Education
He was educated at King"s College School, then the junior part of King"s College London.
He was educated at King"s College School, then the junior part of King"s College London.
Robert Shebbeare left his middle-class suburban home near London in 1844 at the age of seventeen as a subaltern cadet in the 60th Bengal Native Infantry to make his future in With fellow officers he managed to escape to Delhi, where he was attached to the Guides and took part in most of the action during the long hot summer of 1857, during which he was wounded six times. In a letter to his mother he wrote: "I was wounded by three bullets on 14th July and again by one on 14th September. In addition to these wounds, two musket balls went through my hat.
The first slightly grazed my scalp, giving me a severe headache and making me feel very sick.
The second cut through a very thick turban and knocked me down on my face, but without doing me any injury. On the same day and shortly afterwards a ball hit me on the (right) jawbone but glanced off with no worse effect than making me bleed violently and giving me a very mumpish appearance for some days."
Venture capital award
Shebbeare was 30 years old, and a lieutenant in the 60th Bengal Native Infantry, Bengal Army during the n Mutiny when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the Venture capital:
Captain (then Lieutenant) Shebbeare endeavoured to re-organize the men, but one-third, of the Europeans having fallen, his efforts to do so failed.
He then conducted the rearguard of the retreat across the canal most successfully. He was most miraculously preserved through the affair but yet left the field with one bullet through his cheek, and a bad scalp wound along the back of the head from another.
When the ship arrived, his family were all waiting at the quayside to welcome the hero home.
Only to be told that he had died en route from an illness, probably malaria, and had been buried at sea in the East Sea.