Untold lives blog

Historians of the East India Company and archivists working with the India Office Records owe a debt of gratitude to Sir William Foster whose publications are an invaluable source of information for them. Foster joined the India Office in Westminster in 1882, becoming Registrar and Superintendent of Records 1907-1923, and Historiographer to the India Office 1923-1927.

Photograph of Sir William Foster (1863-1951) by Bassano Ltd 12 February 1929 courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery  NPG x81132

So I was delighted when I was given a copy of Foster’s John Company as a present. 

Title page of John Company

The name R. A. Bell is written on the title page and there are three letters from 1945 pasted into the back of the book.  The first, dated 20 February, is addressed to Sir William Foster at his home in Mountfield Court in Hampstead from Mr Bell of Chiswick.  He was researching the older churches of London and wanted to know about the pictures of St Matthias Poplar in John Company.  Bell had visited the church last summer and found it badly knocked about by bomb blast but not beyond repair.

Bell's letter to Foster 20 February 1945 - copyright resides with the heirs of  Robert Arthur Bell

Mr Bell said that he was ‘an old Anglo-Indian’ who had worked in Negapatam in the late 1880s.  His grandfather had been a collector in Trichinopoly and his great-grandfather a General in the Madras Artillery.  Bell asked if Sir William had been head assistant collector at Negapatam.

I have identified the writer as Robert Arthur Bell (1865-1949), son of Robert Courtenay Bell and his wife Clara.  Bell worked as civil engineer for the South Indian Railway in the 1880s and 90s.  He married Eveline Maud Richardson in Negapatam on 29 October 1891.  The couple had two children born in Cuddalore: Eveline Clara in February 1893 and David Courtenay in October 1894.  Sadly Eveline Clara died in December 1893 and David Courtenay was killed in 1918 whilst serving in the Royal Navy.  Robert and Eveline had returned to the UK by the time that their daughter Lavinia Courtenay was born in 1898 and they had four more children.

Foster's letter to Bell 23 February 1945 -  copyright resides with the heirs of Sir William Foster

Foster replied promptly on 23 February.  The verger of St Matthias had lent him a faded photograph and a pencil drawing by Miss Sexton, a local schoolmistress.  Mr Baragwanath had drawn the illustrations for the book using copies of these.

Sir William said that it was many years since he had visited St Matthias and had not realised it had suffered bomb damage.  The population of East London was estimated to have been reduced to one third of the pre-war figure and he had heard that there were plans to amalgamate parishes.  As it was very close to Poplar parish church, St Matthias might be deemed superfluous.

In answer to Bell’s question, Foster said he had never served in India.  However in 1904-1905 he had taken extended leave to visit India, a most enjoyable experience.  He had seen little of the Madras Presidency but he had known several officials based there, such as Sir Murray Hammick, Colonel Love, and Julian Cotton: ‘All these are now dead; and I myself am now in my eighty-second year and very much of a back number’.

The third letter is from Bell dated 5 March 1945. He replied that he had known Hammick, Love and Cotton whilst in India.

Our next post will focus on Sir William’s companion on his trip to India - Henry John Tozer.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
William Foster, John Company (London, 1926)
Digitised entries for baptisms, marriages and burials from the India Office Records can be seen at the British Library and via findmypast -
Marriage of Robert Arthur Bell to Eveline Maud Richardson IOR/N/2/78 f.297
Baptism of Eveline Clara Bell IOR/N/2/75 f.68
Burial of Eveline Clara Bell IOR/N/2/76 f.164
Baptism of David Courtenay Bell IOR/N/2/77 f.312 

During the last few months you’ve probably puzzled over at least one emoji quiz, one of many inventive online distractions people are sharing to while away the time during lock-down.  These quizzes have something in common with the 'rebus' – a kind of picture puzzle which gained popularity in Europe from the 16th century onwards.  In place of words, the writer inserts pictures and letters whose names sound out the meaning of the sentences.

A childhood letter in the form of a rebus addressed to two young girls survives among the papers from the Granville family archive preserved by Harriet Cavendish, later Lady Granville (1785-1862), now part of Add MS 89382.

Portrait of Lady Harriet Cavendish, Countess Granville (1785-1862) by Thomas Barber the elder, from the collections at Hardwick Hall © National Trust 

In 1790, young Harriet and her siblings Georgiana and William, the three children of William Cavendish, fifth Duke of Devonshire (1748–1811), and his wife Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (1757–1806), were joined in their nursery at Chatsworth by two new playmates – five year old Caroline Rosalie St Jules and two year old Augustus Clifford.

View of Chatsworth House by Paul Sandby, published by George Kearsley in The Copper Plate Magazine 1775. British Library, Kings Topographical Collection.

Caroline and Augustus were actually the children’s half sister and brother. They were the illegitimate children of their father, the Duke, and his mistress, Lady Elizabeth Foster, who had been living with the Duke and Duchess in a long-lasting ménage à trois.   The children had been born abroad where they spent their earliest years, and only came to live with their mother at Chatsworth in 1790.

Caroline was almost exactly the same age as her half-sister Harriet (or Hary-o, as she was called by the family).  Both girls had both been born in August 1785, though far apart.  From this time on, from the aged of five, they spent the rest of their childhoods together.  Besides having the company of their three brothers and sisters, they were often joined for visits and on holiday by Hary-o’s cousins, including Caroline Ponsonby, later Caroline Lamb, who was also born in 1785, the same year as the two sisters.

The rebus letter is addressed to both Hary-o and Caroline St Jules, but it is unsigned.  Could it have been written by their cousin Caroline Ponsonby?  Or was it from another young friend of their acquaintance?

Rebus letter to Harriet Cavendish and Caroline St Jules. Undated c. 1795-1800 (Add MS 89382/3/5) 

Can you read the letter? If you know the French for 'well' and 'sea' and the names of the notes in the sol-fa music system you are nearly there!  Our imperfect attempt is at the end of this post.  Bonus points if you can hazard a guess at the identity of the village or town drawn at the foot of the page.

This charming and affectionate letter must have held particular significance for Hary-o, who kept it all her life.  It came to the British Library folded in a silk purse, along with surviving letters from her mother Georgiana and other treasured papers.

Tabitha Driver
Cataloguer, Modern Archives & Manuscripts

Address: A[mi] Le[Dé] Henriette [E] [A] Mademoiselle [Ka]roline St Jeule

Letter:
Accep[Té] cheres [E] douce a[mi]
Acceptez chères et douces amis
[Sept] fidelle pettit ^gaie [ré- bé/si(?)]
cette fidelle petit gaie rebus
[E] [croix] combien les [heures]
Et crois combien les heures
[Cent] les [deux] [Dé]lice de ma vie
Sont les deux délices de ma vie
[E –la], Je [ré]grette a[mer]ment
Hélas, Je regrette amèrement
Que je ne [puits] vous conter a pres[cent]
Que je ne puis vous conter à présent
Ce qui [E] passé de[puits] quelque Jours
Ce qui est passé depuis quelques Jours
[Cent] les [deux] a[mi] de mon [coeur]
Sans les deux amis de mon coeur
Maïs jamais Je ne soufrir[ré]
Mais jamais je ne souffrirai
[Un] jour de passé (?) [cent] [ex]primé
Un jour de passer sans exprimer
A mes a[mi] bien aimee
À mes amis bien aimées
Que je ne [puits] les oubli[E]
Que je ne puis les oublier

Beautifully tooled bookbindings signed with the initials C.E.G. appear on printed books dating from the early 20th century.  These are the initials of Charles Elsden Gladstone (1855-1919) of the Royal Navy. 

Extract from record of service for Charles Elsden Gladstone - image courtesy of  The National Archives, ADM 196/19/266 ©Crown Copyright

The National Archives chart his somewhat unusual career.  Like his later fictional counterpart James Bond, he attained the rank of commander.  Also like Bond, he used cutting edge tech.  There is even a suggestion of covert intelligence gathering activities!  Admiralty service papers refer to an early specialism in torpedos, submarine weaponry and skill in photography which aided research on the subject of armaments.  He saw action in 1873 when he was landed with the Naval Brigade in the Ashanti War, while serving on the corvette H.M.S. Druid.

Photograph of starboard side of H.M.S Druid, a corvette at sea with sails down, 1880 - image courtesy of Royal Collection Trust 

As for hobbies, Gladstone’s name is included in the annals of specialist societies relating to microscopy and optical magic lanterns, interests which suggest he had a keen eye and feeling for accuracy.  His family house was based in Thanet where he lived with his wife, a son, a governess and enough domestic help to make his situation comfortable.  Gladstone’s life, therefore, is quite well documented, but, annoyingly for the fans of bookbinding, not his connection to the craft!

Apparently Gladstone family lore confirms that Gladstone bound books but what does this mean?  Traditionally, binding was a two stage process, making the structure (called ‘forwarding’) and applying the decoration (‘finishing’).  Practitioners did not usually teach themselves.  Apprentices spent seven years training with an accredited bookbinder.  Did Gladstone master both techniques and who taught him?  I have found no evidence either way.

People outside the craft did learn to bind but were usually guided by professionals in some way.  A contemporary of Gladstone’s, Irish barrister Sir Edward Sullivan (1852-1928), ‘finished’ ready-bound books to a high standard.  Today, these bindings fetch high prices, as do Captain Gladstone’s though to a lesser extent.  Was this a pastime for Gladstone or the means of raising income?  The latter seems unlikely as his navy salary was good and his retirement pay (from 1904) was £400 a year.  In 1919, the Liverpool Probate Registry listed the gross value of his estate as £27030 2s 5d.

Gladstone’s well bound colourful goatskin book covers, displaying a range of finishing skills, are attractive additions to sales catalogues.  Antiquarian book sellers have included images on their websites, notably David Brass Rare Books, Temple Rare Books (see Temple Rare Books online Book of the Month January 2014), and Nudelman Rare Books.  The bindings usually (though not exclusively) include all-over designs comprising small flower and leaf motifs, have smooth spines and elaborately decorated turn-ins.  Here is the British Library’s example, Alfred de Musset's On ne badine pas avec l’amour.

Alfred de Musset, On ne badine pas avec l’amour (Paris, 1904) British Library shelf mark C.188.114

Tooling on the turn in showing the initials C.E.G.  - Alfred de Musset, On ne badine pas avec l’amour (Paris, 1904) British Library shelf mark C.188.114

For a naval officer Gladstone was a quite remarkable bookbinder!

P.J.M. Marks
Curator, Bookbindings

Further Reading:
The National Archives Admiralty records ADM 196/19/266; ADM 196/38/621; ADM 196/40/207
Dreadnought Project
Commander Charles Elsden Gladstone

Carrying out some family history research, I came across Frank Gore’s entry in the 1911 census.  Frank was a 14-year-old boy from Birkenhead so what was he doing on Tyneside, and why was he described as an ‘inmate’?

Frank was on the Wellesley Training Ship, moored on the Tyne, which prepared young men from poor and troubled backgrounds for service in both the Royal and Merchant Navies.  On census night in 1911, the ship housed the Superintendent, the wonderfully named Lieutenant Percy de Winton Kitcat, and his family – wife Edith, sons John and Charles and daughter Delicia - as well as a visiting mother-in-law, and a female servant.  Staff consisted of a drill instructor, a master sailor, three seamanship instructors, a woodwork instructor, a carpenter, and a school master.  There were 280 boys on board, from across the North East, Yorkshire, Durham, Lancashire and Cheshire, and from as far away as Nottinghamshire, Glamorganshire and even Surrey.  The boys were given a practical education in seamanship and woodworking skills, and a basic general education.

Boys of the training ship Wellesley from the Illustrated London News 2 December 1876 British Newspaper Archive

Frank’s family were scattered in 1911.  His father John Robert, a ship’s riveter, had died in 1904, and his two surviving brothers were at sea.  His sister Lillian was living with relatives and doing piece work wrapping soap.  I haven’t been able to trace his mother Ellen in 1911, so perhaps it is no surprise that he was being looked after in an institutional setting.

Frank’s life was very different from that of Percy de Winton Kitcat, who was born in 1872 in Swallowfield, Berkshire, the son of John Kitcat and Emma Margaret de Winton.  Percy and his brothers, but not their sisters, all received the de Winton name in addition to Kitcat, a tradition that followed on amongst Percy’s own children.  In the 1881 census Percy was boarding at a school run by Martha Hibbard at Bell Farm, Clewer, Windsor, along with twelve other boys aged from 8 to 12.  Two of the boys – Hugh Marendon and Keith Jackson both age 10 – were born in India, as was their teacher Emily Clarke.

Percy was apprenticed into the Merchant Navy in Feb 1890 and by 1895 he was a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy.  At the time of the 1901 census, he was serving on HMS Resolution, a 1st class Battleship at Gibraltar.  By 1908, Kitcat was a Commander Instructor in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve based in Bristol.  He was appointed as Superintendent to the Wellesley Training Ship in July 1910.

Article in Newcastle Daily Journal 18 July 1910 on Kitcat's appointment to the Wellesley Training Ship British Newspaper Archive

The Wellesley Training Ship was destroyed by fire in 1914.  The nautical school continued on land, first at Tynemouth and then at Blyth, Northumberland.  It became an approved school in 1933 and continued to provide a nautical education.  It officially closed as an educational institution in 2006.

Training Ship Wellesley on fire at North Shields 1914 - image courtesy of Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums 

So did the Wellesley Training Ship prepare Frank Gore for a life at sea?  He did join the Merchant Navy, and was still at sea in the early 1920s. 

Merchant Navy card 1918 for Frank Gore from The National Archives BT350 via findmypast © Crown Copyright Image reproduced by courtesy of The National Archives, London England

Frank Gore went back to the Wirral, married, had children.  His entry in the 1939 Register shows him living in Birkenhead and working as a labourer in a margarine works.

Lesley Shapland
Cataloguer Modern Archives & Manuscripts

Further reading:
An Illustrated Guide to the Tyne Training Ship "Wellesley" (South Shields: Gazette Office, 1904) British Library 806.bb.33.
An Illustrated Guide to the Tyne Training Ship "Wellesley" (South Shields: Gazette Office, 1909) British Library X.529/14682.
Minute Books of the Wellesley Training Ship can be found at Northumberland Archives.
The National Archives BT 150/50 & ADM/196/137/84 via findmypast and Ancestry for Percy de Winton Kitcat’s naval apprenticeship papers and naval certificates.
Frank Gore's merchant seaman papers can be found at The National Archives BT 348/1, BT 350 via findmypast.
British Newspaper Archive – also available via findmypast.

Florence Nightingale was an icon of the Victorian era and her name still inspires confidence today.  It was the name given to the seven temporary intensive care hospitals set up by the NHS in response to the Covid-19 epidemic in recognition for her work to the nursing profession.  It is interesting to note that the origins of pre-fabricated temporary hospitals come from the Crimean War, when Isambard Kingdom Brunel was directed to design a temporary hospital for use at Renkioi in the Dardanelles.  Despite arriving late in the war, the hospital proved a success with a lower death rate than the hospital in Scutari, Turkey.

Photograph of Florence Nightingale c.1860 British Library Add. MS 47458, f.31 Images Online

Nightingale is best known for her nursing work during the Crimean War.  At the request of her friend Sidney Herbert, the Secretary of State for War, she led a party of 38 nurses to work at the hospital in Scutari.  This was an unprecedented decision by Herbert as women had never been officially allowed to serve in the army and Nightingale reported directly to the Secretary of State. Reports had reached Britain of a shortage of nurses, medicine and a lack of hygiene that meant that soldiers were not just dying from battle wounds but from poor conditions.

One of the wards in the hospital at Scutari. Image from The Seat of War in the East - British Library 1780.c.6, XXXIV  Images Online

Scholars disagree over the impact of Nightingale’s work in Scutari but essentially she implemented basic hygiene and sanitation practices such as cleaning the wards and hand washing.  These practices alongside the additional nurses began to have a significant impact on the survival of soldiers.

Letter from Florence Nightingale to Sidney Herbert dated 19 February 1855, Add MS 43393 f.164

In this letter from 19 February 1855, Nightingale writes to Herbert to inform him of the falling death rate at the hospital in Scutari.  Nightingale was a talented statistician becoming the first woman to be admitted to the Royal Statistical Society in 1858 and a pioneer of data visualisation as seen in the diagram below, which shows the Causes of Mortality in the Army of the East.  The diagram corroborates the falling rate of deaths, mentioned in her letter, from preventable causes.  The number of deaths had climbed since the start of the war and reached a peak in January 1855.  Nightingale arrived in Scutari in November 1854 and once her efforts began to take affect within a couple of months the death rate began to fall.  The diagram will be on display in the Treasures Gallery once the British Library has reopened.

Florence Nightingale, 'Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army of the East', Add MS 45816, f1 Images Online

Nightingale continued to advocate the importance of good sanitation and environmental conditions for patient health throughout her life.  A letter from 1860 describes how she believed that ‘open air’ and ‘ventilation’ could help a patient to recover.  Using these methods, Nightingale set out to professionalise the occupation of nursing for women and eventually set up a nursing training school at St Thomas’s Hospital in London.  She was keen to end the stereotype of the ‘fat drunken old dames’ previously employed as nurses, such as the character of Mrs Gamp used by Dickens in Martin Chuzzlewit.  Nightingale was prominent in promoting sanitation reform to the wider British Empire, especially in India. Documents about her work in India can be found in the British Library’s India Office Private Papers.

Letter from Florence Nightingale to Edwin Chadwick dated 8 September 1860, Add MS 45770

The two letters and diagram by Nightingale form part of her significant personal archive of correspondence, reports, accounts and administrative papers held as part of the Library’s modern archive and manuscript collections.  This collection guide created for her anniversary provides more detail on these collections.

Laura Walker
Lead Curator of Modern Archives and Manuscripts

When the East India Company began trading in 1600, the focus of its activities was the Spice Islands of Southeast Asia rather than India.  There are many letters and documents in the India Office Records about the fierce, and sometimes violent, rivalry between the English and Dutch merchants as they strove to gain the upper hand in securing the valuable commodities grown in the region.

Map of the Banda Islands from a 17th century Dutch Portolano, British Library Add. 34184 f.64 Images Online

In 1621 the Dutch took the island of Lantar (now Lontor or Banda Besar in the Banda Islands).  The men at the English house were taken prisoner and the Company’s goods seized.  Robert Randall, the East India Company’s chief merchant on Lantar, was tied to a stake with a halter fixed to his neck.  He was terrified that his head would be cut off by the Japanese soldier who had already beheaded Chinese men found with the English.  Captain Humphrey Fitzherbert arrived in the Company’s ship Royal Exchange and negotiated terms of peace and the release of his fellow countrymen.

Inventory of the Company’s goods seized by the Dutch 1621 IOR/G/40/25 f.308

An inventory was drawn up of the Company’s goods seized by the Dutch: mace; nutmeg; elephants’ teeth (ivory); rials of eight; oils of nutmeg and mace; textiles; wax and wax candles; arrack; rice; cakes of sago; copper kettles; empty jars; China ware; opium; fowling-pieces; chests of clothes and linen; a bed and pillows; an English flag.  According to Fitzherbert, the Dutch flew an English flag on two of their ships, leading the local people to think that the English had betrayed them.

Accounts for the English ‘castle’ on Amboina for April 1621 IOR/G/40/25 f.305 

Accounts for the English ‘castle’ on Amboina for March and April 1621 survive in the Company archive.  A major expense was the upkeep of a large garrison – salary, monthly allowance and provisions for 49 married soldiers, 196 soldiers, and 61 Japanese.  Their diet was rice, arrack, beef, pork, ‘sweet oil’, vinegar and salt.  Food for workmen is also listed – rice, beef and pork- and for prisoners – bread, wine, fish.  Sick men in the hospital were supplied with beef, pork, rice, wine, and fresh victuals.

Money was spent on barrels of powder, shot, matches, tiles, planks, shoes, porcelain, sailcloth to make tents, and table cloths.  There were slaves to clothe with shirts, ‘baftoes’ and silk, and they were also provided with other unspecified ‘necessaries’.  A school with ten pupils was maintained.  The Governor spent money on gifts to oil the wheels of commerce - rice, textiles, and silk. 

These fascinating documents shed light on life in the European posts in Southeast Asia in the early 17th century, where the threat of untimely death was always hovering over the merchants trying to win commercial advantage for their masters.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
IOR/E/3/8 ff 5-8 Humphrey Fitzherbert on the Royal Exchange at Banda Neira to the East India Company in London, 27 March 1621.
IOR/G/40/25 ff.302-307 Accounts from the English house on Amboina March-April 1621.
IOR/G/40/25 f.308 Inventory of goods belonging to the East India Company taken from Lantar by the Dutch in 1621.
A courante of newes from the East India: a true relation of the taking of the ilands of Lantore and Polaroone ... by the Hollanders ... Written to the East India Company in England from their factors there. (London, 1622).
W. Noel Sainsbury (ed.), Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series - East Indies, China and Japan 1617-1621 (London, 1870).

Mr Muschamp's wooden leg

East India Company Factory Records (IOR/G) are available as a digital resource from Adam Matthew Digital which is free to access in British Library Reading Rooms (all British Library buildings are closed at present).

Gloves are an indispensable accessory.  They protect our hands from all manner of harm, and have served as a glamorous fashion statement for centuries.  Before their wider availability in the mid-18th century, gloves were treated as the embodiment of both power and protection; their luxury status and embedded symbolism making them the ideal gift of the wealthy.

Add MS 78429, John Evelyn's Doe-Skin Gloves, 17th century, British Library.

These 17th century gloves belonged to the diarist John Evelyn (1620-1706).  Typical of their time, they are made from light doe-skin, embroidered with fine gold work flowers, and lavishly embellished with spangles (the 17th century equivalent to sequins) and gold fringe.  The significant skill required to produce gloves at this time rendered them a particularly expensive accessory, worn chiefly by the elite.  Designs were elaborate and ornamental, and as a general rule, the more ostentatious the glove, the more commanding (and rich) the hand.

Historically the gloves were believed to have been gifted to Evelyn by Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia (1672- 1725).  The story goes that whilst a tenant at Evelyn’s London property Sayes Court in 1698, Peter all but trashed the house and grounds.  From destructive wheelbarrow races through Evelyn’s immaculately landscaped gardens, to using paintings for target practice and furniture for firewood, the young Tsar was not as ‘great’ as his epithet may imply, and certainly not a model tenant.

Add MS 78628. A Plan of Sayes Court and its Gardens. Images Online

Since it had been William III who had arranged the Tsar’s tenancy, the Treasury covered the £350 9s 6d of property damages incurred from his wild antics.  The gloves were sent by the Tsar to Evelyn as an apology for the terrible inconvenience.

Beyond merely being an expensive gift, the act of presenting gloves at this time was intimately connected to their symbolic and ceremonial past, and had accumulated numerous motives: a royal or political sanction, a gift of honour, a symbol of challenge, or of amity, a figurative token of love or a legal exchange.  The act was even embedded in the ceremonial investiture of monarchs, and in international diplomacy as a token of fidelity.  Queen Elizabeth I, who is alleged to have owned over 300 pairs of gloves, is believed to have engaged extensively in political glove gifting. The Evelyn Gloves are in fact remarkably similar to a pair that now reside at the Ashmolean Museum, that were presented to the Virgin Queen during a visit to Oxford.  By the 17th century, gloves were exchanged frequently between the wealthy, and so symbolic was the act that it wasn’t even seen to matter if they fit.

Unfortunately, the story behind the gifting of these gloves has never been corroborated with evidence, and so continues to remain speculation.  However, if we are to believe the myth, the message the Tsar was sending was far grander than a simple ‘sorry’. Not only would they have served as a not so subtle reminder to Evelyn of the Tsar’s superior status, but could also be seen as a humble extension of respect and friendship.  One wonders however, if this is the case, whether Evelyn might have preferred instead that the Tsar show his respect by not ruining his lawn.

Zoe Louca-Richards
Curator, Modern Archives and Manuscripts

Further Reading:
Angus Trumble, The Finger: A Handbook, (Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing, 2010)
British Library, Evelyn Papers, (Add MS 78168-78693)

In 1630 the East India Company kept back £3 from the wages of Brute Gread, carpenter of the ship London on a voyage to Bantam.  The stoppage was to pay for a copper kettle which Gread was said to have removed from the ship.  Gread’s wife Dorothy petitioned for repayment because the kettle brought ashore was defective with a burnt-out bottom, and it was cut into pieces and used to sheath Mr Muschamp’s wooden leg.  The Company ordered that the money be repaid.

Petition of Dorothy Gread 3 November 1630 IOR/B/14 p.81

George Muschamp was a Company merchant who had lost his right leg in July 1619 on board the Sampson in a fight with the Dutch at Patani in the East Indies.  The leg was shot off by a cannon and he spent four months in ‘miserable torture’ for want of medicines.  However this terrible injury did not stop Muschamp having a long career with the Company.

Muschamp’s first petition for employment in the Company was considered by the Court on 4 August 1615.  He outlined his career to date: four years in Antwerp and Middleburgh, ’brought up in marchandize’ eight years.  Muschamp could speak Dutch and French and said he was skilled in silk, silk wares and linen cloth, and in keeping accounts.  He had recently been employed by Duncombe Halsey, a City of London mercer.  After his ‘sufficiency and carriage’ were examined, he was engaged in September.

George Muschamp’s petition for employment 4 August 1615 IOR/B/5 p.460

The East India Company sent Muschamp to the spice islands in Southeast Asia.  He moved around, serving at Batavia and Amboyna.  In 1623 the council at Batavia accepted his request to leave because his ‘want of one leg’ was preventing him from performing his services as he would wish.  They reported that Muschamp was a ‘very sufficient merchant and has been faithful, honest and careful’.

  The city of Batavia from An embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, to the Grand Tartar Cham Emperour of China (London, 1669), shelfmark X.1202 Images Online

Muschamp arrived back in England in the Palsgrave in June 1623.  In October he was given a gratuity of £100 on account of his good reputation and loss of his leg.  He then negotiated terms with the Company for a second voyage.   Although he wanted a salary of £250 per annum, he accepted an offer of £150.  Musgrave asked to be employed at Surat, mainly for health reasons, but was sent back to Southeast Asia.  He was President at Bantam from 1629 to 1630.

In a letter dated 9 March 1630, the East India Company ordered Muschamp to return to England because of his ‘great abuse’ of private trade.  The Company seized his assets and in 1631 exhibited two bills in Chancery against him and two others.   A fine of £200 was subsequently imposed on Muschamp.

However in 1639 Muschamp was appointed President at Bantam for a second term.  In December 1640 his wife Mary asked for permission to join her husband.  The Company refused, partly because of the cost, but also because such a licence had never yet been granted and they thought it would be an ‘ill precedent’.  She was advised to be patient until the end of her husband’s contracted time, otherwise they could order his return by the next ships.

Then news arrived that Muschamp had died in the spring of 1640.  Mary Muschamp petitioned for help as she had small five children.  On 9 March 1642 the Company’s General Court of Proprietors granted her £250 to relieve her ‘miserable and comfortless state’.

Grant of £250 to Mary Muschamp 9 March 1642  IOR/B/20 p.132

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
East India Company Court of Director's Minutes IOR/B.
George Muschamp's correspondence can be found in IOR/E/3  and IOR/G/40/25(4) - the letters are listed in Explore Archives and Manuscripts.

IOR/B and IOR/G are available as a digital resource from Adam Matthew Digital which is free to access in British Library Reading Rooms (all British Library buildings are closed at present).