George Jennings, a Sub-Conductor in the East India Company’s Ordnance Department, died in the region then known as Scinde—modern-day Sindh, Pakistan—during a deadly summer for British forces stationed along the Indus. While his military record notes only the date of death, I’ve pieced together likely causes from historical sources. This post reconstructs what may have happened. (For background on George Jennings’s life and family, see his WikiTree profile.)
George Jennings’s military record states that he died on 15
September 1844, but does not provide details regarding the circumstances or
location of his death.[i] However,
his name appears in the List of Casualties for 1844 with the following
entry:
"Sub-Conductor G. Jennings of the Ordnance Department
deceased 15 September 1844 in Scinde."[ii]
In 1845 The
Asiatic Journal and Monthly Miscellany reported:
“The 78th
and 86th Regiments arrived from England in August 1842. … In the third quarter
of 1844, the regiment, divided betwixt Sukkiir and Hydrabad, on the Indus, lost 231 men, - 141 from
remittent fever, the remainder from bowel complaints chiefly. …..”[iii]
‘Scinde’ refers to the historical region now known as , in present-day Pakistan. Jennings’s rank,
Sub-Conductor, was used for senior non-commissioned officers in the Ordnance
Department, responsible for overseeing supplies and logistics. The cause of
death is not specified, and further research may be required to uncover
additional details regarding the circumstances.
Sukkur (spelled 'Sukkiir' in an 1845 journal) and Hyderabad
are both cities within the Sindh region. As a Sub-Conductor in the Ordnance
Department, George Jennings would likely have been stationed at one of these
locations, or moved between them as part of his duties. Ordnance Department
personnel were integral to military operations and were usually stationed
alongside combat units. As a result, Jennings would have shared the same water
sources, food supplies, and unsanitary conditions as the soldiers, exposing him
to diseases common in such environments.
His death falls squarely within the third quarter of 1844
(July-September) when the journal reports the regiment lost 231 men. The
journal attributes the deaths primarily to "remittent fever" (likely
malaria or typhoid) and "bowel complaints" (dysentery and other
intestinal diseases) - exactly the kinds of epidemic diseases that would affect
both military personnel and civilian support staff in the same garrison. This
makes it highly probable that George was directly affected by the same epidemic
that killed members of the 78th Regiment during that same quarter, as he was
operating in exactly the same geographic area during the same time.
The scale of mortality described - 231 deaths in just three
months from a single regiment - indicates a severe epidemic that would have
affected the entire military establishment in that area, not just the regiment
itself. Given the limited medical knowledge and sanitation of the 1840s, such
outbreaks routinely killed support personnel alongside soldiers.
While we cannot be absolutely certain without more specific
records, the overwhelming geographic, temporal, and circumstantial evidence
strongly suggests George Jennings was a victim of the same disease outbreak
that devastated the 78th Regiment in Scinde during that deadly summer of 1844.
Figure 1 Photographer Tim
Willasey-Wilsey, Memorial to the 78th Highland Regiment and families,
accessed 27 July 2025.
While George Jennings died during the same deadly epidemic
that struck the 78th Highland Regiment, and likely shared the same conditions,
he is not included on the regiment’s memorial that stands in St Giles
Cathedral, Edinburgh, which commemorates only its own personnel and families,
which reads as follows:
“To the memory of two officers, twenty one serjeants, twenty
seven corporals, nine drummers, four hundred and thirty nine privates, forty
seven women, and one hundred and twenty four children, of the Seventy Eighth
Highland Regiment, in all amounting to six hundred and sixty nine, who died on
the banks of the River Indus in Sinde, between the sixth day of September one
thousand eight hundred and forty four and the fourth day of March one thousand
eight hundred and forty five."[iv]
Given the scale of loss and the circumstances of his death,
it is likely that George was buried in an unmarked grave, possibly near his
place of service in Scinde. His final resting place remains unknown, though his
wife Catherine was buried in Bombay just months later.
[i] George
Jennings, Military Record, attestation: 25 November 1822, Middlesex.
Registers of Bombay Army European Soldiers, 1793–1839, A–K, India Office
Records, L/MIL/12/109. Accessed via FIBIS website https://www.fibis.org/. “Registers of Bombay
Army European Soldiers” database (no images), (accessed 16 April 2020) [Explanation:
confirms George’s death date as 15 September 1844]
[ii] “Casualties
Announced from 1st January to 31st December 1844” The Indian Calendar
(1845) p. 208 (Accessed Internet Archive
https://archive.org/details/dli.bengal.10689.11566
[image 811 of 924] on 17 January 2025 [Explanation: confirms George’s death
date as 15 September 1844]
[iii] Tim
Willasey-Wilsey, "A melancholy monument to the ravages of disease in
British India," The Victorian Web, 2014, accessed 27 July 2025, https://victorianweb.org/history/empire/india/80.html,
citing Asiatic Journal and Monthly Miscellany November 1844 to April
1845 Vol 4 Third Series, published London William H Allen 1845 p.561 [Explanation:
provides contemporary context and 19th-century source material documenting
conditions around George at the time of his death]
[iv] Tim
Willasey-Wilsey, " Photograph Memorial to the 78th
Highland Regiment and families," The Victorian Web, 2014, accessed
27 July 2025, https://victorianweb.org/history/empire/india/10.html