Biographies reading list

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Autobiography

18th & 19th century

• Maitland, Julia

Letters from Madras during the years 1836-1839, with introduction, notes and appendices by Alyson Price. Otley: Woodstock Books, 2003

Lively and informative letters written to family in England by the then Julia Thomas, whose husband was a senior civil servant in the HEICS. The first few letters describe the outward journey, the bulk give much fascinating detail of life in Madras, Rajahmundry, summer retreats to the coast at isolated Samuldavee, and conclude with a trip to Bangalore. Price's additions to the original book first published anonymously in 1843, are most helpful, particularly in identifying many of the people of whom Julia writes. Invaluable for providing a woman's perspective on life in British India in the 1830s.

• Pope, John Adolphus

Free mariner : John Adolphus Pope in the East Indies 1786-1821, edited by Anne Bulley. London: BACSA, 1992

The ships owned or chartered by the East India Company for trading in the far east have received a good deal of attention and much is known of their commanders and their voyages. What is not always realised is that they typically called at only about four ports in Asia: Bombay, Galle (Ceylon), Madras, Calcutta, and Whampoa in China. There were huge numbers of other independent British ships ("Country Ships") in the far east which provided a feeder service for other ports both within India and in surrounding countries (mostly what is now Malaysia and Indonesia). By great good fortune a first-hand account of one of these voyages has come down to us. John Adolphus Pope sailed on the Princess Royal 1786-8 and wrote letters describing the places he visited and people he saw. John was an intelligent 16 year old and his observations are sharp and well expressed, and bring alive as nothing else can this vital but under researched area of British/Indian trade. By further good fortune this important journal has been edited by Anne Bulley, who has done more than anyone to investigate this area. The book comes with a perceptive account of Country Ships and their trade and rounds off the story of John before and after his voyages. [reviewed by Richard Morgan, FIBIS trustee]

20th century

• Dady, Dorothy S.

Scattered seeds : the diaspora of the Anglo-Indians. London: Pagoda Press, 2007

This coffee table book contains striking, full-page photographs of modern Anglo-Indians both young and old from India and around the world. Each image is accompanied by a brief autobiographical account and a personal assessment of what it means to be an Anglo-Indian. Here you will find the faces of a few famous men and women together with those who may well consider themselves ordinary folk. These, however, include people who have experienced great poverty; who have survived tragedy and setbacks; maintained a sense of humour; always been hospitable; faced the challenges of assimilation, found contentment wherever they have settled and are full of confidence about the future. These vignettes are a wonderful tribute to 'the diaspora'.

Dady prefaces these accounts with her own story and a brief history of the community.

A full review by Beverly Hallam, a FIBIS trustee, of this book is to be found in the FIBIS "Journal" no. 21 (Spring 2009) pp.49 & 50.

• Dowley-Wise, Justine

In those days : a scrapbook of growing up in India in the days of the Raj. Lincoln, NE, USA: iUniverse, 2005

"There have been many memoirs of life in India during the last days of the Raj, but this is a worthy addition to that number, not least because the author was the daughter of a Calcutta businessman, and the British business community in India is perhaps less well represented in our collective memory of India under British rule than the India Civil Service or the Indian Army. When dealing with the historical background, the book does contain some errors of detail, but these do not detract from the authenticity of the author's account of her own personal experience as a child of the Raj... Dowley-Wise gives a very full account of the life experienced by a young girl growing up in India" including the hospitality offered by her family to the troops in wartime Calcutta. The full review by David Blake, a FIBIS trustee, is available on pp.48-49 of FIBIS Journal 15 (Spring 2006). Excerpts from the book and comments are available at Raj memories

• Richards, Frank

Old soldier sahib. Uckfield: Naval & Military Press, 2003

Private Frank Richards DCM MM, enlisted in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers in 1901 and, in this reprinted prequel to Old soldiers never die, he recounts his experiences as a British soldier serving primarily in India and Burma prior to WW1. As the publisher says: "his descriptions of the soldier's life in those countries in those far off days and his anecdotes makes wonderful reading".

• Yeats-Brown, Francis

Lives of a Bengal Lancer.

This book won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography in 1930. It is a palatable sized introduction to the life of a Bengal Lancer from 1905 until the time his regiment was disbanded at the end of the First World War. However it is not a mere military account as the book divides naturally into three sections of interest. Primarily, the life of an English cavalryman in the Bengal lancers is presented. Days of regimental routine interspersed with pig sticking, polo playing and visiting nautch girls. The cavalry regiment comprises both English and Indian soldiers and the author easily assimilates the attitudes of both worlds – the society of the west and the mysticism of the East.

During the First World War Yeats-Brown is sent to France and later joins a flying corps in Mesopotamia – where is he captured by Turks. He eventually escapes and returns to India. However his days as a lancer are soon over and the reader is presented with a wonderful tour of India as he goes in search of practising gurus to learn the secrets of yoga and inner truth. An evocative and satisfying read. Recommended. (Beverly Hallam, FIBIS trustee)

Biography

• Allen, Charles

Kipling sahib : India and the making of Rudyard Kipling. London: Little, Brown, 2007

This illuminating biography fulfills its subtitle in bringing to life the young Rudyard Kipling and the world which shaped him. Much about 'Ruddy' was typical of the time; born in Bombay in 1865, this "noisy and spoilt" child, along with his younger sister, was exiled to England for an education and returned to India as a teenager to pursue a career. It is the particulars of this troubled, self-opinionated, literary genius which fascinate, along with the wealth of background material such as the family connections to the Pre-Raphaelite group, the Bombay financial crash in 1865, J. Lockwood Kipling's position as a teacher of architectural sculpture and modelling at the Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy School of Art in Bombay, the United Services College at Westward Ho! in England, British society in the hills, and the world of newspapers in India (at 16 years-old Kipling became assistant editor of the Civil and military gazette). Kipling's imperialism and, in particular, the antipathy he expressed in his journalism towards Western-educated Indians contributed towards his early departure from India, but Charles Allen balances this by showing how it is Kipling's understanding and empathy for those who lived at the bottom of Indian society -such as the peasant, the prostitute, and the ordinary British soldier - which infuses the most memorable of his writing. With illustrations, notes, glossary, select bibliography, and index.

• Campbell, Christy

The maharajah's box : an imperial story of conspiracy, love and a guru's prophecy. London: HarperCollins, 2001

The story of Duleep Singh, last King of the Sikhs, who was brought to England as a boy following the annexation of his Kingdom by the British after the two Anglo-Sikh wars of the 1840s. With him came the famous Koh-I-Noor diamond. As an adult, despite being favoured by Queen Victoria, he turns his back on England and tries to regain his position in India.

Besides the impact this makes on his personal life, the book describes how he becomes embroiled in the 'Great Game' between England and Russia – whose help he tries to enlist. Fact is truly stranger than fiction and pages continue to turn.

The book contains relevant photos and there are full indexes and other references for the scholar. A most interesting and informative read! (reviewed by Beverly Hallam, a FIBIS trustee)

• Mountbatten, Pamela

India remembered. London: Pavilion, 2007

This is a highly unusual perspective on the people and events of India in 1947-48 provided by the diary of the last Viceroy of India's teenage daughter. Now as an elderly woman, Pamela Mountbatten has added explanatory text and a mass of family photographs to present a highly personal picture in which momentous events and great leaders, many of whom became friends of the family, are interspersed with some of the minutiae of life in the Viceroy's vast house and her work at a free clinic and the Allied Forces Canteen. The anecdotes about her pet mongoose with its insatiable appetite for fried eggs are a particular delight. There is the occasional repetition of detail between the commentary and journal entries but this is a minor irritation. As a non-politician's insider's account of the transfer of power this easy to read memoir is recommended. Includes an index and a list of key figures.

Family histories

• Stevenage, Patrick Hugh

A railway family in India : five generations of the Stevenages. London: BACSA, 2001

This is a book of two parts, either of which is interesting in its own right, well-written and with a considerable number of photographs, drawings and reproductions to illustrate both sections. Be aware though that despite the promise of the book’s title, there is only one railwayman by name of Stevenage!

The first part traces the history of the Stevenage family in India, from the arrival of John Stevenage in late 1778, a private in the East India Company’s Madras European Regiment, to the family’s exodus, four generations later, in the years after 1947 and in the wake of Indian Independence. The author has researched his ancestors in great detail, helped by the extinction outside India of all other branches of the Stevenage surname which, while unfortunate, has had the happy consequence that any bearer of the surname must be related! However, the sketchiest family tree, the paucity of footnotes and the lack of a bibliography will surely challenge future Stevenage researchers who turn to this book for enlightenment.

The second, and longer, part is the author’s personal story, beginning in Bangalore in 1922 and ending with early retirement circa 1983 in Haywards Heath. Along the way, the author chronicles childhood, schooling and higher education in the Anglo-Indian community around Madras, initial employment in a bank before becoming a Traffic Officer with the Madras & Southern Mahratta Railway, a position he held until his decision to quit India. A fascinating picture emerges of back office work in managing traffic in the days before computers; the author also had a front-row seat in 1948 for Operation Polo by which the supposedly independent state of Hyderabad was forcibly integrated into the Union of India. Once settled in England, he secured a clerical job with British Railways, retrained as an accountant and ended up supervising the investment budget of British Rail. In this section, the absence of a bibliography is barely noticed. (review by Hugh Wilding, FIBIS Trustee)