55
The future hero of Waterloo dealt with political ambush as comfortably as he dealt with the military kind.
… Arthur Wellesley spent the years 1797 to 1804 in India … On 23rd September 1803, he secured a significant victory over the Maratha Empire at Assaye in the state of Maharashtra, western India …
Arthur Wellesley spent the years 1797 to 1804 in India. He went out as a Colonel in the British Army’s 33rd regiment of Foot, and was soon being addressed as General Sir Arthur. On 23rd September 1803, he secured a significant victory over the Maratha Empire at Assaye in the state of Maharashtra, western India.
Picture: Via Wikimedia Commons.. Source.
Posted October 20 2016
56
Sir Thomas Roe had some difficulty making an impression on Emperor Jehangir.
… In 1615, English courtier Sir Thomas Roe was despatched to the court of the Great Mogul, Jehangir, to win his support for the East India Company in the face of Portuguese rivals …
In 1615, English courtier Sir Thomas Roe was despatched to the court of the Great Mogul, Jehangir, to win his support for the East India Company in the face of Portuguese rivals. Roe presented the Emperor with various presents designed to impress him with the superior cultural advancement of the English, but he might have been better off keeping it simple.
Picture: Via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.. Source.
Posted October 31 2024
57
Hannah Mullens describes her battle to reach out to wealthy Indian ladies with nothing to do, nothing to think about and nowhere to go.
… From the 1850s, Calcutta-born Hannah Mullens (1826–1861) travelled all over India trying to bring literacy … The following account is taken from a letter she wrote from Nagercoil on India’s southernmost tip …
From the 1850s, Calcutta-born Hannah Mullens (1826–1861) travelled all over India trying to bring literacy, self-respect and spiritual consolation into the dreary leisure of zenanas, the cloistered women’s quarters of well-to-do Indian families. The following account is taken from a letter she wrote from Nagercoil on India’s southernmost tip, then in the Kingdom of Travancore.
Picture: © T. L. Thompson, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted August 11 2021
58
John Buchan was moved by the way the nations of the British Empire volunteered for service in the Great War.
John Buchan, novelist, Governor General of Canada, and leading historian of the Great War, reminds us that the countries of our Commonwealth and Empire played a decisive role in frustrating the ambitions of the German Empire – all without having to be asked.
Picture: By Ernest Brooks (1878–1957), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted March 2 2018
59
Sir Bartle Frere, Governor of Bombay, shared his excitement at the way railways were making Indians more independent.
… Let us add to this effect on the labouring population the inevitable and irresistible tendency of railways to break the bonds of caste and to destroy the isolation in which the various classes and races of natives have hitherto lived, and you have an aggregate of moral results such as may well be the subject of grave thought to those who are interested in the future of India …
In a speech at the opening of the Bhor Ghat Incline between Bombay and Madras on April 21st, 1863, Sir Bartle Frere, Governor of Bombay, was quick to share with the assembled dignitaries his satisfaction that railways were bringing Indians an awareness of their rights and creating a more open and equal society.
Picture: © SMU Central University Libraries, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted March 28 2018
60
If officials in the Raj ever forgot who their boss was, they would bring the whole government down about their ears.
In Kipling’s short story, Aurelian McGoggin, a British bureaucrat, has been boring everyone in Shimla with his conviction that there is neither God nor Hereafter, so we can only worry along somehow for the good of Humanity. In a tongue-in-cheek aside, Kipling gave a Raj-shaped twist to an argument that had been made by political thinkers from Moses to Alexis de Tocqueville.
Picture: © Maxwell Hamilton, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0 Generic.. Source.
Posted August 4 2020