Stapleford History Society 8th October 2024
A talk by Dr Sean Lang.
This was a wide ranging talk covering many aspects of British Rule in India and the lifestyle of those who went to live and work there. Sean was able to speak from experience as four generations of his family had lived in India and he was able to illustrate the talk with some family photographs.
British Rule started with the East India Company but there was mistrust and dissatisfaction with company leadership which resulted in a widespread mutiny of the Sepoy troops causing the British government to take possession of the company assets. This uprising in 1857 is sometimes called the First War of Indian Independence. Eventually this huge country of many independent states was absorbed into the British Empire and Queen Victoria became the Empress of India but not every state was under direct British rule. Many smaller states continued to be ruled by their princes while the big states called presidencies each had a governor general.
As in Britain, there was a census in 1861 which showed that there were nearly 126,000 British in India but only 42,000 were civilians while the remainder were soldiers. Most of the civilians were administrative staff and they tended to live close together in bungalows which, in spite of the names, were actually grand houses. Sean showed a photo of his grandparents’ large bungalow and another of the end of terrace house they lived in when they returned to England. He also showed photos of his grandmother dressed in very ordinary clothes as a young woman in Ireland and another of her in a grand dress in India. For the men ‘the club’ was where they spent their time socialising with occasional ladies’ nights. The wives spent their time organising the household servants and sometimes in missionary work or teaching. They were well off by the standards of their contemporaries in Britain but had to put up with the heat and tropical diseases, especially malaria.
Until 1911 Calcutta (Kolkata) was the administrative capital of the Raj but in the summer the whole government moved to Simla in the hill territories where it was cooler. New Delhi, started in 1912 and designed with wide straight avenues and open spaces and impressive administrative buildings, became the new capital. Edwin Lutyens was involve in the planning and also the design of some of the important buildings.
Indians gradually took over the running of the country: law and order, the railways and businesses so that by 1947 the British were no longer needed. India was given independence and the British Raj came to an end.
Report by Keith Dixon
