Robert Blair (VC)

He charged enemy horsemen despite the odds and took a wound.

Robert Blair was born at Linlithgow, Scotland, on 13 March 1834. A gifted student, he studied at Glasgow and Balliol College, Oxford, before choosing the Army over a legal career. He entered the 9th Lancers and arranged a transfer to the Queen's Bays, remaining with the Lancers until his new regiment reached India.

At Bulandshahr on 28 September 1857, Blair led a small party to recover an abandoned ammunition wagon. A much larger body of enemy horsemen appeared, and he charged rather than abandon the task. He killed several opponents but suffered a severe sword wound in the shoulder. Private Patrick Donohue helped protect and recover him. The shoulder wound left him with a severe permanent injury.

Both men received the Victoria Cross. Queen Victoria invested Blair at Southsea Common in August 1858. He returned to India and died at Cawnpore on 28 March 1859, aged twenty-five. His brief career ended before he could make a longer life after his wound.

Official Victoria Cross citation

“A most gallant feat was here performed by Lieutenant Blair, who was ordered to take a party of one serjeant and twelve men and bring in a deserted ammunition waggon. As his party approached, a body of fifty or sixty of the enemy’s horse came down upon him, from a village, where they had remained unobserved: without a moment’s hestitation he formed up his men, and, regardless of the odds, gallantly led them on, dashing through the rebels. He made good his retreat without losing a man, leaving nine of them dead on the field. Of these he killed four himself; but, to my regret, after having run a native officer through the body with his sword, he was severely wounded, the joint of his shoulder being nearly severed.” Despatch from Major-General James Hope Grant, K.C.B., dated 10th January, 1858.

The London Gazette of 18 June 1858, Numb. 22154, p. 2960