Abraham Boulger

Abraham Boulger won the Victoria Cross not for one isolated act of courage, but for sustained gallantry across a succession of battles during one of the most desperate campaigns of the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Beginning his military life as a boy soldier, he rose from the ranks of the British Army to become Sergeant-Major, Quartermaster and eventually an honorary Lieutenant Colonel. Between those two points lay hard campaigning in India, serious wounds at Lucknow, service in Egypt a quarter of a century later, and a military career that lasted for more than three decades.

Lieutenant Colonel Abraham Boulger VC was born on 4 September 1835 at Kilcullen, County Kildare, Ireland. The detailed biographical record maintained by the Victoria Cross and George Cross Association states that he completed two years of boy's service before formally enlisting in the 84th Regiment of Foot on 15 February 1851 while still under age. He became a private on 15 February 1853 and was already serving in India well before the outbreak of the rebellion in 1857. This is an important correction to accounts suggesting that he travelled to India only after the uprising had begun.

By July 1857, Boulger was a young lance-corporal serving with the 84th as Major-General Sir Henry Havelock's force fought its way toward Cawnpore and Lucknow. Boulger repeatedly served as a skirmisher, one of the soldiers operating in advance of the main body and therefore among the first exposed to enemy fire. His campaign carried him through a succession of actions that included Fatehpur, Aong, the Pandu River, Cawnpore, Unao, Bashiratganj, Bithur, Mangalwar, Alambagh and the advance into Lucknow. Contemporary and later accounts consistently portray him as a soldier who was repeatedly found close to the front of the fighting.

It was this sustained performance, rather than a single moment of bravery, that earned Boulger the Victoria Cross. His award was announced in The London Gazette on 18 June 1858. The official notice praised his "distinguished bravery and forwardness" and recorded that, as a skirmisher, he distinguished himself in all twelve actions fought between 12 July and 25 September 1857. The citation was extracted from Havelock's Field Force Orders dated 17 October 1857.

One episode from the final advance on Lucknow became particularly associated with Boulger's reputation. During the fighting on 25 September, troops attempting to force their way across the canal were confronted by a defended battery. Regimental accounts credit Boulger with joining the rush forward, shooting a gunner who was preparing to fire a 68-pounder at the advancing troops, and then continuing into another concealed battery. An Imperial War Museums image record summarising his service likewise records his participation in the storming of the canal bridge, the shooting of the gunner, and his entry into the masked battery.

Reaching Lucknow did not end his exposure to danger. Boulger continued to take part in the fighting connected with the defence, and surviving accounts record that he was wounded during the operations. The Victoria Cross and George Cross Association's service chronology records wounds during the Lucknow period and also records him with a storming party on 29 September, an action noted as a Mention in Despatches. A detailed modern study of the 84th's campaign additionally describes wounds to his thigh and right hand.

Boulger survived the campaign and returned home. On 8 June 1859, Queen Victoria personally presented him with the Victoria Cross at Buckingham Palace. A contemporary account of the ceremony lists Lance-Corporal Abraham Boulger of the 84th Regiment among the recipients and repeats the basis of his award, his distinguished service as a skirmisher in the twelve actions fought between July and September 1857.

Receiving the Victoria Cross did not end Boulger's military career. He remained with the 84th and advanced steadily through the non-commissioned ranks. He became Sergeant in 1860, Colour Sergeant in 1866, Quartermaster Sergeant in 1870 and Sergeant-Major later that year. His service also took him to Halifax, Nova Scotia. On 2 November 1872, after more than twenty years in the ranks and boy's service before that, he received a Quartermaster's commission. The London Gazette formally recorded: "Sergeant-Major Abraham Boulger, V.C., to be Quartermaster", succeeding John Charles O'Rourke.

The reorganisation of the British infantry in 1881 transformed the 84th Regiment into the 2nd Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment, but Boulger remained within the same regimental lineage. His soldiering was not yet finished. In August 1882, aged forty-six, he went on active service in Egypt as Quartermaster of his battalion during the Anglo-Egyptian War of 1882. His documented service included the campaign culminating at Tel-el-Kebir on 13 September 1882, where the British attack broke the principal army of Ahmed Urabi. The Victoria Cross and George Cross Association records Boulger as present at Tel-el-Kebir and serving in Egypt from 5 August until 6 November 1882.

His Egyptian service brought further professional recognition. Boulger received the honorary rank of Captain on 2 November 1882 and was advanced to honorary Major on 7 March 1883 for his services during the Egyptian campaign. He later returned to Halifax with the regiment and remained in service until 19 November 1887, when he retired from the York and Lancaster Regiment with the honorary rank of Lieutenant Colonel after fifteen years as Quartermaster. The Gazette references for these stages of his career are No. 25168 of 17 November 1882, No. 25209 of 6 March 1883 and No. 25759 of 18 November 1887.

Boulger's surviving medal record reflects both the extraordinary violence of his early service and the length of the career that followed it. In addition to the Victoria Cross, the Victoria Cross and George Cross Association records his Indian Mutiny Medal 1857-58, the Egypt Medal 1882-89 with the clasp Tel-el-Kebir, the Army Long Service and Good Conduct Medal, and the Khedive's Star for the Egyptian campaign. The Association records his Indian Mutiny Medal with the clasps Defence of Lucknow and Lucknow. A separate specialist study lists only Defence of Lucknow, so the second clasp should remain subject to confirmation against Boulger's original medal-roll entry before it is treated as conclusively verified in the database. The medal itself and the Defence of Lucknow entitlement are not in doubt.

The Defence of Lucknow connection fits his documented service particularly well. The National Army Museum notes that the Defence of Lucknow clasp was granted not only to the original defenders of the Residency but also to Havelock's first relief force, the force with which Boulger fought his way into Lucknow. His later Egyptian entitlement is similarly supported by his documented presence at Tel-el-Kebir.

After retirement, Boulger returned to Ireland. He died at Moate, County Westmeath, on 23 January 1900, aged sixty-four, and was buried at Ballymore Roman Catholic Churchyard in County Westmeath. His connection with the regiment did not end with his death. His Victoria Cross entered the collection associated with the York and Lancaster Regiment in Rotherham, whose surviving museum holdings preserve the history of the 65th and 84th Regiments of Foot and the later York and Lancaster Regiment. The Victoria Cross and George Cross Association records Boulger's VC in the York and Lancaster Regimental collection, while Rotherham Council confirms that the museum collection contains numerous regimental medals, including nine Victoria Crosses.

Abraham Boulger's story is remarkable because the Victoria Cross was only one chapter of it. At twenty-one he was a lance-corporal moving ahead of the infantry line during Havelock's brutal advance toward Lucknow. He survived wounds and some of the hardest fighting of the Indian Rebellion, remained with his regiment, rose from the ranks into commissioned service, returned to war in Egypt twenty-five years later, and finally retired as an honorary Lieutenant Colonel. His career stretched from the skirmish line at Lucknow to the battlefield of Tel-el-Kebir and from boy soldier to senior officer, making Lieutenant Colonel Abraham Boulger VC one of the most compelling Irish Victoria Cross recipients of the Victorian British Army.