Patrick Wheeler - Ribbons Among the Rajahs

Ribbons Among the Rajahs

A History of British Women in India Before the Raj

Patrick Wheeler

First published in Great Britain in 2017 by

PEN AND SWORD HISTORY

an imprint of

Pen and Sword Books Ltd

47 Church Street

Barnsley

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Copyright Patrick Wheeler, 2017

ISBN 978 1 47389 327 6

eISBN 978 1 47389 329 0

Mobi ISBN 978 1 47389 328 3

The right of Patrick Wheeler to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Few of us can have given much thought to the presence of European women in India 200 years ago but, unquestionably, they should be remembered. For all the varied and complex reasons that took them there so many years ago, under such daunting circumstances, and largely under the social pressures of those days, and not least because so many of them lie there still. They were mostly ordinary, everyday individuals, in surprisingly large numbers, who had shared the experiences of the men of that time, but who could not themselves have any great impact on the interaction of the British with India because of their repressed social status.

The seeds of this book were sown while I was dabbling with some family history research a few years ago. Part of the reason for this was to assemble something of interest for the next generation, completely overlooking the possibility that they might prefer to do it for themselves or, more likely, that they might not be remotely interested. In the course of such probing, I spent some time looking at the life and career of a respectable and quite successful family forbear, who was a senior judge in Madras in the early 1800s. My interest was inevitably enhanced by my fascination in that country, its people and especially its history. I found that all sorts of historical data and correspondence existed for our judge, and much was known about his life and work, but, to my astonishment, absolutely nothing was known about his wife; not her date of birth, nor of her death, nor even whether she had accompanied her husband to India and nearby territories. Somehow she was just a blank; airbrushed out of history. From this point on it was a simple step towards recognising that this was true of legions of women who went to India in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. They are a forgotten community. Not being contributors to the great events of the day, they have been swept into a corner, and long since lost to history. In the main, these women went out of duty, following husbands or brothers, or because they were shipped out to the care of family or friends, being difficult to marry off in Georgian England. Occasionally they were despatched to that country because they were the illegitimate offspring of the wealthy. In this, they were akin to the luckless second sons of the great and the good who did not inherit, and were perhaps not fitted for a life wedded to the Church, or the army, and who were therefore packed off to India to make their fortune; or so it was hoped. Other women went out of desperation. Perhaps their fathers had died, too indigent to leave enough to support several daughters, as well as a widow, and yet a prospective husband could not be found. India was a clear option, where there were numerous lovelorn bachelors all set to make a fortune, or so these girls had been told, and therefore anticipated. Furthermore there was, from their point of view, a convenient shortage of potential brides and thus of competition; Caucasian at least. Lastly, some women clearly went from a sense of adventure and excitement. As like as not they had a family member already there, and this was a ready excuse to explore and fulfil some romantic fantasies. In Indian British society it was possible to do what would have been unthinkable in Britain, and that was to cross social boundaries, so deeply engraved on the backbone of life back home, and hopefully to elevate ones status in society. Nevertheless, thinking of going to India was one thing, getting there was quite another. The considerable expense of the journey had to be paid in advance, and the journey itself was lengthy, hazardous, tedious and unhealthy. There had to be, they thought, something secure and worthwhile at the end, after taking such an arduous gamble.

I have used frequent quotations from the available texts because the original language gives a stronger flavour of the period; an immediacy and authenticity, which, in a small way, brings those times to life. I have also strayed from convention by referring to them as Indian British. This is slightly more in line with their own custom, which was to refer to themselves as Indians, hardly appropriate today. Many current texts use the terminology Anglo-Indian which is confusing, in that this is a term very commonly used for those of mixed Indian and British blood, especially in contemporary India. It also rather overlooks the well known fact that a very high percentage of the Indian British were in fact Scottish. I have also inserted occasional words in brackets in the quoted texts to better convey the meaning of the writer, where this may be unclear. Otherwise I have not interfered with the often imperfect punctuation, and have retained the original wording. If there is any deviation, it is more than likely due to the difficulty of reading some of these faded handwritten letters.

Finally, I should like to acknowledge the assistance and guidance of various individuals and groups, including Rosie Llewellyn-Jones; Penny Brooks; the staff of the Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections at the British Library; Barbara Roe; Richard Virr, and the staff at Pen and Sword Books Ltd.

This book is chiefly a social history. Any study of the lives of women during the Georgian and Regency period, and before the Victorian era with its Imperial power, could never have any flavour of politics or economics. They were simply barred from any consideration of that sort, unless they had unusual influence over their husbands. Therefore it can only be an account of everyday living; of the duties, responsibilities and amusements of women 200 years ago. This is not as long ago as it sounds. For older individuals, who possibly remember their grandmothers quite well, one is referring only to their own grandmothers, albeit in their childhood. As time passes, the first historical reality to become forgotten is an individuals everyday manner of living and coping. Politics and great national or military events live on, and rightly so, because it is they which dictate the subsequent course of a nations life. Nevertheless, the day to day minutiae of the lives of these women had relevance, partly because of the effect they may have had on how the decision-makers (the men) conducted their lives, but also being of historical interest in their own right.