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→Railways: Stevenage review by Hugh WIlding
With the caveat that there is no personal or genealogical data covered, this is a compelling and enjoyable read, wholeheartedly recommended, but maybe a bit pricey in the UK. (Hugh Wilding, FIBIS Trustee)
* 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 longest, 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. (Hugh Wilding, FIBIS Trustee)
==Communications==
