Joseph
Jee (9th February 1819 to 17th
March 1899)
Strangely this
soldier who was awarded the Victoria Cross for gallantry in the face of the
enemy is buried at a posh boarding and day school surrounded by a hundred acres
of parkland. In 1847 it was a boarding school for upper-class boys then in the
1970's it became a coeducational school and has nearly 800 students.
I left the motorway outside Leicester and drove up a
tree-lined road hoping the school was open. It was a Sunday afternoon so I
hoped there’d be some field event in progress. Yes, there was and I drove
passed lots of cars and people playing football. Unsure where to go I pretended
I was a teacher and confidently drove round the back and found myself amid a clutter
of classrooms and outer building. Two cars passed me but I took refuge in the daydreams
that flutter around my head for most of the day and made no eye contact. Why
would a cemetery be in the grounds of a school?
Parking at the rear was a lashing of luck as I
wandered through a nearby hole in a hedge to mown grass guarded by more hedges.
A scattering of graves across the way. This had to be it. It was and I saw the “VC”
on Joseph’s headstone within a minute.
As Joseph was born in 1819 there’s little know about
him. He must have had a keen brain though as at 38 years old he was a surgeon
in the British Army. He was fighting in The Indian Mutiny (a large part of the Bengal army in India were
rebelling against British control.)
On 25th September 1857 Joseph helped charge at the
enemy with guns and bayonets and capture two big guns. How many clashed at the
blood bath - hundreds or thousands - isn’t known but it was hand-to-hand combat
including guns, knives, axes and spears. Many lay wounded but Joseph went
across no-man’s land many times attending to the injured and dying, dragging
them onto cots and hoisting them onto the backs of comrades who took them to
safety.
It wasn’t his day. Once this carnage was over he and
his comrades were returning to their safe base when they were besieged by an
overwhelming force of Indians. All night and the next morning they remained
under heavy gunfire. His comrades were serving a 24-pound big gun but they were
exposed and getting shot dead with their fingers still on the trigger. Joseph
tended the wounded under a curtain of firepower. Eventually he helped move the
wounded through a crossfire of transportable guns and musketry to their safe
post.
Later he rose to deputy surgeon general and on 9th
November 1860 Queen Victoria presented him with the Victoria Cross at Windsor
Park, Berkshire.
I’ve not been able to find out why he’s buried here in
this odd Rosminian Cemetery behind a school. He
didn’t make it to 1900 and died in 1899 aged 80 years old. If there’s any
justice these Victoria Cross recipients I visit should reach a minimum 100 years
old then die a painless death following a fulfilled life.
Not sure I should be here…
Found him…
Touching the “VC” and there it is on
his chest…
