Untold lives blog

A major new digital resource has just become available for researching the East India Company and the India Office.  You can now take an online journey through 350 years of history, from the foundation of the East India Company to Indian Independence.

Adam Matthew Digital has digitised four series of India Office Records -
IOR/A: East India Company: Charters, Deeds, Statutes and Treaties 1600-1947
IOR/B: Minutes of the East India Company’s Directors and Proprietors, 1599-1858
IOR/C: Council of India Minutes and Memoranda, 1858-1947
IOR/D: Minutes and Memoranda of General Committees and Offices of the East India Company, 1700-1858

I have selected some documents to give you just a taste of the kinds of records you can view in the digital collection..

IOR/B/1 f.6

Let’s start with the list of the first subscribers to the Company drawn up in September 1599. Differing amounts of money were pledged as investments in the proposed venture to trade with the East Indies.  The Lord Mayor of London heads the list followed by Aldermen and members of the City Livery Companies. Queen Elizabeth I granted a royal charter to the Company on 31 December 1600.

IOR/B/2 f.20

Next is an extract from the instructions given by the East India Company to Henry Middleton before he sailed as General of the Second Voyage in 1604.  The Company hoped that Middleton would be able ‘to bringe this longe and tedious voyadge to a profitable end’.  Sailors were to be disciplined for blasphemy and ‘all Idle and fillthie Communicacion’ and banned from unlawful gaming, especially playing dice.

IOR/B/26 p.278

Here are the Court Minutes for 1 August 1660 which discussed the business affairs of Robert Tichborne, an East India Company Director who had signed the death warrant of King Charles I.  The newly restored King Charles II was taking action to seize Tichborne’s property, including his investments in the Company. Tichborne was tried as a regicide in October 1660 and sentenced to death. He was spared but spent the rest of his life in prison. 

IOR/D/7 p.876

In February 1821 Dr George Rees sent a note about patients placed at his mental health asylum by the East India Company.  Lieutenant Felham was very dangerously ill and the use of wine was absolutely necessary for him. Frederick Haydn was to have a violin provided for him. 

 

 IOR/C/121

On 3 March 1931 the Council of India recommended that Lord Willingdon, on his appointment as Viceroy, should be allowed to take out to India five motor cars at a total cost of £3450 instead of one good Rolls Royce and 3 other cars.

IOR/A/102 Instrument of Abdication

We finish with the Instrument of Abdication, one of six that Edward VIII signed at Fort Belvedere, Windsor Great Park, on 10 December 1936. The document is signed by Edward VIII and his three brothers. An Act of Parliament effected the King’s abdication on the following day, ending a reign of less than a year. India received this copy by virtue of the King’s position as Emperor of India. The document was delivered to the Secretary of State for India.

East India Company, Module 1: Trade, Governance and Empire, 1600-1947 is available online from Adam Matthew and there will be access in our Reading Rooms in London and Yorkshire.  Modules II and III will be published in 2018 and 2019 respectively.

Happy hunting!

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:

East India Company: Rise to Demise
Human Stories from the East India Company

Greta Garbo and Jean Harlow wore them, but British officials felt that beach pyjamas weren’t right for Sharjah in 1933.

Woman in beach pyjamas, 1932. Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-13627 via Wikimedia Commons

Air travel had come to Sharjah the previous year, when it began serving as a stopover on the Imperial Airways route to India. Facilities included a rest house with bath and showers. However, in 1933 a report reached the British Political Agent in Bahrain that passengers had been making visits to the town, including one female passenger ‘clad in beach pyjamas’, the fashionably fast beach leisurewear of the 1930s.

A senior India Office official, J G Laithwaite, was soon referring in an official minute to the ‘beach pyjama incident’.

Minute by Laithwaite, India Office, 8 May 1933, referring to ‘the beach pyjama incident’ at Sharjah IOR/L/PS/12/3807, f 24.

British concern about the free movement of air passengers at Sharjah took two forms. On the one hand, they wished to limit contact between visitors and the Sheikh of Sharjah, particularly unauthorised representatives of oil companies hunting for lucrative petroleum contracts.

On the other hand, there was concern that passengers might be ‘insulted or molested’ by the local inhabitants, who had ‘not up to now been accustomed to having strangers, especially ladies, wandering about their bazaars’. If this happened, the British authorities would be forced to insist that the Sheikh identified and punished the offenders, with a consequent straining of relations between the British and the Sheikh.

The British Political Resident, Lieutenant-Colonel Trenchard Fowle, proceeded to write to the Sheikh of Sharjah, warning him, more tactfully, about the possible threat to passengers from ‘some bad character or Bedouin from the desert’, and asking him to enforce a treaty clause stating that no Imperial Airways employee or passenger should be allowed to enter the town of Sharjah without the Sheikh’s permission.

Letter from Lieutenant-Colonel Trenchard Fowle, Political Resident in Persian Gulf, to the Sheikh of Sharjah, March 1933, warning him of the consequences, if some ‘unfortunate incident’ were to occur involving Imperial Airways passengers at Sharjah: IOR/L/PS/12/3807, f 29.

The historian Penelope Tuson thinks that the concern of British administrators for the safety of female passengers was only apparent, and that that their real motive was to preserve sexual propriety and the status quo, in the face of increasing numbers of female visitors to the Gulf – doctors, nurses, oil industry wives, and travellers like Freya Stark. All of these women were outside the British political and diplomatic class, and hence more difficult to control.

However, British officials may have reflected that Sharjah was in a part of the Gulf that had up to that point seen few manifestations of Western culture. (The airfield ‘rest house’ was actually a fort, Al Mahatta, complete with armed guards.) Moreover, the chief concern of British administrators was normally the need to preserve friendly relations with local rulers, who were themselves part of the status quo.

Thus, Fowle had also been at pains to reprimand Imperial Airways over an incident at Gwadar, an exclave of the sultanate of Muscat, in which an employee of the company had accidentally wounded a local person while out shooting. Fortunately, the incident in question was quickly settled.

In the event, Imperial Airways promptly enforced restrictions on the movements of passengers at Sharjah.

The identity of the female passenger at the centre of the controversy is not recorded. However, the incident illustrates some of the cultural interactions that characterised the changing face of the Gulf in the 1930s.

The correspondence file on which this piece is based will be made available in the Qatar Digital Library in 2017.

Martin Woodward
Content Specialist, Archives
British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership

Further reading:
British Library, Coll 30/88 'Question of residence of European women on the Trucial Coast.' IOR/L/PS/12/3807.
Penelope Tuson, Playing the Game. The Story of Western Women in Arabia (London and New York: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2003)
Film of the airport at Sharjah in 1937

Related articles

Flying over the liners: Passenger aviation across the Gulf during the 1930s

The beginning of the First World War was a difficult time for Persia. With the country divided between Russian and British zones of influence, the Shah and his government were trying to maintain their sovereignty and to keep the country neutral. However, the war was fought on Persian territory on many fronts.

From Hippesley Cunliffe Marsh, A ride through Islam: being a journey through Persia and Afghanistan to India, viâ Meshed, Herat and Kandahar (London, 1877)

Documents from the India Office Records unveil British intrigues to maintain control over Persia. The British aimed to prevent the country from entering the war and supporting Turkey with a Muslim coalition - a jihad.

One of the propaganda efforts reported in the records is an alleged plunder by the Turks of jewels and money to the value of £2 million from the shrines of Nejef [Najaf, Iraq] and Karbala in January 1915.  This news was reported in the British press, discussed in Parliament, and recorded in the Political and Secret Department Records. But there is no evidence that this in fact ever happened.

Najaf and Karbala are the two holiest sites for Shia Muslims, and the value of the plunder would be over £300 million in today’s money. Such news would not have gone unnoticed among Arabic and Turkish sources, yet I could not find anything but a mention during a debate at the House of Commons.

The cautious wording chosen by Charles Henry Roberts, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for India at the time, when interrogated about the loot of Karbala is quite revealing:
'I should hesitate to say that the reports absolutely confirm the truth of the story; but they seem to render it considerably more probable'.

Did the looting ever happen? Maybe the British were exaggerating a story to convince the Persians to join them in the war against the Turks?

 
File 3516/1914 Pt 4 'German War: Persia', IOR/L/PS/10/481, f 316

Having read numerous files concerning the British occupation of Persia during World War One, I believe that this quote describes quite well the British approach towards Persia:

‘I fear that the only advantage which we can promise Persia is that which the Cyclops promised Odysseus
Οὖτιν ἐγὼ πύματον ἔδομαι μετὰ οἷς ἑτάροισιν’ (Noman will I eat last among his comrades…)

Odysseus and Polyphemus the Cyclops from Henri.Raison Du Cleuziou, La création de l'homme et les premiers âges de l'humanité  (Paris, 1887) BL flickr

Valentina Mirabella
Archive Specialist, British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership
@miravale

Further reading:
File 3516/1914 Pt 4 'German War: Persia', IOR/L/PS/10/481
Odyssey 9.369 - Translation by A.T. Murray

In the spring of 1949 the Bahrain Political Agency, in a typically organised fashion, began to make arrangements for the production of its very own Christmas card.  At the Agency’s request, the appropriately titled Christmas Card Manager at Gale and Polden Limited sent to Bahrain two folders containing specimens of Christmas cards that the company had produced for various British embassies, consulates, and colonial protectorates.

After receiving the specimens, the Political Agent, Cornelius Pelly, made a request for 200 Christmas cards, similar in style to a card produced for the British Embassy in Washington DC, which features in one of the specimen folders.

IOR/R/15/2/1626, f 152: front cover of the British Embassy in Washington’s Christmas card

IOR/R/15/2/1626, f 153v: the greeting inside the British Embassy in Washington’s Christmas card  

IOR/R/15/2/1626, f 154: the photograph inside the British Embassy in Washington’s Christmas card 

Pelly sent a photograph (and its negative) of the Political Agency building, which he asked to be included in the card.  Sadly, as of yet, no surviving copy of the resulting card has been uncovered in the Bahrain Agency files.  However, Gale and Polden did return the photograph and negative, and these have been retained with the correspondence.

IOR/R/15/2/1626,  f 124: photograph of the Bahrain Political Agency 

The photograph of the Agency building, whilst being rather unimpressive in comparison with that of the British Embassy in Washington, does show how the building, which today is home to the British Embassy, once looked, in a landscape that has changed beyond recognition, following extensive land reclamation.

Images of the specimen folders, along with those of the Agency photograph and negative, will be made available on the Qatar Digital Library website in 2017.

David Fitzpatrick
Content Specialist, Archivist, British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership 

Further reading:
IOR/R/15/2/1626

Bahrain is a far cry from Mount Everest.  Hot, humid and surrounded by shallow seas, the island reaches a modest 439 feet in height.  Yet Bahrain played its part in one of the more unusual tales to have made it into Everest lore, and the mountain’s symbolism indirectly contributed to the formation of aviation policy in the Persian Gulf before the Second World War.

A view of Everest from Darjeeling, taken from Pictorial Tour Round India by John Murdoch, (1894) BL flickr

On 31 May 1933 a Gypsy Moth plane landed at the Imperial Airways aerodrome in Muharraq.  The pilot, Maurice Wilson, was a British civilian who intended to refuel at Bahrain before continuing on to India, via Sharjah.  The British and Bahraini authorities had caught wind of Wilson’s arrival and given strict instructions to Imperial Airways that he should not be allowed to refuel or leave the country.

Maurice Wilson with his aeroplane, Ever Wrest, before his flight to India - Wikipedia

Wilson was interviewed by Imperial Airways staff and the Political Agent in Bahrain, Lieutenant-Colonel Gordon Loch.  His intention was to fly his plane 10,000 feet up Mount Everest “and then to walk the odd 19,002 feet to the summit”.  Badly injured in the First World War, Wilson claimed he had been healed by fasting and prayer when conventional doctors had been unable to help.  His mission, he believed, was to be the first to climb Everest to show the world the power of such faith.

Loch was justifiably sceptical. “He [has] never seen the Himalayas and [has] never been above 18,000 feet”.  All he had to assist him was “an oxygen apparatus weighing 18 pounds which was to supply oxygen for seven-and-an-half hours”.  Loch did not know that Wilson’s training had only involved hiking the hills of Snowdonia and the Lake District, hills that barely reached a tenth of the height of Everest.  Wilson’s preparations for flying were not much better, obtaining his pilot’s licence in twice the average length of time.

Map showing air routes along the Persian Gulf  IOR/R/15/1/730, f 88

Wilson had ignored an Air Ministry ban on civilian flights along the Arab coast, hence the attention from the authorities.  While special permission was sometimes given, only the Royal Air Force and the government-backed Imperial Airways were routinely allowed to fly the route.  Wilson’s journey prompted deliberation at some of the highest levels of government and triggered a flurry of correspondence that led to tighter controls and a change in policy.  Sensitive to the “political complications” that the activities of those such as Wilson might cause, and conscious of maintaining the illusion of the Gulf States’ independence, the Political Resident was instructed to obtain letters from the Arab rulers of Kuwait, Bahrain, the Trucial Coast, and Oman explicitly banning all private and civil travel over or into their territories.  These instructions were then incorporated into the Air Navigation Regulations of each country and notices of the ban were posted in airfields in Iraq and India.

Notice to Airmen posted at airfields in India IOR/R/15/2/1677, f.76.

Wilson ignored his orders to return to Basra, instead flying directly on to Gwadar. He succeeded in sneaking into Tibet disguised as a Buddhist monk and pretending to be deaf and dumb. He made several attempts at the summit, sometimes alone, sometimes with a few companion Sherpas. He never returned from his final solitary attempt on 29 May 1934. His last diary entry, made two days later and exactly a year after landing in Bahrain, read simply “Off again, gorgeous day”.

John Hayhurst
Project Officer – Gulf History Specialist

British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership

Further reading:
IOR/L/PS/12/1981 ‘Coll 5/31 ‘Air Route to India: Prohibition of private flights along the Arabian Coast of the Persian Gulf’’
IOR/R/15/1/715 ‘Administration Reports 1931-1935’
IOR/R/15/1/730 ‘Historical Summary of Events in Territories of the Ottoman Empire, Persia and Arabia affecting the British Position in the Persian Gulf, 1907-1928’
IOR/R/15/2/1677 ‘File 21/20 Airways, Private Aviators’

Qatar Digital Library

Dennis Roberts, I’ll Climb Mount Everest Alone: The Story of Maurice Wilson, London: Robert Hale (1957)

In 1937 the Government of Afghanistan purchased 24 aircraft from Italy.  Provision was made for an Italian Air Mission to be deputed to Kabul for the purpose of assembling and maintaining the aircraft, and for training Afghan personnel.  The Political (External) Department of the India Office maintained a file to keep track of the situation.

This development placed the Italians in direct competition with Britain and caused concern amongst British policy makers.  Hawker Aircraft Limited had recently negotiated the sale of eight Hind aircraft to the Afghan Air Force, and was similarly engaged with supplying its own instructors for the same purpose.

Hawker Hind - British official photographer: Imperial War Museum © IWM (ATP 8882B)

British policy favoured the maintenance of a stable, independent, and friendly Afghanistan as the best means of securing its Indian Empire.  Meanwhile, Afghan officials feared being outclassed in the event of war by a larger Iranian Air Force, but lacked the resources and expertise to compete with their neighbour.  British policy makers were therefore in favour of the development of a small but efficient air force in Afghanistan for internal security purposes, being both within Afghan means and no threat to India.  Their strategy for achieving this lay with encouraging the Afghans to develop their air force along the lines of the Royal Air Force using supplies from British sources.

The Afghan authorities had expressed an interest in purchasing British aircraft as far back as 1935.  However, the demands of Britain's own re-armament programme limited the number of aircraft which could be supplied to Afghanistan.  Restrictions over the credit which could be provided to Afghanistan by the Government of India provided a further limitation.  Thus the British were hardly in a position to object when the Afghans turned to the Italians to fulfil their requirements.

The British feared that the Italians would send out an imposing mission to Kabul in view of the larger number of aircraft being supplied, and considered sending out a senior British officer to bolster the British mission.  Such fears turned out to be unfounded, the maximum size of the Italian mission being seven personnel to Hawker’s four.

The result was a scene at Kabul’s aerodrome described as peculiar by William Kerr Fraser-Tytler, Britain's Minister at Kabul.  An Italian delegation was assembling and testing aircraft next to a similarly engaged British contingent, while two German mechanics were busy restoring Junkers aircraft supplied in previous years to serviceable condition.

1938 would however turn the situation entirely to Britain's advantage.  The Italian aircraft sold to the Afghans were powered by engines entirely unsuitable for use at high altitude, and were easily outperformed by Hawker’s Hinds which were much more suited to Afghan conditions.  The Italian supplied aircraft experienced difficulties taking off, and were not able to carry a full load.  As a result, crashes and forced landings were common, and the aircraft became unpopular with Afghan pilots.

Hawker Hind - Afghanistan Air Force. Image via Wikimedia (copyright Alan D R  Brown)

The Italian Mission was withdrawn in 1939, following the German instructors who had been withdrawn the previous year.  Thus Britain was left as the only nation maintaining an air mission at Kabul during the Second World War.  Fraser-Tytler was entirely happy with developments and claimed in a dispatch dated 10 May 1938 to the Foreign Office that ‘This practical demonstration of British superiority could not have been achieved had we been alone in the field’.

Britain had thus achieved an advantageous position in Afghanistan. However the outbreak of the Second World War, and subsequent restrictions on Britain’s ability to supply aircraft and equipment, meant this position could not be fully capitalised on.

Robert Astin
Content Specialist, Archivist
British Library / Qatar Foundation Partnership

Further reading:
British Library, Coll 5/48 ‘Afghanistan: Supply of military aircraft to the Afghan Government; Supply of maps etc. to the Afghan Govt.’ IOR/L/PS/12/2001
British Library, Coll 5/53 ‘Afghanistan: Employment of British nationals in various branches of the Afghan air services; Air instructors’ contracts’ IOR/L/PS/12/2006
British Library, Coll 5/53(2) ‘Afghanistan: Employment of British nationals in various branches of Afghan air services; Air instructors’ contracts’ IOR/L/PS/12/2007
British Library, Coll 5/55 ‘Afghanistan: Supply of Aircraft to Afghan Govt: Contract between Air Ministry & Hawker Aircraft Ltd’ IOR/L/PS/12/2009
British Library, Coll 5/55(2) ‘Afghanistan: Supply of aircraft to the Afghan Govt. Supply of spare parts’ IOR/L/PS/12/2010 IOR/L/PS/12/2010
British Library, Coll 5/55(2) ‘‘Afghanistan: Supply of aircraft to the Afghan Govnt. Supply of spare parts’ IOR/L/PS/12/2011
British Library, Coll 5/60(1) ‘Afghanistan: Purchase of aircraft from foreign sources (1) Italy (2) Germany’ IOR/L/PS/12/2020
 
 

In February 1809, a delegation from the British Government and the East India Company presented the Shah of Persia with a letter proposing an alliance between the two powers. This alliance was intended to thwart French attempts to use Persia to threaten Britain’s Indian Empire, as well as offer Persia military assistance against the Russians in the Caucasus.

Nigaristan Palace mural showing Fath Ali Shah enthroned with his sons - British Library Add.Or.1239 BL flickr

The envoy, Harford Jones, arranged for a display of strength in the form of a procession consisting of troops and members of his staff to impress the Persians. With this procession came a train of gifts, even the letter Jones was tasked to deliver was richly appointed. The records of the East India Company contain a list of these gifts, including firearms produced by the famous gunsmiths Manton.

The records also contain a set of receipts for some of the gifts, including a bill from Nunn and Barber Haberdashers of London for three letter bags: “…A very elegant white satin bag embroidered in gold extremely rich with gold cords of four tassels…”. This, along with two other bags cost the princely sum of £32.12s, the equivalent of over £1,000 today.

As well as these lavish letter bags, Mr Sydon Williams was paid £7.17s.6d for a “drawing of flowers… envelope… and trim”. There is also a bill for “Turkey boxes with velvet” and “cedar boxes” costing £9.0s.6d, presumably to carry everything else.

These gifts were intended to impress the Persian Shah and his court, demonstrating that the military strength shown in the parade to the palace was supported by the cash to back any promises made to the Persians, should they side with Britain.

Peter Good
PhD student University of Essex/British Library  

Further reading:
India Office Records - Persia Factory Records IOR/G/29/37; IOR/G/29/32 f.530
Sir Harford Jones Brydges, An Account of the Transactions of His Majesty's Mission to the Court of Persia, in the years 1807-11 ... To which is appended a brief history of the Wahauby (1834)

Related articles

Pageantry and Parade in Persia - Untold lives blog

In February 1809, the Napoleonic Wars were raging in Europe. The Ottoman Empire and Britain had just concluded the Treaty of the Dardanelles, while in Spain a British army was forced from the shores of Northern Spain at the Battle of Coruna. Meanwhile, the French, British and Russians were also fighting for influence and control in the Persian Empire. The Russians and Persians fought a bitter war for control of the Caucasus, the French sought to threaten India with a Franco-Persian alliance, and Britain looked to prevent both while also drawing away attention and resources from Europe.

In order to do this, a letter was prepared by the British from George III to the Shah of Persia, Fath Ali Shah Qajar. This letter was delivered by the representative of the East India Company and British government  in Persia, Sir Harford Jones. Being an old hand in Persia, Jones appreciated that it wasn’t just the letter that was important, but also how it was presented. A record of the procession organised by Harford Jones is written in the East India Company’s records. It gives an impression of the importance that such pageantry held in the workings of diplomacy in Persia and elsewhere at this time.

“The Procession to the Palace began in the following manner: Officers belonging to the King of Persia. Led horses belonging to the Envoy [Harford Jones]. Native officer of Cavalry, sword drawn. Trumpeter. The Letter with HM Letter and Present. Guard of Native Cavalry, swords drawn. Persian Officers of the Envoy’s Household mismounted. The Envoy. Secretary and Gentlemen belonging to the mission. Guard of Native Cavalry…”

Add.Or.1241 The court of Fath Ali Shah with foreign ambassadors - from a reduced copy of the Nigaristan Palace mural. Images Online

It’s not always what you say, but the way you say it. The embassy of Harford Jones was not just impressive in terms of its personnel either, as it carried with it an array of expensive gifts from India and London. The procession was calculated to look impressive, being a display of wealth and military strength to assuage any doubts as to Britain’s ability to defend herself or her Empire in India. The situation in Persia was complicated by constant shifts in the interests of each power in Europe, with both the French and British wishing to bring Russia onto their side while knowing that any agreement with Russia would abrogate the chances of a treaty with Persia. Displays of power and prowess were therefore seen as a necessary ingredient in diplomacy with Persia.

Peter Good
PhD student University of Essex/British Library

Further reading:
IOR/G/29/37