Doctor Dolittle, in the novels by Hugh Lofting, had ‘rabbits in the
pantry, white mice in his piano, a squirrel in the linen closet and a
hedgehog in the cellar’. It could almost be a description of Sir Hans
Sloane. In addition to his vast collections of books and manuscripts,
natural history specimens, antiquities and curiosities of all kinds,
Sloane owned a surprising number of live animals, which he kept in the
garden of his house in Bloomsbury Place just down the street from the modern British Museum.
Wednesday, 16 May 2012
Yvonne FitzRoy and Victor Sassoon
A recent enquiry about the papers of Yvonne FitzRoy [IOPP/ Mss Eur
E312] led to the discovery of the letters of Victor Sassoon – a
legendary figure in 1930s Shanghai.
Yvonne FitzRoy (1891-1971), was a society lady with a progressive mind. She was a theatre actress before the First World War. But her acting career was cut short when she was summoned by the Scottish Women’s Hospital (supported by the National Union of Scottish Women’s Suffrage Societies) to serve as a volunteer nurse in Romania and Russia. She was awarded a Russian medal at the end of the War, and continued her adventures in India where she worked as the private secretary for the wife of the Viceroy from 1920 to 1926. It was probably during this time that she became acquainted with Sir Victor Sassoon, a member of the Indian Legislative Council.
Yvonne FitzRoy in India, 1923. [Mss Eur E312/14. ©The British Library Board]
Victor Sassoon came to know Yvonne better through his connections with the English aristocracy. In the early 1920s Sassoon purchased a stately home, West Green House in Hampshire but he never had much
Yvonne FitzRoy (1891-1971), was a society lady with a progressive mind. She was a theatre actress before the First World War. But her acting career was cut short when she was summoned by the Scottish Women’s Hospital (supported by the National Union of Scottish Women’s Suffrage Societies) to serve as a volunteer nurse in Romania and Russia. She was awarded a Russian medal at the end of the War, and continued her adventures in India where she worked as the private secretary for the wife of the Viceroy from 1920 to 1926. It was probably during this time that she became acquainted with Sir Victor Sassoon, a member of the Indian Legislative Council.
Yvonne FitzRoy in India, 1923. [Mss Eur E312/14. ©The British Library Board]
Victor Sassoon came to know Yvonne better through his connections with the English aristocracy. In the early 1920s Sassoon purchased a stately home, West Green House in Hampshire but he never had much
Duke of Cambridge supports campaign against London vice
Prince Adolphus Frederick, first Duke of Cambridge, (1774-1850), son
of George III, was a patron of many good causes and benevolent
institutions. One of the associations he supported was the London
Society for the Protection of Young Females which was established in
1835. The Society aimed to suppress juvenile prostitution in the
metropolis by
• Closing houses in which juvenile prostitution was encouraged
• Punishing those procuring young girls
• Protecting the ‘unhappy victims’.
• Closing houses in which juvenile prostitution was encouraged
• Punishing those procuring young girls
• Protecting the ‘unhappy victims’.
East India Company at Home, 1757-1857
From Clive’s victory at Plassey in 1757 to the outbreak of the Mutiny
of 1857, Britain’s empire on the subcontinent was administered by the
East India Company. A chartered monopoly, the Company significantly
expanded its fiscal, territorial and military grip on the subcontinent
in the century before its abolition in 1858. By the later 1750s, its
servants (that is, its civil and military officers) enjoyed
unprecedented access to Asian goods, through bribes, ceremonial gifting,
private commerce and the spoils of war. Togethe
r with the Company’s official cargoes of Indian and Chinese commodities,
these goods helped to transform British families’ material
sensibilities and homes.
Bengal Army officers - names, nationalities, fatalities and a phantom
There are many 'untold lives' to be found in the pages of the
biographical compilations in the Asian & African Studies Reading
Room, one of which is Lives of the officers of the Bengal Army, 1758 - 1834 by Major V.C.P. Hodson (OIR355.332).
Portrait of Adam Atkinson of the Bengal Army by A.W. Devis, Calcutta 1789 (Foster 1065)
© The British Library Board Images Online
Some of the most fascinating information is to be found in the appendices near the very end of the work, even if some entries leave the casual browser keen to know more. Appendix D, for example, is concerned
Some of the most fascinating information is to be found in the appendices near the very end of the work, even if some entries leave the casual browser keen to know more. Appendix D, for example, is concerned
“Shrapnel Biddulph” – telegraph engineer, soldier, romantic and artist
Captain Michael Anthony Shrapnel Biddulph was posted to Turkey in 1854, and shortly afterwards to the Crimea, where he served with distinction as assistant engineer of the Royal Artillery, and later as director of submarine telegraphs in the Black Sea. Decorated by the French and Turkish governments, in 1856 he was promoted Brevet Lieutenant Colonel. In 1858 he was appointed Chief Engineer of the Ottoman Telegraph, overseeing the construction of telegraph cable lines in Turkey-in-Asia.
Vignette (1)
Vignettes taken from Plan of a Portion of the Constantinople and Bussorah [Basra] Line of Telegraph. War Office, 1860. Maps R.U.S.I. A20.4.
Benevolence from Bengal: Amir Chand’s bequest
The mercantile classes have long been associated with acts of
charity within the communities in which they live and the records of the
East India Company provide ample evidence of numerous philanthropic
deeds. One notable example is a bequest left by one of India’s most
famous eighteenth century merchants Amir Chand [Omichund, Umichund].
A major trader with the Nawabs of Bengal and the East India Company,
Amir Chand is best remembered
Sir Josiah’s Disobedient Child
Sir Josiah Child (bap.1631, d.1699) was the successful son of a
London merchant. He made a large fortune as a brewer and victualler and
through the Royal African and East India Companies. Child bought an
estate at Wanstead in Essex and lavished money on landscaping. Palladian
Wanstead House pictured below was built after Sir Josiah’s death by his
son Richard.
View of Wanstead House, by G. Robertson; engraved by Fittler
BL: Maps.K.Top.13.30.d © The British Library Board Images Online
Child was active in local politics, sat as an MP, and served nearly 25 years as an East India Company director, with two periods as Governor. He was the author of a number of economic tracts, and his letters and published works can be read today in the British Library. He married three times and had eight children.
View of Wanstead House, by G. Robertson; engraved by Fittler
BL: Maps.K.Top.13.30.d © The British Library Board Images Online
Child was active in local politics, sat as an MP, and served nearly 25 years as an East India Company director, with two periods as Governor. He was the author of a number of economic tracts, and his letters and published works can be read today in the British Library. He married three times and had eight children.
Family budgets in 1920s India
The Royal Commission on the Superior Civil Services in India (the
Lee Commission) was appointed in 1923 to enquire into the organisation
and general conditions of service, the possibility of transferring any
duties and functions to provincial services, and the recruitment of
Europeans and Indians.
To assist in its enquiry into the conditions of service the Royal Commission collected examples of the budgets of individual members of the civil service, some very detailed. The general thrust of the evidence submitted was the rising cost of living in India and the inadequate pay of civil servants.
One
example is a budget submitted with the written evidence of the Indian
Educational Association, Burma (IOR/Q/11/24 No.1002). It compares the
Bazaar prices of various goods in 1913/14 and 1923, such as foodstuffs,
furniture, crockery and clothes, and lists the cost of the various types
of servants (head boy, ayah, cook, paniwallah, sweeper, chauffeur,
dhobi, mali, etc).
The anonymous monthly budget of a Professor in the University of Rangoon in his first year of service gives an interesting insight in to what civil servants felt they had to spend to keep up what they saw as their status in the community in which they lived and worked, both in the eyes of other Europeans and of native Indians. The Professor had four servants (personal boy, driver, sweeper and dhobi), employed a typist, owned a car, subscribed to a large number of scientific societies and was a member of three clubs (Golf Club, Gymkhana Club and Boat Club). His wife suffered a break down in her health after only a short time in Burma and had to return to England, and he lists the expenses associated with doctors' bills and her return passage. In fact expenses associated with medical problems were a
To assist in its enquiry into the conditions of service the Royal Commission collected examples of the budgets of individual members of the civil service, some very detailed. The general thrust of the evidence submitted was the rising cost of living in India and the inadequate pay of civil servants.
One
example is a budget submitted with the written evidence of the Indian
Educational Association, Burma (IOR/Q/11/24 No.1002). It compares the
Bazaar prices of various goods in 1913/14 and 1923, such as foodstuffs,
furniture, crockery and clothes, and lists the cost of the various types
of servants (head boy, ayah, cook, paniwallah, sweeper, chauffeur,
dhobi, mali, etc).The anonymous monthly budget of a Professor in the University of Rangoon in his first year of service gives an interesting insight in to what civil servants felt they had to spend to keep up what they saw as their status in the community in which they lived and worked, both in the eyes of other Europeans and of native Indians. The Professor had four servants (personal boy, driver, sweeper and dhobi), employed a typist, owned a car, subscribed to a large number of scientific societies and was a member of three clubs (Golf Club, Gymkhana Club and Boat Club). His wife suffered a break down in her health after only a short time in Burma and had to return to England, and he lists the expenses associated with doctors' bills and her return passage. In fact expenses associated with medical problems were a
The search for Black Rock Part II
Here is the second part of our story from the Andaman Islands contributed by guest blogger N. Francis Xavier.
Giant trees rose on either side of the narrow trail as it snaked through the tropical forest forming a thick canopy overhead. Huge lianas hung down from their branches like pythons. The trail seemed endless as it dipped and rose and again dipped into the evergreen forest.
Giant trees rose on either side of the narrow trail as it snaked through the tropical forest forming a thick canopy overhead. Huge lianas hung down from their branches like pythons. The trail seemed endless as it dipped and rose and again dipped into the evergreen forest.
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