In February 1825 Benjamin Constable joined the East India Company as a London warehouse labourer aged 20.  When he died in June 1896 he was described as a gentleman, after rising up the ranks of society to be a prison governor.

Benjamin was born in Buckle Street, Whitechapel, on 11 September 1804, the youngest child of Benjamin and Ann.  His father, fulfilling nominative determinism, worked as a parish constable.

A year after joining the warehouses, Benjamin enlisted in the Royal East India Volunteers, a military body raised to protect East India House and the Company warehouses and to assist the City authorities in times of crisis.  For a number of years, he was one of the 'very steady and useful men' selected to be an extra writer in the warehouses, performing office duties.  He received an additional shilling per day for this on top of his basic pay of 2s 9d.

In March 1838 Benjamin was made redundant after the 1833 Charter Act ordered the East India Company to cease all commercial activity.  He was awarded a weekly pension of 7s 6d for life.  Benjamin soon found employment as a turnkey or warder at Whitecross Street Debtors' Prison to support his wife Ann and their three children, Ann Jane, Benjamin and John William.  A third son James was born in 1841. His wife Ann died in 1845.  At the time of the 1851 census, Benjamin was living at the Prison with his sons John William, an attorney's clerk, and James.  He was married for a second time in March 1857 to Caroline Holmes Lawrence who had two daughters, Caroline and Mary Jane.  When the keeper of Whitecross Street Prison retired in 1862, Benjamin was appointed to succeed him on an annual salary of £150.

Examination of debtors in Whitecross Street Prison, with a view to their discharge under the new Bankruptcy Act - Illustrated Times, 4 January 1862. Image © Illustrated London News Group. British Newspaper Archive

There are newspapers reports about Benjamin’s working life at Whitecross Street.  For example, in 1859 he was questioned about discharging a prisoner who was wearing a false beard and moustache provided by the Prison barber in an attempt to evade creditors outside.

Allowances made to the staff of Whitecross Street Debtors’ Prison when it closed in 1870 - London Daily Chronicle, 18 October 1870. British Newspaper Archive

Whitecross Street Prison closed in 1870 after imprisonment for debt was abolished.  Benjamin was granted an annual allowance of £165 to add to his East India Company pension of £19 10s per annum.  An old man, apparently called ‘Barnacles’, had spent 27 years there and went out confused, staring about him when released.  The Prison chaplain Thomas Pugh and Benjamin tried to find employment for him.  

Benjamin spent his retirement with Caroline in Watford and then Warwick. His children stayed in London. Ann Jane married Charles Page, a butcher, and carried on the business after he died.  Benjamin was a legal clerk and accountant.  John William also worked as a clerk, but James was a piano tuner.  Benjamin's sons all predeceased him.

Advertisement for the auction of Benjamin Constable’s household furniture and other effects at his home 60 Emscote Road, Warwick - Leamington Spa Courier, 19 September 1896. British Newspaper Archive

In the India Office ledgers, Benjamin Constable is recorded as the last surviving East India Company warehouse labourer pensioner, drawing his allowance for more than 58 years until his death on 27 June 1896.  Information about his detached house at 60 Emscote Road, Warwick, demonstrates his elevation to the status of 'gentleman'.  He had four bedrooms, including one occupied by a domestic servant.  His drawing room contained a piano and his dining room a harmonium.  There was a cellar with homemade wines.  The contents of the house were sold by auction in October 1896.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
British Library, IOR/L/AG/30/4 Register of East India Company warehouse labourers from 1830.
British Library, IOR/L/AG/30/5 List of labourers appointed to the East India Company warehouses 1801-1832.
British Library, IOR/L/MIL/5/485 Register of warehouse labourers enlisted in the Royal East India Volunteers 1820-1832.
British Library, IOR/L/F/2/23 no.259 of Oct 1837 Petition of labourers who had been employed as extra writers, including Benjamin Constable, asking for an addition to their pensions (unsuccessful).
Warwickshire County Record Office CR 2433/31/425 Inventory of Benjamin Constable's property at 60 Emscote Road, Warwick - valuation for probate, July 1896.
British Newspaper Archive

In the 19th century, the ruler of Abu Dhabi had significant wealth and power in the Persian Gulf.  It was also a precarious position.  Multiple holders of the title (referred to as the ‘Chief of Abu Dhabi’ in contemporary records) died violently.  The India Office Records tell the story of one such death - the 1845 assassination of Shaikh Khalīfah bin Shakhbūṭ Āl Nahyān, by his own relatives.

Map of Arabia and Syria - 'The Map which Lady Anne Blunt took to Nejd', 1878-1879. Shelfmark: Add.54083 Images Online

A detailed account of the assassination can be found in a letter from Mullā Ḥusayn, Agent at Sharjah , to Major Samuel Hennell the Resident in the Persian Gulf.  Ḥusayn provides some background to the assassination: Shaikh Khalīfah’s brother had tried to convince him of the danger posed by their relatives, specifically their nephew, ‘Īsá bin Khālid al-Falāḥī. Khalīfah was unconvinced by this, and refused his brother’s suggestion to banish ‘Īsá from Abu Dhabi.  Khalīfah attempted to win his relatives over by treating them ‘with great favour and kindness’.

The plan backfired spectacularly as the assassination happened during a meal by the beach in July 1845.  Ḥusayn paints a picture of a relaxing day, with ‘conversation on indifferent and frivolous subjects’, taking place while ‘the usual eatables’ were enjoyed in the shade.  As Khalīfah’s brother walked towards the beach, the assassins, under orders from ‘Īsá, ‘suddenly drew their daggers and struck him’.  Khalīfah drew his sword to defend his brother, but the assassins turned on him.  As the brothers lay dying, the assassins ‘seized the fort, then entered the houses of the Sheikhs, [and] ejected their women and children’.  ‘Īsá then secretly wrote and sent a letter in the name of Shaikh Khalīfah and his brother, requesting that members of their tribe bring horses and camels to Abu Dhabi, presumably with the intention of capturing and using them himself.  Ḥusayn’s comment that this caused ‘great consternation’ in the surrounding area may, perhaps, seem a bit of an understatement.

After receiving Husayn’s letter, British authorities displayed a surprising calm.  They acknowledged that the assassination had been ‘atrocious’, and they especially lamented the loss of a Shaikh they had been working with efficiently.  ‘The demise of Shaikh Khalīfah is much regretted,’ wrote Hennell , ‘[because] he thoroughly understood and appreciated the power of the British Government’.  Hennell explained the strategic advantages that Britain had achieved by co-operating with Khalīfah , demonstrating that relations had been effective and mutually beneficial.  However, British officials wrote that they did ‘not anticipate that this event [would] disturb the tranquillity of the Gulf’.  To them, this unhappy event was a local matter that would not have monumental wider impact on the region.

The aftermath of the assassination saw further politically motivated murders, with multiple relatives of Shaikh Khalīfah being assassinated as they vied for control of Abu Dhabi.  The series of murders demonstrated that, in this region at the time, power went hand-in-hand with danger.

Miriam Gibson
Content Specialist Archivist, British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership

Further Reading:
Details regarding the assassination, its reporting to the British, and reactions to it – British Library IOR/P/931/32 ff 235-244.
More information about the assassination can be found in:
J G Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf Vol I. Historical. Part IA & IB (1915).
Frauke Heard-Bey, From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates : a society in transition (2005)

 

The India Office regularly received requests for help from people stranded in the UK, and often in difficult financial situations, who wished to travel to India, either because it was their home or because they had family living there.  The usual response from the India Office was to decline to help, and examples of such cases have featured on previous Untold Lives blog posts.  However, very occasionally a case arose where government help was given to an individual.

The Strangers’ Home, West India Dock Road, Limehouse from Illustrated London News 28 February 1857 p.194 British Library Images Online

On 14 July 1869, Colonel Hughes, Secretary of The Strangers' Home for Asiatics located in Limehouse in London, wrote to the India Office regarding a man named C W O’Donoghue.  Colonel Hughes described O’Donoghue as ‘country born and native of Calcutta’ who had been admitted into the Home in a state of destitution one week previously.  He had been engaged as compounder and interpreter on the ship Ganges taking Indian emigrants from Calcutta to Demerara in British Guiana -a compounder made up medicines for the ship’s surgeon.  Under his agreement of employment for the voyage, O’Donoghue had requested a return passage not to India but to England, presumably as he expected to find new employment in the UK.  Unfortunately, when in London he failed to find the employment he expected.  With his funds running out, he applied to the Colonial Office, then the India Office, and was referred to the Strangers' Home.  By good fortune, the ship Newcastle was due to leave London for Calcutta with several ‘natives of India’ on board.  Colonel Hughes asked if the Secretary of State for India would consider approving the payment of £20 for O’Donoghue’s ticket, otherwise he feared that ‘his remaining in England will result in destitution and loss of character’.

Sailing ship Newcastle built in 1857 and wrecked in Torres Strait in 1883. Photograph held by John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, and published on Wikimedia Commons.

Colonel Hughes visited the India Office to talk to M E Grant Duff, Under Secretary of State for India, about the case.  Following the meeting, Grant Duff put a note in a Public & Judicial Department file in which he pointed out that the Government of India should be told to grant return passages to Indian ports only, presumably to prevent similar cases from occurring.  He also wrote: ‘I hardly know whether the application should be complied with, but as the cost will only be £20, it will probably be the cheapest way of getting rid of the man’.  The Secretary of State evidently agreed, as a letter was duly sent to Colonel Hughes consenting to this plan.  On 20 July, Colonel Hughes wrote again to the India Office to confirm that passage had been secured for O’Donoghue on the Newcastle which had left the dock that morning.  He enclosed a receipt for the cost of the ticket, and a certificate of his being on board the ship signed by L J Bateman, the Chief Mate.

John O’Brien
India Office Records

Further Reading:
Case of C W O’Donoghue asking for passage from London to Calcutta, July 1869, reference IOR/L/PJ/2/49 File 7/305.
Bengal Public Letter, No.4 of 1869, regarding the agreement of Compounder & Interpreter, plus four Topazes, engaged to proceed with Indian emigrants to Demerara on board the ship Ganges, 16 January 1869, reference IOR/L/PJ/3/67 p.17.