 Brydon fought in the Second Anglo-Burmese War of 1852, when Rangoon was taken.In the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857, Brydon was a surgeon of the Bengal Army at Lucknow and, along with his wife and children, survived his second siege, that of the Lucknow residency (June – November 1857), in which he was badly wounded in the thigh.He was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in November 1858.