How a Mullingar civil servant became a Victorian celebrity 

Des O'Sullivan tells how Thomas Henry Kavanagh was awarded the Indian Mutiny Victoria Cross that will be auctioned in London next month 

Thomas Henry Kavanagh VC (1821-82) being disguised during the Indian mutiny at the siege of Lucknow, 9th November 1857, c.1860 by Chevalier Louis-William Desanges. Picture: The National Army Museum

THE Victoria Cross awarded to a Mullingar civil servant for an epic and daring escape and rescue during the Siege of Lucknow comes up at Noonans in London on September 14.

Months into the siege during the Indian Mutiny of 1857 Thomas Henry Kavanagh crept out in disguise from the surrounded Residency at night.