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Lieutenant William Feilden MOSLEY
14th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry, Indian Army Date of birth: 1st April 1838 Date of death: 18th November 1863 Killed in action aged 25 Unknown
William Feilden Mosley was born on the 1st of April 1838 the eldest son of William Bayley Mosley, 10th Light Bengal Cavalry, and Maria Sarah (nee Lowe) Mosley. He was educated at Lancing College from January 1849 to September 1856. In 1863 the Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab sanctioned an expedition against the Pashtuns who had been aggressively resisting outside rule. Brigadier General Neville Bowles Chamberlain was chosen to lead the expedition which consisted of a column of some 6,000 men and whose principle objective was the destruction of the enemy held mountain outpost of Malka on the Northwest Frontier. By the 20th of October 1863 the first part of the column reached their planned operational base in the Chamla Valley, whose access was through the Umbeyla Pass; the rest of the column straggled in over the next two days. On the 22nd of October Chamberlain sent a reconnaissance force out which was attacked by Bunerwal tribesmen and as a result of this he decided to fortify two positions to protect the Umbeyla Pass from attack. The two positions, known as Eagle’s Nest and Crag Piquet, only held a few men and the Pashtuns had amassed a force of some 15,000 warriors. A series of attacks on the two posts followed in late October in a series of actions which saw hand to hand fighting with the posts change hands a number of times, although the British forces regained them each time. During a lull in the fighting Chamberlain changed his army’s position which included the withdrawal of some of his forces on the left of his army and the construction of more defensive outposts. When the Pashtuns discovered the vacated British positions they assumed it was part of a wider withdrawal and swarmed into the valley in huge numbers. One of the outposts in their path was known as Lower Piquet and was manned by 130 men of the 14th Native Infantry under Major Ross. Facing overwhelming numbers Ross' men were initially forced out of the position during the first enemy attack leaving a small group of men under Lieutenant Mosley. This small band soon ran out of ammunition and Mosley led them over the breastwork in a desperate final charge. Having been reinforced, the survivors of the initial attack regained their lost position. A series of further enemy attacks were made against the outpost and at 4pm Ross and his men were forced back to the main British line having suffered thirty four dead and fifty one wounded during the engagement. In 1896 the Reverend Edmund Field wrote to the Lancing College Magazine relating the content of a sermon he had given a while before:- "When I first became Chaplain many years ago there was a boy well up in the school and leading a God fearing life, who no great time afterward entered the army and served in India. The great mutiny broke out, which might have cost us our Indian empire. There was no electric telegraph in those days and it was long before we knew what had happened, longer still before we could send our troops round the Cape of Good Hope. Meanwhile our forces in India were in great difficulty, and all would depend sometimes on delaying an engagement until reinforcements could be brought up. My young friend was sent to hold a narrow gorge --a kind of Thermopylae----such as a few resolute men might defend against a far larger number. It was a critical time and every hour was of importance. "You must fight to your last man" were the General's orders. Those orders were nobly carried out, and at last all had fallen, killed or wounded, save the Sergeant and my friend. "Mount my horse" the latter said, "and gallop away. I shan't go". That was a hero's death and we were proud of our old boy when the news at last reached us. But there was something better still to come. In a letter written by his brother, also in the army, were words to this effect. "I have never heard him say or seen him do, and I do not believe that anyone else has seen or heard, anything on which it is painful to think now that God had called him suddenly to his account. The name of this young soldier, so loyal unto death, was William Feilden Mosley."