Margaret Frances Wheeler
Margaret Frances Wheeler, also known as Ulrica (12 August 1837 - 1907) was a British woman known as a survivor of the Siege of Cawnpore during the Indian Rebellion of 1857, having been abducted and kept prisoner by a sowar during the Satichaura Ghat massacre, thereby avoiding the Bibighar massacre.[1]
Life[edit]
She was born to Hugh Wheeler (East India Company officer) and Frances Matilda (née Marsden).
She experienced the Siege of Cawnpore with her parents and her sister Eliza Matilda Wheeler. Her brother was killed in battle during the siege. During the Satichaura Ghat massacre, her parents and her sister was killed. She was however abducted by the sowar Ali Khan, who took her as his captive wife. She thus avoided the Bibighar massacre.
When the British retook Cawnpore, they were informed by an Indian witness that she had survived the Satichaura Ghat massacre. However, the British did not know what had happened to her after her abduction. A rumour was spread that she had killed her kidnapper in self defense, after thereafter committed suicide to avoid sexual assault. This version of events was viewed as a heroic act of courage, and was widely described in British press during the Indian rebellion, in which she was praised as a heroine. An image was made of her "Defence of honour", depicting her as a heroine who killed her agressor and then committed suicide while defending herself against rape, and this image was reprinted numerous times and became well known.[2] Margaret Wheeler thus became a known figure of legend in the British war propaganda.
Her ultimate fate was never confirmed. However, it appears that Margaret Wheeler neither killed her kidnapper nor committed suicide. Rather, she continued to live in marriage to the sowar who abducted her. Since she was expected to live in harem seclusion, she was not able to contact her family. Reportedly, the British eventually found out that she was alive and simply lived in purdah. Since they were given the impression that she did so voluntarily, however, they did not publish the information, which would also have destroyed the image of her as a legendary war heroine. Margaret Wheeler reportedly died in harem in 1907. Upon her deathbed in 1907, she called upon a female British missionary, Florence Leach, and asked her help to be given access to a British priest for comfort, and upon that occasion confessed to Leach that she was the daughter of Hugh Wheeler.[3]
She was one of few survivors of the Satichaura Ghat massacre. A handfull of women were taken prisoner by individual captors, avoided to be placed in the Bibighar and therefore avoided also the Bibighar massacre. Of these known survivors were Ulrica Wheeler, Amelia Horne, the drummers wives Eliza Bradshaw and Elizabeth Letts, and the twelve year old Eliza Fanthome.[4] [5]
References[edit]
- ^ Clare Anderson: Subaltern Lives: Biographies of Colonialism in the Indian Ocean World, 1790-1920
- ^ Anderson, C. (2012). Subaltern Lives: Biographies of Colonialism in the Indian Ocean World, 1790-1920. Storbritannien: Cambridge University Press. p. 147
- ^ Spilsbury, J. (2008). The Indian Mutiny. Storbritannien: Orion.
- ^ Spilsbury, J. (2008). The Indian Mutiny. Storbritannien: Orion.
- ^ Anderson, C. (2012). Subaltern Lives: Biographies of Colonialism in the Indian Ocean World, 1790-1920. Storbritannien: Cambridge University Press. p. 149