Reginald Dyer

United Kingdom state institutions 1864–1927 ○ Natural death

British Indian Army officer who ordered troops to fire on an unarmed crowd at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar in 1919

Born in Murree in British Punjab, the son of a brewery manager, he graduated from Sandhurst and transferred to the Bengal Army, serving on frontier expeditions. In the First World War he commanded the Seistan Force. As a temporary brigadier-general on 13 April 1919 he ordered his troops, without warning, to fire on a crowd gathered at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar in defiance of his ban on meetings. The soldiers fired 1,650 rounds for about ten minutes, directed towards the exits, and even the official count was at least 379 dead. In the street where a British woman had been assaulted he made people crawl on their bellies. Criticised by the Hunter Committee, he was told to resign, while in Britain a fund was raised for “the man who saved India”. He died of a cerebral haemorrhage in 1927.