Author:
Captain Piers Thursby of the 9th Lancers:
A. BACKGROUNDAt his death in 1904 Piers Thursby, Esq., of Broadwell, Gloucestershire, was a respectable member of the local gentry, the brother of a baronet, a Justice of the Peace, active with his wife in church affairs, and taking a benevolent interest in the welfare of local children and the conditions of the inmates of the workhouse. In contrast, as these letters reveal, half a century previously he had enjoyed a good deal of 'fun' as a captain in the 9th Lancers, slaughtering 'Pandies', 'niggers', 'treacherous murderous brutes' and 'black Cawnpore murderers' during the Indian Mutiny.