Queen Mary’s South Asian tour scrapbooks, 1905-1906

This post by Dr John Cardwell first appeared in Cambridge University Library's Special Collections blog, 6th December 2019. It has proved impossible to maintain the original layout and formatting.

Royal Tour of India, 1905-1906, RCMS 89_35_2_35

The Royal Commonwealth Society department has digitised a fascinating series of scrapbooks documenting the Royal Visit to India in 1905-06 by the Prince and Princess of Wales, the future King George V and Queen Mary.  Princess Mary possessed considerable intellectual curiosity, and as soon as the visit was announced, she began rigorous, systematic study in preparation.  She read at least 36 books, and these were not simple tourist guides, but serious works of history and politics by experts on Indian affairs.  This was balanced by research into India’s great ethnic, religious and cultural richness.  Caring less about the experience of European residents, she was most intrigued to learn about the real lives of India’s peoples, and was especially fascinated by their religions.  The map to the left emphasises the ambitious nature of the tour, which lasted roughly six months and covered vast distances by ship and rail, encompassing places as far apart as Bombay, Peshawar, Karachi and Rangoon.  It was particularly demanding for Princess Mary, who had given birth to her sixth child, Prince John, only several months before.

 Princess Mary reading on HMS Renown, 1905, QM 20

The success of Princess Mary’s programme of research is emphasised by the impression she made on the chief of staff for the 1905 tour, Sir Walter Lawrence, who had served as private secretary to the Viceroy Lord Curzon.  During planning meetings he declared, ‘I consider you have a very good grasp on Indian affairs, quite remarkable in a woman.’  She later wrote to a friend from India, ‘I felt much flattered and repeat this for your ears only, as you know what trouble I took to get the right books’. 

 Pilgrim map of Benares, RCMS 89_35_3_36

 Song lyrics, RCMS 89_35_2_21

This foundation helped Queen Mary to make the most of what she saw, as she confided to the same friend, ‘The religions too, I know something of, Hindu, Mohammedan and Buddhism.  All this knowledge, however small, helps one to take a keen interest in all one sees, and I therefore enjoy to the utmost every detail of the wonderful sights.’  George V ascended the throne in 1911, and the new king and queen returned in November for a grand coronation Durbar. Queen Mary prepared just as assiduously for her second visit, which deepened her understanding and admiration of India.

Queen Mary’s official biographer James Pope-Hennesy emphasised what an astounding revelation India was to her, ‘It stirred her emotionally, and it would be no exaggeration to say that Princess May fell in love with India.  Ever afterwards a certain dreamy note would enter her voice when she spoke of India. “Lovely India, beautiful India,” she used to murmur like some incantation’.  Queen Mary lovingly preserved a remarkable record of her two visits to India: 29 photograph albums containing approximately 3,800 images, numerous printed books, many of which are presentation copies in special bindings from India’s ruling princes, as well as the scrapbooks of ephemera we’ve digitised, containing programmes of rail travel, receptions, military reviews, equestrian events, plans and orders of ceremonials, invitations, menus and guest lists.

Punjab Ball, RCMS 89_35_1_3 (artist: E.A.P. Hobday)

RCMS 89_35_2_28

 RCMS 89_35_3_5

RCMS 89_35_1_5 (artist: E.A.P. Hobday)

After the death of her husband, Queen Mary presented her collection to the India Office Library in 1937.  The independence and partition of India was very distressing to her, and she reacted with an allusion to Queen Mary Tudor and the loss of Calais, ‘When I die, India will be found written on my heart’.  When it was proposed that the India Office Library should be divided between India and Pakistan, Queen Mary transferred her collection to the RCS in 1950.  It came to Cambridge by purchase in 1993 along with the rest of the RCS Library, after a public appeal raised sufficient funds to prevent its sale and dispersal. More digital images of this Royal Tour of India may be viewed on the RCS Photograph Gallery.

RCMS 89_35-3-31

Chappar Rift Bridge, Sind-Pishin Railway (photographer: Fred Bremner)

Fruit market Quetta (photographer: Fred Bremner

Group of Brahuis (photographer: Fred Bremner)

Charting change in Asian Landscapes: Festival of Ideas, Cambridge University Library, Saturday 26th October

Do hope to see you in Cambridge University Library on Saturday morning, 26th October 2019 - a drop-in event (no need to book) which is part of the Festival of Ideas.  Between 10 am and 12.30 pm in the Library's Map Room, you will be able to view spectacular photographs and water-colours, and study fascinating maps and panoramas charting enormous changes to Mumbai and Hong Kong landscapes.

Naval Kishore Press - digital

The Naval Kishore Press was founded in Lakhnau in 1858 by Munshi Naval Kishore (1836-1895) and grew in the following decades to one of India's most important publishing houses.
The Library of the South Asia Institute at Heidelberg University holds with its ca. 2,000 titles - 742 on microfilm -  issued by the Naval Kishore Press a representative cross section of the Press' publications.

Naval Kishore Press - Thematic portal on CrossAsia

On our thematic portal Naval Kishore Press you now have access not only to the Naval Kishore Press Bibliography, but also to digitised Sanskrit and Hindi works from the collection.

Among the 44 digitised works 22 titles have already been OCRed and converted to searchable and editable digital texts in Devanāgarī script and Latin transliteration. They can be accessed on Naval Kishore Press – digital.

The presentation platform offers a full text search in both scripts. A word or phrase found by searching the full text will be highlighted in the facsimile. Furthermore users can download a high quality OCR-PDF of the facsimile, where the text is fully searchable either in Devanāgarī script or in Latin transliteration.

OCRed Devanagari text from "Samasa cakra", highlighting "Visnu"

Facsimile page from "Samasa cakra", highlighting "Visnu"

 Some of the already OCRed texts are:

• Tulasīdāsa: Rāmāyaṇasaṭīka. Lakhanaū, 1894.

•        Kanhaiyālāla: Samāsa cakra. Lakhanaū, 1883.

•        Dūdhadāsa: Rāmāśvamedha bhāṣā. Lakhanaū, 1900.

•        Jacobi, Hermann: Jaina aura baudha ka bheda: Jain and baudhs taken from the introduction to the Bhadrabahu's Kalpasutra. Lakhanaū, 1897.

•        J̱ālimasiṃha: Brahmadarpaṇa: upanyāsa. Lakhnaū, 1917.

•        Jayadeva; Rāyacanda Nāgara: Gītagovindādarśa: arthāt Rāyacanda Nāgara-kṛta Gītagovinda saṃskṛta kā bhāṣā-pratibiṃba. Lakhnaū, 1926.

•        Jānakī Prasāda Ātma Pyārelāla: Rāgavinoda: jisameṃ bhajana, ṭhumrī, dādarā, pūrvī, bihāga, khammāca, kajarī, addhā, g̱aj̱ala, lāvanī va dohe ādi anekarāga varṇita haiṃ. Lakhnaū, 1914.

More texts are in preparation. We are looking forward to your feedback!

For questions and suggestions please contact:

Nicole Merkel-Hilf
Subject librarian, Digital Collections
(merkel@ub.uni-heidelberg.de) 

Connecting Stories: Our British Asian Heritage

Exhibition opening at the Library of Birmingham on 15 July

This family-friendly exhibition, launching on 15 July, will tell the story of the close connections between Britain and India, Pakistan and Bangladesh from 1600 to the present day. It will show how those connections have influenced our food, culture, fashion, politics and heritage and made us who we are today.


The exhibition continues the partnership between the British Library and the Library of Birmingham, bringing together their rich and complementary collections to illustrate this important but little-known aspect of British and local history. There will be over 100 exhibits which highlight many different voices from the past.

Princess Sophia Duleep Singh is one of many people who will feature in the exhibition. Image from IOR/L/PS/11/52, P1608 (Image courtesy of the British Library Board)

Exhibits include letters, posters, photographs, advertisements, surveillance files, campaigning materials, oral history, and even a children’s game and a 19th century paper bag for Indian sweets. I and my co-curator of the exhibition, John O’Brien, hope that the variety of exhibits will prompt visitors to consider the many ways that history is recorded and how gaps and silences can be filled.

The exhibition aims to capture Birmingham's importance in global trade and as a centre of industry.


Mirror of British Merchandise, 1888 (Image courtesy of the British Library Board)

The Library of Birmingham collections include stunning images by local photographers past and present which will be showcased in the exhibition. The image below is from the Dyche Collection, 1950-c1975, MS 2912. (Image courtesy of the Library of Birmingham)

Capturing images of Birmingham’s richly diverse community is an important part of the exhibition and engagement programme. A selection of photographs will be included in the exhibition to give a vivid picture of Birmingham and all the people who live there today. Anyone in Birmingham can get involved now by sending their photograph via Twitter #brumpeeps. Exhibition visitors are also invited to ‘make their mark’ and share their own stories.


Please see the Library of Birmingham’s website for activities throughout the duration of the exhibition, such as family days, oral history training and talks at local libraries.


The exhibition and community engagement programme have been generously supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.


Penny Brook
Head of India Office Records at the British Library and exhibition curator


Further information


Asians in Britain web pages


The Library of Birmingham’s website for details of opening hours and events


#connectingstories
#brumpeeps

Major donations to the Centre of South Asian Studies Book Archive

Probably the largest donation to the Archives is the Ian Stephens bequest of which over 230 items were catalogued in 2018. He was Deputy Director, Bureau of Public Information, Government of India 1930-32; Director, 1932-37; Assistant Editor, Statesman of Calcutta 1937; Editor 1942-51; Fellow, King's College, Cambridge 1952-58; Historian, Pakistan Government 1957-60. The Stephens collection includes the memoirs of General the Lord Ismay (Archive IS 339) and a general history: Eating the Indian air : memories and present-day impressions by John Morris. (Archive IS 80)

"He rushed out of his hiding-place and killed the serpent."Illustrator: Warwick Goble (Folk-tales of Bengal) Archive E 96,
Chatterjee donation

The largest donations which have had on-line catalogue entries created have come from Lady Alan Lloyd, (Archive A 1-108), book plates recording that that the collection was given to the Archive by Mrs R.S. Drake, Mrs J.W. Harman and Mrs C.A. McDowall from a bequest of the the late Lady (Alan) Lloyd in July 1969, and Lady Chatterjee (Archive E 1-136).

Lloyd donation
Lady Violet Mary Lloyd nee Orrock was the wife of Sir Alan Hubert Lloyd (1883-1948), who joined the Indian Civil Service in Burma, 1907; served in Customs Department, 1910–23; Member Central Board of Revenue, India, 1923–38; Secretary, Commerce Department, Government of India, 1939–42; and finally retired, after temporary re-employment in 1947. He died 9 May 1948, “on his way home“, The Times, Wednesday, May 12, 1948.  Violet Mary Lloyd died 27 Aug 1967 in Freshwater, Isle of Wight, where both she and her husband are buried.

Many of the donated books have Lady Mary’s notes on the fly leaf, and the collection includes many travel and guidebooks:

Delhi : its stories and buildings by H. Sharp.  London : Oxford University Press, 1921. Archive A88
Handbook for travellers in India, Burma and Ceylon London : John Murray, 1924.  Archive A21
Guide to the Qutb, Delhi by J.A. Page.  Calcutta : Government of India, 1927. Archive A15
Visitors' handbook of Galle. Galle : Albion Press, [1930]  Archive A8
Guide to Ajanta frescoes 5th ed. Hyderabad-Deccan [India] : Archaeological Department H.E.H. The Nizam's Government, 1935. Archive A18
Guide to the ruins of Bassein by Braz A. Fernandes. Bombay : Bombay Historical Society, 1941. Archive A7

There is also a significant collection of books listing memorials which extend the information gathered by BACSA British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia and shelved in Archive MISC 11-138. They include :

List of pre-mutiny inscriptions in Christian burial grounds in the Patna district. Patna 1935. Archive A102
A record of the inscriptions at the Catholic Church at Patna, Bihar and Orissa. Archive A101
List of inscriptions on tombstones and monuments in Ceylon of historical or local interest. Colombo 1913. Archive A106
Inscriptions on Christian tombs or monuments in the Punjab. Lahore 1912. Archive A103
List of burials at Madras (in St. Mary's Cemetery) from 1851 to 1900. Archive A107
List of inscriptions on tombs or monuments in Bengal possessing historical or archaeological interest. Archive A98
List of Christian tombs and monuments of archaeological or historical interest and their inscriptions in the North-West Provinces and Oudh. Allahbad 1896. Archive A105

Chatterjee donation 

"The lady, king, and hiraman all reached the king's capital safe and sound"
Illustrator: Warwick Goble (Folk-tales of Bengal) Archive E 96,
Chatterjee donation

Sir Atul Chandra Chatterjee GCIE KCSI (24 November 1874 - 8 September 1955) was an Indian diplomat and government official who served as the Indian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom from 1925 to 1931 and was member of the governing body of the League of Nations Assembly in 1925 and 1946. In 1924 he married Dr Gladys Mary Broughton, OBE, sometime labour adviser to the Government of India, who was a barrister and served with the Indian Educational Service. Sir Atul Chatterjee died in London aged 80 in September 1955. His obituary in the Times stated that he was the inspirer and guide of many important reforms in factory and mining legislation. The Times obituary of May 1969 entitled Lady Chatterjee, Barrister and hostess noted that she gained a D.Sc for her thesis on “Women and Children in Indian Industry”

Some of the oldest books in the Archive collection come from the Chatterjee donation they include:

Translation of the Íshopanishad. Calcutta : Philip Pereira, 1816.   Archive E 107

Archive E 107

Translation of the Céna Upanishad : one of the chapters of the Sáma Véda, according to the gloss of the celebrated Shancaráchárya / by Rammohun Roy. Calcutta : Philip Pereira, 1816. Archive E 108
Koran : commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed, translated from the original Arabic. London : Printed for Geo. B. Whittaker, 1825.  Archive E 112
The New Testament in the Marathi Language. London : British and Foreign Bible Society, 1864 Archive E 111

The law books presented show signs of heavy use, with pencil annotations on the text and bookmarks and also the difficulties of balancing religious and civil obligations, titles include:

Hindu law as administered in British India. E..J.Trevelyan. 2^nd ed. Calcutta : Thacker, Spink & Co., 1917. Archive E 114
Questions and answers on Hindu and Mahommedan law by J. Chinna Durai . London : Stevens & sons, Limited, 1935.  Archive E 116
Treatise on Hindu law and usage, by John D. Mayne. 9^th ed. Madras : Higginbothams, 1922.  Archive E 122
Law of monopolies in British India by Prosanto Kumar Sen. Calcutta : Sircar, 1922. Archive E 124

There are publications reflecting the Chatterjees’ involvement in industrial, social and employment reforms including the published thesis Labour in Indian industries by G.M. Broughton. London : H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1924. Archive E 35
Women in modern India : fifteen papers by Indian women writers . Bombay : D.B. Taraporewala, 1929. Archive E 67
Child labour in India by Ranjani Kanta Das. Geneva : International Labour Office, 1934. Archive E 68
Woman labour in India by Ranjani Kanta Das. Geneva : International Labour Office, 1931.  Archive E 69
Famine Inquiry Commission : report on Bengal. New Delhi : Government of India Press, 1945.  Archive E 24

The donation also includes literature, including:

"Instead of sweetmeats about a score of demons" Illustrator: Warwick Goble (Folk-tales of Bengal) Archive E 96,
Chatterjee donation

Poems by Indian women. Calcutta : Association Press ; London : Oxford University Press, 1923. Archive E 91

One hundred poems of Kabir translated by Rabindranath Tagore.  London : Published by the India society, printed and sold at the Chiswick press, 1914. Archive E 93
and,
Folk-tales of Bengal. by Lal Behari Day ; with 32 illustrations in colour by Warwick Goble.  London : Macmillan, 1912. Archive E 96. 
Various illustrations from this work are featured in this blog.

Suzan Griffiths

Appendix

Searching by donor

There is a handlist of the Lloyd and Chatterjee books on the old site of the Centre of South Asian Studies webpage.
It is also possible to search by donor via the Newton Catalogue until the end of the year when Voyager will be replace by Alma. Searches across all libraries are carried out on iDiscover.

To search the holdings note field via Newton enter hkey donor name within a Boolean search

To search on iDiscover select Advanced Search, then South Asian Studies from the drop down menu, then search Classmark contains Archive and the letter for the donor ie E for Chatterjee

The Naval Kishore Press Bibliography

The Naval Kishore Press was founded in Lakhnau in 1858 by Munshi Naval Kishore (1836-1895) and grew in the following decades to one of India's most important publishing houses. During Naval Kishore's lifetime the press published c. 5,000 titles covering literature in Hindi, Urdu, Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit on subjects as diverse as religion, education, medicine, school-books, translations of English classics and much more. On November 1858, he launched the Urdu newspaper Avadh Akhbar with a registered circulation of about 700 copies. The Avadh Akhbar was a great success with the Urdu reading public and remained in circulation until 1950.

The Library of the South Asia Institute at Heidelberg University holds with its 1,316 titles - 742 on microfilm -  issued by the Naval Kishore Press a representative cross section of the Press' publications.

The newly set up Naval Kishore Press Bibliography serves as a bibliographic database for records of books and journals published by the Naval Kishore Press and aims to provide access to bibliographic records of titles that are distributed in libraries worldwide. The bibliography is still under construction and contains currently c. 1,360 entries.

If you know of titles that should be included please contact Nicole Merkel-Hilf.

To make these publications online available to researchers worldwide, the South Asia Institute and Heidelberg University Library are digitising selected titles from their collection and present them on their online platform Literature on South Asia - digitized. The easiest way to access this material is via the Naval Kishore Press Bibliography by selecting "Browse by Format - Online Ressource".

Mohana Lāla: Lāl čīn: nāval (1925)

Jayadeva; Rāyacanda Nāgara [Editor]: Gītagovindādarśa: arthāt Rāyacanda Nāgara-kṛta Gītagovinda saṃskṛta kā bhāṣā-pratibiṃba (1926)

   

@SouthAsia71: Widening Access to Archives on Twitter

In the first of three posts over the course of two months, I will introduce my Twitter account @SouthAsia71 as a new and unique means of widening access to archives.

Over the course of my doctoral studies, I found that I had collected a vast amount of archival data that I was desperate to share. Having taken over 100,000 photographs of documents from archives in the UK and the US, I took to Twitter in an attempt to have them reach a wider audience. In 2015, @SouthAsia71, with the use of the archival pictures and other resources, tweeted Bangladesh's road to independence as if it were happening on that day, in real time. Since January, I've continued to tweet about the events of 1971, now concentrating on creating narrative arcs and providing analysis for the account's followers. I've also worked to ensure that content is free from copyright restrictions and is fully referenced.

Since its launch in December 2014, the account has gained almost 2,500 followers at an average growth rate of around 150-200 followers per month. In December 2015, during the 14 days of the 1971 war between India and Pakistan, the account received over 1,600 retweets and 1,000 likes, and in just 4 days this March, the account accrued over 800 retweets and 400 likes. Via retweets, material often reaches more than 5,000 Twitter users and has reached as many as 13,000. Engagement rates (which include retweets, likes, follows, link clicks etc) for @SouthAsia71's tweets rarely dip below 3%, often reach 10% and can be as high as 20%; This is in comparison with an average engagement rate of 0.5% for all Twitter users. Through tweeting the documents themselves alongside infographics produced with information from primary material, @SouthAsia71 is engaging thousands of people with archival sources.

@SouthAsia71 has the potential to showcase any archive that has material relating to Bangladesh's independence. With an audience engaged online with the history of South Asia the account certainly has scope to expand beyond the study of 1971. In the coming weeks, I will be incorporating information from the oral histories project at Cambridge University's Centre for South Asian Studies into the Twitter feed. As well as producing tweets from the data, I will also use Storify to both provide a repository for the data I use and to provide an editorial narrative (I've produced an example of a Storify story here).

I have written a long-form article about the project for E:International Relations (available here). My next post will discuss the results of my usage of the material at Cambridge.