I was having a discussion among friends about the Indian Mutiny and a discussion came up of the actual number of Europeans serving within the armies of the East India Company. Would anyone be able to shed some light on this?
At the breaking out of the mutinies in 1857, we find by returns offered to Parliament on 4th December, 1857, that the force of the British Government in India was 246,872 men of all arms of which 42,500 were Europeans, and 204,372 natives...These proportions give a ratio of native troops to European troops as nearly 5 to 1.
Karl J. Schmidt's An Atlas and Survey of South Asian History gives a figure of nearly 6 to 1 native soldiers to European soldiers for 1857, noting that in 1769, the ratio was nearly 5 to 1.
For historical interest, here are some statistics on the East India Company's military forces in South Asia from 1825-1844. Pages 15-18 will provide you with the average numbers of European vs native troops in the Bengal, Madras, and Bombay presidencies during those years. As you can see, the pre-1857 ratio of native to European forces was always quite high.
Bonus information:
Post-1857, the British government was careful to re-organize the army so as to lower this ratio to 2 to 1 in the Bengal presidency where participation in the mutiny was the greatest. In the Bombay and Madras presidencies, where there were little to no rebellious activities military-wise, the ratio was lowered to 3 to 1.
Military re-organization also resulted in artillery being placed exclusively in the control of European soldiers. A further change was that many people of the Bengal presidency, which previously held the largest number of soldiers, were no longer deemed as 'intrinsically fit' or possessing of a 'proper character' for military service. Instead, the groups that were more 'loyal' during the Rebellion, such as Gurkhas and Punjabi Sikhs, were designated as "martial races" and so heavily recruited from that in 1904, ~57% of the British Indian Army was made up of soldiers from Punjab and various Himalayan regions.
Sources and Further Reading:
Raugh, Harold E. The Victorians at War, 1815-1914: An Encyclopedia of British Military History. 2004.
Kennedy, J.P. Finances, Military Occupation, Government, and Industrial Development of India. 1858.
Schmidt, Karl J. An Atlas and Survey of South Asian History. 1995.
Omissi, David. The Sepoy and the Raj: The Indian Army, 1860-1940. 1994.
