Robert Thorpe (Indian Army officer)

He also appealed to the British soldiers, who raised funds for Christian Missionary Society to send medical help to the Kashmir Valley.

[8] Between 1865 and 1868, Thorpe travelled extensively in the villages, collecting information about the living conditions, economy, taxation, and the state apparatus.

It is at once a memorial of that foul act, when like the arch traitor of old; we battered innocent lives, which fate placed into our hands for a few pieces of silver.

[13] Other than the political messages, scholars find Thorpe's writings valuable for the detailed information they provide on the state of the early Dogra administration.

[13] Cecil Tyndale-Biscoe, who went as a Christian missionary to Kashmir in 1890, informs us that prior to his death, Thorpe was ordered out of the state by the Maharaja.

[17][18] Fida Hassnain, on the other hand, states that the Maharaja's men attacked Thorpe when he went to the Shankaracharya Hill near the Dal Lake (also called the Takhat-i-Sulaiman), and he died on the spot.

[1] Robert Thorpe's appeals for help mobilised other British officers such as Sir Robert Montgomery, who was the Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab, Sir Herbert Edwards, Colonel Martin and Colonel Urmston, who got together and raised funds for sending a medical missionary to Kashmir with the help of the Christian Missionary Society.

Afterwards, the Society sent Doctor Theodore Maxwell who was able to get land from the administration for building a basic Mission Hospital at Rustum Gari, close to the Takhat-i-Sulaiman.

[20] In 1967, Fida Hassnain wrote an article on Robert Thorpe in a local newspaper calling him "the first martyr" of Kashmir.