Page 25 - They Also Served

5Henry Godwin-Austen 1851.
Henry Haversham Austen was born in
Devon on 6th July 1834. Educated at
the Royal Grammar School, Guildford,
he entered the Royal Military College
Sandhurst, as a 14-year-old gentleman
cadet. A keen student of military
surveying, he was highly commended for
his artistry and awarded three decorations
of merit. Austen was commissioned into
the 67th Regiment in 1851, transferring,
the next day, to the 24th. Sent to India,
he was almost immediately in action in
the Second Anglo-Burmese War. While
in Burma, he surveyed the Irrawaddy Delta with such precision that his name came to the attention of Sir Andrew Scott Waugh, the Surveyor General of India. In 1853, Austen’s father changed the family name to Godwin-Austen.
In 1856, Godwin-Austen joined the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India, was promoted to lieutenant, and then captain two years later. A small and slight man, standing only five feet tall, he did, however, manage to avoid succumbing to the many diseases that cut short the lives of other notable explorers of the region, such as William Moorcroft and George Hayward. During this period, he met an Indian lady named Kudji, and a son, Edward, was born in 1857. Although the couple were married in a legally recognised Muslim ceremony, intermarriage was frowned upon by the establishment, and his career stalled. However, a serious injury sustained in an attempted mugging left him unconscious for several days and he was invalided back to the UK to recuperate with the 2nd Battalion of his regiment. At this time, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
Returning to India in 1860, he was briefly reunited with Kudji and, together, they embarked on a survey mission to Baltistan in what is now Kashmir. There, he carried out the first detailed survey of the second-highest mountain in the world, which was named Mount Godwin-Austen in his honour, but which is now more usually known as K2. However, during this time, Kudji died and young Edward was given up for adoption to an English family.
19