Important Notice

THE DEFENCE OF ARRAH HOUSE: A POLYCHROME LITHOGRAPH OF SIEGE AND SURVIVAL, AFTER WILLIAM TAYLER

The print was inspired by Tayler's original painting depicting the dramatic siege in Bihar during the Indian Rebellion in 1857. W. Thacker & Co., of London, printed it in colour.

This compelling polychrome lithograph print, published in second half 19th century by W. Thacker & Co., offers a powerful visual reconstruction of the... THE DEFENCE OF ARRAH HOUSE: A POLYCHROME LITHOGRAPH OF SIEGE AND SURVIVAL, AFTER WILLIAM TAYLER

The print was inspired by Tayler's original painting depicting the dramatic siege in Bihar during the Indian Rebellion in 1857. W. Thacker & Co., of London, printed it in colour.

This compelling polychrome lithograph print, published in second half 19th century by W. Thacker & Co., offers a powerful visual reconstruction of the defence of Arrah House—a lesser-known yet strategically significant episode from the early months of the Indian Uprising of 1857. Based on a painting by William Tayler, then Commissioner of Patna and a direct participant in the events surrounding the siege, the image blends documentary insight with imperial idealisation.

The print depicts the precarious stand taken by a small British-led contingent in Arrah, Bihar, following the mutiny of sepoy troops at Dinapore. With local instability mounting, a group of British administrators—including the Judge, Magistrate, Collector, Civil Surgeon, Assistant Magistrate, and Deputy Opium Agent—joined by three railway engineers, retreated to the Arrah House. As the threat intensified, the group relocated to a more secure two-storey billiard room adjacent to the main residence.

Under the initiative of Richard Vicars Boyle, one of the railway engineers, the defenders fortified their new position by barricading the verandah arches with bricks and makeshift defences. Though their total strength numbered fewer than seventy, they withstood a prolonged assault from a rebel force estimated at over 3,000, led by the influential landholder Kunwar Singh.

The mutineers looted the treasury and attacked the Arrah House laying siege to it and offering bribes to the Sikhs guards to hand over the group of British officials. What ultimately ensured their survival was not merely structural defence, but the unswerving loyalty of the Sikh sepoys posted at Arrah, who resisted repeated offers of bribery from the besieging rebels. Their allegiance, in the face of overwhelming odds and isolation, became a celebrated episode in colonial narratives of military fidelity.

Tayler’s composition, later lithographed in colour by W. Thacker & Co. stages the defenders at a moment of heightened tension. British soldiers, some wounded or fallen, are arrayed alongside Indian allies behind tropical vegetation, with the classical façade of the Arrah House commanding the middle ground. In the distance, reinforcements approach—a hopeful denouement to an otherwise grim and isolated stand.

More than a mere record, this print serves as a visual monument to a contested history: one that reflects Victorian values of duty, loyalty, and sacrifice, while also memorialising a specific moment of imperial crisis in the Gangetic plains. Tayler’s involvement, both as eyewitness and image-maker, adds a layer of self-defensive authorship, aiming to justify his controversial role in the suppression of the uprising.

Today, the print remains a significant artefact of mid-19th-century visual propaganda and military commemoration, offering rare insight into the political optics of British survival narratives in colonial India.

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