Untold lives blog

In this summer of major sporting competitions, we’re looking back to the 1940s and the exploits of the cadets of the Indian training ship Dufferin.

Notice of the application procedure for the Dufferin from The Indian Cadet Second Term 1944 - IOR/L/E/8/4977

The Indian Mercantile Marine Training Ship Dufferin was established at Bombay in 1927.  The ship prepared Indian youths for a career at sea, with Executive and Marine Engineering Branches.  Regulations from the 1940s state that applicants had to be aged between thirteen years and eight months and sixteen years, and they had to have reached a certain standard in education.  Qualifying examinations were held in different parts of India, and successful candidates had to pass an interview and medical and eyesight tests.  Although the focus was on training officers for the Merchant Navy, there were opportunities for boys to compete for commissions in the Royal Indian Navy.

Front cover of The Indian Cadet Second Term 1944 - IOR/L/E/8/4977

Reports of the sporting activities of Dufferin cadets in the 1940s are found in The Indian Cadet, the ship’s own journal published twice a year.  The boys played football and hockey, and competed in athletics and swimming.

Photograph of the Dufferin hockey and football teams in their sports kit and uniform jackets - The Indian Cadet First Term 1944 - IOR/L/E/8/4977

The Indian Cadet for Winter 1943 lists the results of athletics events.  Some of the times and distances are impressive.  Netto came first in the 100 yards for under 16s in a time of 12 seconds (record 11 seconds), whilst Wellington won the 100 yards open in 11.7 seconds (record 10.2 seconds).  Rees won the 120 yards hurdles (senior) in 19 seconds (record 15.4 seconds), and also triumphed in the long jump (open) with a leap of 17 feet 8½ inches (record 19 feet 10 inches).  Harding smashed the javelin record of 109 feet 5 inches with a throw of 128 feet 3 inches, and Jellicoe won the pole vault by clearing 8 feet ½ inch, easily beating the previous best of 7 feet 2 inches.  Valladaras ran a mile in 5 minutes 45 seconds.  A new event, the ‘Hop, Step and Jump’ (triple jump) was won by Ramakrishnan with 36 feet 5½ inches.

Table of athletics results - The Indian Cadet Winter 1943 -  IOR/L/E/8/4977

At the end of 1944 only fifteen cadets had not passed the ship’s swimming test, whilst seventeen held badges for proficiency.  For the first time, a cadet was entered for the Western India Swimming Championships.  Cadet Captain Aubrey William Wise was hampered by the lack of intensive training but acquitted himself well, reaching the finals of the under 18s breaststroke, free style, and backstroke.  At the ship’s Annual Aquatic Sports held at Back Bay Baths on 10 November 1944, Wise was named the best swimmer in the Dufferin for a third time.

Champion swimmer Cadet Captain Aubrey William Wise - The Indian Cadet Second Term 1944 - IOR/L/E/8/4977

‘Football Notes’ for the Second Term of 1943 reported that the team’s performance was not up to the usual high standard at the start of the season, although enthusiasm was not lacking.  An assessment of each of the players was given. Goalkeeper Jellicoe never hesitated ‘to use his boxing ability against the ball’.  Centre-forward Bhattacharya played a very swift game, dribbled well, and was a sure shot, with ‘the grace of an expert ball-room dancer’.  Outside-left Pillai was a promising fresher, but ‘gentle to a fault and forgets that Football is a game meant for men and not for girls’.  I hope I heard a sharp intake of breath from our readers then?

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
IOR/L/E/8/4977 Issues of the Dufferin journal The Indian Cadet 1942-1945
IOR/L/E/9/861-862 Indian Mercantile Marine Training ship Dufferin 1933-1947
IOR/V/27/750/13 Copies of the Dufferin prospectus 1928-1951

When Edward Godfrey was born in Nettleton, Wiltshire, on 4 September 1820 it could perhaps be foreseen that he would go on to be a priest, following in the footsteps of his father the Reverend Daniel Race Godfrey.  But it is unlikely he could have predicted that he would become known as the last surviving Chaplain of the East India Company.

Edward attended Clare College, Cambridge achieving his M.A. in 1846.  He had already been serving as Curate of Chard in Somerset since 1844, and in 1847 was appointed to as Curate to St Peter’s in Plymouth.

Marriage announcement for the Reverend Edward Godfrey to Miss Emily Clare Payne, London Evening Standard 7 December 1844 British Newspaper Archive

That same year he applied for an appointment with the East India Company, and he was formally appointed as an Assistant Chaplain to Bengal on 29 March 1848.  He left England with his wife Emily Clare, daughter of Captain René Payne of the Bombay Army, whom he had married in 1844. They sailed for India aboard the Wellesley on 10 June 1848.  The couple already had two children, whom they appear not to have taken to India with them.  Their first child, Vaughan was born in 1846, and on the 1851 census is living in Bath with his paternal grandfather Daniel Race Godfrey.  Daughter Julia was born in 1847, and in 1851 was living in Cheltenham with her maternal grandmother Eliza Julia Payne.

Baptism of  second son Francis Edward Godfrey born at Meerut, Bengal 16 May 1849 (their first child born in India) - British Library IOR/N/1/75 f.193

The couple would have six more children, all born in India between 1849 and 1871 as Edward held appointments across Bengal over the next 25 years serving in places such as Meerut, Subathoo, Ferozepore, Saugor and Landour.  He was promoted to Chaplain in 1869.

Godfrey was a keen amateur photographer.  His photographs of tribes of Central India were displayed at the London International Exhibition in 1862.  He also contributed photographs to The People of India, an eight-volume publication compiled by John Forbes Watson and John William Kaye between 1868 and 1875.

Edward retired from service in India on 20 October 1873, and on returning to England was appointed Curate of Stainsby, Lincolnshire in 1875.  However, this was not the end of his travels as in 1878 he was appointed Chaplain at Coblenz in Germany, transferring to Dusseldorf in 1880, and then to Milan in 1889.  He returned to England in 1891 serving at St Peter’s Hospital in Covent Garden before being appointed as Vicar of Great Tey in Essex where he remained until 1916.

St Barnabas Church, Great Tey, Essex where Edward Godfrey served as Vicar from 1891 onwards. Wikipedia - attribution Robert Edwards, St Barnabas Church, Great Tey, Essex CC BY-SA 2.0 

Edward Godfrey died in Bedfordshire on 24 February 1918 at the age of 97.  He had followed his calling for over 72 years and at the time of his passing had been the very last living Chaplain appointed under the East India Company.  His wife Emily Clare passed away five years later aged 95.

Karen Stapley
Curator, India Office Records

Further Reading
The Chaplains of the East India Company, S.J. McNally, 1976 – British Library OIR 253.0954.
John Falconer, A Biographical Dictionary of 19th Century Photographers in South and South-East Asia.
London Evening Standard, 7 December 1844 – announcement of the marriage of Reverend Edward Godfrey to Emily Clare Payne British Newspaper Archive.
British Library IOR/N/1/75 f.193 - Bengal Baptisms – baptism of Francis Edward Godfrey, 2nd son of Edward & Mary Clare Godfrey.

St Barnabas Church, Great Tey, Essex

In February 1772 Robert Kitson was appointed by the East India Company as a writer for Bombay.  He sailed to India in the Devonshire.  Kitson started his career in Bombay working in the Secretary’s office.  In October 1775, he was appointed Coroner for the southern half of the island of Bombay at a salary of Rs30 a month plus a fee of Rs4 for each inquest.  He held this post until March 1783, in tandem with his duties as Assistant to the Select or Secret Department.

There were about 40 inquests each year.  If Kitson needed to travel for an inquest, he hired a bullock hackney, or occasionally a palanquin.  The India Office Records holds Kitson’s incomplete list of inquests he conducted, with papers about some of the verdicts.  The cases include both Indians and Europeans and are a useful supplement to the Christian church burial records for those years.  There are 23 inquests for enslaved people: fourteen boys, seven girls, and two not described.

The most common cause of death in cases investigated by Robert Kitson was drowning -in water tanks, in wells and in the sea.  Others were natural causes, murder, suicide, and accidents.

Here are a few examples from Kitson’s coroner records.

Report of inquest held on Ally 19 December 1776 - IOR/H/732

On the early evening of 18 December 1776, a man called Ally was sitting near the dock head pier in his boat from Rajapore.  He was accidentally hit in the chest by a musket shot from James Logan who was on sentry duty. Logan was aiming at another boat, but no reason is given for this.

Report of inquest held on Francis 3 September 1777 - IOR/H/732

An inquest was held on 3 September 1777 on ‘Coffree Slave’ Francis who drowned in a well on Old Woman’s Island near the house of his master Captain Charles William Boye, an East India Company military officer.  Boye’s will, made in 1784, shows that there were many enslaved people in his household.  Some he ‘freed’ on his death, urging them to live with members of his family, others he ’gave’ to his children.

Report of inquest held on Mungal 26 September 1782 - IOR/H/732

Mungal was found dead on 25 September 1782 at the Bantun Dancing Girls’ House near the Portuguese Church.  He died from two head wounds sustained when trying to escape out of a window at the house on 23 September.

Nattoo, horse-keeper to John Morris, died in March 1783 inn a stable near Bunder from an accidental kick from a horse in his left side.

In August 1782 Toulsie, washerwoman to Colonel Bailey of the Bengal Army, died from a snake bite.

Kitson conducted inquests on a number of murders.  In May 1778 Antonio, servant to Charles Duff, was killed by a blow to the belly from Francis de Rozara, a sailor on the ship Nancy. Sergeant John Forsyth was murdered by Patrick Atkins on the ramparts between the church and bazaar gates in April 1779.

There were suicides.  Maubet Caun, a sepoy in the Marine Battalion, shot himself with a musket in the Esplanade near the powder house in November 1779.  Soldier Isaac Reid killed himself in the town jail in March 1783.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
IOR/H/732 Papers of Robert Kitson, Bombay Civil Service

On 18 January 1879, C. Crowther Smith, Clerk at the St Mary Street Workhouse in Southampton, wrote to the India Office regarding a blind orphan youth named Edward Murphy. 

Letter about Edward Murphy from C. Crowther Smith at the Southampton Workhouse 8 January 1879, IOR/L/PJ/2/216, File 2542

Aged 19, Murphy had been sent to the Workhouse by the Superintendent of Police as he was destitute.  It appeared that he had been deported from India by the Madras Government and there was no evidence of his legal settlement in the UK.  Smith wished to know from the India Office of any course which could be adopted to prevent Murphy remaining a permanent charge to the parochial rates at Southampton.  The Workhouse Board thought it unfair that the burden of maintaining such cases should be thrown on the ratepayers of the port at which the vessel containing such destitute persons should happen to arrive.

Deportation request by the Madras Government Workhouse IOR/L/PJ/2/225, File 180

The India Office made enquiries.  On 2 April 1878, Major Balmer, President of the Committee for the Management of the Government Workhouse at Madras, had written to the Madras Government requesting approval for the deportation of seven men under the provision of the Indian Vagrancy Act. A short summary for each man was given, and Edward Murphy’s entry reads: ‘Register No.713, Edward Murphy, of Ireland, age 19, came out some 17 or 18 years ago with his mother to Rangoon; educated there til 17; was then employed on the Prome Railway, where he lost his eyesight.  The Doctor has recommended his deportation to England. Admitted 8th March 1878’.

India Office memorandum about Edward Murphy - IOR/L/PJ/2/225, File 180

A memorandum records that Murphy’s parents were Irish, and his father Michael was a Drummer in the 50th Regiment of Native Infantry.  His father died in England, and his mother took Murphy to Rangoon to join an uncle who was a non-commissioned officer in the Telegraph Department.  His mother died shortly after arriving and his uncle placed him in a school there.  The uncle died in 1868, but the Orphan Society in Rangoon supported Murphy enabling him to complete his education.  At 17, he joined the Prome Railway as a Fireman, but after a year left with sore eyes and was admitted to the Rangoon Hospital, and later transferred to the Madras Eye Infirmary.  He could distinguish light from darkness but little else.  He had no one to support him and didn’t know what county or parish he was from.  Murphy was deported to England on the P&O steamer Cathay, leaving Madras on 2 December 1878.

The India Office was scornful of the complaints from the Southampton Workhouse, and in an internal memo, William Macpherson, Secretary to the Judicial & Public Department, noted ‘…there would scarcely seem to be any ground for complaint, as that Parish is best able to maintain the burden by reason of the great advantage the locality must derive from the fleet of the P&O Company sailing to and from that Port, and from the rates they must receive in respect of the Docks there’.  On 15 February 1879, the India Office wrote to the Workhouse stating that they could not advise on Murphy’s case, and that there were no funds at the disposal of the Secretary of State which could be applied in his case.

It appears likely that the Edward Murphy who was admitted, blind, to East London's Homerton Workhouse in April 1879 is the same man.  Murphy spent the next twelve years moving in and out of the workhouse, infirmary, and ophthalmic hospital. We lose track of him after the 1891 census when he is a workhouse inmate.

John O’Brien
India Office Records

Further Reading:
Letter from the Clerk at the Workhouse, St Mary Street, Southampton, regarding Edward Murphy, 18 January 1879, Judicial Home Correspondence, shelfmark IOR/L/PJ/2/216, File 2542.

Case of Edward Murphy, a vagrant sent from India to Southampton, 1878-1879, shelfmark: IOR/L/PJ/2/225, File 1807.

History of the Southampton Workhouse.

The registers of the Southampton Workhouse are held at Southampton Archives Office.

The National Archives - UK census returns for Homerton Workhouse.

London Metropolitan Archives - Poor Law Records.

What do an East India Company Army deserter, an American explorer from Kentucky, and an archaeological expert on Afghanistan who wrote his name in the caves at Bamiyan have in common?  They are actually one and the same person.  Charles Masson, as he came to be known, is an intriguing character, a pioneer explorer, archaeologist, and numismatist, a reluctant spy, and an expert on Afghanistan.  Much has been written about his achievements, which include discovering a lost city (Alexandria under the Mountains at Bagram), helping to decipher a lost language (Kharoshthi) and finding treasure (Bimaran casket, British Museum).  His exploits read like a Boys’ Own adventure story, or a film script. 

Born James Lewis in London in 1800, Masson enlisted in the East India Company’s Bengal Artillery in 1821, deserted in 1827, and - in an attempt to avoid the death penalty - changed his name, began his travels and explorations through Northern India and Afghanistan, and pretended to be an American.  You can read more about Masson’s life and his challenging relationship with the East India Company on the Asian and African Studies blog, but it included groundbreaking archaeological research, being unmasked as a deserter, a pardon in exchange for intelligence work for the British, imprisonment, and a return to London in 1842. 

Volumes from the Masson Collection in India Office Private Papers

India Office Records and Private Papers holds a large collection of Masson’s papers while his drawings are held at by the Visual Arts Department.  For the early part of the 20th century, details of how they came to the India Office had been forgotten.  The 1937 catalogue to European Manuscripts reads 'No record is available to show how the Library came into possession of these papers', before the information was rediscovered in time for the publication of the 1968 Library Guide, where it states that the papers were purchased in 1857.

Title page of Kaye and Johnston's India Office Library Catalogue of Manuscripts in European Languages Volume II (1937)

Entry for the Masson Papers in the Kaye and Johnston 1937 catalogue 

There is a great deal more information about the provenance of the Masson papers in the records.  They were offered to the East India Company by ‘Mr H Burstall’ in 1857, with the Finance & Home Committee Minutes recording that they were purchased on 11 February 1857 with the sanction of the Court of Directors on the recommendation of Professor [Horace Hayman] Wilson. The decision was recorded in the Court of Directors’ Minutes and approved by the Board of Control on 19 March 1857.  The Company paid £100 for the papers, drawings, coins and artefacts – a substantial sum – on the proviso that it was paid to the legal guardian of Masson’s two orphaned children, for their benefit.

Resolution to buy the Masson Papers, 11 February 1857 -  Mss Eur F303/42 ff.158-158v

Henry Abraham Burstall was acting on behalf of Masson’s children, because they were family.  Masson had married Mary Ann Kilby, an 18-year-old farmer’s daughter from Northamptonshire, in 1844.  They had two children - Charles Lewis Robert (born 1850), and Isabella Adelaide (born 1853).  Sarah Kilby, sister of Mary Ann’s father John Carter Kilby, married Abraham Bustall in 1812, making her son Henry Abraham Burstall first cousin to Mary Ann Masson.  Her death in 1855 followed Charles’s death in 1853, leaving her children orphaned and living with her Kilby relatives in Watford, Hertfordshire.  John Kilby, Mary Ann’s brother, was designated their legal guardian.  Charles Lewis Masson followed his father into the military, enlisting as a gunner in the Royal Marine Artillery in 1870, while Adelaide was able to live ‘on her own means’ during her lifetime.

Lesley Shapland
Archivist & Provenance Researcher
India Office Records & Private Papers

Further Reading:
IOR/B/233 pp.885-886: Court of Directors Minutes 11 Feb 1857.
IOR/L/PJ/1/76 No 97: i) Note by HH Wilson on the Masson Collection, Feb 1857 ii) List of Masson Mss by Henry A Burstall 19 Jan 1857 iii) Letter from Henry A Burstall 19 Jan 1857.
IOR/L/PJ/1/77 No 260: letter from Henry A Burstall 8 Apr 1857 accepting £100 in payment for the Masson Collection on behalf of the Masson children.
Mss Eur F303/42, f.158 Finance & Home Committee Minutes.
Mss Eur F303/179 ‘Historical Records, Collections, Original Drawings’.
Charles Masson, Narrative of various journeys in Balochistan, Afghanistan, the Panjab, & Kalat, during a residence in those countries… 4 vols (London, 1844).
Elizabeth Errington, ‘Charles Masson (1800-1853)’,  Encyclopaedia Iranica. 
Elizabeth Errington, The Charles Masson Archive: British Library, British Museum and Other Documents Relating to the 1832–1838 Masson Collection from Afghanistan (British Museum, 2017).
Edmund Richardson, Alexandria: The Quest for the Lost City (Bloomsbury, 2021).

The wives of Army Officers offer a unique perspective into history.  They were often close to conflict and military action but distanced from their husbands and extended family.  Such is the case for Alice Deborah Marshall, known as Deborah, (1899-1993), whose letters sent to her mother document her life as a military wife between 1927-1933 in the North-West Frontier Provinces, India [now Pakistan].  These letters are now part of the India Office Private Papers series Mss Eur F307.

Extract from a letter sent by Deborah to her mother Isabella Alice Cree describing an incident where a young British soldier was shot on a train, 28 July 1931 - India Office Private Papers Mss Eur F307/5

Deborah was the wife of Major-General John Stuart Marshall (1883-1944), who served in the Indian Army between 1904-1940.  She came from a military family herself, born to Major General Gerald Cree (1862-1932) and Isabella Sophie Alice née Smith (1874-1966), with a brother, Brigadier Gerald Hilary Cree (1905-1998), whose very active career during World War Two is well documented.

The life described in her letters is one she seems at ease with despite the hazards and constant upheaval.  In her witty and descriptive manner, she documents the lively and gossipy social life of a military town and the characters involved, as well as the minutiae of how she occupied her days and her responsibilities as a mother to her daughter Suzanne Mary (1924-2007) .

We see the towns she lived in, Gulmarg and Peshawar primarily, changing over the year, becoming lonely ghost towns when the army moved on or weathering the destruction the monsoon caused.  Golfing and gardening are casually discussed alongside the daily conflicts of the Indian Army and the dramatic events of the Afridi Redshirt Rebellion (1930-1931).

Crowd on Khissa Khani Bazaar in Peshawar, 31 May 1930 -  British Library Photo 345 (66) Images Online

Her husband John Stuart Marshall’s military duties and his involvement in the conflict are described in detail.  Between 1930 and 1931 battles fought against the Afridi tribal freedom-fighters in the Tirah Valley as well as in the Khajuri Plains are described by Deborah to her mother.  At the end of the year in December and January 1931-2 we see the intensity of the mass arrests of ‘Redshirt’ sympathizers in Peshawar.  ‘Rebels’ were beaten bloody and imprisoned and Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the anti-colonialist activist, was arrested. While living in Army-occupied Peshawar at that time Marshall writes to her father:
'They [the British soldiers] combed the City through and when they marched out (...) were salaamed on all sides by a perfectly silent crowd!  Those with any tendency to shouting hicalab [revolution] by that time were nursing horrible bruises at home! (…)  Everyone is very hopeful on the effect this may have on the rest of India, when they see what a very strong line they have taken here' (Mss Eur F307/5 f.287).

Scenes such as this and Deborah’s observations reveal the everyday British attitudes towards their own rule during a time when great political upheaval was imminent.  John Stuart Marshall would eventually go on to become Chief Administration Officer of Eastern Command in India and of the Eastern Army before passing away in 1944.  Deborah was re-married in 1946 to Major Arthur John Dring (1902-1991) of the Indian Political Service, subsequently becoming Lady Dring until her death in 1993.

Maddy Clark
India Office Records

Further Reading:
Deborah Alice Marshall Papers India Office Private Papers Mss Eur F307– a paper catalogue of the contents is available to consult in the Asian and African Studies Reading Room.
Allen, C. 1975. Plain tales from the Raj : images of British India in the twentieth century. St Martin’s Press, New York.
Papers of Lt Col Arthur John Dring 1927-c.1948 India Office Private Papers Mss Eur F226/8.

In the 19th century the Bombay Gazette published lists of unclaimed packages and post.  The Custom House in Bombay advertised details of unclaimed goods, giving notice that they would be sold at public auction if not cleared before a certain date.

A list of packages which had been left at the Custom House between March and November 1863 was published in the Bombay Gazette on 3 February 1864.  Owners were given until 25 February to clear their goods.

First entries from the list of unclaimed goods published in the Bombay Gazette 3 February 1864 British Newspaper Archive

The list includes a wide variety of items arriving in ships from across the world.  Amongst the packages were:
• 2 bottles of spirits from Goa
• 2 bundles of snuff from Cutch
• 2 boxes of glass toys
• 4 ‘goolabdanees’ [gulabdanis] - rose water sprinklers
• 1 slab of copper (stolen property)
• 55 kegs of horseshoes from Liverpool
• I½ lbs of indigo
• 2 packages of goracco – tobacco paste smoked in a hookah
• 1 package of sticklac from Siam
• 2 mats from China
• 9 bowls from China
• I bale of cotton from Jodia
• 7 broken watch charms
• 2 bundles of matting from Hong Kong
• 2 bottles of country spirits from Goa
• 3 chairs from Suez
• I box of brass hinges from Surat
• 1 package from London addressed to T Crawford, Army Scripture Reader
• 4 bamboo stools from China
• 18 bags of sugar from Calcutta
• 12 bags of rice (damaged) from Calcutta
• 25 cases of wine from Liverpool – 8 broken
• 1 bag of rape seed
• 4 cases of cigars from Hong Kong, and 6 cases from London
Other packages contained brandy; spun yarn; chintz; iron bars, hoops, and plates; and writing desks.

The notices of unclaimed letters can reveal sad stories.  In this list from July 1836, at least two of the people had died.

List of unclaimed letters Bombay Gazette 30 July 1836 British Newspaper Archive

Major Thomas Michael Claridge of the 43rd Regiment Madras Native Infantry was buried at Ellore on 29 April 1836, just days before his 40th birthday.  The Church of England funeral service was read over Claridge’s remains by Archibald Goldie Young, a Lieutenant in his regiment.  Claridge’s widow Eliza and son Henry were living in London at the time of the 1841 census.  Henry went back to India in 1845 following in his father’s footsteps as a cadet in the Madras Army, and Eliza also returned to Madras in March 1845.  She died of smallpox at Kamptee in June 1853.

Hugh Coventry of the 20th Regiment Bombay Native Infantry had died on 22 March 1835 at Porbandar, aged 34.  In January 1830 he had been allowed furlough to Europe for three years for the benefit of his health, returning to Bombay in the ship Lady Melville in 1833.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
Bombay Gazette – British Newspaper Archive, also via Findmypast.
Burial of Thomas Michael Claridge 29 April 1836 IOR/N/2/18 p.291.
Cadet papers for Henry Charles Zachary Claridge IOR/L/MIL/9/208 ff.285-287v.
Burial of Eliza Thomasine Ann Claridge 27 June 1853 IOR/N/2/332 p.148.
Memorial inscription for Hugh Coventry at St Fillans Churchyard, Aberdour - Findmypast.

In November 1879, the India Office received a communication from the Foreign Office relating to a gentleman named Gholam Hosain, a native of the Indian city of Lahore, who was stranded in Italy and needed help to return home.  The India Office often received requests for help from individuals who found themselves in distressed circumstances.  Usually the India Office declined to help, but this was not the case with Gholam Hosain.

Case of Gholam Hosain, a native of Lahore, stranded at Venice, Italy, 1879, IOR/L/PJ/2/59, File 7/582.

Gholam Hosain’s case was laid out in a letter of 24 October 1879 to the Foreign Office in London from the Consul at Florence, D E Colnaghi.  Gholam Hosain was about 25 years old and had arrived at Venice from Alexandria on board the P&O steam ship Pera on 20 October 1879.  He had a passport issued to him by the British Consul, Charles Alfred Cookson at Alexandria, a copy being enclosed in Colnaghi’s letter.  He stated that he had been robbed of his clothes and £40 on arrival at Venice.  However he had made no complaint at the time as he did not speak Italian and was afraid that his story would not be believed.  He had intended to visit England to see Mr Brandreth, one of the Commissioners in the Punjab. Brandreth was on leave and staying in London.  Gholam Hosain had been in his service for several years.

Copy of passport issued to Gholam Hosain by the British Consul, Charles Alfred Cookson at Alexandria, , IOR/L/PJ/2/59, File 7/582

Enquiries were made to the P&O Office, and Captain Hyde of the Pera stated that there had been a deck passenger answering to Gholam Hosain’s description on the ship, but he had not been able to discover if there were grounds for complaint as there had been no report to the captain or any other person on board regarding a robbery.  Gholam Hosain did not appear to have any baggage, just the clothes he wore and a blanket.  Hyde was inclined to think from his appearance that he was a loafer.  A request was made to the P&O Agent to grant Gholam Hosain a free return deck passage to India, but the reply was that they only carried 1st and 2nd class passengers to India.  The Vice-Consul at Venice, Mr de Zuccats, granted Gholam Hosain a sailor’s allowance of 2 lira 50 centimes per diem to enable him to procure the actual necessaries of life pending further enquiries being made.

On 31 October 1879, Colnaghi informed the Foreign Office that he had heard from Mr Brandreth.  He stated that Gholam Hosain was a 'respectable Munshi or Professor of Persian and Arabic, late Tutor to the Raja of Lambragram', and although he was mistaken in his endeavour to reach England, his case was deserving of consideration.  A minute paper in the India Office file gives the additional information that Gholam Hosain had been travelling to see Mr Brandreth in the hope that he might be restored to an office from which he had been dismissed by one of Mr Brandreth’s subordinate officers.

Happily, the India Office agreed to fund a passage for Gholam Hosain to Bombay, and the P&O Company agreed to take him at the cost of £17.  The passage was duly arranged, and the Foreign Office reported that he had shipped for Bombay on the P&O steam ship Zanzibar which had sailed from Venice on 28 November 1879.  In addition, the cost of his stay in Italy came to 101 lira, which the Foreign Office reclaimed from India Office funds.

John O’Brien
India Office Records

Further Reading:
Case of Gholam Hosain, a native of Lahore, stranded at Venice, Italy, 1879, shelfmark: IOR/L/PJ/2/59, File 7/582.
The service history of Arthur Brandreth, Commissioner at Lahore, can be traced in the India Office List.