Life in India

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The structure, and some of the contents, of this article follows the website British Voices from South Asia which contains material from an exhibition which was held in Hill Memorial Library at Louisiana State University, April 8 to August 6, 1996. The exhibition marked the acquisition by the T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History at LSU of a series of taped interviews with British people who lived and worked in India before Independence in 1947.

Also see Society reading list

FIBIS Resources

Guides

The Passage to India

The FIBIS Google Books Library
has books tagged:
Overland Route Travel

Also see Maritime Service for descriptions of some sea voyages to India.

The Suez Canal was opened for navigation on the 17 November 1869.

Work

Historical books online

Marriage and children

  • The following letter from Reginald Heber, Bishop of Calcutta, written in 1826 to the Archbishop of Canterbury sets out the situation applying to Army soldiers and permission to marry. In Church records of marriages, marriage is by licence or by banns. In India, at least in this period, marriage by banns included marriage under the conditions mentioned by Bishop Heber. From Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India, from Calcutta to Bombay, 1824-1825; (With notes upon Ceylon,) an Account of a journey to Madras and the southern provinces, 1826, and letters written in India, Volume 2 Page 251 Google Books
    • This letter also contains the wording “...while the miseries and dangers to which an unprotected woman is liable in India are such as to make it highly desirable that widows and female orphans should remain as short a time unmarried as possible”. (page 252)
  • Article "The Fishing Fleet: Husband-Hunting in the Raj" by Frances Wilson 30 July 2012 The Telegraph
  • Article "Husband hunters of the Raj: How a 'fishing fleet' of 1920s society girls were drawn into sexual intrigues in India even steamier than the climate" by Annabel Venning dated 6 July 2012 MailOnline
  • Husband-hunting in the Raj Download a radio interview with Anne de Courcy, journalist and author by presenter Phillip Adams, broadcast Tuesday 31 July 2012 ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission)
  • Interview: The Fishing Fleet. Anne de Courcy Anne de Courcy paints a fascinating portrait of 'husband-hunting in the Raj the subject of her new book. (host Paul French) Adelaide Week, March 2013 YouTube
  • British women married to Indian men.
It is interesting to note that two of the following three couples met in Britain when the future husband was studying.
  • On the Strength: Wives and Children of the British Army, a Canadian website. Some of the information, particularly in respect of physical work performed, may not be applicable to India.
  • The Army Children Archive (TACA) contains information about British Army children and wives, with themes such as Accomodation and On the Move. There are references to India in a number of the themes.
  • "Childhood Memories of India" by John Goddard, KRRC pdf, html version KRRC Association. The author was born in 1923 and lived most of the time until 1933 in India, in cantonments in Lucknow and Calcutta. His father was officers’ mess sergeant in a battalion of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps (the 60th Rifles)
  • Indian Tales by Patrick O‘Meara (born 1930) describes his childhood in India, spent in Army cantonments. His father was in the Royal Indian Army Service Corps (RIASC). Indian-tales.com
  • "Peshawar Remembered" by Walter Reeve (born 1934) whose father was in the Indian Army, and later the Pakistan Army. The recollections of an English schoolboy growing up in Peshawar around the time of partition. "Memories of Murree" also by Walter Reeve. Details of a visit to Murree in 1936 from the author’s father’s memoirs, and the author’s memory of visits in 1948 and 1949. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 Scroll down. jang.com.pk 6, 13 and 20 November 2005, now archived websites.
  • Photograph of “My mother being carried through foothills of Himalayas” from photographs of Janet MacLeod Trotter Enlarged version (archived)

Historical books online

Life in the Bungalows

See also Food and Drink

FIBIS resources

  • "A Parsonage in Madras - Elizabeth Sharp’s letters" by Diana Bousfield-Wells FIBIS Journal Number 29 (Spring 2013) pages 38-48. She married Thomas Smith at the end of 1883. The letters from Madras were written in 1884 until she died in December 1884 following childbirth. See FIBIS Journals for details of how to access this article
  • "Calvert Smith, the baby from the Parsonage" by Diana Bousfield-Wells FIBIS Journal Number 30 (Autumn 2013) pages 33 -42 . Continuing the previous article. Letters by the Rev Thomas Smith until his death in early 1888, regarding the care of his young son.

Historical books online

Imperial Diversions: The Club, the Hills, the Field

Historical Books Online

Railway Life

Indo-British Relations

Departure and Connections

Miscellaneous

Inflated animal skins

  • The Khatnaoo, an inflatable bullock skin used for water travel (may also be called a Dareyi)
    • C 1857 Illustration: page 125 Cavalry Experiences and Leaves from My Journal by Colonel H A Ouvry 1892 Archive.org
    • See Youtube video above "The British Empire and India (part 1 of 2)"
  • A smaller sheepskin: Illustration: Our Bath with a description on 124 of an inflated sheep’s hide. "Curry & Rice," on Forty Plates, or, The Ingredients of Social Life at "Our Station" in India by‬ George Francklin Atkinson 1858 Hathi Trust. Note: Illustration can be rotated.

Recommended Reading

  • This Indian Express article describes the book Mehtars and Marigolds by Barbara Dinner 2009, about four generations of her family from 1874, starting in Simla. This link also discusses the book which has been favourably reviewed in FIBIS Journal no 25 (Spring 2011).