Sacrifice of soldier revealed by broken glasses in Indian museum

A display case in the Institut de Chandernagor in West Bengal showing some of Private Jogendra Sen’s personal effects. Image by BBC/University of Leeds/PA Wire

A shattered pair of glasses in an Indian museum have helped shed light on the sacrifice of a volunteer soldier who is thought to have been the first Bengali to die in the First World War.

Jogendra Sen was 28 when he was killed in action near the Somme in 1916, where he was the only non-white member of the 15th West Yorkshire Regiment.

Private Sen was one of the first to sign up to the 1st Leeds “Pals” Battalion when it was raised in September 1914, according to researchers at Leeds University.

He was unusual not only because he was the only non-white volunteer but also because he was highly educated.

Despite completing an electrical engineering degree at the University of Leeds in 1913 he was thwarted in his attempt to join up as an officer and unable to progress beyond the rank of private.

His story was rediscovered following a chance discovery by an expert in India’s involvement in the First World War, Santanu Das, who is a reader in English at King’s College London, a Leeds University spokesman said.

Dr Das came across Pte Sen’s bloodstained glasses in a museum display case on a visit to his home town of Chandernagore, a former French colony.

He said: “I was absolutely stunned when I saw the pair of glasses. It’s one of the most poignant artefacts I’ve seen – a material token of the fragility of life at the front.”

A contemporary photograph shows Pte Sen relaxing with his fellow Pals – who knew him as Jon – wearing what are thought to be the same spectacles.

Private Jogendra Sen (fourth from the right in the third row back) with Number 16 Platoon (D Company) of the 16th West Yorkshire Regiment dated circa 1915. Image by BBC/University of Leeds/PA Wire

When the academic gave a talk as part of the Leeds University’s Legacies of War centenary project, someone pointed out that Pte Sen’s name was on the nearby university war memorial and further information began to pour in, he said.

Dr Das said: “The glasses led me to find other remarkable objects, some from my own extended family, and on to a tantalising trail of other educated middle-class Bengalis, who often served as doctors.

“More than a million Indian soldiers and non-combatants served in different theatres of the First World War, but what is so unusual about Jogendra Sen is that he was not part of the Indian army but of the Leeds Pals Battalion.

“I sometimes wonder what his experiences would have been as the only non-white person in the battalion at that time – and of his family when the glasses arrived, all the way from France to Chandernagore.”

Professor Alison Fell, who leads the project at Leeds University, said: “I found the piecing together of Sen’s story from the historical traces of his life and death that had survived in India and in Yorkshire very moving.

“His story also illustrates the extent to which the First World War was a global war that involved colonial soldiers and workers as well as those who volunteered or who were conscripted in their home nations.”

The researchers were also intrigued by a mystery woman whose picture was found in Pte Sen’s personal effects with the inscription “Yours with love, Cis”.

The photograph of the well-dressed young woman, taken in a Scarborough portrait studio, was identified by researcher Ruth Allison as Mary Cicely Newton (nee Wicksteed), who may have met Pte Sen through her connection with Mill Hill Chapel in Leeds, where he sang in the choir.

Their relationship appears to have remained platonic, the university said.

Miss Wicksteed went on to earn the Royal Red Cross while serving in France as a nurse.

Pte Sen was buried in Sucrerie Military Cemetery, Colincamps, France.

He left India in 1910 and, after graduating with a BSc in electrical engineering in 1913, he was working as assistant engineer at Leeds Corporation Electric Lighting station when he signed up for war.

A comrade, Arthur Dalby, told historian Laurie Milner in 1988: “We had a Hindu in our hut, called Jon Sen. He was the best-educated man in the battalion and he spoke about seven languages, but he was never allowed to be even a lance corporal because in those days they would never let a coloured fellow be over a white man, not in England, but he was the best educated.”

Pte Sen died in action as part of a wiring party that was heavily bombarded late on the night of May 22 after he was hit by shrapnel in the leg and neck.

Fewer than 100 Bengalis are thought to have fought in the war as they were initially barred from the Indian army.

India contributed around 1.5 million soldiers and non-combatants to the war effort.

:: A BBC Inside Out film tracing Jogendra Sen’s story is on BBC1 (Yorkshire and Lincolnshire) at 7.30pm tonight.

(Press Association)