John S G Ryley joined the 2nd Bengal Light Cavalry and was promoted to lieutenant on 4 Sep 1835. The 2nd BLC were disbanded in 1842 and reconstituted as the 11th BLC but Ryley transferred to the 5th Light Cavalry and was appointed adjutant on 5 Jan 1846. He fought in the 2nd Anglo-Sikh War and was wounded in the foot at Ramnuggur on 22 Nov 1848. In 1852 Captain Ryley was mentioned in the Indian News as being in the 5th Bengal Light Cavalry, taking sick leave from 21 April to 31 Oct in the hills north of Deyrah. Major Ryley was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in Jan 1855 and left India in that year.
The Mechanics Magazine 1 Dec 1865 wrote a piece on Colonel Ryley’s experiments with gunpowder. He improved on the efforts of a scientist named Mr Gale to find a way of making gunpowder safe to store, by rendering it non-explosive, then reversing the process to reactivate it again.
