James McGuire (VC)

Dragging burning ammunition away, he prevented an explosion.

James McGuire was born at Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, in 1827. A labourer before enlistment, he joined the East India Company's army in March 1849 and reached India later that year. He served with the Bengal European Fusiliers during the Second Burma War and subsequently became a sergeant.

On 14 September 1857 he was with troops attacking Delhi during the Indian uprising. Near the Kabul Gate, ammunition boxes caught fire while the men were replenishing their supplies. Explosions and burning ammunition threatened the soldiers crowded around the position.

McGuire and Drummer Miles Ryan moved towards the burning boxes while others were unable to control the danger. They dragged ammunition clear of the main pile and threw it over the parapet into the ditch. By removing the burning material before it could ignite the remaining stores, they prevented a much greater explosion among the troops.

Both received the Victoria Cross. McGuire's award was gazetted in December 1858, and Queen Victoria presented it at Windsor in January 1860. By then he had left the Company's army and returned to Ireland.

His subsequent life included a criminal conviction arising from a dispute over a cow. In 1862 he was sentenced to imprisonment, and his Victoria Cross was formally forfeited that December. He later petitioned for restoration of the decoration and its annuity. His cross eventually entered the National Army Museum, preserving the physical award associated with the Delhi action.

Official Victoria Cross citation

At the assault on Delhi on the 14th September, 1857, when the Brigade had reached the Cabul Gate, the 1st Fusiliers and 75th Regiment, and some Sikhs, were waiting for orders, and some of the Regiments were getting ammunition served out (three boxes of which exploded from some cause not clearly known, and two others were in a state of ignition), when Serjeant McGuire and Drummer Ryan rushed into the burning mass, and, seizing the boxes, threw them, one after the other, over the parapet into the water. The confusion consequent on the explosion was very great, and the crowd of soldiers and native followers, who did not know where the danger lay, were rushing into certain destruction, when Serjeant McGuire and Drummer Ryan, by their coolness and personal daring, saved the lives of many at the risk of their own.

The London Gazette of 24 December 1858, Numb. 22212, p. 5519