Untold lives blog

In his 1918 mission to Nejd, Philby’s task, as seen by British officialdom, was to gather intelligence on the area and establish a relationship with Ibn Sa’ud on whom the British had little information.  This information could then be used to further British political, economic and strategic interests in the area in the context of the expected demise of the Ottoman Empire.  In 1917-18 the Empire’s writ still held sway precariously in parts of the Arabian peninsula and the Middle East (in 1818 the Ottomans had destroyed Diriyah, the capital of an earlier iteration of the Saudi state).

IOR/R/15/5/66 f 66 ‘22/16 Mr Philby’s Mission to Najd – 1918.’

In 1918 a distilled report of the route taken and information gathered by the Najd Mission 1917-1918 including relations between Ibn Sa’ud and Kuwait and other Arabian potentates was compiled and published.

Philby and the repurposing of ‘colonial knowledge’

However, it seems reasonable to say that Philby did not adhere to the career path of a Colonial Office Intelligence Officer that would be most desired by the officials in London: in 1924 he resigned from the Colonial Office.  Through his deep interest in the Arabian Peninsula Philby was to convert to Islam in 1930 becoming Abdullah Philby and settling on an ongoing basis in Ibn Sa’ud’s domains.

Photograph of Philby used in his book The Heart of Arabia (London Constable and Company Ltd, 1922) Public Domain

He advised Ibn Sa’ud as how to best manage relations with the British and other western powers as well as the international oil companies in Ibn Saud’s negotiations over petroleum rights and concessions.  The outcome of this took a decisive turn in London in 1932 on the eve of the proclamation of the consolidated Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (since 1927 Ibn Saud domains had been known as the Kingdom of Hijaz and Nejd and Dependencies).  In a meeting with Ibn Sa’ud’s son, Prince Faisal and adviser, Fuad Hamza, Sir Oliphant Lanceleot sent them away empty-handed after a plea for financial help to develop the oil reserves of the nascent state.

The legacy of Ibn Sa’ud and Philby

In helping Ibn Sa’ud with insider knowledge and advice to resist, negotiate with and deflect the power of the British Empire, Philby - whilst his role should not be overstated - contributed to the establishment and survival of Saudi Arabia which became a key state in the contemporary Middle East state system and global oil economy.  These developments were to come later but the relationship between Ibn Sa’ud and Philby started and was cemented in ‘Mr Philby’s Mission to Najd’ in 1917-18.

Crossing the Heart of Arabia

In a commemoration of this historical significance, 2023 sees another expedition crossing the heart of the Arabian peninsula retracing the original expedition Harry St John Philby made in 1917-18, both expeditions being made, in a coincidence of timing, around the time of global pandemics.  This contemporary team includes Reem Philby, the granddaughter of Harry St John (Abdullah) Philby.  This expedition will end when the team arrive in Jeddah at the end of the month. Like St John Philby’s original expedition, they have sought to undertake research in order to better understand the vast expanse of territory that makes up this still little known and even less-understood part of the world.  The involvement and influence of the Philby family in desert exploration and wilderness education lives on indeed, in the Heart of Arabia.

Francis Owtram
Gulf History Specialist, British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership

In 1917 St John Philby, Colonial Office Intelligence Officer, was sent by the British Colonial Office Arab Bureau in Cairo on a mission to cross the desert from Uqair on the Persian Gulf to Riyadh and make contact with Ibn Sa’ud, the ruler of Najd in central Arabia.

In May 1917, he was briefed en route in Baghdad by Major Gertrude Bell, the first female Military Intelligence Officer in the British Army, who was advising the British government on Middle East policy following her earlier archaeological and intelligence gathering expeditions in Iraq, Syria and the Arabian peninsula.

IOR/R/15/5//66, f 1 ‘22/16/ Mr Philby’s Mission to Najd – 1918.’

Expedition logistics: tea, tobacco and thermometers

Like any expedition, great attention was paid to logistics including supplies and kit such as tea, tobacco, thermometers and photographic film.

IOR/R/15/5/66, f 53 ‘22/16/ Mr Philby’s Mission to Najd – 1918.’

Logistics were also facilitated by Abdullah al-Nafisi, Ibn Sa’ud’s agent who smoothed Philby’s path in various ways.

IOR/R/15/5/66, f 113, ‘22/16/ Mr Philby’s Mission to Najd – 1918.’

Map of Central Arabia with Philby’s route marked in red

On the route to Riyadh, Philby undertook pioneering cartographical work and meteorological research, recorded information on the people inhabiting the area, and collected geological and natural history specimens.  In contemporary understandings of imperialism and empire, these expeditions constitute the gathering of ‘colonial knowledge’ on an area: the accumulation and collating of a corpus of information on the inhabitants, terrain, and natural resources of an area which will enable the colonial power to influence, coerce, and if circumstances require it, facilitate the deployment of colonial violence to attempt to achieve outcomes advantageous to the imperial power.

As was his habit, Philby compiled detailed and meticulous notes during his preparations and on the journey.  On arrival in Riyadh, he paced the city walls in order to draw up a map of the settlement and its outer limits.  Also important were gifts: Philby brought tents for Ibn Sa’ud and on his departure back to the Persian Gulf was given two Arabian oryx as gifts for King George V which were led on string back over the dusty terrain en route to England via Bombay.

Before his departure back to the Persian Gulf, Philby also took undertook an expedition along the Wadi Dawasir which had been used for centuries as a route to bring the coffee from Mocha into central Arabia.  All this was to be the start of a lifetime of exploration of the Arabian Peninsula.

‘Southern Nejd: Journey to Kharj, Aflaj, Sulaiyyil, and Wadi Dawasir in 1918’

Francis Owtram
Gulf History Specialist, British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership

Further reading:
Madawi Al-Rasheed, A History of Saudi Arabia, 2nd edition, (Cambridge University Press, 2010)

On 11 February 1918 workers from the Chinese Labour Corps based on the front lines in France took a day off from their work and celebrated the Lunar New Year.

The Chinese Labour Corps had been created in 1916 and comprised of over 100,000 men recruited from China to provide support to the British Army during World War One.  They were brought to the front lines of the War in France and Belgium to help with work including building tanks, digging trenches and burying the dead.  Labour Corps workers signed employment contracts for three years and most returned to China after the war.

The Illustrated War News ran several features looking at life on the front lines for members of the Chinese Labour Corps in January and March 1918, and on 6 March 1918 it featured their New Year celebrations in a double page spread.

Chinese Labour Corps workers in France celebrating the Lunar New Year on 11 February 1918 - The Illustrated War News. London, 1918. Wq7/4519 Vol.8 pp.18-19

The feature showed Chinese Labour Corps workers based in camps and cantonments across various neighbourhoods in France celebrating the Lunar New Year on 11 February 1918.  The celebrations included entertainments and amusements similar to those they would have taken part in back in China and ranged from jugglers and stilt-walkers to shows and processions.

The celebrations were organised by each neighbourhood with every camp within it staging a different entertainment or show to provide an opportunity for the workers to be able to visit the other camps, enjoy all the festivities and see everyone.

Members of the Chinese Communities in Britain were also able to get involved in supporting the Labour Corp workers celebrations by making financial donations to the Chinese Legation in London for the purchase of gifts to be sent to those on the front lines.

Chinese Legation in London packing crates of New Year’s gifts to be sent to the workers in France and Belgium - The Illustrated War News. London, 1918. Wq7/4518 Vol.7 p.39

Another image featured in The Illustrated War News on 2 January 1918 showed several gentlemen from the Chinese Legation in London packing crates full of the New Year’s gifts that had been purchased to be sent to the workers in France and Belgium.

The Lunar New Year celebration images from The Illustrated War News March 1918 are included In the British Library’s Chinese and British exhibition, which is now open until 23 April 2023.  The exhibition features the invaluable contributions which Chinese Labour Corps workers made to the British war effort, with images and objects including trench art items made by individual members of the Chinese Labour Corps.

Karen Stapley
Curator, India Office Records

Further Reading:
The Illustrated War News. London, 1918. Wq7/4518 Vol.7 p.39
The Illustrated War News. London, 1918. Wq7/4519 Vol.8 pp.18-19

Our last post told the story of  Helen/Ellen Maria Phillips, a pauper in Glasgow.  We searched for more information about her in the India Office Records and this is what we found.

The first thing we discovered was that her name in all other records was Ellen Maria.  She was born on 6 January 1847, the daughter of George and Mary Phillips.  She was baptised at Belgaum aged 16 on 15 April 1863.  George and Mary had a number of other children – we have found Caroline Henrietta (born 1835); Mary Eliza (born 1838); Annie (born 1841); Jane (born 1842); Henry (born 1849); and William (born 1851).  All were baptised in their teens or early twenties.  George is described as an agent for Messrs Treacher & Co in one record and as a merchant and a pensioner in others.

Baptismal record for Ellen Maria and Annie Phillips at Belgaum April 1863 IOR/N/3/37 f.88

Ellen Maria’s mother Mary died of consumption in January 1862 aged 41.  Her father George died in December of the same year, also of consumption, at the age of 47. Both were buried at Belgaum.

The baptismal entry for Ellen Maria is misleading because she was already married by that time.  Her marriage to John Peden Cochrane had taken place on 18 August 1862 at Belgaum Mission Chapel.  John was born in Barony near Glasgow and had enlisted in the East India Company army in August 1856.  He served in the Corps of Sappers and Miners and then in the Department of Public Works.  In 1865 John re-engaged as a corporal in HM 45th Regiment.  He was reduced to private in 1867 for disobedience and insubordination.

Mission Chapel at Belgaum from The Juvenile Missionary Magazine and Annual for 1877

We have found the birth of three sons: Arnold John born at Belgaum on 15 September 1863; Malcolm Kenneth born on 18 February 1866 and baptised at Camp Deesa in April 1866; and John Alexander born at Madras on 5 April 1870.  Malcolm died of hydrocephalus on 2 February 1868 at Poona. Only John is mentioned in the Glasgow poor law papers so it seems that Arnold had also died.

In January 1872 John Cochrane was discharged from the British Army as unfit for further service, suffering from the effects of chronic dysentery.  He gave his intended place of residence as 14 Gloucester Street Glasgow, a multi-occupancy tenement.  From the Scottish death register index, it appears that John died in Glasgow in 1873.  So this explains Ellen Maria’s presence in the city.

Ellen Maria did return to India.  On 23 January 1875 at Bombay she married Charles Pauly, a sergeant in the Quarter Master General’s Department.  Charles was the son of a German-born clerk George Emil Pauly and he had enlisted in the British Army in 1864.

Marriage of Ellen Maria Cochrane to Charles Pauly January 1875 at Bombay IOR/N/11/4 f.563 

For the moment, Ellen Maria’s story ends here.  Charles Pauly was discharged from the 83rd Regiment in March 1879 with a disease of the heart valves.  At the time of the 1881 census Charles was living with his parents in Islington, London, and working as a commercial clerk.  He is described as a widower.  We think that he was remarried in 1883 to Ellen Berry and then died in 1885.

So where and when did Ellen Maria die?  And what happened to her son John Alexander?  Can any of our readers help us to complete the story?

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
Records of baptisms, marriages and burials from the India Office Records are available via Findmypast -
IOR/N/3/33 f.191 Baptisms of Caroline Henrietta Phillips and Mary Eliza Phillips 13 July 1859.
IOR/N/3/36 p.49 Burial of Mary Phillips 27 January 1862.
IOR/N/11/2 no.488 Marriage of Ellen Maria Phillips to John Peden Cochrane 18 August 1862.
IOR/N/3/36 p.307 Burial of George Phillips 13 December 1862.
IOR/N/3/37 f.88 Baptisms of Ellen Maria Phillips and Annie Phillips 15 April 1863.
IOR/N/3/37 f.259 Baptism of Arnold John Cochrane 22 October 1863.
IOR/N/3/29 f.5 Baptisms of Henry Phillips and William Phillips 10 February 1865.
IOR/N/3/40 f.37 Baptism of Malcolm Kenneth Cochrane 5 April 1866.
IOR/N/3/42 p.240 Burial of Malcolm Cockrane [sic] 3 February 1868.
IOR/N/2/51 f.143 Baptism of John Alexander Cochrane at Madras 6 July 1870.
IOR/N/11/4 no. 563 Marriage of Ellen Maria Phillips to Charles Pauly 23 January 1875.

British Army discharge papers for John Cochrane - The National Archives WO 97/1918/76, available via Findmypast. 
British Army discharge papers for Charles Pauly - The National Archives WO 97/2074/76, available via Findmypast.

In July 1873, the India Office received a letter from P. Beattie, Inspector of Poor at Glasgow, regarding a woman named Helen Maria Phillips who was destitute in the city.  The India Office frequently received letters on the subject of individuals who had fallen on hard times, but what was a little different in the case of Helen was that the Inspector quoted a specific piece of legislation in asking the India Office for help.

Letter from the Inspector of Poor at Glasgow IOR/L/PJ/2/53 file 7/437

The legislation quoted was Act 18 & 19 Vict, Cap 91, Sec 22, which stated that: ‘It shall be the duty of the East India Company to take charge of and send home or otherwise provide for all persons, being lascars or other natives of the Territories under the Government of the said Company, who are found destitute in the United Kingdom’.  The Act also required the Company to repay any money spent in looking after the destitute person.  It instructed the overseer of the individual to send certain information to the Company, which the Glasgow Inspector of Poor included in his letter:

• Name of the Person: Helen Maria Phillips, widow of John P Cochrane, a private in H.M. 45th Regiment.  This was a British Army infantry regiment, the Sherwood Foresters.
• The place in India that she professed to be from: Belgaum, Bombay Presidency.
• Name of the ship in which she was brought to the UK: troopship Euphrates.  This was one of five ships built after 1866 by the Royal Navy on behalf of the Government of India for the purpose of carrying troops, including family members to and from India.
• Place abroad from which the ship sailed, the place in the UK at which the ship arrived, and date of arrival: sailed from Beypore on 8 April 1872, arrived at Portsmouth on 8 June 1872.

The Inspector also included the information that Helen had a child named John who was 3 years old, born at Fort St George, Madras.  Her father was George Phillips, a general merchant at Camp Belgaum, Bombay.  The Inspector asked that Helen be returned to India.

India Office note on the case of Helen Maria Phillips IOR/L/PJ/2/53 file 7/437 

The India Office forwarded the request to their solicitor, Henry S. Lawford, for advice.  They also requested more information from the Glasgow Inspector about Helen.  He duly sent various certificates and documents, which sadly are not in the file having been later returned to him.  An enquiry to the War Office also confirmed that Private Cochrane’s connection with the Army had ceased in 1872 on his discharge from the Service.  From an examination of all the documents, it was concluded that although Helen (or Ellen) had been resident at Belgaum in India when she married, she was European by birth.  This meant that she did not come within the scope of the Act.  On 13 September 1873, the India Office wrote to Mr Beattie declining to comply with his request.

Advice from the Solicitor on the case of Helen Maria Phillips IOR/L/PJ/2/53 file 7/437 

What else might there be in the India Office Records about Helen/Ellen and her family?  Our next post will reveal all!

John O’Brien
India Office Records

Further Reading:
Application from an Inspector of Poor at Glasgow for the removal of a pauper, Helen Maria Phillips (Cochrane) to her native place in India, 1873, shelfmark IOR/L/PJ/2/53 file 7/437.

Act 18 & 19 Vict, Cap 91, Sec 22

Troopship Euphrates 

On 25 December 1804 Edward Heard of Cork wrote a petition to the East India Company directors in London asking for financial assistance.  Heard had served in the Bengal Army as a young man and said he had no provision for the winter of his days.  He was unable to supply the wants of a large family of a wife and twelve children.

Opening of the petition of Edward Heard 25 December 1804 IOR/D/159 f.216

In the petition Heard gave an outline of his army service, and it is possible to flesh out this information from other records in the East India Company archive.

Heard had entered the Bengal Army infantry as a cadet in 1769 and rose to the rank of captain.  He was part of the Bengal Army detachment which marched to Bombay in 1778 as reinforcement in the First Anglo-Maratha War, and he was Adjutant General on the staff of General Goddard in Gujarat.  The detachment also included Dean Mahomed, who later gained fame as the first Indian author in English, and Dean Mahomed's patron Godfrey Evan Baker.  Baker was Heard’s army contemporary and close friend, both men coming from Cork.  Heard was later a subscriber to The Travels of Dean Mahomet, a Native of Patna in Bengal.

Heard said that his health became ‘much impaird’ after the ‘long and arduous Campaign’, and on 12 November 1783 he applied for permission to return to Europe after serving ‘faithfully’ for nearly fifteen years.  There were family matters needing his attention, but it was his ‘positive intention’ to return to his army post in India.  It was agreed that Captain Heard should be permitted to resign and proceed to Europe.  A certificate was issued to confirm that Heard had adjusted all his accounts with the military paymaster – this was necessary if he was to be allowed to return to service.

Having returned to Ireland, Edward Heard married Margaret Drew in 1786.  In November 1788 he requested permission to return to his rank in Bengal.  This was granted, but Heard explained in his 1804 petition that when he and his wife reached London on their way back to India,  Margaret’s ‘sudden severe and alarming indisposition defeated such design’.  Heard asked to remain until the coming season but the Company refused to agree to an extension of his leave of absence as he had been at home for over four years.  The Heards returned to Ireland ‘there to deplore his misfortune’.  They settled at Ballintubber in County Cork.  Heard named his estate ‘Patna’.

How did the East India Company respond to the Christmas ‘solicitations of an old Soldier unable to supply the necessitys of a numerous and helpless Family’?  The directors did not consider his case until April 1805.  After officials had informed them that there had been no communication with Heard since 1789, they resolved not to comply with his request for some mark of the Court’s bounty.

Heard's death notice in The Statesman (London) 4 June 1810 British Newspaper Archive

Edward Heard died at Patna, County Cork, in 1810.  The Statesman reported that Heard was ‘universally esteemed and respected’: ‘Preferring heroic fame to the accumulation of wealth, he derived nothing but his laurels from the service, and returned to his hereditary estates in the evening of life’.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
IOR/P/2/65 pp.503-505 Bengal Public Consultations 18 December 1783 – application of Edward Heard for permission to return to Europe.
Request of Edward Heard to return to his rank in Bengal - IOR/B/108 p.699 East India Company Court of Directors 19 November 1788; p.759 Court 5 December 1788; p.1028 Court 26 February 1789; IOR/D/33 p.55 Committee of Correspondence 27 November 1788; IOR/E/1/227 p.238 Letter to Heard from the Company Secretary 26 February 1789.
IOR/D/159 ff.216-217v Petition of Edward Heard 25 December 1804; IOR/D/46 p.37 Committee of Correspondence 10 April 1805; IOR/B/141 p.15 Court 10 April 1805; IOR/E/1/240 p.369 Letter to Edward Heard 13 April 1805.
Michael H. Fisher, The first Indian author in English (Oxford, 1996).

In January 1784 Captain James Monro of the East India Company ship Houghton submitted to the Canton Factory a list of private trade goods procured in China.  It records the mark and numbers on cargo items, the owner of the commodities, the type of goods, and the quantity of packages and contents

Private trade carried from China in the Houghton 1784 IOR/G/12/78 p.110

Captain James Monro -
Hyson tea 147 chests; rhubarb 20 chests; cassia & buds 52 chests; dragon’s blood 3 chests; Nankeen cloth 5 chests containing 1200 pieces; bamboo fans 2 chests containing 2000; turmeric (loose); sago (loose); rattans 800 bundles; cane mats (loose) 1000 pieces; China ware 1 half chest containing 45 pieces.

Samuel Whedon or Wheadon, first mate -
Hyson tea 20 chests; cassia & buds 16 chests; China ware 1 box.

Archibald Anderson, second mate -
Hyson tea 14 chests.

Robert Robertson, third mate -
Hyson tea 11 chests.

James Stewart, fourth mate -
Hyson tea 7 chests.

Benjamin Smith, fifth mate -
Hyson tea 4 chests.

John Baker, surgeon -
Hyson tea 11 chests; cassia 7 chests; dragon’s blood 1 chest.

John Farington Butterfield, purser -
Hyson tea 12 chests; cassia & buds 12 chests; cotton yarn 1 chest.

James Paterson, gunner -
Hyson tea 3 chests.

Cassia buds were used in medicine, especially as a laxative. Dragon’s blood, disappointingly, was a resin.  Loose goods such as sago were packed round delicate goods much as we use polystyrene chips.  A pecul was a weight equivalent to 133⅓ pounds avoirdupois.

There were set allowances for different private trade commodities according to rank.

Allowances for tea taken from Charles Cartwright, An abstract of the orders and regulations of the Honourable Court of Directors of the East-India Company (1788) p.lxv

Allowances for textile piece goods taken from Charles Cartwright, An abstract of the orders and regulations of the Honourable Court of Directors of the East-India Company (1788) p. lxvi 

Allowances for China and Japan ware, cabinets, fans, pictures, lacquer ware and screens taken from Charles Cartwright, An abstract of the orders and regulations of the Honourable Court of Directors of the East-India Company (1788) p.lxviii 

Allowances for rattans taken from Charles Cartwright, An abstract of the orders and regulations of the Honourable Court of Directors of the East-India Company (1788) p. lxix 

The commodities taken into the Houghton for the first mate must have been purchased on his behalf by a shipmate because Samuel Whedon/Wheadon had died as the ship was sailing towards Malacca on its way to China.  He was buried at sea on 12 September 1783 after suffering from ‘a tedious and painful illness ever since leaving Madras’.  Second officer Archibald Anderson took his place. Anderson was to disappear mysteriously in 1790 whilst in command of the Nottingham.

Whilst the Houghton was at Madras in July 1783, 36 of Monro’s best sailors were pressed and taken off the ship by officers from HMS Superb.  He commented in his journal: ‘The Admiral has taken so many Men & the Men of Warrs Boat &c so frequently on board, we can scarse find a Man in the Ship, they hide themselves for fear of being pressed’.  Monro issued each pressed man with a certificate to confirm the dates of his service with the East India Company and the amount of wages owed.  In August a few men deserted from the Houghton at Madras, including the sixth mate John White.

As a postscript, HMS Superb was wrecked off Tellicherry on 5 November 1783 but no lives were lost.

There were lighter moments during the voyage.  Monro recorded that as the Houghton approached Madras on 19 July 1783: ‘This Morning & at noon we have the most astonishing quantity of Butterflys about’.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
Records for the Houghton - IOR/L/MAR/B/ 438-O Journal 1783-1784; IOR/L/MAR/B/438- II(1) & II (2) Ledger and Pay Book.
Correspondence of James Monro – British Library Mss Eur Photo Eur 488B.
James Monro and the sale of East India Company maritime commands.
Charles Cartwright, of the India House, An abstract of the orders and regulations of the Honourable Court of Directors of the East-India Company, and of other documents relating to the pains and penalties the commanders and officers of ships in the Company's service are liable to ... Including also, the full particulars of the allowances of private trade, outward and homeward ... To which is added, as an appendix, copies of the papers usually given by the Company to the commanders and officers. And a list of the duties, etc. (London, 1788).
 

A wonderful new collection, which was recently acquired for the India Office Private Papers, has now been catalogued and is available in the British Library’s Asian & African Studies reading room.  The Prokofieff Papers relate to the life of Sergey Tarasovitch Prokofieff (1887-1957) and his wife Emilie Prokofieff (née Rettere) (1903-1997) in pre-1947 India.  The papers illustrate the modernising works taking place in an Indian Princely State in the first half of the 20th century, and the friendship between a Russian emigré couple and the Gwalior Royal Family.

Sergey Prokofieff was born in June 1887 in St Petersburg, and studied to be an engineer at the Ports and Roads University between 1906 and 1912.  He then worked on irrigation and water projects in Crimea, Bokhara and Tashkent.  In 1920, following the revolution, Sergey escaped from Russia by walking from Tashkent to British Persia, and then on to Ahmednagar in India.  He joined the Public Works Department in Bombay as a Senior Assistant Engineer on projects related to the Tansa water works.  In 1927, he became Executive Engineer in the Indian State of Gwalior, and worked on many water works projects around the State, later acting as a consulting engineer.

Photograph of Tansa water works  Mss Eur F761/4/2 

In 1927, Sergey visited France, and while in Nice met Emilie Rettere.  Born in Moscow in 1930, Emilie was the second of four daughters.  Her father was a coffee merchant with a string of coffee shops around the city, her mother was from Brittany and the family retained connections with France.  In 1918, the family were caught up in the revolution, with Emilie’s father arrested and held for a time in the feared Lubyanka jail.  On being reunited, the family fled to France and settled in Nice.  Sergey and Emilie were married in the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Bombay in 1931, and lived together in India until Sergey’s retirement in 1954, when the couple returned to Nice.  Sergey died in January 1957.  Emilie moved to London in 1958, and died in 1998.  Both Sergey and Emilie wrote memoirs about their life in India that survive in the collection.

Design for a comfortable bungalow Mss Eur F761/4/11 

The Prokofieff Papers consists in large part of material relating to Sergey’s work as an engineer in Bombay and Gwalior.  This includes articles written by Sergey on engineering subjects, papers and reports on water works projects in Bombay, Gwalior and Ujjain, and photographs showing construction works in progress and completed.  The couple formed a friendship with the Maharaja of Gwalior and his family, which Emilie maintained after Sergey’s death.  

Greetings cards from the Maharaja of Gwalior Mss Eur F761/1/5 

The collection contains letters and greetings cards from members of the Royal Family to her and photographs from social events in India, for instance the wedding of Princess Kamala Raja Scindia in 1934 and the races of elephants given on 5 May 1935 by the Maharaja Scindia of Gwalior on the Silver Jubilee of King George V and Queen Mary.

John O’Brien
India Office Records

Further Reading:
Papers of Sergey Tarasovitch Prokofieff (1887-1957), Engineer, and his wife Emilie Prokofieff (nee Rettere) (1903-1997) are searchable on Explore Archives and Manuscripts, collection reference Mss Eur F761.