The Mughal Empire in India was founded in 1526 by Zahir al-Din Muhammad Babur.  Babur was a Central Asian prince who boasted an impressive lineage.  On his mother’s side he was descended from the great Genghis Khan, founder of the Mongol Empire, while on his father’s he was descended from none other than the conqueror Amir Timur.

Unsurprisingly, the Mughals were proud of their heritage and sought to clearly weave it into their imperial narrative.  An example of this is seen in a stunning Mughal miniature -
 

Timur surrounded by his Mughal heirs: British Library - Johnson 64, 38

The painting depicts Timur, seated on a central raised couch, surrounded by his seated Mughal heirs: the first four emperors of the Mughal Empire.  To his right sits Babur, holding a book, and Akbar, while to his left sits Humayun, with his arm outstretched, and Jahangir.  Standing to Timur’s right is the poet Sa’di in white, while an attendant holding a state sword stands to his left.

It is notable that every imperial figure in the image bears a striking jeweled dagger on a golden belt, apart from Humayun.  This may be attributed to the fact that Humayun experienced the misfortune of losing his father’s empire and being forced into exile for a period of 15 years, before successfully reclaiming the empire with the support of Safavid Persia.

Humayun’s relative failure as an emperor therefore perhaps translates into not only his lack of dagger but the simplicity of his attire.  It would appear that in this miniature the strengthening of the empire corresponds with the richness of imperial attire.  We therefore see Babur with a jeweled dagger, Humayun plain, Akbar with a dagger and some jewelled ornaments and finally Jahangir, richly adorned with multiple jewels and pearls across his person.

This painting was created c.1650 during the reign of Shah Jahan, when such group portraits of Mughal ancestors were popular.  It forms part of the rich treasures of the British Library that can be viewed by appointment in the Asia and Africa Studies Print Room.  A well-worth trip to see some beautifully ornate illustrations of history!

Lubaaba Al-Azami
University of Liverpool

 

This blog is the first of a series on internment, highlighting the experiences of both civilians and military personnel detained across the globe in the Second World War.

In 1940, Winston Churchill ordered what he later referred to as ‘a deplorable and regrettable mistake’: the internment of men and women living in Britain from enemy countries.  This included Germans, Austrians, and Italians; among them were refugees who had fled Nazi persecution, including Jews.  One was nineteen-year-old Konrad Eisig, whose diary of internment on the Isle of Man and his voyage to Australia on HMT Dunera is held by the British Library.

The first page of the diary, noting Konrad’s arrest and journey to the Isle of Man – Add MS 89025

Konrad had escaped Germany on the eve of the War, settling in Leicester.  When he applied to travel to the Lake District for a holiday, the police showed up at his door in May 1940 to detain him. He entered the Onchan Internment Camp on the Isle of Man in June.  He worked as a cook, attended numerous classes, and was involved with the camp university and youth organisation. Writing to his girlfriend, he exclaimed: ‘I want to see you, I want to be free!…but we shall come together again.  We must’.

However, Konrad was transported to Australia on HMT Dunera, setting sail on 10 July.  The voyage was horrific, with more than 2500 men on board, 1000 over capacity - Jewish refugees, Nazis, prisoners of war, and Italian refugees who survived the sinking of the Arandora Star.  Konrad reported that British soldiers ‘robbed and plundered us’.  Detainees were kept in a hold which was not big enough, and were only allowed ten minutes of air and exercise each day.  One man committed suicide by jumping overboard.  Another was thrown down the stairs by soldiers for not taking his wedding ring off quickly enough, and another ‘got a bayonet into his back’ for daring to ask for permission to keep his prayer book.

The seventh page of the diary, showing Konrad’s journey to HMT Dunera – Add MS 89025

A torpedo missed the Dunera by only 50-100 yards two days after setting sail.  The ship eventually arrived in Australia in September.  The internees were well treated by the Australians, who quickly realised most of the men were not the evil Nazis they had been expecting.  The men were taken to Hay, New South Wales, which was ‘much better than we expected’, though the climate was a vast change from England and Germany!  Konrad again attended many classes ‘in order to leave as little time for thinking as was at all possible’.

Konrad’s diary finishes abruptly on 1 August 1941.  The fear of German invasion by Nazis disguised as refugees had died down, and arrangements were being made for refugees to return.  Joining the Pioneer Corps gave priority.  However Konrad was disdainful of this option: ‘it is an insult, a crime against all justice’.  It appears that he waited for a later ship.

The final page of the diary, explaining Konrad’s misery and the effect of internment on his life expectancy – Add MS 89025

Konrad had escaped persecution but then been unjustly incarcerated where he thought himself safe.  He says: ‘We were called “Refugees from Nazi Oppression”, we were used as England’s best advertisement.  Then suddenly “Intern the damned fifth columnists” and here we are’.

The diary covers a variety of themes: justice, mental health, anti-Semitism, homosexuality, and more.  It gives a unique insight into an experience which has not received much attention, reminding us that the War affected innocent refugees, even in Britain.

Jack Taylor
Doctoral researcher at the Open University. His CHASE-funded research explores sexual violence between men in the late 18th and 19th centuries.

Further reading:
Add MS 89025 – Letter diary of Konrad Eisig's voyage on HMT Dunera and his internment in Australia
Cyril Pearl, The Dunera Scandal: Deported by Mistake (1983).
Rachel Pistol, Internment during the Second World War: A Comparative Study of Great Britain and the USA (2017).

 

To mark the digitisation of medical archives in the India Office Records, I am highlighting some seminal research relating to Ronald Ross (1857-1932) and his important work discovering the causes of the transmission of malaria.

Mosquito BL: IOR/R/15/2/1061

By the late 1870s a miasmic (‘bad air’) theory of transmitting malaria was falling from favour and being replaced by a focus on biological transmission.  Corrado Tommasi-Crudeli and Theodor Klebs had isolated a bacteria from water which they claimed acted like malaria.  A French physician, Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran, had shown that malaria was spread by parasites by performing necropsies on malaria victims.  Following this groundwork, a combination of work from Patrick Manson, Giovanni Grassi and Ronald Ross added ultimately conclusive developments to the theory…

Image from Wallis Mackay, The Prisoner of Chiloane; or, with the Portuguese in South-East Africa (London, 1890) British Library 010096.ee.16  BL flickr 

Sir Ronald Ross was born in Almora, India, in 1857 to Sir Campbell Ross, a general in the Indian Army, and his wife Matilda.  He entered the Indian Medical Service in 1881.  During a year’s leave, he studied for the diploma in public health from The Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons in England taking a course in bacteriology.

Sir Ronald Ross. Photograph. Credit: Wellcome Collection. CC BY

Ross’s interest in malaria began in 1892 when he was converted to the idea that the malaria parasites were in the bloodstream.  Patrick Manson demonstrated this to Ross in 1894.  In India, Ross was investigating if mosquitoes were connected to the transmission of malaria, but he was called away from malaria-infested areas on Indian Medical Service duty.  This frustrated Ross; he sent a letter requesting to be ‘put on special duty for a few months after relief at Bangalore to enable him to investigate the truth of Dr. Patrick Manson’s theory of the Transmission of the infection of malaria by means of the mosquito’. 

IOR/P/5185 Mar 1897 nos 141-45; Proposal to place Surgeon Major Ronald Ross on special duty to investigate the truth of Dr. Patrick Manson's theory of the transmission of the infection of malaria by means of the mosquito

The work would be carried out by someone who was ‘a microscopist and bacteriologist with a bent towards original research’.  Ross planned to follow Manson in proving that it was the mosquito which spread the disease.  He wrote instructions on how to carry out the experiments and listed three necessary proofs:
• That the parasite went through the same change inside the mosquito as it did in blood drawn from humans
• That the parasite was capable of developing and living inside the mosquito
• That the parasite could be communicated from the mosquito to humans.

On 20 August 1897, in Secunderabad, Ross made his breakthrough discovery.  While dissecting the stomach tissue of an Anopheles mosquito, fed four days previously on a malarious patient, he found the malaria parasite.  He noted these memorable words in a poem:
‘..With tears and toiling breath,
I find thy cunning seeds,
O million-murdering Death’.

British Library IOR/P/5644 May 1899 nos 156-59 Communicability of malaria by mosquito bites

Ross continued his research in India and demonstrated that mosquitoes could serve as intermediate hosts for bird malaria.  He showed that the route of infection was through the bite of a mosquito with experiments on four sparrows and a weaver bird.  The account of these findings was presented to the British Medical Association in July 1898.  In 1902 Ross became the first Briton to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine.

David Moran
Western Heritage Collections

Further Reading:
IOR/P/5185 Mar 1897 nos 141-45 Proposal to place Surgeon Major Ronald Ross on special duty to investigate the truth of Dr Patrick Manson's theory of the transmission of the infection of malaria by means of the mosquito
IOR/P/5644 May 1899 nos 156-59 Communicability of malaria by mosquito bites
IOR/P/5418 Nov 1898 nos 10-12 Ronald Ross, Indian Medical Service, Preliminary Report on the Infection of Birds with Proteosoma by the Bites of Mosquitoes
IOR/P/434/44 Sep 1869 no 01 Report on the causes of malarial fever in Bengal
IOR/P/5644 Jan 1899 nos 79-82 Investigations at Rome into the role of mosquito-bites in the spread of malaria
IOR/P/5644 Jan 1899 nos 206-16 Proposed appointment of a Scientific Commission to investigate the causes and cure of malaria and the deputation to India of Dr C W Daniels to aid in the investigation
IOR/P/1204 Dec 1828 nos 10-13 Results of the trial made in certain hospitals in the Bombay Presidency with Mr Wood's alkaloids in the treatment of malarial fevers
IOR/P/351/37 20 Dec 1854 nos 6117-19 Report on sanitary conditions at Poona Cantonment and in the vicinity, and corrective measures to remove the causes of malaria

 

The Granville Archive recently acquired by the British Library includes a collection of supplementary material previously hidden from public view.  When Castalia Leveson-Gower prepared her edition of the private correspondence of diplomat and statesman Granville Leveson-Gower (1773-1846), her father-in-law – the bulk of them are letters from his lover, Harriet Ponsonby, Lady Bessborough (1761-1821) – she carefully omitted any letters referring to the couple’s passionate affair, the secret births of their two children, and the delicate discussions between them and Lord Granville’s eventual wife, Harriet’s niece.  Even letters that were chosen for inclusion in the published edition had to be carefully filleted to cut out any tender endearment or reference to their illegitimate daughter and son.  The entire collection of original letters, including those published, was retained in private hands.  Its whereabouts was unknown to researchers until its acquisition by the British Library (along with Castalia Leveson-Gower’s research papers and her own private correspondence with her husband, the second Earl Granville).  The collection arrived at the Library, bundled in boxes and trunks, at the same time as the main, larger, Granville Archive (Add MS 89317).  Now the supplementary collection has been catalogued (Add MS 89382), and it provides a fascinating complement to the main family archive.

Trunk of papers from the Granville Archive

The new cache of letters will be a rich new source for researchers into late 18th and early 19th century politics and upper class society.  They shed particular light on the personal and political lives of aristocratic women of the period.  Besides the intimate letters between Lady Bessborough and Lord Granville relating to their clandestine affair and children, there are letters from other members of their circle of friends and relations, including Lord Granville’s mother, Susanna Leveson-Gower, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (Lady Bessborough’s sister), and Caroline Lamb (her daughter).

'I leave you and give you the only valuable gift in my power, wrote in my blood, my blessing.'  Letter from Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire to her daughter Harriet, written before leaving for France, 1789 (Add MS 89382/3/4)

Alongside discussion of the latest books and politics, perennial concerns about reputation, scandal and money run throughout this correspondence.  Huge gambling debts were a worry for many in their circle: in a bundle of letters to Lord Granville, the Duchess of Devonshire pleads urgently for funds to stave off creditors.  When the Duke of Devonshire died in 1811, a litigious dispute arose between his heir, the sixth Duke, and his widow, former mistress Lady Elizabeth Foster, over the family diamonds.  Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum there are smaller sums, such as the itemised accounts for housing and educating their illegitimate children which feature in Lady Bessborough’s letters to Lord Granville.

'I have just given 30 guineas for a piano forte for tho it is a lump down it is cheaper in the end than hiring.'  Expenditure on the two children 1805-1807.  Letter from Lady Bessborough to Lord Granville, June 1807 (Add MS 89382/2/27)

The letters from Lady Bessborough to Lord Granville tell a vivid story of their long relationship.  Frequent, often daily, letters passed between them, from their first meeting in Naples in 1794, when she was a married woman of 32 and he a 20 year old ‘Adonis’, until her death in Florence in 1821.  They describe the course of their affair through flirtation, intimacy, subterfuge, and passion, and the enduring friendship that survived it, cemented by the birth of their two children and his eventual marriage into her family in 1809.

Tabitha Driver
Cataloguer Modern Archives & Manuscripts
 
Further reading:
Lord Granville Leveson Gower: Private Correspondence, ed. Castalia Granville (London, 1916)
Amanda Foreman, Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire (London, 1998)
Janet Gleeson, An Aristocratic Affair: the Life of Georgiana's Sister, Harriet Spencer, Countess of Bessborough (London, 2006)

 

This New Year Card was sent 100 years ago to Sir Malcolm Seton of the India Office by Colonel Sir Vernon Kell and the staff of MI5.  They wished him a happy and peaceful New Year for 1920.  The main message on the card is 'To Liberty and Security 1914-1919. Malevolence Imposes Vigilance 1920'.  The Great War had ended recently but threats to peace and stability continued.

MI5 Greeting card from the Papers of Sir Malcolm Seton, India Office official 1898-1933 - India Office Private Papers Mss Eur E 267/10B Images Online

 

We wish our readers a happy and peaceful New Year 2020.

 

Amongst the Public and Judicial records of the India Office, there are glimpses into a darker side of life at the edge of Empire.  Three files recently caught my eye.  They deal with the case of a British Army soldier in a remote outpost in Burma sentenced to death for murder in 1888. 

Paloung women and Shans in the Ruby Mines District Illustrated London News 27 August 1887 British Newspaper Archive ©Illustrated London News Group

John William Grange was a private in the 2nd Battalion Cheshire Regiment.  According to his military records, he was 5 ft 3 ins with dark hair, grey eyes and two scars above his right eye. He was illiterate.  He had joined the 3rd Battalion Manchester Regiment Militia aged 17.  At 18 he transferred to the Cheshire Regiment, serving two years in Europe and two years in India before arriving in Burma in November 1887.  He was stationed in the Ruby Mines District in Upper Burma.
 

Maps 159 Plan showing the posiiton of the Ruby Mines in Burma 1887

The Rangoon Gazette Weekly Budget of 30 November 1888 gave a full report of Grange’s trial at the High Court in Rangoon.  Grange was tried for the murder of two Lishaw women named Saw Phoo Mah and Saw Lay Mai.  On 15 September 1888, a mother, daughter and son were walking along a road in a remote area on their way from Leu to Bernardmyo to sell potatoes when they encountered a British soldier.  The soldier approached the young girl, took her by the hand and offered her money. Terrified, the girl refused to take it and called to her mother for help.  Her mother struck the soldier with a large stick and he shot her in the chest.  The young girl cried out for her brother to run, so he fled into the forest and hid in a deserted village.  Another witness working a in a nearby paddy field heard two gunshots, six or seven minutes apart.

Grange testified that he had gone out with a rifle to shoot pigs.  He claimed a fit of madness overcame him as he didn’t recall killing the women, just seeing that they lay dead.  He threw their bodies into a ravine and covered them with banana leaves.  A soldier called Swindels arrived, bringing Grange his breakfast.  Grange confessed to him that he had committed murder, the two men hid the rifle and returned to barracks.

After bodies were discovered, the truth came out and Grange was arrested for murder.  He was convicted on 21 November and sentenced to death.  He appealed, and there was a dispute over the validity of the court proceedings.  A special court in Rangoon declared the trial good but the case was referred to the High Court in Bengal in March 1890 on another point of law.  In April 1890 it was decided to commute Grange’s sentence to penal servitude for life.

IOR/L/PJ/6/276, File 744 The case of soldier Grange

A common location for penal servitude was Kālā Pānī on the Andaman Islands, a nightmarish prison.  Many tried to escape because of the cruelty of the confinement. Torture, starvation, medical testing and murder were commonplace.  I assume that John William Grange died in prison – or does an Untold Lives reader know otherwise?

Craig Campbell
Curatorial Support Officer, India Office Records

Further reading:
IOR/L/PJ/6/274, File 603 Case of a European soldier named Grange tried at Rangoon in November 1888 for murder of two Burmese women, 2 April 1890
IOR/L/PJ/6/276, File 744 The case of soldier Grange; convicted of murder by the Recorder of Rangoon; sentence commuted to penal servitude for life, 26 April 1890
IOR/L/PJ/6/281, File 1280 Case of John William Grange, a British soldier sentenced to death for the murder of two women in Upper Burma, 8 July 1890
Maps 159 Plan of the Ruby Mine Districts of Burma. Surveyed by R. Gordon ... 1887. (Burma, showing the position of the Ruby Mines.) H. Sharbau del. London, May 1888
IOR/V/24/2240 Criminal justice report of Lower Burma. Rangoon: Judicial Department, 1885-1889
Microform. MFM.MC1198 Rangoon Gazette Weekly Budget
Microform. MFM.MC1160 The Englishman

 

We wish all our readers a very happy Christmas! Perhaps you 'd like to entertain your nearest and dearest over the holidays with some of the tales we have shared on this blog?

'Christmas story-telling' by J E Millais Illustrated London News 1862 Images Online

Here are a few suggestions with a seasonal flavour.

The Poisoned Mince Pie

Having a ball - Christmas in Calcutta

Captain Bendy's not so happy Christmas

Charades – a Christmas game to make a long evening short

A Tommy's Christmas Day letter 1917

Santa Claus’s coming to Britain

A Victorian father's Christmas reflections on his children

Boxing Day murder in East London

A pot pourri of stories to enjoy!

 

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

 

I was browsing the British Library catalogue for appropriate collection items to share on the blog over Christmas.  When I came across a play called The Christmas Ordinary published in 1682, I decided to investigate.

Title page of The Christmas Ordinary (London, 1682)

Imagine my delight when I saw that the first character listed was my namesake, a Mr Make-Peace.  And as I have a son named Phil, I was thrilled to discover that Mr Make-Peace has an astronomer son called Astrophil. 

Here is the full list of the play’s characters:
‘Dramatis Personae
Mr. Make-Peace, A Countrey-Justice
Astrophil, An Astronomer, his Son
Humphry, The Justice’s Man
Drink-Fight, A Jovial Souldier
Austin, An Hermit
Shab-Quack, A poor Chyrurgeon
Roger, An Apprentice to Shab-Quack
Win-all, An Host of an Ordinary’.

Well, I was hooked!  What sort of story could connect a justice of the peace, an astronomer, a jovial soldier, a hermit, a poor surgeon and the host of an ordinary (an inn).

This is the synopsis of the plot:

‘Roger escaping from his Master Shab-Quack, at Christmas Time, meets with Drink-fight, and joyns with him in a Knot of Merriment.  They also inveigle the Hermit and Astrophil.  Mr. Make-peace being pensive at his Son’s Departure, sends Humphry to enquire him out, who, in the Disguise of a Traveller, finds them frolicking at an Ordinary; who insinuates himself into their Mirth.  Afterwards, with false Dice, cheats them, and escapes.  They afterwards, wrangling about the Reckoning, beat their Host, who summons them all before the Justice, and runs to Shab-Quack for Cure.  Mr. Make-peace, perceiving his Son Astrophil amongst them, joyfully entertains him and the rest. Shab-Quack pardons his Servant’s Christmas Merriment, and the Hermit, in a jolly Humor, is bound Apprentice to the Host’.

What fun! 

Drunken frolics of 17th-century men from John Ashton, Humour, Wit, & Satire of the Seventeenth Century (London, 1883) Shelfmark 11621.h.7. BL flickr

I instinctively focused upon Mr Make-Peace’s devotion to his son.

‘O this Astrophil doth so Banquet me with joy, that I am almost cloy’d with my Felicity, and I grow hoarse in Gratulatory Praises.’

‘Not yet return’d my Son? Then let me weep my Body dry to Dust, and make this Chair my Coffin.’

And when Astrophil returns home safely –
‘Methinks there is a young Spring in all my Limbs, my Blood trips Coranto’s in my capering Veins… Come, follow me all, and I will satisfie you with a pleurisy of Delights’.

And so I wish you all a Happy Christmas, cloyed with felicity and a pleurisy of delights.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records