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{{Infobox military person
| honorific_prefix =
| name = Reginald Mortimer Howgego
| honorific_suffix =
| image =
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| birth_date = 1896
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| death_date = 1980
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|allegiance = {{UK}}
|branch = {{flagicon|British Raj}} [[British Indian Army]] (1914–1927)
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| rank = [[Sergeant]]
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| unit = [[London Regiment (1908–1938)|London Regiment]]<br>[[25th (County of London) Cyclist Battalion|25th Cyclist Battalion]]
| commands =
| known_for = [[Crawling Order]] photography
| battles =
{{tree list}}
*[[First World War]]
**[[North-West Frontier Theatre of WWI|North-West Frontier]]
{{tree list/end}}
| battles_label =
| awards = [[India General Service Medal (1909)|India General Service Medal (1908)]]
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}}
'''Reginald Mortimer Howgego''' (1896 – 1980), was a [[British Indian Army]] officer, and [[sergeant]] serving the [[25th (County of London) Cyclist Battalion|25th Cyclist Battalion]], known for his [[photograph]]s, and holding a picket at one end of Kucha Kaurianwala, [[Amritsar]], in April 1919, at the [[Crawling Order|instruction for Indians to crawl]] by [[Reginald Dyer]], following the assault of Marcella Sherwood, and the [[Jallianwalla Bagh Massacre]].

==Early life==
Reginald Howgego was born in 1896, one of at least four children of Harry Arthur Howgego, a printer's compositor, and his wife Laura Elizabeth.<ref name=Lond25>{{cite web |last=Darvill|first=Simon|title=London 25th Regt |url=https://www.25thlondon.com/rmh.htm#:~:text=Reginald%20was%20born%20in%20Ipswich,Randall%20in%201924. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250905195823/https://www.25thlondon.com/rmh.htm |archive-date=5 September 2025 |website=www.25thlondon.com}}</ref><ref name=Ipswich>{{cite web |date=13 March 2016 |title=Arthur William Howgego |url=https://www.ipswichwarmemorial.co.uk/arthur-william-howgego/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250906070844/https://www.ipswichwarmemorial.co.uk/arthur-william-howgego/ |archive-date=6 September 2025 |access-date=6 September 2025 |website=Ipswich War Memorial |publisher=Ipswich War Memorial}}</ref>

==Military career==
Howgego enlisted into the army at the age of 19 during the [[First World War]].<ref name=Willcock2019>{{cite journal |last1=Willcock |first1=Sean |title=Guilt in the Archive: Photography and the Amritsar Massacre of 1919 |journal=History of Photography |date=2 January 2019 |volume=43 |issue=1 |pages=47–59 |doi=10.1080/03087298.2019.1613791 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03087298.2019.1613791|publisher=Taylor & Francis |issn=0308-7298 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250905195442/https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/27606/3/27606.pdf |archive-date=5 September 2025 |access-date=5 September 2025|url-access=subscription}}</ref> He joined the [[25th (County of London) Cyclist Battalion|25th Cyclist Battalion]], a [[Bicycle infantry|bicycle battalion]] of the [[London Regiment (1908–1938)|London Regiment]].<ref name=Lond25/><ref name=IWM2>{{cite web |title=Lives of the First World War |url=https://livesofthefirstworldwar.iwm.org.uk/lifestory/1991540 |website=livesofthefirstworldwar.iwm.org.uk |access-date=6 September 2025}}</ref> He saw action at the [[North-West Frontier Theatre of WWI|North-West Frontier]].<ref name=Willcock2019/>

===Photography===
[[File:Native crawling up street where Miss Sherwood was assaulted 1919.jpg|thumb|An Indian crawling up street where Sherwood was assaulted, 1919.<ref name=Willcock2019/>]]
Howgego became known for his photography, taken possibly using a [[Vest Pocket Kodak]].<ref name=Willcock2019/> In 1917, while stationed on the NW Frontier, he sent several photographs of soldiers and civilans to his mother.<ref name=Willcock2019/> His images include those of the [[Kalka–Shimla Railway]], and [[Darra Pezu]], [[Waziristan]].<ref name=Lond25/>

In 1919 Howgego was present at Amritsar with [[Reginald Dyer]].<ref name=Collett2006>{{cite book |last1=Collett |first1=Nigel |title=The Butcher of Amritsar: General Reginald Dyer |date=2006 |publisher=A&C Black |isbn=978-1-85285-575-8 |page=430 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XuQC5pgzCw4C&pg=PA430|chapter=Epilogue |language=en}}</ref> During April 1919, with the 25th Cyclist Battalion, he held a picket at one end of Kucha Kaurianwala, [[Amritsar]], as Indians were [[Crawling Order|forced to crawl on the orders]] of Dyer, following the assault on [[Marcella Sherwood]] on 10 April and [[Jallianwala Bagh Massacre]] of 13 April.<ref name=Wagner2109.199>Wagner, pp. 199-200</ref><ref name=Wagner2019>{{cite book |last1=Wagner |first1=Kim A. |title=Amritsar 1919: An Empire of Fear & the Making of a Massacre |date=2019 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-24546-2 |pages=199-200 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bziIDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA199|chapter=Forces of terror|language=en}}</ref> At least four photographs were taken at Kucha Kaurianwala between 19 and 24 April 1919.<ref name=Wagner2019/> One of these photographs, captioned "Punishment", shows soldiers enforcing the crawling order.<ref name=Willcock2019/><ref name=Wagner2019/> Another image, captioned "Making a Native Crawl down the Street as Punishment", shows a soldier prodding a crawling individual.<ref name=Willcock2019/><ref name=Wagner2019/> The whipping post, appearing in the corner of that picture also appears on its own in another photograph.<ref name=Willcock2019/><ref name=Wagner2019/> Other photographs are of his soldiers resting at Ram Bagh, and one of eight "happy and relaxed" officers sitting at a picket site.<ref name=Wagner2019/>

==Awards==
In 1921, for his service on the NW Frontier, Howgego was awarded the [[India General Service Medal (1909)|India General Service Medal (1908)]], inscribed with "Afghanistan, North West Frontier 1908".<ref name=NArch1908>National Archives of the UK; Kew, Surrey, England; War Office Campaign Medal and Award Rolls 1793-1949 (WO 100); Class: WO 100; Piece: 479</ref>

==Later life==
In later life, Howgego retired to Ipswich, from where he wrote several letters to historians, newspapers, and the ''BBC''.<ref name=Willcock2019/><ref name=Collett2006/> To historian Alfred Draper, he gave his opinion of [[Reginald Dyer]] as "a first class soldier condemned by people at home who knew nothing of India, his troops would have done anything and gone anywhere with him".<ref name=Willcock2019/><ref name=Collett2006/> In the ''Sunday Express'', he took issue with a passage in Jan Morris’s ''[[Pax Britannica Trilogy|Pax Britannica]]'' that stated hundreds of innocent Indian civilians had been killed.<ref name=Wagner2109.249>Wagner, pp. 249-250</ref> He preferred the narrative published in ''[[The Morning Post]]'', which favoured Dyer.<ref name=Wagner2109.249/>

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

==Further reading==
*{{cite web |title=The Discovery Service |url=https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/browse/r/h/a3a2634f-07cf-4923-8eb1-8d9a0b563c51 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250905165708/https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/browse/r/h/a3a2634f-07cf-4923-8eb1-8d9a0b563c51 |archive-date=5 September 2025 |access-date=5 September 2025 |website=discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk |publisher=The National Archives}}

==Bibliography==
*{{cite book |last1=Wagner |first1=Kim A. |title=Amritsar 1919: An Empire of Fear & the Making of a Massacre |date=2019 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-24546-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bziIDwAAQBAJ|language=en}}

[[Category:1896 births]]
[[Category:1980 deaths]]
[[Category:British Indian Army officers]]
[[Category:Jallianwala Bagh massacre]]
[[Category:People from Ipswich]]
[[Category:Interwar India]]
[[Category:London Regiment soldiers]]

Reginald Mortimer Howgego - Revision history

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