File:P02. The Baillie Guard Gateway from the Nobut Khana (Music Hall.) (cropped).jpg

English: Plate 2. The Baillie Guard Gateway from the Nobut Khana (Music Hall.)

L-R: The Guard House, The Bailley Guard Gate, Dr. Fayrer's House, The Treasury
The Baillie Guard! How the name at once conjures up that of its gallant defender, the bold and burly Jock Aitken, who, with his devoted band of sepoys of the 13th regiment Native Infantry, held the place throughout the entire siege. Although one of the most dangerous, it was perhaps the pleasantest post in the garrison. No amount of fire could ruffle the imperturbable good humour and sang-froid of Aitken, who had apparently imparted some portion of his own disposition to his grinning Jacks, as they cared as little for musketry, round shot, and shell as their jovial commander himself. The Baillie Guard, which owes its cognomen to Colonel Baillie, a former Resident of Lucknow, is situated at the entrance into the Residency. The building on the right is the Treasury,— a fact well known to the sepoys, who had often assisted in guarding it; and hence their desperate efforts to storm the place. To take the Baillie Guard was, in their opinion, to carry the whole position; and at last, the entire line of defences was included in the general name of the Baillie Guard. On the right of the gateway, in the hollow of the wall just in front of the palanquin, was posted an eighteen-pounder, which was worked by Aitken and his light-hearted Jacks against a thirty-two-pounder of the enemy, which was placed under a ruined pillar behind the Clock Tower, about one hundred and fifty yards from the Baillie Guard, and played into “ Sanders’s Post ” (which forms the subject of a subsequent sketch) at a distance of barely sixty yards. The enemy, providentially for us, generally fired at the tops, of the houses, in the hope of killing individual marksmen; and in the proximity of their guns therefore lay our greatest safety. They would have been much more destructive four hundred yards distant; and had they been directed lower, it would have been impossible for us to have held the position. Fortunately, however, the rebels had not sense enough to perceive that if they battered to pieces the lower story of a building, the upper must inevitably fall with it, and so they directed their shots chiefly against the tops, from which they experienced the most mischief, and the* shattered and ruined condition of which is a sufficient proof of the accuracy and precision with which they served their guns; though, from their extreme proximity, and the elevation with which they were compelled to fire, many balls, of course, went over the post for which they were intended, and fell into the enemy’s own intrenchments, where it is to be hoped they inflicted much damage. The archway itself is the principal entrance into the Residency, and it was through it that our gallant deliverers marched on the evening of the 25th of September, with General Outram at their head, who, though wounded, very early in the day, kept in his saddle, and at the post he had chosen for himself at the head of the advancing column. He was the first man into the position. I wonder if he will ever forget the cheer with which he was received. It came loud and long from the hearts of his rescued countrymen. But there were others whose gratitude, though silent, was not the less felt;— men who experienced for the first time that blessed sense of security, which only those who have undergone similar horrors can appreciate, that their wives and babes were safe at last, and saved too from a fate far worse than death;— men who themselves and whose families will bless the names of Outram and of Havelock long after the former shall have followed his companion in arms to his honoured grave. The building behind the gateway and to the left of the Treasury is the house occupied by Doctor Fayrer, the Civil Surgeon. It was to this house that Sir Henry Lawrence was removed after he received his death-wound in the Residency, and here he breathed his last. Owing to the fact of Sir Henry having been carried thither, the place subsequently became a special mark for the round shot and buffets of the enemy; and the only spot where the female inmates were in security was in the Tai Khana, beneath the building.

Plate from Sketches & Incidents of the Siege of Lucknow. From Drawings Made during the Siege, by Clifford Henry Mecham, Lieutenant Madras Army, with descriptive notices by George Couper, esq. late secretary to the Chief Commissioner of Oude. First edition, tinted lithographed title with vignette, 27 views on 17 tinted lithographed plates, folio, Day & Son, published 1 Oct 1858.