Joseph Davey Cunningham

Joseph Davey Cunningham was an officer of the East India Company and the author of A History of the Sikhs (1849), the first serious English history of the Sikh people, written by a man who had served on the Punjab frontier. He was born in Lambeth on 9 June 1812, the eldest of five sons of the Scottish poet Allan Cunningham. He trained at Addiscombe and Chatham and reached India in the 1830s (the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says 1832, the Dictionary of National Biography 1834).

On the frontier. From 1837 he served on the staff of Claude Wade, the Company's agent on the Sikh frontier, mainly fortifying Ferozepore. He took part in the Khyber expedition of 1839, was put in charge of Ludhiana in 1840, and was British agent at Bahawalpur in 1844 and 1845. In the First Anglo-Sikh War he was political officer with Sir Harry Smith's division at Buddowal and Aliwal, and an aide-de-camp to Governor-General Henry Hardinge at Sobraon. Hardinge then appointed him political agent at Bhopal.

The book. He wrote it over about four years and it was published in London in 1849. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says it drew on official records, Sikh scriptures and Persian and Punjabi manuscripts, and that it presents the religious inspiration of the Sikhs as the driving force behind the community's rise. Wikipedia notes that he blamed Dogra treason at the Sikh court for the Sikh defeats. The Dictionary of National Biography adds that his last chapter claimed the Sikh generals Lal Singh and Tej Singh had been bought, which Hardinge and Henry Lawrence denied.

The punishment. In 1850 he was removed from his agency and sent back to regimental duty, his income fell to about a quarter, and he was never given another political post. The Dictionary of National Biography says the official reason was his disclosure of confidential political documents; the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says it was the book's sharp criticism of Hardinge's Punjab policy that angered his superiors. He died suddenly near Ambala on 28 February 1851, aged 38. The Dictionary of National Biography says the disgrace probably broke his health. His grave at Ambala was rediscovered in 2021, Wikipedia reports.

Key moments

• 9 June 1812: born at Lambeth.
• 1837: joins Claude Wade on the Sikh frontier.
• 1845 to 1846: political officer and aide-de-camp in the First Anglo-Sikh War.
• 1849: A History of the Sikhs is published.
• 1850: removed from the Bhopal agency.
• 28 February 1851: dies near Ambala.

What he is remembered for. His book is still read as the standard early history of the Sikhs and the Anglo-Sikh wars, and the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says it is generally regarded as a standard, responsible history.