Bengal Service Army Lists

The Bengal Service Army Lists provide detailed information on an officer's career to date. The initial entry usually gives 'inter alia' a cadet's date of birth, the name of his father, and the names of the person who recommended him and the director who nominated him - there then follows a continuous account of his career with frequent cross-references to relevant general orders, military proceedings and correspondence. Occasionally an annual entry may be omitted if nothing particularly noteworthy had occurred during that year. The officer's promotions to date are given in the left-hand margin.

1) An alphabetical list of the officers of the Bengal Army from 1759 to 1834, surnames A-K only, giving corps, dates of successive commissions, and date of leaving active list or date of death [IOR/L/MIL/10/68] 2) Regimental list of all officers on the strength of the Bengal Army c1843 giving dates of successive commisions. Following each regimental section there are brief records of service for some of the officers of that regiment [IOR/L/MIL/10/69]

Unrestricted

An examination of the Bengal Service Army Lists indicates that in the year 1831 the East India Company in London decided to compile service records to date for all officers of the Bengal Army then on the active list, and to make annual additions thereafter until such time as an officer left the active list - all new entrants to the officer corps after 1831 were automatically included in these compilations. The Service Army List also includes a small number of elderly general officers who in 1831 were technically still on the active list though in reality long since retired - some of them had joined the Bengal Army as far back as the 1770s - hence the early starting date of this series. It is important to note however that, these officers excepted, the Bengal Service Army List does not include officers who were no longer in active military employment in 1831 - for such officers narrative accounts of service may sometimes be found in the formal requests for permission to retire which appear in the series Auditor's References 1799-1831 [D/153-229, indexed at Z/D/28-31] - see also the Publication Note below.