront another enemy.

On the morning of October 14, the armies clashed.

Harold’s soldiers formed a powerful defensive formation known as the shield wall, standing shoulder to shoulder on high ground. Wave after wave of Norman attacks struggled to break through.

The fighting continued for hours.

Then the battle began to turn. Norman troops reportedly retreated at one point, prompting some English soldiers to leave their defensive positions and pursue them. The Normans regrouped and counterattacked.

By evening, the English army had been defeated.

King Harold II was dead. His brothers Gyrth and Leofwine also died in the battle.

One famous scene in the Bayeux Tapestry appears to show Harold struck in the eye by an arrow, but historians still debate exactly how he died.

William’s victory opened the way to the English throne. On Christmas Day, 1066, he was crowned King of England.

The consequences were enormous.

Norman rulers transformed England’s aristocracy, government, castles, and culture. French-speaking elites influenced the development of English, leaving lasting marks on the language spoken today.

A single day of brutal fighting had helped reshape an entire kingdom.

Walking through the Residency in Lucknow—whether taking students on a curated heritage walk or simply observing the physical scars of the 1857 Uprising—it is easy to focus purely on the masonry, the official telegrams, and the primary archival data of the battle. Yet, we rarely turn our attention to the immense literary fallout of those 87 days.

The siege and subsequent relief produced a flood of verse that washed over Britain and America. Much of it has vanished with time—particularly the newspaper poems and broadside ballads sold on British streets commemorating Havelock’s march and the Cawnpore massacre. Havelock himself became a poetic cult figure, with elegies and hymns proliferating in 1857–58 after his death from dysentery just following the relief.

Moving beyond the contemporary official reports, I have gathered six poems focused on the Residency, plus one dealing with an event at Jhansi, exploring both their historical footprint and their poetic merit.

1. “The Defence of Lucknow” (1879) — Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Britain’s Poet Laureate penned this twelve-canto ballad from the defenders’ point of view, detailing the daily bombardment, the mounting deaths, and the women and children sheltering underground. It culminates in the longed-for sound of Highland pipes signalling that Outram and Havelock were breaking through the mutineers, ending with the survivors’ emotional response to the conquering cheers of Havelock’s Highlanders.

The poem has drawn significant modern critique for its blunt imperialistic worldview. Unlike Tennyson’s “Ulysses,” where imperial logic requires interpretive work to surface, this poem operates on clear racial binaries—framing the rebels as “brute” and a “murderous mole” while erasing Begum Hazrat Mahal’s actual battlefield leadership. It serves as an undiluted example of colonial ideology. Modern scholarship, such as Marika Sherwood’s work on Tennyson’s imperial career and Md. Rezaul Karim’s decolonial inquiries, highlights how deeply this imperial ideology is embedded in the structures of Victorian literature, which grew alongside settler colonialism.

2 & 3. The American Perspective: John Greenleaf Whittier and Robert Traill Spence Lowell

What is truly surprising is how rapidly news of the siege crossed continents, capturing the Victorian public imagination on both sides of the Atlantic.

· “The Pipes at Lucknow” (1858) by John Greenleaf Whittier: This poem dramatises the legend of a Scottish soldier’s wife who, delirious with fever, was the first to hear the distant sound of Highland bagpipes. It opens by powerfully invoking the pipes as the voice of the glens and hills.

· “The Relief of Lucknow” (1857) by Robert Traill Spence Lowell: Opening with the despairing line “Oh, that last day in Lucknow fort!”, this piece similarly centres on a feverish corporal’s wife who first senses the approaching relief column.

4. “The Capture of Lucknow” (1885) — William McGonagall

McGonagall’s work covers the intense fighting near the Begum Kothi and the death of William Hodson (of “Hodson’s Horse,” who was mortally wounded during the final assault). It concludes with Sir Colin Campbell instructing his men to strike up the bagpipes. Interestingly, McGonagall is largely remembered for producing some of the worst poetry of the era—this piece is characterised by a galloping, clumsy rhythm, forced rhymes, and a flat, list-like narration of events that completely lacks lyricism.

5. “The Relief of Lucknow” (1858) — Anonymous / Minor Poet

A lesser-known blank-verse poem delivered at the Chelmsford Literary Institution. Dedicated to Lady Havelock, it provides an overview of the siege, the Cawnpore massacre, and the eventual death of Havelock.

6. “Havelock’s March” (1861) — Gerald Massey

Described as an epic ballad, Massey’s poem narrates Major General Sir Henry Havelock’s campaign to relieve the besieged garrisons at Lucknow and Cawnpore during the uprising.

7. “In the Round Tower at Jhansi, June 8, 1857” (1862) — Christina Rossetti

This final piece imagines the tragic last moments of a British officer, Captain Skene, and his young wife, trapped in a besieged tower at Jhansi. Facing capture by what the poem dehumanizingly calls the “swarming howling wretches,” the husband shoots his wife and then himself to avoid falling into the besiegers’ hands. The poem consists almost entirely of tender, desperate dialogue between the couple, ending simply: “Good-bye. —Good-bye.”

For anyone grounded in hard historical data and primary archival records, this poem presents a fascinating case study in apocryphal accounts: the event it commemorates never actually happened. Rossetti based the poem on an unverified letter in a newspaper. Even after the Times issued a formal retraction within days confirming no such murder-suicide occurred, Rossetti continued to publish, revise, and reprint the poem in later editions.

Postcolonial readings frame this as a deliberate use of “poetic license” to manufacture and preserve imperial atrocity mythology, effectively turning historical fiction into a propaganda tradition. Yet, a useful nuance remains: unlike the triumphant heroism in “Defence of Lucknow,” Rossetti’s poem is intimately about loss and doomed love. Many readers argue that its emotional core—two people facing death together—allows it to function as a universal tragedy, transcending both its historical inaccuracy and its imperial framing. AKS