Untold lives blog

When JMW Turner died in 1851, his chief executor was solicitor Henry Harpur, a cousin on his mother’s side of the family.  The will, however, was contested by another cousin, Jabez Tepper, also a solicitor, representing Turner’s father’s relations.

Letter from Jabez Tepper published in The Times 24 December 1851

Tepper’s successful challenge meant that that ‘Turner’s Gift’, the proposed alms houses for ‘the maintenance and support of poor and decayed Male Artists being born in England’, was never established. Tepper invoked the Mortmain Law, under which the transfer of land in Twickenham to a trust had to be at least a year before Turner’s death.  This had not happened.

Extract from the will of Joseph Mallord William Turner, 10 June 1831 – The National Archives, document reference PROB 1/96

In 1856, the relatives represented by Tepper inherited a substantial part of Turner’s estate.  In January 1858 Tepper offered to buy the other relations’ shares of Turner’s engravings for £500 each.  All but one accepted his offer.

Jabez Tepper was born in South Molton in Devon in August 1815, one of seven children born to James Tepper, a wool stapler, and Mary Turner Tepper, JMW Turner’s cousin.  Jabez left Devon to join the legal profession, becoming an indentured clerk in London in 1835.

Like his cousin Turner, Tepper lived an unconventional private life, never marrying but fathering two daughters, Victoria Helen and Catherina Mary Jane, probably born in 1840 and 1841, although no records of their births have yet been traced.  In the 1841 census Tepper was described as a law student living in Gravesend, with wife Jane and seven-month-old daughter Helen.  Family historians have identified the woman who was the mother of Tepper’s daughters as Jane Cook, born in London in October 1817.  According to some family trees, she died in 1842, but the only death record I can find for a Jane Tepper in London that year is for a two-year old child.

There is, however, a Jane Tepper, also known as Cook, a shoebinder, who died aged 47 on 21 February 1865 in the London parish of St Giles.  This Jane lived in poverty; could they be one and the same and if so, when did she and Tepper separate?

About 1855, widow Mary Pennell moved in with Tepper,  She is also referred to as his wife, although they never married.  Born Mary Smith in Walworth in 1824, she married gardener Edward Pennell in 1846.  Their daughter, Mary Jane, died as a baby in 1848 and Edward Pennell died the following year.

After Mary moved in with Tepper, his two daughters lived with them for some time but there is some suggestion that Pennell treated them unkindly and they were found lodgings.  In the 1861 census, Tepper is living at 24 Notting Hill Square with Mary, whilst his daughters are boarding with the Taylor family in St Pancras.

In 1864, Tepper was granted freedom of the City.  He was an active freemason, and in 1871 he was Worshipful Master of the Metropolitan Grand Steward’s Lodge.

The Freemason, 25 March 1871 - Museum of Freemasony Masonic Periodicals Online

For some time between 1868 and 1871, Tepper lived at Turner’s former studio and gallery in Queen Anne Street.  The 1871 census shows Tepper living on a farm at Hellingly, Sussex, with Mary.

Death notice for Jabez Tepper - Morning Advertiser 14 December 1871 British Newspaper Archive 

Jabez Tepper died at his London home on 10 December 1871.  His actions would be challenged in the law courts in the years following his death.

To be continued…

CC-BY
David Meaden
Independent Researcher

Creative Commons Attribution licence

Further reading:
British Newspaper Archive for Jabez Tepper’s career and reports on the court cases involving the Turner estate.

Turner’s restored house in Twickenham is open to visitors.

One of the distinctive features of Oman is that the majority of its population are adherents to the Ibadhi sect of Islam - neither Sunni nor Shi’a - which established itself in the early Islamic period on the periphery of Islamic empire and survives today in Oman and in North Africa on the island of Jerba, the Nafusa mountain range and the Mzab region. 

British India Office Records written in the 1920s and 1930s shed light on the life of one Ibadhi scholar and statesman', ‘Sulaiman al Baruni al Nafusi’,who traversed from Italian-occupied Tripoli to become an adviser in Muscat and Oman.

Cover of India Office file on Sulaiman al-Baruni and his relatives - British Library IOR/R/15/6/449

Al-Baruni was a notable author and had been a member of the last Ottoman parliament.  In November 1922 he wrote to the Sultan of Muscat and Oman, Taimur bin Faisal, that he was attending the peace conference in Lausanne, Switzerland and after that hoped to travel to Oman.

Translation of letter from Sulaiman al-Baruni to the Sultan of Muscat and Oman, November 1922 - British Library IOR/R/15/6/449 f.4

In December al-Baruni again wrote, saying that his options were becoming more and more constrained by French, Italian and British hostility to him.  British officials noted with suspicion that he ‘seems to claim three nationalities, Turkish, French and Italian’.

Owing to his espousal of nationalist ideas antipathetical to British dominance, in 1923 the Government of India described him as a ‘prominent figure in the turmoil of politics in North Africa’ - an ‘undesirable intriguer’ and ‘a person whom His Highness the Sultan of Muscat would do well to refuse admittance to his country’; however al-Baruni gained entry anyway on a pilgrim’s ship from Jeddah in 1924.

After the First World War al-Baruni had spent time in the Hijaz with the Sherif of Mecca, Hussein bin Ali, and in 1924 he visited his ‘old acquaintance’, Faisal bin Hussein bin Ali, recently installed by Britain as King Faisal I of the Hashemite monarchy of Iraq.  The British noted he was held in high esteem as of ‘religious consequence’ by both the Sultan of Muscat on the coast and the Imam of Oman in the mountainous interior.  In accordance with their strategic interests at the time, Britain had mediated a de facto separation of Muscat and Oman by the ‘Treaty of Sib’ in 1920.  From 1924-1932 al-Baruni served as Financial Adviser to the Imam of Oman in Nizwa. Sa’id bin Taimur, who became Sultan of Muscat in 1932, appointed him in 1938 as Advisor for Internal Affairs and Inspector of Walis.  The British surmised that it was part of Sa’id bin Taimur’s strategy to reunify Muscat and Oman.

Comment on appointment of al-Baruni as advisor for Internal Affairs and Inspector of Walis IOR/R/15/6, f 123

From September 1939 to April 1940 the British intercepted his correspondence with other members of Tripolitania diaspora as the circle of exiles contemplated the future and how they might be free of Italian colonial rule in Tripoli.  This included support of Muhammed Idris Al-Sanussi who was to become the first king of Libya when it gained independence in 1951.

Sulaiman al-Buruni died on his way to Mumbai with Sa’id bin Taimur in May 1940.  Today, on the island of Jerba, Ibadhi texts are still being collected, conserved and digitised for posterity by his descendants and the wider Ibadhi community, so his legacy lives on.

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

Further reading:
British Library, IOR/R/15/6/449 '15/3 Vol I XV - B/1 VISITORS SUSPECTS & UNDESIRABLES SULEMAN AL BARUNI AL NAFUSI & HIS RELATIVES Jan 1923 - June 1940.'
British Library, IOR/R/15/6/450 'FILE NO. 15/3 SULEIMAN AL BARUNI AND HIS RELATIVES'
British Library, IOR/L/PS/12/2990 Coll 20/30 'Muscat: Employment of one Suleman al Baruni al Nufusi'
British Library, IOR/R/15/6/264, 'File 8/67 MUSCAT STATE AFFAIRS: MUSCAT – OMAN TREATY.'

Al Muatasim Said Saif Al Maawali, ‘The Omani Experience of Multi-religious Coexistence and Dialogue: A Historical Approach to the Omani Principles and its Luminous Examples’, Journal of Islamic Thought and Civilization, 11, no. 1 (2021). 59-78.
Adam Gaiser, Muslims, Scholars, Soldiers: The Origins and Elaboration of the Ibadhi Imamate Tradition (Oxford University Press, 2010)
Valerie J. Hofmann, The Essentials of Ibadhi Islam (Syracuse University Press, 2012)
Abdulrahman al-Salimi: From the First Renaissance to the Second: The Historical and Legal Basis for the Sultanate, in Allen James Fromherz and Abdulrahmen al-Salimi, (eds), Sultan Qaboos and Modern Oman, 1970-2020 (Edinburgh University Press, 2022)

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

As part of Local History and Community month, David Fitzpatrick discusses the compelling diary of a young Victorian bank clerk living in a quiet corner of Shropshire.

Talking With Past Hours: The Victorian Diary of William Fletcher of Bridgnorth comprises a personal diary for 1858-60, edited by archaeologist Jane Killick.  Since 1996, the original handwritten diary has resided in the University of Birmingham’s Special Collections, following its purchase from a dealer.  Its prior whereabouts remain unknown.

Front cover of Jane Killick, Talking With Past Hours: The Victorian Diary of William Fletcher of Bridgnorth. Copyright Moonrise Press.

William Fletcher was born on 20 October 1839 and was baptised in the Catholic Apostolic Church in Bridgnorth, where his father, also William, became a minister.  When eighteen-year-old William begins his diary in June 1858, he is a devout attendee at church and a well-respected clerk in Cooper’s and Purton’s Bank, located at the southern end of the high street (now the local HSBC branch).  He often works at a sister branch in nearby Much Wenlock and sometimes walks the eight miles there.

Oldbury Terrace, Bridgnorth, where William lodged from February 1858 to June 1859. Photograph by David Fitzpatrick, 2024.

William documents almost every aspect of his life in succinct yet candid entries, recording details of his correspondence, work, and social activities in Bridgnorth and beyond.  He appreciates a good sermon, smokes tobacco, and enjoys ‘some splendid ale’.  He takes an interest in local affairs and comments on the construction of the Severn Valley Railway, which would open in 1862.

View from Castle Hill, Bridgnorth. Photograph by David Fitzpatrick, 2017.

Central to the first year of the diary is what initially appears to be a budding romance with a young woman named Mary Anne Jones (often referred to as ‘my dear Marianne’), with whom William eventually breaks off correspondence in frustration, following an apparent lack of reciprocation.  His failed courtship touches on universal romantic themes, yet readers who have lived in Bridgnorth will find it especially evocative, given the familiar setting.  For instance, in one entry, William recounts how Mary Anne’s brother, also named William, relayed to him that Mary Anne and her sister Martha had heard that William ‘had been seen with some girls on the Castle Hill’, which he dismisses as ‘utterly false’.  It is easy to imagine young people making similar accusations and refutations almost every year since then, all centred on Castle Hill, with its fine views of the Severn Valley.

Report of William Fletcher’s sudden death –Shrewsbury Chronicle 7 August 1863 British Newspaper Archive

Also prominent throughout the diary is William’s struggle with tuberculosis (though not named as such), including consultations in Birmingham, and a trip to Bournemouth for ‘a change of air’.  As Killick’s supplementary notes inform us, William’s illness ultimately led to his premature death in Bridgnorth on 29 July 1863, aged just 23.  On 7 September 1863, Mary Anne married a man named Thomas Titterton, in Port Elizabeth [Gqeberha], South Africa. 

The Fletcher family headstone in Bridgnorth cemetery, made with local sandstone. Photograph by David Fitzpatrick, 2024.

William’s diary is an absorbing read, enhanced by Killick’s footnotes and additional biographical information (and an appendix containing an aborted diary by William, dated March-April 1857).  It is a fascinating insight into daily life in Bridgnorth during a time of great change, and a reminder of the fragile and ephemeral nature of life.

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

Further reading:
Jane Killick, Talking With Past Hours: The Victorian Diary of William Fletcher of Bridgnorth (Ludlow: Moonrise Press, 2009)

David Fitzpatrick marks Local and Community History Month by looking at notable histories and guides relating to his home town in Shropshire.

View of Bridgnorth, from The Antiquities of Bridgnorth, 1856. Image used with the permission of Shropshire Archives.

The Antiquities of Bridgnorth by Rev George Bellett, published in 1856, goes somewhat beyond the scope of its title and traces the town’s history from its assumed Anglo-Saxon beginnings to the end of the Stuart period.  It covers royal visits and battles, highlights several historic buildings and landmarks, and discusses esteemed former residents such as Richard Baxter and Bishop Percy.  It informs all later writings on the town.

View of Bridgnorth, from ‘High Rocks’, which ‘rest immediately upon Permian beds.’ Featured in The Tourist’s Guide to Bridgnorth, 1875. Image used with the permission of Bridgnorth Library.

The Tourist’s Guide to Bridgnorth, published in 1875, is chiefly a visitor’s guide, as its title suggests.  It aims to ‘seize only the salient features of the place’, rather than provide a ‘detailed and exhaustive history’.  It focuses mainly on significant buildings and landmarks, and nearby places of interest, weaving a potted history into its descriptions.

An extract from William Shakespeare’s Henry IV, included in A Popular Illustrated Guide and Handbook to Bridgnorth and its Environs, 1891. Image used with the permission of Bridgnorth Library.

Published in 1891, A Popular Illustrated Guide and Handbook to Bridgnorth and its Environs addresses a perceived need for greater promotion of the town, noting ‘a general opinion that, if its attractions were better known, it would become a popular resort of the holiday seeker, the [a]rtist and the [g]eologist’.  Similar in structure to the 1875 guide, it describes the town’s features and the history behind them, while also mentioning surrounding villages and hamlets.  In addition, it lists principal hotels and licensed houses, some of which still exist today.  Unlike its predecessor, it contains advertisements, mainly for wine, spirits and tobacco merchants but also for various sports clubs.

Views of Bridgnorth’s Town Hall and St Leonard’s Church, from Bridgnorth (Salop), “Queen of the Severn”, The Official Guide, 1937. Image used with the permission of Bridgnorth Library.

First published in 1937, Bridgnorth (Salop), “Queen of the Severn” begins with a brief history and itinerary of the town before covering other aspects including accommodation, housing, places of worship, sports and pastimes, and local industries.  Its layout closely resembles that of later 20th-century guides, in which advertisements take precedence over detailed historical background.  It features black and white photographs of notable buildings and landmarks, and multiple advertisements for local shops and businesses, all of which are long gone.  In contrast, the golf, cricket, hockey, and tennis clubs remain in their given locations.  So does the cinema, which opened in 1937.

Advertisement for a local newsagent in Bridgnorth, from Bridgnorth (Salop), “Queen of the Severn”, The Official Guide, 1937. Image used with the permission of Bridgnorth Library.

These items are just a selection of the many Bridgnorth guides and histories published from the second half of the 19th century onwards.  For those familiar with Bridgnorth, these publications (alongside other fascinating archival material) illustrate how much and yet also how little the town has changed.  Some buildings have disappeared, but many are extant; shops have come and gone, yet the cinema remains, as do the sports clubs and many pubs (perennial features over the decades and, in some cases, centuries, though they are sadly decreasing in number).  In a broader sense, the visitor’s guides are particularly valuable sources for studying local and community history, providing snapshots of a certain time and place, while also informing wider studies of how Britain’s towns (and accompanying guides) developed during the 19th and 20th centuries.

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

Further reading:
George Bellett, The Antiquities of Bridgnorth; With Some Historical Notices of the Town and Castle (Bridgnorth: W. J. Rowley; London: Longmans & Co, 1856): 
The Tourist’s Guide to Bridgnorth, Being a Complete Handbook to Places of Interest in and Around Bridgnorth (Bridgnorth: Evans, Edkins, and McMichael; Madeley: J. Randall, 1875)
Elizabeth P. Morrall, A Popular Illustrated Guide and Handbook to Bridgnorth and its Environs etc. (Bridgnorth: Deighton & Smith, 1891)
Bridgnorth (Salop), “Queen of the Severn”, The Official Guide (Cheltenham and London: Ed. J. Burrow & Co. Ltd., 1937)

Bridgnorth: A Town of Unique Distinction – Part 1

On 21 June 1785 Sir George Young and John Call submitted a memorial to the Court of Directors of the East India Company on behalf of themselves and several others.

The memorial related to their plans to establish a settlement on one of the smaller islands in the Pacific Ocean for the cultivation of the flax plant and its manufacture into cordage, as well as the supply of masts for shipping. Their preferred island for this settlement was Norfolk Island situated in the southern Pacific Ocean between Australia and New Zealand.

Settlement at Norfolk Island, c.1839, watercolour by Thomas Seller - image courtesy of  National Library of Australia 

Part of the reasoning behind this proposal was the growing difficulty in acquiring flax.  At that time most of the hemp and flax used by the Royal Navy for their cordage came from Russia, whose ruler Catherine II had begun restricting its sale.  It was already known that New Zealand flax grew on Norfolk Island, making the island a perfect candidate for such a proposal.

Letter 213: 'The Memorial of  Sir George Young Knight, and John Call Esq. in behalf of themselves and others' to the Court of Directors of the East India Company, 21 January 1785. IOR/E/1/76, ff. 518-519

There was however a wider political context to the proposal, which related to prison overcrowding and penal transportation in Britain.  The American Revolutionary War of 1775 had meant that penal transportation to the thirteen American colonies had to be stopped, which had in turn led to problems of overcrowding in British prisons.

John Call had put forward a plan for New South Wales in Australia to be used as a penal colony, including the use of Norfolk Island as an auxiliary settlement, and in December 1785 the Government adopted these plans.  The reasoning behind the inclusion of Norfolk Island as part of these plans was that the growing of flax, its manufacture into cordage, and the production of shipping masts all required manpower.  Having convicts sent to the island would provide a steady stream of labour for this work to be undertaken.

Norfolk Island was settled as a penal colony on 6 March 1788 and, except for an 11-year gap from 15 February 1814 to 6 June 1825, served as a penal colony until 5 May 1855.

The island’s usefulness as a place to supply cordage and masts to shipping was shorter-lived as its location was not on any main shipping routes and vessels had to go out of their way to reach it.

Karen Stapley
Curator, India Office Records

Further reading:
IOR/E/1/76, ff. 518-519 Letter 213

The Keeling family’s collection was donated to the British Library in 2023.  The bulk of the collection is focused on Hugh Trowbridge Keeling (1865-1955), who is most notably remembered as the Chief Engineer to New Delhi during its construction between 1912-1925.  There are also papers for Colonel Thomas Ormsby Underwood (1839-1916).

A portrait photograph of Sir Hugh Keeling by Bertram Park c.1955 - India Office Private Papers Mss Eur F767/2/9

Keeling was born in 1865 and spent four years with the Royal Indian Engineering College, Cooper’s Hill.  After this, he was appointed Assistant Engineer in 1887 on the ‘Perryaur’ (Mullaperiyar) Dam project working under Colonel John Pennycuick of the Royal Engineers.  The collection includes several engineering plans, maps, and manuscripts documenting this work, as well as some photographs.

A view of the Mullaperiyar Dam during construction c.1887-1895 – India Office Private Papers Mss Eur F767/1/1

With a successful and notable project under his belt, in October 1898 Keeling was appointed Executive Engineer for the Madras Public Works Department where he was steadily promoted.  In November 1912 he was called to be Chief Engineer of the newly relocated capital, New Delhi, although with some reluctance.  Keeling states in one typewritten address (Mss Eur F767/1/4 ff.18r) that he was already involved with another project, and he had to be ordered to take up the position by Sir Harold Stuart, a member of the Executive Council in Madras.

The collection includes his speeches, engineering presentations for New Delhi, and his private and professional correspondence, which provide perspectives from Indian and British voices on the change of capital.  The move to New Delhi from Calcutta (Kolkata) was a controversial one, but the building of an impressive monument to the British Raj was a remarkable ending note to the career of Keeling.  He was awarded a CSI in 1915 and a knighthood in 1923.

A group photograph of what is likely to be the Public Words Department senior officials of Delhi. Keeling can be seen in the centre. India Office Private Papers Mss Eur F767/1/5

Keeling’s papers show a man who was a lively and popular character.  He was appointed the ‘Commander in Chief’ of his Gymkhana’s social club, the ‘Moonshiners’, and had strong and admiring social relationships with his engineering team.  After a brief retirement in 1920, he was reappointed Chief Engineer for another five years until 1925 when he was succeeded by Sir Alexander Macdonald Rouse, his Superintending Engineer.

The collection is rounded out by a small selection of manuscripts, books, letters, newspaper cuttings and photographs relating to the Underwood family.  Keeling's connection with Colonel Underwood was through his wife, Edith Madeleine, whom he married in India in 1893.  These papers reveal a respected Lieutenant in the 4th Punjab Cavalry and a Colonel in the Madras Army before his retirement in 1894.  Underwood's work is documented in speeches and newspaper clippings, including his active involvement with the Muslim Association, where he promoted projects to encourage higher education and work in industry.

A letter from Camilla Underwood to her mother dated 1811 (Mss Eur F767/3/2 ff.1r-2v) tells the story of Colonel Underwood’s great uncle, Thomas Steele, an officer in the Light Dragoons stationed in India.  In an all-night gambling session, Thomas won over two thousand pagodas from a Captain MacGregor who then denied the debt.  As a matter of honour, Thomas was forced to fight a duel with MacGregor - ‘every officer would have cut him’ for cowardice had he refused.  Despite MacGregor’s reputation as a skilled duellist, Thomas killed him and was tried by court martial.

Maddy Clark
India Office Records

Further reading:
Papers of Sir Hugh Keeling (1865-1955) and Colonel Thomas Ormsby Underwood (1839-1916) India Office Private Papers Mss Eur F767 – a paper catalogue of the contents is available to consult in the Asian and African Studies Reading Room.
Wild, A. 2001. Remains of the Raj; The British Legacy in India. East India Company (Publishing) Ltd., London.
The India Office List for 1929. London: Harrison and Sons Ltd.