Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Mon Sep 09, 2019 10:55 am

Custodial history: In Frank Cramer Roberts' possession.
Immediate source of acquisition: Acquired from Esmé [Barbara] Cramer Roberts (widow) [Librarian's Comment: Real author of Born in Tibet, which authorship is attributed to Chogyam Trungpa]
St. Antony's College, Oxford
https://www.sant.ox.ac.uk › MEChandlists › Cramer-Roberts-Collection
Aug 17, 1998
© Middle East Centre, St Antony’s College, Oxford. OX2 6JF 4

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


St Antony's reputation as a key centre for the study of Soviet affairs during the Cold War, led to rumours of links between the college and the British intelligence services; the author Leslie Woodhead wrote to this effect, describing the college as "a fitting gathering place for old spooks".

-- St. Antony's College, Oxford, by Wikipedia


Reference code: GB165-0066
Title: Frank Cramer-Roberts Collection
Name of creator: Roberts, Frank Cramer- (d.1943), Engineer
Dates of creation of material: 1801-1916; ?1930s
Level of description: Fonds
Extent: 2 boxes

Biographical history: CRAMER ROBERTS, Frank W. (d.1943)
Irrigation engineer in Egypt until 1930. Further details unknown.
Scope and content: Research materials and notes by Cramer Roberts on the Egyptian Campaign, 1801, with engravings, maps and plans.
Access conditions: Open
Language of material: English
Conditions governing reproduction: No restrictions on copying or quotation other than statutory regulations and preservation concerns
Custodial history: In Frank Cramer Roberts’ possession.
Immediate source of acquisition: Acquired from Esmé Cramer Roberts (widow), October 1965. Elizabeth Monroe helped her sell some original letters from the collection through Sotheby’s, May 1966.
Location of originals: No record of purchaser of original documents (in files 3 and 4a) sold by Sotheby’s.
Finding aids: In Guide; Handlist
Archivist’s note: Fonds level description created by C. Brown 17 August 1998 and revised by D. Usher 26 September 2003.

CRAMER-ROBERTS
GB165-0066

© Middle East Centre, St Antony’s College, Oxford. OX2 6JF 2

FILE AND ITEM LEVEL DESCRIPTIONS FOR THE FRANK CRAMER-ROBERTS COLLECTION

FILE 1 “The British Campaign in Egypt 1801 – as recorded in the diary of Surgeon Thornton edited with comments by Lt Col W H Thornton” Privately published 1933
FILE 2 Note by Cramer-Roberts on the landing of the British Army at Abu-Kir 1801, with a short account of the events which led up to the campaign and the preparation of the expeditionary force
FILE 3 Copy of an official despatch from Major General Hely Hutchinson to Secretary of State for war – Dundas, 3 April 1801
FILE 4 (a) Photocopies of the original letters from Major General Sir Eyre Coote to H.R.H. Duke of Gloucester 13 December 1800 – 9 October 1801
(b) Typescript transcriptions of (a) made by F.W. Cramer – Roberts
(c) Mss transcriptions of (a)
FILE 5 Statements of General Belliard’s account of the Fall of Cairo, 19 March 1801 – 27 June 1801
FILE 6 Note on conference of 27 June 1801, giving terms of French withdrawal – safe conduct etc
FILE 7 Brief notes on the state of the French army in Egypt 1798 – 1801
FILE 8 French scheme for Battle at Abu Kir. Brief chronology of main events March – October 1801
FILE 9 Miscellaneous final drafts of various sections of Cramer-Roberts proposed book on the British campaign
FILE 10 Text of a lecture (and list of slides shown) entitled “A Short description of difficult actions fought between the French and British armies in Egypt in 1801”
FILE 11 Drafts of Chapter dealing with French activity 1797-1800 (death of General Kleber)
FILE 12 & 13 Miscellaneous early notes and drafts
FILE 14 Draft of a chapter on the Turkish army
FILE 15 Text of a lecture given in Egypt
FILE 16 Collection of engravings, photographs and small maps/plans
(a) Engraving of Sir Sidney Smith at the breach of Acre, 9 May 1799. Engraved by Richard Bentley London 1848

CRAMER-ROBERTS
GB165-0066

© Middle East Centre, St Antony’s College, Oxford. OX2 6JF 3
(b) Engraving of Rt Hon G.K. Elphinstone. Painted by J Hoppner R.A. Engraved by W Hall. Fisher Son & Co. London 1837
(c) Engraving of Brueys. Painted by A Lacauchie, engraved by Leguay (undated)
(d) Kleber. Published by Furne Paris (undated)
(e) Engraving showing the Battle of the Nile. Painted by G Arnold Esq A.R.A. engraved by J Le Petit (undated)
(f) Engraving showing the Battle of the Nile. Painted by Captain James Weir R.A. engraved by A.H. Payne (no date)
(g) Engravings of Lt Gen Sir Eyre Coote. Painted by Willian Lodder, engraved by H.R. Cook (undated)
(h) Engraving of Sir Ralph Abercromby. Engraved by W. Finden. Published by Harding & Leppard., Pall Mall 1831
(i) Engraving of Sir Ralph Abercromby published by Kirkwood & Sons, Edinburgh. June 1801
(j) Engraving of Kleber. Painted by Lacauchie, engraved by Leguay (undated)
(k) Engraving of Lord Nelson. Painted by J Hoppner R.A. engraved by H Robinson (undated)
(l) Engraving showing the death of Sir Ralph Abercromby. Published by Thomas Kelly. London 1916
(m)Two framed compilations each containing four photographs of portraits of Generals Valetin, Reyneir, Lanusse, Destaing, Boussart, Rampon, Fraint and Damens
(n) Photograph of an engraving of General Lord Hutchinson. Original engraved by J Heath from a drawing by Knight. First published 1815 by G Robinson of London
(o) Plan showing the Battle of the Nile fought off Abi-Kir. 1 August 1798 (C.R. undated)
(p) Plan showing the disposition of the French army on the arrival of the British in Abu Kir Bay on 2 March 1801 (C.R. undated)
(q) Plan of the action of Mandora fought on 13 March 1801 (C.R. 1934)

CRAMER-ROBERTS
GB165-0066

© Middle East Centre, St Antony’s College, Oxford. OX2 6JF 4

Rolled Maps/Plans

1 Larger version of (p); plan showing the landing of the British forces at Abi-Kir 8
March 1801; of an engraving by C Turner showing the Battle of Alexandria 21 March 1801
2 Larger version of (q); plan of the investment of Grand Cairo by the British forces commanded by General Lord Hutchinson 1801
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Mon Sep 09, 2019 11:23 am

Foreign and Commonwealth Office
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 9/9/19

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


Image
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Main Building, London, seen from Whitehall
Department overview
Formed 1968; 51 years ago
Preceding agencies
Commonwealth Office
Foreign Office
Jurisdiction United Kingdom
Headquarters King Charles Street
London, SW1
51°30′11″N 0°07′40″WCoordinates: 51°30′11″N 0°07′40″W
Annual budget £1.1bn (current) & £0.1bn (capital) in 2015-16[1]
Ministers responsible
Rt Hon. Dominic Raab MP, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
Rt Hon. Christopher Pincher MP, Minister of State for Europe and the Americas
Com. Rt Hon. Andrew Murrison MP, Minister of State for the Middle East
Rt Hon. The Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, Minister of State for the Commonwealth and the UN
Rt Hon. Andrew Stephenson MP, Minister of State for Africa
Heather Wheeler MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Asia & the Pacific
Department executive
Sir Simon McDonald KCMG KCVO, Permanent Under-Secretary and Head of the Diplomatic Service
Child agencies
FCO Services
Wilton Park
Website http://www.gov.uk/fco

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), commonly called the Foreign Office (which was the formal name of its predecessor until 1968), or British Foreign Office, is a department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for protecting and promoting British interests worldwide and was created in 1968 by merging the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Office.

The head of the FCO is the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, commonly abbreviated to "Foreign Secretary". This is regarded as one of the four most prestigious positions in the Cabinet – the Great Offices of State – alongside those of Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Home Secretary.

The FCO is managed from day to day by a civil servant, the Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, who also acts as the Head of Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service. This position is held by Sir Simon McDonald, who took office on 1 September 2015.

Responsibilities

• Safeguarding the UK's national security by countering terrorism and weapons proliferation, and working to reduce conflict.
• Building the UK's prosperity by increasing exports and investment, opening markets, ensuring access to resources, and promoting sustainable global growth.
• Supporting British nationals around the world through modern and efficient consular services.

Ministers

The FCO Ministers are as follows:[2][3]

Minister / Rank / Portfolio

The Rt Hon.Dominic Raab MP / Secretary of State / Overall responsibility for the department; Policy Unit; intelligence policy; honours.

The Rt Hon. Christopher Pincher MP / Minister of State for Europe and the Americas / The Americas (including Cuba and the Falkland Islands); Europe (including Turkey, Gibraltar and Sovereign Base Areas); deputy to the Foreign Secretary for EU Exit Cabinet Committees; eastern Europe and central Asia; defence and international security (only Euro-Atlantic security policy); multilateral policy (only OSCE, Council of Europe and sanctions); relations with Parliament.

The Rt Hon. Dr Andrew Murrison MP / Minister of State for the Middle East & North Africa / The Middle East and North Africa; stabilisation (including Stabilisation Unit); national security (excluding intelligence policy); defence and international security (excluding Euro-Atlantic security policy).

Andrew Stephenson MP / Minister of State for Africa / Africa; consular policy; LGBTQ+ equality.

The Rt Hon. Lord Ahmad / Minister of State for the Commonwealth, the UN and South Asia / All Foreign and Commonwealth Office business in the House of Lords; multilateral policy (including the Commonwealth, United Nations and human rights, excluding OSCE and Council of Europe); Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict initiative; south Asia and Afghanistan; Overseas Territories (excluding Gibraltar, Sovereign Base Areas and the Falklands); the Caribbean (excluding Cuba); Foreign and Commonwealth Office operations.

Heather Wheeler MP / Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Asia and the Pacific / East and south-east Asia; Australasia and the Pacific; economic diplomacy (including Foreign and Commonwealth Office representative for Prosperity Fund Ministerial Board and climate change); oceans; communications; British Council; Economics Unit; gender equality (including gender and conflict, and women and girls' rights); protocol; Diplomatic Academy; estates and security.


History of the department

The Foreign Office

Image
The Foreign Office building by Sir George Gilbert Scott, viewed from Horse Guards Road

Eighteenth century

The Foreign Office was formed in March 1782 by combining the Southern and Northern Departments of the Secretary of State, each of which covered both foreign and domestic affairs in their parts of the Kingdom. The two departments' foreign affairs responsibilities became the Foreign Office, whilst their domestic affairs responsibilities were assigned to the Home Office. The Home Office is technically the senior.[4]

Nineteenth century

During the 19th century, it was not infrequent for the Foreign Office to approach The Times newspaper and ask for continental intelligence, which was often superior to that conveyed by official sources.[5] Examples of journalists who specialized in foreign affairs and were well connected to politicians included: Henry Southern, Valentine Chirol, Harold Nicolson, and Robert Bruce Lockhart.[6]

Twentieth century

During the First World War, the Arab Bureau was set up within the British Foreign Office as a section of the Cairo Intelligence Department. During the early cold war an important department was the Information Research Department, set up to counter Soviet propaganda and infiltration. The Foreign Office hired its first woman diplomat, Monica Milne, in 1946.[7]

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The FCO was formed on 17 October 1968, from the merger of the short-lived Commonwealth Office and the Foreign Office.[8] The Commonwealth Office had been created only in 1966, by the merger of the Commonwealth Relations Office and the Colonial Office, the Commonwealth Relations Office having been formed by the merger of the Dominions Office and the India Office in 1947—with the Dominions Office having been split from the Colonial Office in 1925.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office held responsibility for international development issues between 1970 and 1974, and again between 1979 and 1997. From 1997, this became the responsibility of the separate Department for International Development.

The National Archives website contains a Government timeline to show the departments responsible for Foreign Affairs from 1945.[9]

Developments

When David Miliband took over as Foreign Secretary in June 2007, he set in hand a review of the FCO's strategic priorities. One of the key messages of these discussions was the conclusion that the existing framework of ten international strategic priorities, dating from 2003, was no longer appropriate. Although the framework had been useful in helping the FCO plan its work and allocate its resources, there was agreement that it needed a new framework to drive its work forward.

The new strategic framework consists of three core elements:

• A flexible global network of staff and offices, serving the whole of the UK Government.
• Three essential services that support the British economy, British nationals abroad and managed migration for Britain. These services are delivered through UK Trade & Investment (UKTI), consular teams in Britain and overseas, and UK Visas and Immigration.
• Four policy goals:
o countering terrorism and weapons proliferation and their causes
o preventing and resolving conflict
o promoting a low-carbon, high-growth, global economy
o developing effective international institutions, in particular the United Nations and the European Union.

In August 2005, a report by management consultant group Collinson Grant was made public by Andrew Mackinlay. The report severely criticised the FCO's management structure, noting:

• The Foreign Office could be "slow to act".
• Delegation is lacking within the management structure.
• Accountability was poor.
• The FCO could feasibly cut 1200 jobs.
• At least £48 million could be saved annually.

The Foreign Office commissioned the report to highlight areas which would help it achieve its pledge to reduce spending by £87 million over three years. In response to the report being made public, the Foreign Office stated it had already implemented the report's recommendations.[10]

In 2009, Gordon Brown created the position of Chief Scientific Adviser (CSA) to the FCO. The first science adviser was David C. Clary.[11]

On 25 April 2010, the department apologised after The Sunday Telegraph obtained a "foolish" document calling for the upcoming September visit of Pope Benedict XVI to be marked by the launch of "Benedict-branded" condoms, the opening of an abortion clinic and the blessing of a same-sex marriage.[12]

In 2012, the Foreign Office was criticised by Gerald Steinberg, of the Jerusalem-based research institute NGO Monitor, saying that the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development provided more than £500,000 in funding to Palestinian NGOs which he said "promote political attacks on Israel." In response, a spokesman for the Foreign Office said "we are very careful about who and what we fund. The objective of our funding is to support efforts to achieve a two-state solution. Funding a particular project for a limited period of time does not mean that we endorse every single action or public comment made by an NGO or by its employees."[13]

In September 2012, the FCO and the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs signed a Memorandum of Understanding on diplomatic cooperation, which promotes the co-location of embassies, the joint provision of consular services, and common crisis response. The project has been criticised for further diminishing the UK's influence in Europe.[14]

Overseas Territories Directorate

The Overseas Territories Directorate is responsible for the British Overseas Territories.[15]

FCO Services

In April 2006, a new executive agency was established, FCO Services, to provide corporate service functions.[16] It moved to Trading Fund status in April 2008, so that it had the ability to provide services similar to those it already offers to the FCO[17] to other government departments and even to outside businesses.

It is accountable to the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, and provides secure support services to the FCO, other government departments and foreign governments and bodies with which the UK has close links.[18]

Since 2011, FCO Services has been developing the Government Secure Application Environment (GSAE) on a secure cloud computing platform to support UK government organisations.[19]

For over 10 years, FCO Services has been working globally, to keep customer assets and information safe. FCO Services is a public sector organisation, it is not funded by Vote and has to rely on the income it produces to meet its costs, by providing services on a commercial basis to customers both in the UK and throughout the world. Its Accounting Officer and Chief Executive is accountable to the Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs and to Parliament, for the organisation's performance and conduct.

Buildings

Image
The western end of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's building in 1866, facing St. James's Park. It was then occupied by the Foreign and India Offices, while the Home and Colonial Offices occupied the Whitehall end.

As well as embassies abroad, the FCO has premises within the UK:

• Foreign and Commonwealth Office Main Building, Whitehall, King Charles St, London (abbreviated to KCS by FCO staff)
• Old Admiralty Building, Whitehall, London (abbreviated to OAB by FCO staff)
• Hanslope Park, Hanslope, Milton Keynes (abbreviated to HSP by FCO staff). Location of FCO Services, HMGCC and Technical Security Department of the UK Secret Intelligence Service)
• Lancaster House, St James's, London. A mansion in the St James's district in the West End of London which the Foreign Office holds on lease from the Crown. It is used primarily for hospitality, entertaining foreign dignitaries and housing the Government Wine Cellar.

Foreign and Commonwealth Office Main Building

Image
The Grand Staircase in September 2013

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office occupies a building which originally provided premises for four separate government departments: the Foreign Office, the India Office, the Colonial Office, and the Home Office. Construction on the building began in 1861 and finished in 1868, and it was designed by the architect George Gilbert Scott.[20] Its architecture is in the Italianate style; Scott had initially envisaged a Gothic design, but Lord Palmerston, then Prime Minister, insisted on a classical style.[20] English sculptors Henry Hugh Armstead and John Birnie Philip produced a number of allegorical figures ('Art', 'Law', 'Commerce', etc.) for the exterior.

In 1925 the Foreign Office played host to the signing of the Locarno Treaties, aimed at reducing tension in Europe. The ceremony took place in a suite of rooms that had been designed for banqueting, which subsequently became known as the Locarno Suite.[21] During the Second World War, the Locarno Suite's fine furnishings were removed or covered up, and it became home to a Foreign Office code-breaking department.[21]

Due to increasing numbers of staff, the offices became increasingly cramped and much of the fine Victorian interior was covered over—especially after the Second World War. In the 1960s, demolition was proposed, as part of major redevelopment plan for the area drawn up by architect Sir Leslie Martin.[20] A subsequent public outcry prevented these proposals from ever being implemented. Instead, the Foreign Office became a Grade I listed building in 1970.[20] In 1978, the Home Office moved to a new building, easing overcrowding.

With a new sense of the building's historical value, it underwent a 17-year, £100 million restoration process, completed in 1997.[20] The Locarno Suite, used as offices and storage since the Second World War, was fully restored for use in international conferences. The building is now open to the public each year over Open House Weekend.

In 2014 refurbishment to accommodate all Foreign and Commonwealth Office employees into one building was started by Mace.[22]

Image
Ceiling above the Foreign Office’s Grand Staircase, 2008

Image
The Grand Staircase, 2008

Image
The Locarno Suite in September 2013

Image
The Durbar Court at the former India Office, now part of the FCO

Devolution

International relations are handled centrally from Whitehall on behalf of the whole of the United Kingdom and its dependencies. However, the devolved administrations also maintain an overseas presence in the European Union, the USA and China alongside British diplomatic missions. These offices aim to promote their own economies and ensure that devolved interests are taken into account in British foreign policy. Ministers from devolved administrations can attend international negotiations when agreed with the British Government e.g. EU fisheries negotiations.[23] Similarly, ministers from the devolved administrations meet at approximately quarterly intervals through the Joint Ministerial Committee (Europe), chaired by the Foreign Secretary to "discuss matters bearing on devolved responsibilities that are under discussion within the European Union."

See also

• United Kingdom portal
• International relations portal
• Department for International Development
• Foreign and Commonwealth Office migrated archives
• National Security Adviser (United Kingdom)
• National Security Council (United Kingdom)
• Conflict, Stability and Security Fund
• Stabilisation Unit

References

1. Foreign Office Settlement. London: HM Treasury. 2015. Retrieved 20 May 2016.
2. "Our ministers". GOV.UK. Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Retrieved 1 August 2019.
3. "Her Majesty's Official Opposition". UK Parliament. Retrieved 17 October 2017.
4. A brief history of the FCO Foreign and Commonwealth Office
5. Weller, Toni (June 2010). "The Victorian information age: nineteenth century answers to today's information policy questions?". History & Policy. United Kingdom: History & Policy. Retrieved 9 December 2010.
6. Berridge, G. R. "A Diplomatic Whistleblower in the Victorian Era" (PDF). grberridge.diplomacy.edu. Retrieved 5 June 2017.
7. "Women and the Foreign Office". Issu.com. Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Retrieved 23 October 2018.
8. "The Foreign and Commonwealth Ministries merge". The Glasgow Herald. 17 October 1968. p. 1. Retrieved 28 October 2017.
9. Archives, The National. "The National Archives - Homepage". labs.nationalarchives.gov.uk.
10. "BBC NEWS - UK - UK Politics - Foreign Office management damned".
11. Clary, David (16 September 2013). "A Scientist in the Foreign Office". Science & Diplomacy. 2 (3).
12. "Apology over Pope 'condom' memo". BBC News. 25 April 2010.
13. "'Investigate UK funding of Palestinian NGOs'". thejc.com.
14. Gaspers, Jan (November 2012). "At the Helm of a New Commonwealth Diplomatic Network: In the United Kingdom's Interest?". Retrieved 26 November 2012.
15. Foreign & Commonwealth Office (June 2012). The Overseas Territories: Security, Success and Sustainability(PDF). ISBN 9780101837422.
16. "Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs". Hansard. March 2006.
17. "The FCO Services Trading Fund Order 2008". UK Legislation. National Archives. Retrieved 1 May 2012.
18. "Who we are". FCO Services. 24 May 2011. Archived from the original on 22 February 2013. Retrieved 18 June2011.
19. Say, Mark (21 July 2011). "FCO Services pushes secure cloud platform". Guardian Government Computing. Retrieved 1 May 2012.
20. Foreign & Commonwealth Office History Archived 24 September 2012 at the Wayback Machine
21. Jump up to:a b "Foreign & Commonwealth Office: Route" (PDF). FCO. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 September 2012.
22. "Mace wins £20m Whitehall Foreign Office refit". constructionenquirer.com.
23. Scottish gains at Euro fish talks, Scottish Government, 16 December 2009

External links

• Media related to Foreign and Commonwealth Office at Wikimedia Commons
• Official website
• Cockerell, Michael (1998). How to Be Foreign Secretary (Television production). BBC.
• Cockerell, Michael (2010). The Great Offices of State: Palace of Dreams (Television production). BBC.
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Mon Sep 09, 2019 11:40 am

Indian Political Department
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 9/9/19

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


The Indian Political Department (IPD) was a government department in British India. It originated in a resolution passed on 13 September 1783 by the Board of Directors of the East India Company; this decreed the creation of a department which could help “relieve the pressure” on the administration of Warren Hastings in conducting its "secret and political business".

In 1843, Governor-General Ellenborough reformed the administration, organizing Secretariat of the Government into four departments – Foreign, Home, Finance and Military. The officer in charge of the foreign department was supposed to manage the “conduct of all correspondence belonging to the external and internal diplomatic relations of the government”.
Its political officers were responsible for the civil administration of frontier districts,[1] and also served as British agents to rulers of Princely states. A distinction was made between the “foreign” and “political” functions of the department; relations with all “Asiatic powers” (including native princely states of India) were treated as “political” and those with all European powers as “foreign”. At independence in 1948, the Foreign and Political department of the British India government was transformed into the new Ministry of External Affairs and Commonwealth Relations. A small number of British officers continued to serve as employees of the Union of India.[2]

"Politicals"

The staff employed by the IPD, known as the Indian Political Service, were generally referred to as political officers, or colloquially as "politicals", and were recruited from four areas:[3]

• Two thirds were recruited from the Indian Army
• Next most numerous were those recruited from the Indian Civil Service
• Some came from the Indian Medical Service
• Some came from the Indian Public Works and Engineering Department

Employees of the political service were predominantly racially European, although small numbers of Indians were employed.[4]

References

1. James Onley, The Raj Reconsidered: British India’s Informal Empire and Spheres of Influence in Asia and Africa (2009)
2. Hansard 11 December 1947
3. Wendy Palace (2004), The British Empire & Tibet 1900 - 1922, London: Routledge, ISBN 0415346827, OCLC 834529138, 0415346827
4. Hansard 26 June 1939

External links

• Indian Foreign Service: A Backgrounder
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Tue Sep 10, 2019 3:29 am

Dominion of India [Union of India]
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 9/9/19

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


Union of India
1947–1950
Image
Flag of India
Image
Emblem[1]
Status: Dominion of the British Commonwealth
Capital New Delhi
Government Federation
Governor-General
• 1947–1948: Louis Mountbatten
• 1948–1950: Chakravarti Rajagopalachari
Prime Minister
• 1947–1950: Jawaharlal Nehru[2]
Legislature Constituent Assembly
History
• Indian Independence Act: 15 August 1947
• Indo-Pakistani War: 22 October 1947
• Republican constitution adopted: 26 January 1950
Area
1950 3,287,263 km2 (1,269,219 sq mi)
Currency Indian rupee
ISO 3166 code IN
Preceded by British Raj
Succeeded by Republic of India

India, officially the Union of India,[3] was an independent dominion in the British Commonwealth of Nations between 15 August 1947 and 26 January 1950. It was created by the Indian Independence Act 1947 and was transformed into the Republic of India by the promulgation of the Constitution of India in 1950.[4]

The King was represented by the Governor-General of India. However, the Governor-General was not designated Viceroy, as had been customary under the British Raj. The office of Viceroy was abolished on independence. Two governors-general held office between independence and India's transformation into a republic: Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (1947–48) and Chakravarti Rajagopalachari (1948–50). Jawaharlal Nehru was Prime Minister of India throughout.

History

Partition of India


Main article: Partition of India

The Partition of British India on 15 August 1947[5] led to the creation of two sovereign states, both dominions: Pakistan (which later split into the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the People's Republic of Bangladesh in 1971) and India (later the Republic of India).

Since the 1920s the Indian independence movement had been demanding Pūrṇa Swarāj (complete self-rule) for the Indian nation and the establishment of the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan was a major victory for the Swarajis. Nevertheless, the Partition was controversial among the people, and resulted in significant political instability and displacement.[6]

Aftermath

Most of the 565[7] princely states within Indian territory acceded to the Dominion of India. The Hindu-majority Junagadh State located in modern-day Gujarat attempted to accede to Pakistan under Nawab Sir Muhammad Mahabat Khanji III, who was a Muslim. It was annexed militarily by the Indian government. Similarly, the State of Hyderabad sought to remain independent and was also annexed by India in 1948.[6]

Conflict with Pakistan

See also: Indo-Pakistani War of 1947

The newly created states of Pakistan and India both joined the Commonwealth, a platform for cooperation between the countries that had been part of the British Empire. Nevertheless, they soon found themselves at war beginning in October 1947, over the contested princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistani militants entered the state, alarming Maharaja Hari Singh who appealed to India for military intervention, in exchange for the signing of the Instrument of Accession and annexation into India. The region is contested to this day and two other Indo-Pakistan wars occurred as part of the Kashmir conflict.[6]

The Dominion of India began working towards a constitution based on liberal democracy immediately after independence.

Republic of India

Main article: India

The Constituent Assembly adopted the Constitution of India, drafted by a committee headed by B. R. Ambedkar, on 26 November 1949. India abolished the role of the constitutional monarchy and became a federal, democratic republic after its constitution came into effect on 26 January 1950; henceforth celebrated as Republic Day. The governmental structure was similar to that of the United Kingdom but within a federal system. Rajendra Prasad became the first President of India.

Government

List of Governors-General


Main article: List of Governors-General of India

Name (birth–death) / Picture / Took office / Left office / Appointer

Governors-General India, 1947–1950

The Viscount Mountbatten of Burma[8] (1900–1979) / Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, 1943. / 15 August 1947 / 21 June 1948 / George VI

Chakravarti Rajagopalachari (1878–1972) / C Rajagopalachari 1944 / 21 June 1948 / 26 January 1950 / George VI


List of Prime Ministers

Main article: List of Prime Ministers of India

№ / Name (birth–death); constituency / Portrait / Party (Alliance) / Term of office[9] / Elections (Lok Sabha) / Council of Ministers / Appointed by

1 / Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) MP for Phulpur / Jnehru / Indian National Congress / 15 August 1947 / 26 January 1950 / — / Nehru I / Lord Mountbatten


See also

• India portal
• Monarchy portal
• Interim Government of India
• History of the Republic of India
• Indian independence movement

References

1. "Press Communique' - State Emblem" (PDF). Press Information Bureau of India - Archive. Archived (PDF) from the original on 24 February 2018.
2. As Prime Minister of India until 1964.
3. *Winegard, Timothy C. (2011), Indigenous Peoples of the British Dominions and the First World War, Cambridge University Press, p. 2, ISBN 978-1-107-01493-0 Quote: “The first collective use (of the word "dominion") occurred at the Colonial Conference (April to May 1907) when the title was conferred upon Canada and Australia. New Zealand and Newfoundland were afforded the designation in September of that same year, followed by South Africa in 1910. These were the only British possessions recognized as Dominions at the outbreak of war. In 1922, the Irish Free State was given Dominion status, followed by the short-lived inclusion of India and Pakistan in 1947 (although India was officially recognized as the Union of India). The Union of India became the Republic of India in 1950, while the became the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in 1956.”
4. Winegard, Timothy C. (2011), Indigenous Peoples of the British Dominions and the First World War, Cambridge University Press, pp. 2–, ISBN 978-1-107-01493-0
5. Section 1 of the Indian Independence Act, 1947
6. India: A History. New York, USA: Grove Press. 2000. ISBN 978-0-8021-3797-5.
7. "Indian Princely States before 1947 A-J".
8. Created Earl Mountbatten of Burma on 28 October 1947.
9. "Former Prime Ministers". PM India. Retrieved 2 January 2015.
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Tue Sep 10, 2019 7:06 am

Warren Hastings
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 9/10/19

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Image
The Right Honourable Warren Hastings
Governor of the Presidency of Fort William (Bengal)
In office
28 April 1772 – 20 October 1774
Preceded by John Cartier
Succeeded by Position Abolished
Governor-General of the Presidency of Fort sala
In office
20 October 1782 – 8 February 1785[1]
Monarch George III
Preceded by Position Created
Succeeded by Sir John Macpherson, Bt
As Acting Governor-General
Personal details
Born 6 December 1732
Churchill, Oxfordshire
Died 22 August 1818 (aged 85)
Daylesford, Gloucestershire
Nationality British
Alma mater Westminster School

Warren Hastings (6 December 1732 – 22 August 1818), an English statesman, was the first Governor of the Presidency of Fort William (Bengal), the head of the Supreme Council of Bengal, and thereby the first de facto Governor-General of India from 1774 to 1785. In 1787, he was accused of corruption and impeached, but after a long trial, he was acquitted in 1795. He was made a Privy Counsellor in 1814.

Early life

Hastings was born in Churchill, Oxfordshire in 1732 to a poor father, Penystone Hastings, and a mother, Hester Hastings, who died soon after he was born.[2] Despite Penystone Hastings's lack of wealth, the family had been lords of the manor and patrons of the living of Daylesford in direct line from 1281 until 1715. It was relinquished after there had been a considerable loss of family wealth due to support given to Charles I.[3] Warren Hastings attended Westminster School, where he coincided with the future Prime Ministers Lord Shelburne and the Duke of Portland and with the poet William Cowper.[4] He joined the British East India Company in 1750 as a clerk and sailed out to India, reaching Calcutta in August 1750.[5] There he built up a reputation for diligence and spent his free time learning about India and mastering Urdu and Persian.[6] His work won him promotion in 1752 when he was sent to Kasimbazar, a major trading post in Bengal, where he worked for William Watts. While there he gained further experience in the politics of East India.

British traders still relied on the whims of local rulers, so that the political turmoil in Bengal was unsettling. The elderly moderate Nawab Alivardi Khan was likely to be succeeded by his grandson Siraj ud-Daulah, but there were several other claimants. This made British trading posts throughout Bengal increasingly insecure, as Siraj ud-Daulah was known to harbour anti-European views and be likely to launch an attack once he took power. When Alivardi Khan died in April 1756, the British traders and a small garrison at Kasimbazar were left vulnerable. On 3 June, after being surrounded by a much larger force, the British were persuaded to surrender to prevent a massacre.[7] Hastings was imprisoned with others in the Bengali capital, Murshidabad, while the Nawab's forces marched on Calcutta and captured it. The garrison and civilians were then locked up under appalling conditions in the Black Hole of Calcutta.

Image
Warren Hastings with his wife Marian in their garden at Alipore, c. 1784–87

For a while Hastings remained in Murshidabad and was even used by the Nawab as an intermediary, but fearing for his life, he escaped to the island of Fulta, where a number of refugees from Calcutta had taken shelter. While there, he met and married Mary Buchanan, the widow of one of the victims of the Black Hole. Shortly afterwards a British expedition from Madras under Robert Clive arrived to rescue them. Hastings served as a volunteer in Clive's forces as they retook Calcutta in January 1757. After this swift defeat, the Nawab urgently sought peace and the war came to an end. Clive was impressed with Hastings when he met him, and arranged for his return to Kasimbazar to resume his pre-war activities. Later in 1757 fighting resumed, leading to the Battle of Plassey, where Clive won a decisive victory over the Nawab. Siraj ud-Daulah was overthrown and replaced by his uncle Mir Jafar, who initiated pro-British policies. Today Mir Jafar has the reputation of a traitor in India and Bangladesh.

Rising status

In 1758 Hastings became the British Resident in the Bengali capital of Murshidabad – a major step forward in his career – at the instigation of Clive. His role in the city was ostensibly that of an ambassador but as Bengal came increasingly under the dominance of the East India Company he was often given the task of issuing orders to the new Nawab on behalf of Clive and the Calcutta authorities.[8] Hastings personally sympathised with Mir Jafar and regarded many of the demands placed on him by the Company as excessive. Hastings had already developed a philosophy that was grounded in trying to establish a more understanding relationship with India's inhabitants and their rulers, and he often tried to mediate between the two sides.

During Mir Jafar's reign the East India Company exerted an increasingly large role in the running of the region, and effectively took over the defence of Bengal against external invaders when Bengal's troops proved insufficient for the task. As he grew older, Mir Jafar became gradually less effective in ruling the state, and in 1760 British troops ousted him from power and replaced him with Mir Qasim.[9] Hastings expressed his doubts to Calcutta over the move, believing they were honour-bound to support Mir Jafar, but his opinions were overruled. Hastings established a good relationship with the new Nawab and again had misgivings about the demands he relayed from his superiors. In 1761 he was recalled and appointed to the Calcutta council.

Conquest of Bengal

Further information: Battle of Buxar

Hastings was personally angered when he conducted an investigation into trading abuses in Bengal. He alleged some European and British-allied Indian merchants were taking advantage of the situation to enrich themselves personally. Persons travelling under the unauthorised protection of the British flag engaged in widespread fraud and in illegal trading, knowing that local customs officials would thereby be cowed into not interfering with them. Hastings felt this was bringing shame on Britain's reputation, and he urged the ruling authorities in Calcutta to put an end to it. The Council considered his report but ultimately rejected Hastings' proposals and he was fiercely criticised by other members, many of whom had themselves profited from the trade.[10]

Ultimately, little was done to stem the abuses, and Hastings began to consider quitting his post and returning to Britain. His resignation was only delayed by the outbreak of fresh fighting in Bengal. Once on the throne Qasim proved increasingly independent in his actions, and he rebuilt Bengal's army by hiring European instructors and mercenaries who greatly improved the standard of his forces.[11] He felt gradually more confident and in 1764 when a dispute broke out in the settlement of Patna he captured its British garrison and threatened to execute them if the East India Company responded militarily. When Calcutta dispatched troops anyway, Mir Qasim executed the hostages. British forces then went on the attack and won a series of battles culminating in the decisive Battle of Buxar in October 1764. After this Mir Qasim fled into exile in Delhi, where he later died (1777). The Treaty of Allahabad (1765) gave the East India Company the right to collect taxes in Bengal on behalf of the Mughal Emperor.

Hastings resigned in December 1764 and sailed for Britain the following month. He left deeply saddened by the failure of the more moderate strategy that he had supported, but which had been rejected by the hawkish members of the Calcutta Council. Once he arrived in London Hastings began spending far beyond his means. He stayed in fashionable addresses and had his picture painted by Joshua Reynolds in spite of the fact that, unlike many of his contemporaries, he had not amassed a fortune while in India. Eventually, having run up enormous debts, Hastings realised he needed to return to India to restore his finances, and applied to the East India Company for employment. His application was initially rejected as he had made many political enemies, including the powerful director Laurence Sulivan. Eventually an appeal to Sulivan's rival Robert Clive secured Hastings the position of deputy ruler at the city of Madras. He sailed from Dover in March 1769. On the voyage he met the German Baroness Imhoff and her husband. He soon fell in love with the Baroness and they began an affair, seemingly with her husband's consent. Hastings' first wife, Mary, had died in 1759, and he planned to marry the Baroness once she had obtained a divorce from her husband. The process took a long time and it was not until 1777 when news of divorce came from Germany that Hastings was finally able to marry her.

Madras and Calcutta

Hastings arrived in Madras shortly after the end of the First Anglo-Mysore War of 1767–1769, during which the forces of Hyder Ali had threatened the capture of the city. The Treaty of Madras (29 March 1769) which ended the war failed to settle the dispute and three further Anglo-Mysore Wars followed (1780-1799). During his time at Madras Hastings initiated reforms of trading practices which cut out the use of middlemen and benefited both the Company and the Indian labourers, but otherwise the period was relatively uneventful for him.[12]

By this stage Hastings shared Clive's view that the three major British Presidencies (settlements) – Madras, Bombay and Calcutta – should all be brought under a single rule rather than being governed separately as they currently were.[12] In 1771 he was appointed to be Governor of Calcutta, the most important of the Presidencies. In Britain moves were underway to reform the divided system of government and to establish a single rule across all of British India with its capital in Calcutta. Hastings was considered[by whom?] the natural choice to be the first Governor General.

While Governor, Hastings launched a major crackdown on bandits operating in Bengal, which proved largely successful.

He also faced the severe Bengal Famine, which resulted in about ten million deaths.

Governor-General

The Regulating Act of 1773 brought the presidencies of Madras and Bombay under Bengal's control. It elevated Hastings from Governor to the new title Governor-General, but limited his power by making the Governor-General one member of a five-man Supreme Council of Bengal,[13] so confusedly structured that it was difficult to tell what constitutional position Hastings actually held.[14]

Bhutan and Tibet

In 1773, Hastings responded to an appeal for help from the Raja of the princely state of Cooch Behar to the north of Bengal, whose territory had been invaded by Zhidar, the Druk Desi of Bhutan the previous year. Hastings agreed to help on the condition that Cooch Behar recognise British sovereignty.[15] The Raja agreed and with the help of British troops they pushed the Bhutanese out of the Duars and into the foothills in 1773.

The Druk Desi, returned to face civil war at home. His opponent Jigme Senge, the regent for the seven-year-old Shabdrung (the Bhutanese equivalent of the Dalai Lama), had supported popular discontent. Zhidar was unpopular for his corvee tax (he sought to rebuild a major dzong in one year, an unreasonable goal), as well as for his overtures to the Manchu Emperors which threatened Bhutanese independence. Zhidar was soon overthrown and forced to flee to Tibet, where he was imprisoned and a new Druk Desi, Kunga Rinchen, installed in his place. Meanwhile, the Sixth Panchen Lama, who had imprisoned Zhidar, interceded on behalf of the Bhutanese with a letter to Hastings, imploring him to cease hostilities in return for friendship. Hastings saw the opportunity to establish relations with both the Tibetans and the Bhutanese and wrote a letter to the Panchen Lama proposing "a general treaty of amity and commerce between Tibet and Bengal."[16]

In February 1782, news having reached the headquarters of the EIC in Calcutta of the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, Hastings proposed despatching a mission to Tibet with a message of congratulation designed to strengthen the amicable relations established by Bogle during his earlier visit. With the assent of the EIC Court of Directors, Samuel Turner was appointed chief of the Tibet mission on 9 January 1783 with fellow EIC employee and amateur artist Samuel Davis as "Draftsman & Surveyor".[17] Turner returned to the Governor-General's camp at Patna in 1784 where he reported that although unable to visit the Tibetan capital at Lhasa, he had received a promise that merchants sent to the country from India would be encouraged.[18]

Turner was also instructed to obtain a pair of yaks on his travels, which he duly did. They were transported to Hasting's menagerie in Calcutta and on the Governor-General's return to England, the yaks went too, although only the male survived the difficult sea voyage. Noted artist George Stubbs subsequently painted the animal's portrait as The Yak of Tartary and in 1854 it went on to appear, albeit stuffed, at The Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace in London.[19]

Hasting's return to England ended any further efforts to engage in diplomacy with Tibet.

Resignation and impeachment

Image
The trial of Warren Hastings, 1788

Main article: Impeachment of Warren Hastings

In 1784, after ten years of service, during which he helped extend and regularise the nascent Raj created by Clive of India, Hastings resigned. He was replaced by General Charles Cornwallis, the Earl Cornwallis; Cornwallis in India served as Commander-in-Chief of British India and Governor of the Presidency of Fort William, also known as the Bengal Presidency.

Upon his return to England, Hastings was impeached in the House of Commons for crimes and misdemeanors during his time in India, especially for the alleged judicial killing of Maharaja Nandakumar. At first deemed unlikely to succeed,[20] the prosecution was managed by MPs including Edmund Burke, who was encouraged by Sir Philip Francis, whom Hastings had wounded during a duel in India,[13] Charles James Fox and Richard Brinsley Sheridan. When the charges of his indictment were read, the twenty counts took Edmund Burke two full days to read.[21]

The house sat for a total of 148 days over a period of seven years during the investigation.[22] The investigation was pursued at great cost to Hastings personally, and he complained constantly that the cost of defending himself from the prosecution was bankrupting him. He is rumoured to have once stated that the punishment given him would have been less extreme had he pleaded guilty.[23] The House of Lords finally made its decision on 24 April 1795, acquitting him on all charges.[24] The Company subsequently compensated him with 4,000 Pounds Sterling annually, retroactive to the date he returned to England, but did not reimburse Hastings' legal fees which he claimed to have been £70,000. He collected the stipend for nearly 29 years.[25][26]

Throughout the long years of the trial, Hastings lived in considerable style at his town house, Somerset House, Park Lane where he was the owner of the lease.[27] He subsequently sold the house at auction for £9,450.

Among the many who supported him in print was the pamphleteer and versifier Ralph Broome.[28] Others disturbed by the perceived injustice of the proceedings included Fanny Burney.[29]

The letters and journals of Jane Austen and her family, who knew Hastings, show that they followed the trial closely.[30]

Later life

His supporters from the Edinburgh East India Club, as well as a number of other gentlemen from India, gave a reportedly "elegant entertainment" for Hastings when he visited Edinburgh. A toast on the occasion went to the "Prosperity to our settlements in India" and wished that "the virtue and talents which preserved them be ever remembered with gratitude."[31]

In 1788 he acquired the estate at Daylesford, Gloucestershire, including the site of the medieval seat of the Hastings family at a cost of £54,000.[32] In the following years, he remodelled the mansion to the designs of Samuel Pepys Cockerell, with classical and Indian decoration, and gardens landscaped by John Davenport. He also rebuilt the Norman church in 1816, where he was buried two years later.

In 1801 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.[33]

In spite of the substantial compensation he had received from the East India Company, Hastings was technically insolvent at the time of his death because of excessive spending.[34]

Hastings's administrative ethos and legacy

Image
Hastings painted by Johann Zoffany, 1783–1784.

Image
Hastings in the late 18th century, as painted by Lemuel Francis Abbott.

Image
His simple memorial in Daylesford churchyard

During the final quarter of the 18th century, many of the Company's senior administrators realised that, in order to govern Indian society, it was essential that they learn its various religious, social, and legal customs and precedents. The importance of such knowledge to the colonial government was clearly in Hastings's mind when, in 1784, he remarked:

Every accumulation of knowledge and especially such as is obtained by social communication with people over whom we exercise dominion founded on the right of conquest, is useful to the state ... it attracts and conciliates distant affections; it lessens the weight of the chain by which the natives are held in subjection; and it imprints on the hearts of our countrymen the sense of obligation and benevolence... Every instance which brings their real character ... home to observation will impress us with a more generous sense of feeling for their natural rights, and teach us to estimate them by the measure of our own. But such instances can only be obtained in their writings: and these will survive when the British dominion in India shall have long ceased to exist, and when the sources which once yielded of wealth and power are lost to remembrance.[35]


Under Hastings's term as governor-general, a great deal of administrative precedent was set which profoundly shaped later attitudes towards the government of British India. Hastings had a great respect for the ancient scripture of Hinduism and set the British position on governance as one of looking back to the earliest precedents possible. This allowed Brahmin advisors to mould the law, because no English person thoroughly understood Sanskrit until Sir William Jones, and, even then, a literal translation was of little use; it needed to be elucidated by religious commentators who were well-versed in the lore and application. This approach accentuated the Hindu caste system and to an extent the frameworks of other religions, which had, at least in recent centuries, been somewhat more flexibly applied. Thus, British influence on the fluid social structure of India can in large part be characterised as a solidification of the privileges of the Hindu caste system through the influence of the exclusively high-caste scholars by whom the British were advised in the formation of their laws.

In 1781, Hastings founded Madrasa 'Aliya at Calcutta; in 2007, it was transformed into Aliah University by the Government of West Bengal.[citation needed] In 1784, Hastings supported the foundation of the Bengal Asiatic Society, now the Asiatic Society of Bengal, by the oriental scholar Sir William Jones; it became a storehouse for information and data on the subcontinent and has existed in various institutional guises up to the present day.[36] Hastings' legacy has been somewhat dualistic as an Indian administrator: he undoubtedly was able to institute reforms during the time he spent as governor there that would change the path that India would follow over the next several years. He did, however, retain the strange distinction of being both the "architect of British India and the one ruler of British India to whom the creation of such an entity was anathema."[37]

Legacy

The city of Hastings, New Zealand and the Melbourne outer suburb of Hastings, Victoria, Australia were both named after him.

"Hastings" is the name of one of the 4 School Houses in La Martiniere for Boys, Calcutta and La Martiniere for Girls Kolkata. It is represented by the colour red.

"Hastings" is also the name of one of the 4 School Houses in Bishop Westcott Boys' School, Ranchi. It is also represented by the colour red.

"Hastings" is a Senior Wing House at St Paul's School, Darjeeling, India, where all the senior wing houses are named after Anglo-Indian colonial figures.

There is also a road in Kolkata, India, named after him.

RIMS "Warren Hastings" was a Royal Indian Marine troopship built by the Barrow Shipbuilding Company. She was launched on 18 April 1893. The ship struck a rock and was wrecked off the coast of Réunion on the night of 14 January 1897.

Literature

Warren Hastings took keen interest in translating the Bhagavad Gita into English, and as a result of his efforts the first English translation appeared in 1785. Warren Hastings wrote the introduction to the English translation of the Bhagavad Gita, which was translated by Charles Wilkins, 4 October 1784, from Benares.[38]

"Warren Hastings and His Bull" is a short story written by Indian writer Uday Prakash. It was adapted for stage under the same name by the director Arvind Gaur. It is a socio-economic political satire that presents Warren Hastings's interaction with traditional India.

In the collection of short stories by the Hindi author Shivprasad Singh 'Rudra' Kashikeya, called "Bahti Ganga," there is a lovely short story that features the then Raja of Banaras and Warren Hastings in conflict. Hastings is imprisoned by the Raja, but escapes, and ordinary people of the city make fun of him.

Hastings' career is discussed at length in the historical fiction mystery novel, Secrets in the Stones, by Tessa Harris.[39]

See also

• Company rule in India
• Mughal Empire
• Shah Alam II

References

1. Bengal Public Consultations February 12, 1785. No. 2. Letter from Warren Hastings, 8th February, formally declaring his resignation of the office of Governor General.
2. Lyall, Sir Alfred (1920). Warren Hastings. London: Macmillan and Co. p. 1.
3. Biographical Illustrations of Worcestershire: Including Lives of Persons, Natives or Residents eminent either for piety or talent, John Chambers, Wm. Walcott, 1820, pp. 486–87.
4. Turnbull, Patrick. Warren Hastings. New English Library, 1975. p.17.
5. Turnbull pp. 17–18
6. Turnbull pp. 19–21
7. Turnbull p. 23.
8. Turnbull pp. 27–28
9. Turnbull pp. 34–35
10. Turnbull pp. 36–40
11. Turnbull p. 36.
12. Turnbull p. 52.
13. Wolpert, Stanley (2004) [First published 1977]. A New History of India (7th ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 190. ISBN 978-0-19-516677-4.
14. The Earl of Birkenhead, Famous Trials of History (Garden City: Garden City Publishing Company, 1926) p. 165
15. Minahan, James B. (2002). Encyclopedia of the Stateless Nations: Ethnic and National Groups Around the World A-Z. ABC-CLIO. p. 1556. ISBN 978-0-313-07696-1.
16. Younghusband 1910, pp. 5–7.
17. Davis, Samuel; Aris, Michael (1982). Views of Medieval Bhutan: the diary and drawings of Samuel Davis, 1783. Serindia. p. 31.
18. Younghusband 1910, p. 27.
19. Harris, Clare (2012). The Museum on the Roof of the World: Art, Politics, and the Representation of Tibet. University of Chicago Press. pp. 30–33. ISBN 978-0-226-31747-2.
20. Macaulay, Thomas Babington. "Warren Hastings (1841), an essay by Thomas Babington Macaulay." Columbia University in the City of New York. (accessed 20 May 2009).
21. The Earl of Birkenhead, Famous Trials of History (Garden City: Garden City Publishing Company, 1926) 170
22. Sir Alfred Lyall, Warren Hastings (London: Macmillan and Co, 1920) 218
23. The Earl of Birkenhead, Famous Trials of History (Garden City: Garden City Publishing Company, 1926) 173
24. Political Trials in History by Ron Christenson, p. 178-179, ISBN 0-88738-406-4
25. https://www.amdigital.co.uk/about/blog/ ... n-hastings, ‘The captain-general of iniquity’: The impeachment of Warren Hastings
26. https://books.google.ca/books?id=G-wOz1 ... 0.&f=false, The British Country House in the Eighteenth Century, page 10
27. 'Park Lane', in Survey of London: volume 40: The Grosvenor Estate in Mayfair, Part 2 (The Buildings) (1980), pp. 264–289, accessed 15 November 2010
28. In: Letters of Simkin the Second to his dear brother in Wales, containing a humble description of the trial of Warren Hastings, Esq. (1788) Letters of Simpkin the Second, Poetic Recorder, of all the proceedings upon the Trial of Warren Hastings (1789), and An Elucidation of the Articles of Impeachment preferred by the last Parliament against Warren Hastings, Esq., later Governor of Bengal (1790).
29. The Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney (Madame d'Arblay) I. 1791–1792, p. 115 ff.
30. https://austenised.blogspot.com/2011/07 ... tions.html, Jane Austen’s Colonial Connections
31. Gilbert, W.M., editor, Edinburgh in the Nineteenth Century, Edinburgh, 1901: 44
32. https://books.google.ca/books?id=G-wOz1 ... 0.&f=false, The British Country House in the Eighteenth Century, page10
33. "Fellows details". Royal Society. Retrieved 23 January 2017.
34. https://www.amdigital.co.uk/about/blog/ ... n-hastings, ‘The captain-general of iniquity’: The impeachment of Warren Hastings
35. Cohn, Bernard S (1997). Colonialism and its forms of knowledge: The British in India. Oxford University Press. p. 45. ISBN 978-0-19-564167-7.
36. Keay, John (2000). India: A History. Grove Press. p. 426. ISBN 0-8021-3797-0. Not the least of Warren Hastings' achievements had been the foundation in 1784 of the Bengal Asiatic Society which, under the presidency of [Sir William] Jones, became a veritable clearing-house for intellectual data about India.
37. Keay, John (1991). The Honourable Company. New York: Macmillan. p. 394.
38. Garrett, John; Wilhelm, Humboldt, eds. (1849). The Bhagavat-Geeta, Or, Dialogues of Krishna and Arjoon in Eighteen Lectures. Bangalore: Wesleyan Mission Press. Retrieved 18 January 2017.
39. https://books.google.ca/books?id=IZCmCQ ... 20&f=false, excerpt from Secrets in the Stones, Postscript

Bibliography

• Davies, Alfred Mervyn. Strange destiny: a biography of Warren Hastings (1935)
• Ghosh, Suresh Chandra. The Social Condition of the British Community in Bengal: 1757–1800 (Brill, 1970)
• Feiling, Keith, Warren Hastings (1954)
• Lawson, Philip. The East India Company: A History (Routledge, 2014)
• Marshall, P.J., The impeachment of Warren Hastings (1965)
• Marshall, P. J. "Hastings, Warren (1732–1818)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004); online edn, Oct 2008 accessed 11 Nov 2014
• Moon, Penderel. Warren Hastings and British India (Macmillan, 1949)
• Turnbull, Patrick. Warren Hastings. (New English Library, 1975)
• Younghusband, Francis (1910). India and Tibet: a history of the relations which have subsisted between the two countries from the time of Warren Hastings to 1910; with a particular account of the mission to Lhasa of 1904. London: John Murray.

Primary sources

• Forrest, G.W., ed. Selections from the State Papers of the Governors-General of India: Warren Hastings (2 vols.), Blackwell's, Oxford (1910)

External links

• "Warren Hastings" an essay by Thomas Babington Macaulay (October 1841)
• Warren Hastings at Project Gutenberg (within Critical and Historical Essays (Macaulay))
• Warren Hastings public domain audiobook at LibriVox
• House of Warren Hastings in Calcutta
• Newspaper clippings about Warren Hastings in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Tue Sep 10, 2019 7:17 am

George Bogle (diplomat)
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 9/10/19

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


Image
Portrait of George Bogle, late teens

George Bogle (26 November 1746 – 3 April 1781)[1][2] was a Scottish adventurer and diplomat, the first to establish diplomatic relations with Tibet and to attempt recognition by the Chinese Qing dynasty. His mission is still used today as a reference point in debates between China and Tibetan independence activists.

Family background

George Bogle was the third son of a wealthy Glasgow merchant, George Bogle of Daldowie, one of the Tobacco Lords and Anne Sinclair, a gentlewoman directly descended from James I and James II of Scotland. His father had extensive connections in the Scottish landed, commercial, and governmental elite, as well as trading contacts across the British Empire.[3]

The Scots gentry to whom he belonged were in turn, in the 18th century, a key feature in the British state. Their political allegiance was often managed through patronage. In particular, Henry Dundas was able to offer the younger sons of gentry opportunities in India. This was to be a significant feature in George's career.

Education and early career

Born in 1746 at the family seat of Daldowie, on the right bank of the River Clyde as the youngest of one of seven surviving children[4] and the youngest of three brothers, his elder brother John Bogle eventually had a plantation in Virginia. His other brother, Robert, after the failure of a business adventure in London (the importing house of "Bogle and Scott"), established a cotton plantation in Grenada. Both these brothers were intimately involved in the slave trade. His four sisters married into their gentry network of traders, lairds and lawyers. His mother died when he was thirteen. The following year he matriculated at Edinburgh University where he studied Logic. He completed his education, when he was 18, at a private academy in Enfield, near London. Following this, he spent six months travelling in France. His brother Robert then took him on as a clerk in his London offices of Bogle and Scott where he spent four years as a cashier.[5]

India

Using the family network, he secured an appointment as a Writer in the East India Company (EIC). In 1770, at the height of the Bengal Famine, he landed in Calcutta, the centre of British power in India. [6] His extensive letters home, as well as his journal entries, show him to have been a lively, entertaining and perceptive writer. The comments of his colleagues and others show him to have been an agreeable, indeed playful – if sometimes riotous – companion. These qualities no doubt influenced Warren Hastings, the Governor-General of the EIC, when he appointed him his private secretary.[7] His letters show that he was aware of the suspicion of corruption, and had some misgivings about it – Hastings would soon be impeached for corruption – he was determined to make his fortune come what may.

Envoy to Bhutan and Tibet

Image
The Sixth Panchen Lama Receives George Bogle at Tashilhunpo, oil painting by Tilly Kettle, c. 1775

In 1773, Hastings responded to an appeal for help from the Raja of the princely state of Cooch Behar to the north of Bengal, whose territory had been invaded by the Zhidar the Druk Desi of Bhutan the previous year. Hastings agreed to help on the condition that Cooch Behar recognise British sovereignty.[8] The Raja agreed and with the help of British troops they pushed the Bhutanese out of the Duars and into the foothills in 1773.

Zhidar, the Druk Desi, returned to face civil war at home. His opponent Jigme Senge, the regent for the seven-year-old Shabdrung (the Bhutanese equivalent of the Dalai Lama), had supported popular discontent. Zhidar was unpopular for his corvee tax (he sought to rebuild a major dzong in one year, an unreasonable goal), as well as for his overtures to the Manchu Emperors which threatened Bhutanese independence. Zhidar was soon overthrown and forced to flee to Tibet, where he was imprisoned and a new Druk Desi, Kunga Rinchen, installed in his place. Meanwhile, the Sixth Panchen Lama, who had imprisoned Zhidar, interceded on behalf of the Bhutanese with a letter to Hastings, imploring him to cease hostilities in return for friendship. Hastings saw the opportunity to establish relations with both the Tibetans and the Bhutanese and wrote a letter to the Panchen Lama proposing "a general treaty of amity and commerce between Tibet and Bengal."[9]

Hastings then lost no time in appointing Bogle to undertake a diplomatic and fact-finding mission "to chart the unknown territory beyond the northern borders of Bengal", with a view to opening up trade with Tibet and possibly establishing a back-door trade relationship with the Chinese Qing dynasty who tightly controlled foreign trade at Canton (now Guangzhou) under the Canton System.

Hastings instructions to Bogle, given on 18 May 1774, were as follows:

"I desire you will proceed to Lhasa ... The design of your mission is to open a mutual and equal communication of trade between the inhabitants of Bhutan [Tibet] and Bengal ... You will take with you samples, for a trial of such articles of commerce as may be sent from this country ... and you will dilligently inform yourself of the manufactures, productions, goods introduced by the intercourse with other countries which are to be procured in Bhutan ... The following will be also proper objects of your inquiry: the nature of the roads between the borders of Bengal and Lhasa and the neighbouring countries, their government, revenue and manners ... The period of your stay must be left to your discretion.[10]


Bogle's expedition set out the same year and consisted of himself, an army surgeon named Alexander Hamilton, and Purangir Gosain (an agent of the Sixth Panchen Lama, the effective ruler of Tibet), as well as a retinue of servants. Despite warnings from the Chinese government and the Panchen Lama that he was not allowed to enter Tibet, he made use of the recent political instability in Bhutan and tension between the Panchen Lama and the regent for the 7th Dalai Lama to win access to Tibet where he was brought before the Panchen Lama in Shigatse. [6][failed verification] Bogle made a favourable impression on the Sixth Panchen Lama and spent six months overwintering in his palaces learning what he could of Tibetan culture and politics. Bogle was struck by the experience, noting in his journal, 'When I look upon the time I have spent among the Hills it appears like a fairy dream.' It may have been the publication of accounts of his journey which established the myth of Tibet as Shangri-la. Bogle helped the Panchen Lama compose his still famous Geography of India.

Returning to India, Bogle fulfilled the Panchen Lama's request to establish a temple on the banks of the Ganges, not far from the East India Company headquarters, where Buddhist monks could return to their spiritual roots in India.

Although the ultimate goal of establishing a trade route to China was not met, a long-lasting relationship was formed between the British and the Tibetans. The mission to Tibet was viewed as a success, and was commemorated by a 1775 portrait of Bogle being presented (in Tibetan gowns) to the Panchen Lama. This portrait, by Tilly Kettle, a British painter who worked in Calcutta, was reputedly presented by Hastings to King George III and it is now in the Royal Collection.

Overtures to China

The hopes for a breakthrough in China rested on using the Lama as an intermediary with the Qianlong Emperor of the Manchu-led Qing Empire, an astute but aloof ruler who regarded all the world as tributaries. In 1780, Palden Yeshe visited Beijing where he came close to gaining a passport for Bogle. The Qianlong Emperor presented him with a golden urn for use in ceremonial lotteries and the goodwill seemed to suggest that a passport would be issued. However, he was struck down by smallpox and died that same year. (It was not until 1793, that a British envoy ) Lord Macartney was, very sceptically, received by the Qianlong Emperor).

Death

Bogle died, probably of cholera, on 3 April 1781,[11] and was buried in South Park Street Cemetery, Calcutta.[12] He had never married, but left behind a son George, and two daughters, Martha and Mary. According to family lore, the girls' mother was Tibetan. The two girls were sent back to Daldowie House, where they were brought up by Bogle's family and eventually married Scotsmen.[13][14]

Legacy of Bogle’s mission

Bogle's diary and travel notes were found in his Ayrshire family archives and published as "Narratives of the mission of George Bogle to Tibet, and of the journey of Thomas Manning to Lhasa" (1876) by Sir Clements Markham. This edition provided a partial impetus for the Tibetan journeys of Sarat Chandra Das. Das translated and published parts of the Tibetan biography of the Third Panchen Lama, including descriptions of his friendship with Bogle. Some critics have ascribed Bogle and Das as major inspirations for Rudyard Kipling's novel Kim, shown by Kipling's use of the title "Teshoo Lama" (an alternate title of the Panchen Lama used by Bogle and other British sources of the time).[15]

The Bogle mission has echoes today. The Chinese government has used it on official websites to suggest that Britain recognised Chinese sovereignty over Tibet.[16] They portray the meeting of the Panchen Lama as one where he kowtowed in submission to the Qianlong Emperor. The Tibetans suggest it was a meeting between a pupil (the emperor) and a revered master (the Lama).

According to the Asia Times, in 1995 the search for the 11th Panchen Lama culminated with Beijing and the Dalai Lama proclaiming rival child candidates, Gyaincain Norbu and Gedhun Choekyi Nyima respectively, with Chinese officials using the Qianlong Emperor's urn as a symbol of legitimacy and sovereignty.

See also

Mitchell Library Glasgow Special Collections Bogle Papers, 1725–80 [letter-book and correspondence of the firm Bogle & Scott, tobacco merchants]

Footnotes

1. Charles Edward Buckland, Dictionary of Indian Biography
2. Stewart, Gordeon T., Journeys to Empire: Enlightenment, Imperialism, and the British Encounter with Tibet, 1774–1904, Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 15. ISBN 978-0-521-51502-3
3. Teltscher, Kate. (2006). The High Road to China: George Bogle, the Panchen Lama and the First British Expedition to Tibet, p. 26. Bloomsbury, London, 2006. ISBN 0-374-21700-9
4. Bernstein, Jeremy (2000). Dawning of the Raj: The Life and Trials of Warren Hastings. Ivan R. Dee. p. 5. ISBN 978-1-56663-281-2.
5. Teltscher, Kate. (2006). The High Road to China: George Bogle, the Panchen Lama and the First British Expedition to Tibet, p. 27. Bloomsbury, London, 2006. ISBN 0-374-21700-9
6. Henderson 1886.
7. Harris, Clare (2012). The Museum on the Roof of the World: Art, Politics, and the Representation of Tibet. University of Chicago Press. p. 29. ISBN 978-0-226-31747-2.
8. James Minahan (30 May 2002). Encyclopedia of the Stateless Nations: Ethnic and National Groups Around the World A-Z. ABC-CLIO. p. 1566. ISBN 978-0-313-07696-1.
9. Younghusband 1910, pp. 5–7.
10. Younghusband 1910, p. 9.
11. Stewart, op. cit. p. 145
12. Bernstein, Jeremy Dawning of the Raj The Life and Trials of Warren Hastings Chapter One, Prologue, George Bogle, Ivan R Dee, Lanham MD USA, 2000 ISBN 1-56663-281-1
13. Teltscher, Kate. (2006). The High Road to China: George Bogle, the Panchen Lama and the First British Expedition to Tibet, pp. 234–235; 252–253. Bloomsbury, London, 2006. ISBN 0-374-21700-9
14. Markham, Clements R. Narratives of the mission of George Bogle to Tibet: and of the journey of Thomas Manning to Lhasa, pp. cliv–clv. Trübner and Co., London. Second edition, 1879
15. Teltscher, op. cit., pp 257–260
16. Teltscher, op. cit., pp 265

Attribution

Henderson, Thomas Finlayson (1886). "Bogle, George" . In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. 5. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 302.

Bibliography

• Bernstein, Jeremy Dawning of the Raj The Life and Trials of Warren Hastings Chapter One, Ivan R Dee, Lanham MD USA, 2000 ISBN 1-56663-281-1
• Bogle, George, Hamilton, Alexander, and Lamb, Alastair. Bhutan and Tibet : the travels of George Bogle and Alexander Hamilton, 1774–1777. Hertingfordbury : Roxford Books, 2002
• Markham, Clements R. (editor). Narratives of the Mission of George Bogle to Tibet, and of the Journey of Thomas Manning to Lhasa, edited, with notes, and introduction and lives of Mr Bogle and Mr Manning. London 1876. Reprinted: New Delhi, Manjusri Pub. House, 1971.
• Stewart, Gordon T.: Journeys to Empire: Enlightenment, Imperialism and the British Encounter with Tibet, 1774–1904, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2009 ISBN 978-0-521-51502-3
• Teltscher, Kate. (2004). "Writing home and crossing cultures: George Bogle in Bengal and Tibet, 1770–1775." In: A New Imperial History: Culture, Identity and Modernity in Britain and the Empire, 1660–1840, edited by Kathleen Wilson, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2004. ISBN 0-521-00796-8
• Younghusband, Francis (1910). India and Tibet: a history of the relations which have subsisted between the two countries from the time of Warren Hastings to 1910; with a particular account of the mission to Lhasa of 1904. London: John Murray.

External links

http://www.rc.umd.edu/praxis/containmen ... scher.html in which Kate Teltscher entertainingly analyses Bogle’s letters.
http://atimes.com/atimes/China/HH19Ad02.html Asia Times review of Teltscher’s book.
http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/stecit/stecit14009.htm Brief entry about George Bogle's father (George Bogle of Daldowie), in "Curiosities of Glasgow citizenship", an ebook available via the Glasgow Digital Library
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

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Samuel Turner (diplomat)
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 9/10/19

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Samuel Turner (19 April 1759 – 2 January 1802) FRS was an English Asiatic traveller and a cousin of Warren Hastings, the first Governor of the Presidency of Fort William (Bengal).

Early life

Turner was born in Gloucestershire, England.

India and Tibet

After becoming a cadet with the East India Company (EIC) in 1780, Turner was subsequently promoted to ensign. Promotion followed to lieutenant on 8 August 1781 and to regimental captain on 18 March 1799. In February 1782, news having reached the headquarters of the EIC in Calcutta of the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, Warren Hastings proposed despatching a mission to Tibet with a message of congratulation designed to strengthen the amicable relations established by George Bogle during his 1774 visit to Tibet. With the assent of the EIC Court of Directors, Turner was appointed chief of the Tibet mission on 9 January 1783 with fellow EIC employee and amateur artist Samuel Davis as "Draftsman and Surveyor".[1] Following the route previously taken by Bogle, Turner arrived in Bhutan in June 1783 and stayed at the summer place of the Druk Desi, the country's ruler until 8 September. He then moved on to arrive at Shigatse in Tibet's Tsang Province on 22 September 1783 where an audience with the infant Panchen Lama followed on 4 December. Turner returned to the Governor-General's camp at Patna in 1784 where he reported that although unable to visit the Tibetan capital at Lhasa, he had received a promise that merchants sent to the country from India would be encouraged.[2] For his efforts in Bhutan and Tibet, Turner received the sum of £500.00 from the EIC.[3]

Turner served with distinction at the first Siege of Seringapatam in 1792 in command of a troop of Governor-General Lord Cornwallis' bodyguard of cavalry and later carried out a mission to the court of Tipu Sultan.[3] He accumulated a large amount of wealth in India and after a spell as a captain in the EIC's 3rd European regiment he returned to Europe where he purchased a country seat in Gloucestershire.

On 15 January 1801 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society then on 21 December the same year, while walking at night in the neighbourhood of Fetter Lane, London, he was seized with a paralytic stroke, and was taken to the workhouse in Shoe Lane. His name and address in St. James's Place were found; but he was too ill to be moved, and died on 2 January 1802. Buried in St James's Church, Piccadilly, his property in Gloucestershire went to his sisters, one of whom married Joseph White, Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford.[4]

Works

Turner was the author of An Account of an Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama in Tibet, containing a Narrative of a Journey through Bootan and part of Tibet, which was published in London in 1800. A French translation published in Paris followed the same year followed by a German translation at Berlin and Hamburg the next year. The book was the first account of a visit to Tibet by a British author as the accounts of Bogle and Manning were not published until 1875.

Notes

1. Davis, Samuel; Aris, Michael (1982). Views of Medieval Bhutan: the diary and drawings of Samuel Davis, 1783. Serindia. p. 31.
2. Younghusband 1910, p. 29.
3. Dodsley 1803, p. 493.
4. Dodsley 1803, p. 494.

References

• Dodsley, Robert (1803). The Annual Register, or a View of the history, politicks and literature of the year... Dodsley.
• Younghusband, Francis (1910). India and Tibet: a history of the relations which have subsisted between the two countries from the time of Warren Hastings to 1910; with a particular account of the mission to Lhasa of 1904. London: John Murray.

Attribution

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wheeler, Stephen Edward (1899). "Turner, Samuel (1749?-1802)". In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. 57. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 354–355.
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Tue Sep 10, 2019 8:01 am

Part 1 of 2

Samuel Davis (orientalist)
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Accessed: 9/10/19

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Samuel Davis (1760–1819) was an English soldier turned diplomat who later became a director of the East India Company (EIC). He was the father of John Francis Davis, one time Chief Superintendent of British Trade in China and second governor of Hong Kong.

Early life

Samuel was born in the West Indies the younger son of soldier John Davis, whose appointment as Commissary general there had been signed by King George II in 1759 and countersigned by William Pitt. After his father died, Davis returned to England with his mother (who was of Welsh descent, née Phillips) and his two sisters. He became a cadet of the EIC under the aegis of director Laurence Sulivan in 1788, and sailed for India aboard the Earl of Oxford, which also brought the artist William Hodges to India, arriving in Madras in early 1780.[1][2]

Bhutan

In 1783, Warren Hastings, the Governor of the Presidency of Fort William (Bengal) assigned Davis "Draftsman and Surveyor" on Samuel Turner's forthcoming mission to Bhutan and Tibet.[3][4] Unfortunately, the Tibetans (or more probably the Chinese ambans, the de facto authority in Tibet) viewed his "scientific" profession with suspicion and he was forced to remain in Bhutan until Turner and the others returned.[1] Whilst in Bhutan he turned his attention to recording the buildings and landscape of the country in a series of drawings. These were published some 200 years later as Views of Medieval Bhutan: the diary and drawings of Samuel Davis, 1783.

Bhagalpur

On his return from Bhutan, in around 1784 he became Assistant to the Collector of Bhagalpur and Registrar of its Adalat Court. In Bhagalpur he met lawyer and orientalist William Jones who had recently founded The Asiatic Society of which Davis subsequently became a member.[3] The two became firm friends based on their shared love of mathematics while along with another member of The Asiatic Society, Reuben Burrow, Davis studied astronomical tables obtained by the French astronomer Guillaume Le Gentil, French Resident at the Faizabad court of Shuja-ud-Daula who in turn had obtained them from Tiruvallur Brahmins on the Coromandel Coast. The tables showed accurate Indian scientific knowledge of astronomy dating back to the third century BCE. As part of his research, Davis also learned Sanskrit and Hindi.[5] For the next ten years, Jones and Davis carried on a running correspondence on the topic of jyotisha or Hindu astronomy.[3] While in Bhagalpur, Davis also met landscape artist Thomas Daniell and his nephew William whom he encouraged to visit the Himalayas. In 1792 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.[6]

Burdwan and Benares

Image
Engraving of the attack on the Davis residence in Benares, 14 January 1799.

Davis' next appointment was as Collector of Burdwan, a town in the Bengal Presidency. He then spent 1795–1800 in Benares (now Varanasi), this time as Magistrate of the district and city court. Benares was also home to former ruler of Oudh State, Wazir Ali Khan, who had been forcibly deposed by the British in 1797. In 1799, the British authorities decided to remove Ali Khan further from his former realm and as a result rioting broke out. Davis singlehandly defended his family by shepherding them to the roof of his residence and defending the single access point with a pike.[7] The incident was the subject of a book by his son, John F. Davis, entitled Vizier Ali Khan or The Massacre of Benares, A Chapter in British Indian History published in london in 1871.

Later career

During the remainder of his stay in India, Davis held a succession of more senior positions including Superintendent-General of Police and Justice of the Peace at Calcutta, member of the Board of Revenue and Accountant-General of India. He resigned from the civil service in February 1806 and after a stop at St. Helena to engage in his love for painting, arrived back in England in July the same year.

He was elected a director of the EIC in October at the instigation of President of the Board of Control, Henry Dundas and to the latter's disgust, acted independently thereafter until his death in 1819.

"At the time of the renewal of the [company's] Charter in 1814, the Committee of the House of Commons entrusted him [Davis] with the task of drawing up, in their name, the memorable "Fifth Report on the Revenues of Bengal", which remains a monument of his intimate acquaintance with the internal administration of India"[8]


Personal life

While in Burdwan, Davis married Henrietta Boileau, who was from a refugee French noble family[7] who had come to England in the early eighteenth century from Languedoc in the South of France. She was the first cousin of John Boileau, 1st Baronet of Tacolnestone Hall in Norfolk. The couple went on to have four sons and seven daughters. Their eldest son John Francis Davis, became second Governor of Hong Kong followed by Lestock-Francis and Sullivan, both of whom died in India in 1820 and 1821 respectively. Their daughters were as follows:[9]

• Henrietta-Anne, who married Henry Baynes Ward in 1821.
• Anne, who married Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Dundas Campbell in 1827
• Maria–Jane, who married Lieutenant Colonel John Rivett-Carnac, RN in 1826.[10]
• Elizabeth, who married Sir Henry Willock, KLS.
• Frances, who died in 1828.
• Alicia, who married the Reverend John Lockwood, rector of Kingham in 1832.
• Julia, who in 1839 married John Edwardes Lyall, Advocate-General of Bengal, who died in 1845 of cholera.

Death

Davis died on 16 June 1819 at Birdhurst Lodge near Croyden in Surrey, which is believed to have been his country home.[11]

References

1. Markham 1876, p. lxxi.
2. Davis & Aris 1982, pp. 30–31.
3. Davis & Aris 1982, pp. 31.
4. Heawood, Edward (2012). A History of Geographical Discovery: In the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Cambridge University Press. p. 380. ISBN 978-1-107-60049-2.
5. Franklin, Michael J. (2011). 'Orientalist Jones': Sir William Jones, Poet, Lawyer, and Linguist, 1746–1794. OUP Oxford. p. 223. ISBN 978-0-19-953200-1.
6. "Fellow Details". Royal Society. Retrieved 20 January 2017.
7. Davis & Aris 1982, pp. 34.
8. Davis & Aris 1982, p. 36.
9. Burke, Bernard (1860). A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire. London: Harrison and Sons. p. 271.
10. "Marriages". Hampshire Chronicle. 20 March 1826. Retrieved 28 August 2015 – via British Newspaper Archive. (Subscription required (help)).
11. Davis & Aris 1982, pp. 38.

Bibliography

• Davis, Samuel; Aris, Michael (1982). Views of Medieval Bhutan: the diary and drawings of Samuel Davis, 1783. Serindia.
• Markham, Clements (1876). Narratives of the Mission of George Bogle to Tibet and of the Journey of Thomas Manning to Lhasa. London: Trübner & Co., Ludgate Hill.

************************************

Pictures from "Views of Medieval Bhutan: The Diary and Drawings of Samuel Davis, 1783, by Michael Aris"

Image
"The Palace of Panukka," watercolour by Samuel Davis, 1783. By courtesy of the India Office Library and Records (WD 3271)

Image
The Daniells picnicking at the hot springs of Sitakund with Samuel Davis. Detail of a wash-drawing by Davis, 1790. By courtesy of the Victoria Memorial, Calcutta (R 1544).

Image
Detail of a watercolour by Samuel Davis of the Kotwali Gate at Gaur, 1791. It is presumed to be Thomas Daniell who is shown here sketching. Private Collection.

Image
Engraved dedication and title-plate of Willian Daniell, Views of Bhutan: From the Drawings of Samuel Davis, Esq. (London, 1813). By courtesy of Dr. Maurice Shellim.

Image
"Tasee Punchou [Tashi Phuntso] the ... in office next to the Soubah at Buxadewar ...", 1783, watercolour. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. This is one of only two portraits among the Bhutan drawings of Davis. The monk official portrayed was perhaps the same one who welcomed Bogle's mission to Buxaduar in 1774. "The commander (Pasang Katam, vulgo Buxa Subah) being at Bahar, I was visited by his dewan with presents, a white Pelong handkerchief (the general nazir throughout Bhutan), butter, rice, milk, and some coarse tea. We were detained for a day for want of coolies: Bogle, Narratives, ed. Markham, pp. 16-17."

Image
The village of Buxaduar, wrongly titled "Thibit", 1783, watercolour. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. Buxaduar, or Pasakha (sceMap) as it is properly known to the Bhutanese, is the first village on the old route north from Bengal, and is populated today by people of mixed descent. In the eighteenth century it was reckoned among the eighteen duars (passes or "gates") extending into what is now Indian territory, over which Bhutan had territorial rights. "The road became uneven; and we reached the foot of the hills at about two o'clock; walk; ascent at first easy; way through a wood; some fine groves of first-rate trees; grows steep; narrow path zigzag up the hill; what a road for troops!; about four miles to climb; many little springs to drink at; from the bottom of the hills to their summit covered with wood; variety of well-grown trees of the largest size; some grand natural amphitheatres, with the noise of waterfalls. We arrived at Buxa-Duar towards evening; situated on a hill, with much higher ones above it, glens under it, and a 3-feet walls of loose stones about it; a fine old banian tree; that's all: Bogle, Narratives, ed. Markham, p. 16." "Mr. Davis had taken a view of Buxadewar [untraced], which was lying on the table: the soobah was instantly struck with it, and recognized all the different parts of his habitation; the beams, the stairs, the people looking out at the windows, and even the packages that lay beneath. He staid with us till the servants came to prepare for dinner: Turner, Embassy, p. 30."

Image
"Murichom to Choka", 1783, watercolour. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. "We had now to climb on foot up a very high mountain; the road led along its side, in a serpentine and exceedingly steep direction, the ascent almost all the way being by stone steps, which in some places were sustained only by beams let into the rock, and secured with cramps of iron. It was after much labour, and repeated halting, that we reached the summit. At every pause we beheld a different prospect, each of which, perhaps, might justly be reckoned amongst the grandest and most awful in nature. Cascades of water issuing from the bosoms of lofty mountains, clothed in noble trees, and hiding their heads in the clouds: abrupt precipices, deep dells, and the river dashing its waters with astonishing rapidity, over the huge stones and broken rocks below, composed the sublime and variegated picture: Turner, Embassy, pp. 53-4. "

Image
"View between Murichom and Choka," 1813. Source: William Daniell, Views in Bootan, plate 5. India Office Library and Records, Dept. of Prints and Drawings. The figure seated in the foreground with bow and quiver is wearing a costume rarely seen in Bhutan today called a "pakhi", woven from the fibre of nettles and crossed over the chest. Cane helmets such as he is wearing are now found only in temples dedicated to the guardian divinities, where they were deposited as offerings. This is the only one of Daniell's six Bhutan aquatints for which the original by Davis has not been traced. For the originals of the other five, see Plates 5, 22, 23, 31, 36 below. "This view occurs on the third stage towards Tassisudon [Tashicho Dzong]. The mountains in this part of the road appear as if separated by violence to give a passage to the river Teenchoo. The side up which the road ascends is precipitous, and of an height to render the climbing of it intimidating to those less accustomed to it than the natives. The hoarse murmurs of the Teenchoo are heard, though the river is not always seen as the traveller ascends: William Daniell, Views in Bootan, caption [by Davis ?] to plate 5."  

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"Choka Castle in Bootan," 1783, waterclour. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. This fort was probably built in the late seventeenth century to guard the trade route south to India and to control the surrounding district, but its foundation finds no mention in the local records. Its ruins were quarried in the mid-1960s when the motor road was being constructed. "The castle of Chuka makes a very respectable appearance. It is a large square building, placed on elevated ground; there is only one entrance into it, by a flight of steps, and through a spacious gateway , with large heavy doors: it is built of stone and the walls are of a prodigious thickness. We were conducted hither, on our entrance, and lodged by the commandant in a large and lofty apartment, in which there were two or three loop holes towards the river, and on the other side, a projecting balcony: the floor was boarded with thick planks that were pretty well joined together. Turner, Embassy, pp. 55-6. Choka castle, the prominent feature in this view, is composed of three separate buildings, which, with a wall on the fourth side, enclose a quadrangle court-yard, and form altogether a post of ample dimensions, and of sufficient strength, for any purpose of defence that is likely to be required in a region so difficult of access, and possessing so few qualities to invite hostile intrusion as this part of Bootan. The Teenchoo is sunk too deep in its rocky chasm to be seen in this view. The strong vegetation afforded by a warm climate and abundant moisture, is here seen on the sides of the mountains in a degree not perceptibly diminished from what was observable on the preceding stages from Bengal: but on the next stage, which leads up the hill on the right hand, in the middle distance of the view, the great acclivity of the road is soon found to produce a change of temperature and a difference in the vegetation: William Daniell, Views in Bootan, excerpt from caption [by Davis ?] to plate 2."

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"Murichom", 1783, pencil and wash drawing. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. "We arrived at Muri-jong ["Murichom" of the Map] as they were beating the evening tom-tom. It consists of twenty houses, some of them stone; many inscribed banners; and a good deal of arable land and cattle. I planted fifteen potatoes: Bogle, Narratives, ed. Markham, p. 20." "Murichom consists of about twenty houses, in their structure much superior to any I had yet seen in Bootan. They are built of stone, with clay as cement, of a square form, and the walls narrowing from the foundations to the top. The roof is supported clear of the wall, has a very low pitch, and is composed of fir boards placed lengthways on cross beams and joists of fir, and confined by large stones laid upon the top. The lower part of the house accommodates hogs, cows, and other animals . The family occupies the first story, to which they ascend by a ladder, composed of one half of a split fir tree; into the flat side of which, rude holes are cut at proper distances to serve as steps: Turner, Embassy, p. 50."

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Figures crossing a bridge over a ravine, no title, 1783, wash-drawing. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. "Three or four fine waterfalls were passed; one jell perpendicular about 40 feet from the top of a rock; another a stream foaming and tumbling over large stones; another embosomed in a fine grove, with arches formed by the trees and rocks. There were wooden bridges over all the rivulets which ran from them: Bogle, Narratives, ed. Markham, pp. 19-20."

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"View from Murichom looking northward up the Channel of the Teenchoo on the road to Tasissudon, Butan," 1783, watercolour. Victoria and Albert Museum, London. "May 22 and 23 [1783]. . . . Many European plants are to be met with on the road to Murishong; many different sorts of mosses, fern, wild thyme, peaches, willow, chickweed, and grasses common to the more southern parts of Europe; nettles, thistles, dock, strawberry, raspberry, and many destructive creepers, some peculiar to Europe. Murishong is the first pleasant and healthy spot to be met with on this side of Boutan. It lies high, and much of the ground about it, is cleared and cultivated; the soil, rich and fertile, produces good crops. The only plant now under culture, is a species of the polygonum of Linnaeus, producing a triangular seed, nearly the sice of barley, and the common food of the inhabitants. It was now the beginning of their harvest; and the ground yields them, as in other parts ofBoutan, a second crop of rice. May 25. On the road to Chooka found all the Murishong plants, cinnamon tree, willow, and one or two firs; strawberries every where and very good, and a few bilberry plants: Saunders. "Account", in Turner, Embassy, pp. 390- 1 . "  

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Waterfall, no title, c. 1800, wash-drawing, British Museum, Dept. of Prints and Drawings. "On the face of the opposite mountain is a water-fall, called Minzapeezo, which issues in a collected body, but descends from so great a perpendicular height, that before it is received in the thick shade below, it is nearly dissipated, and appears like the steam arising from boiling water: Turner, Embassy, p. 53."

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"On the Road near Choka in Bootan," 1783, pencil drawing. Author's collection.

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William Daniell after Davis, engraved by J. Redaway, "Crossing a Torrent in Bootan," 1837, engraving on steel. "A very curious and simple bridge, for the accommodation of single passengers, communicated between this and the opposite mountain. It consisted of two large ropes made of twisted creepers, stretched parallel to each other, and encircled with a hoop. The traveller, who wishes to cross over from hence, has only to place himself between the ropes, and sit down on the hoop, seizing one rope in each hand, by means of which he slides himself along, and crosses an abyss on which I could not look without shuddering. Custom, however, has rendered it familiar, and easy to those who are in the practice of thus passing from one mountain to the other, as it saves them, by this expedient, a laborious journey of several days: Turner, Embassy, p. 54. "

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"The Chain Bridge in Bhootan," 1783, watercolour. Victoria Memorial, Calcutta, formerly in the possession of Sir Leicester Beaufort, deposited by Lord Curzon. This is one of several iron-chain suspension bridges attributed locally to the great Tibetan saint Thangtong Gyalpo (1385-1464), who is now reckoned by historians of bridge building to be "the earliest known builder of iron chain bridges": Tom F. Peters et al., The Development of Long-Span Bridge Building (Zurich, 1980), p. 51. There is however no mention of this particular bridge in his Bhutanese biography. None of the sain'ts bridges in western Bhutan are still standing. "In a nation where no records are kept to perpetuate the memory of the achievement of genius, and in which the minds of the people are remarkably prone to superstition, perhaps more than a century may not be necessary, to deify the author of a great work. Thus it is, that the bridge of Chuka is reckoned to be of more than mortal production. No less a being than the dewta Tchuptchup [=Tibetan "drubthop", Sanskrit mahasiddha, "great magician", title of Thangton Gyalpo] could possibly have contrived so curious a piece of mechanism. Neither the origin nor the history of this renowned Tehuptchup, can be traced with any degree of certainty, but the works they assign to him, the road up the mountain we lately passed (many parts of which are held, it may be said, upon a precipice, by pins and cramps of iron uniting together the stones that form it), and the bridge at Chuka, do credit to a genius, who deservedly ranks high upon the rolls of fame, and justly claims from the inhabitants, decided tokens of respect and gratitude: Turner, Embassy, pp. 54-6.

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"Kapta [Chapcha] Castle", 1783, wash-drawing. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.

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William Daniell after Davis, engraved by J. Cousen, "Capta Castle, Bootan," 1837, engraving on steel. Like the earlier Chukha Dzong, this fort was probably built in the seventeenth century to guard the trade route and control the surrounding district. The central tower would have contained two storeys of temples. Formerly the seat of a minor "ponlop" (district governor), the building survives today in a somewhat altered condition as a centre of local government. "The castle of Chupka, or Kepta, is built about half way up the mountain, in a bleak, but beautifully romantic situation: the mountains in its neighbourhood, I judged to be the highest we had yet seen in Bootan. The light clouds in some parts swiftly glided past their sides; in others they had assembled, and sat with deep and heavy shade upon their brows: and as they were continually shifting their position, they varied and improved the views. On the summit of Lomeela mountain, bearing from hence to the east, and in direct distance about five miles, there lay a great deal of unmelted snow: we felt the cold even at noon: Turner, Embassy, p. 58."

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"Near Chepta [Chapcha] in Bhootan," 1783, watercolour. Victoria Memorial, Calcutta, R. 1731, formerly in the possession of Sir Leicester Beaufort, deposited by Lord Curzon, 1921. A wash-drawing of the same view is in the Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. "I remember to have seen one of these buildings, which was dedicated to the junction of the Hatchieu [Hachu] with the Tehintchieu [Thinchu rivers] near Kepta [Chapcha]. They are often placed at the meeting of two principal roads. I have seen them also at the base of a remarkable mountain, and they are invariably met with, at the entrance of every capital village: Turner, Embassy, p. 9

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"View of the Mountain Downgala [Dongkarla] (On the summit, a religious habitation Downgachine). Taken in the village Puga [Paga] on the road to Tassisudon in Bhootan," 1783, watercolour. Victoria Memorial, Calcultta. Formerly in the possession of Warren Hastings, deposited 1916.

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William Daniell after Davis (Victoria Memorial, Calcutta, R. 1716 watercolour, and R. 1724 pencil sketch), engraved by M.J. Starling, "Loomno, looking towards Tassisudon," 1839, engraving on steel. "As we approached Nomnoo, the husbandmen were busied in the fields; the reapers were cutting down the corn with sickles, which others collected in handfuls, and bound up with a wisp of straw: we saw also oxen yoked in a plough, which was guided by a boy at the plough tail. We came early to Nomnoo, and were lodged in a large apartment in a spacious house, the walls of which were black from the smoke of a fire, which in the winter they commonly burn upon a large flat stone, in the middle of the room; the commodiousness of a chimney being here unknown: Turner, Embassy, p. 61."

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"A Bhootan Landscape", 1783, watercolour. Victoria Memorial, Calcutta, R. 1713, deposited by the Director-General of Archaeology in India, 1932. Unidentified village with soldiers in foreground, probably on the first stage beyond the Pachu-Thinchu confluence towards the capital at Thinphu. "The road, on Friday the 30th of May, led by the river along the sides of the mountains, and there were few inequalities from hence to Nomnoo, and easy stages of about eight miles. We saw hermitages and villages spread over the sides and summits of the mountains, to each of which is allotted a spacious portion of cultivated ground: still much more appeared capable of improvement; for over the whole of these mountains, except where precipices or steep points project, there is a great deal of soil; yet vegetation is not so strong as the neighbourhood of Bengal. The trees are no where so numerous or flourishing, nor do the pines grow with that luxuriance, which might be expected in a favourable soil: Turner, Embassy, pp. 60-1."

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"Wankaka," 1783, wash-drawing. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. Unidentified monastery. "The road from hence [Paga] to Tassesudon [Tashicho Dzong], presents us with little that we have not met with; fewer strawberries; some very good orchards of peaches, apricots, apples, and pears. The fruit formed, and will be ripe in August and September. Met with two sorts of cranberry, one very good. Saw the fragaria sterilis and a few poppies. At Wanakha found a few turnips, shallots, cucumbers, and gourds. Near Tassesudon, the road is lined with many different species of the rose, and a few jessamine plants. The soil is light, and the hills in many places barren, rocky, and with very little verdure. The rock in general laminated and rotten, with many small particles of talc in every part of the country, incorporated with the stones and soil. Some limestone, and appearance of good chalk. Several good and pure springs of water: Saunders, "Account", in Turner, Embassy, pp. 393-4."

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View of Tashicho Dzong from above, no title, 1783, wash-drawing. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. "Although the building was entirely rebuilt, except for the central "citadel" and one temple, in the late 1960s in order to convert it into the permanent seat of the modern government of Bhutan, it retains the basic layout seen here in the reconstruction of 1772. Bogle wrote that, "The building of it stripped naked several mountains". The palace is divided into courts, flanked with galleries, supported on wooden pillars running round them, like the inns in England. The different officers have each their apartments. The gylongs [Buddhist monks] live in a large church, besides which there is a smaller one where they officiate, and where the larger images are kept. These images are mostly decent and well-proportioned figures, sitting cross-legged. There is a large gallery above the church, painted with festoons of death's-heads and bones, where folks go to see the ceremonies. I went once or twice myself; and the Rajah, thinking I was fond of it, used to send for me to church by break of day and at all hours, and congratulated me greatly on my good fortune in happening to be at Tassisudon during the grand festival [the "Thinphu Dromcho"]. All the governors of provinces repaired there to the presence, and there were [monastic] dances every day in one of the courts of the palace: Bogle, Narratives, ed. Markham, p. 27."

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"The Palace of the Deib Rajah at Tassisudon [Tashicho Dzong]", 1783, watercolour. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. "The castle, or palace, of Tassisudon [seen here from the south] stands near the centre of the valley, and is a building of stone, of a quadrangular form. The length of the front, exceeds that of the sides by one-third: the walls are lofty, and as I conjecture upwards of thirty feet high, and they are sloped a little from the foundation to the top: above the middle space, is a row of projecting balconies, to each of which are curtains made of black hair, which are always drawn at night: below, the walls are pierced with very small windows, which I judge to be intended rather for the purpose of admitting air, than light. There are two entrances into the palace: the one facing south is by a flight of wooden steps, edged with plates of iron, beginning on a level with the ground on the outside, and rising to the more elevated terrace within, the whole being comprehended within the thickness of the wall. The other, the grand entrance, is on the east front, which is ascended by a flight of stone steps . . . We passed through this gateway, and came opposite to the central square building, which I must call the citadel; and this is the habitation of the supreme Lama: Turner, Embassy, pp. 90-1." "The magnitude, regularity, and showy decorations of this edifice, combined with the numerous clusters of houses and well cultivated state of the adjacent land, produced a favourable contrast with the wild and solitary aspect of the country through which the embassy had yet advanced, and afforded a favourable impression of the intelligence and civilization of the inhabitants of Bootan . . . On one of the adjacent hills is seen the rajah's villa of Wandechy [Plates 34-5], to which he occasionally retires by the zig-zag road which is visible on the side of the hill. The building seen lower down is a small castle or fortified house, the residence of a lama, or priest of high rank [Plates 32-3]. The red stripe observable on all these buildings, has a reference to the religion of the inhabitants: it invariably occurs where there is a chapel, or where the place is specifically dedicated to Budha: William Daniell, Views in Bootan, excerpt from caption [by Davis ?] to plate 3." 

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"Tassisudon [Taschicho Dzong], Bhutan / House where embassy was Lodged / Covered Bridge / the Palace," 1783, watercolour. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. "The summer capital of Tashicho Dzong in the Thimphu valley was built in 1642 on the orders of Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyel, unifier of Bhutan, on the foundations of an older fort called Dongon or Donyuk Dzong. Nothing of the original building remains. After its destruction by fire in 1772, a new site was found and the fortress was very quickly rebuilt by command of the 16th Deb Raja. The hardship caused to the local population, and his consequent unpopularity, contributed to his downfall in 1773. By the time the first British mission led by Bogle arrived in 1774 the building, seen here from the north, had been standing for only about a year. The house where the missions of 1774 and 1783 were accommodated, seen here to the right above the river, was undoubtedly much older. We were accommodated in a good house near the palace; and soon found it so cold that I was glad to hang my room, which was a wooden balcony [visible here], with Bhutan blankets. The window looked to the river, and commanded the best prospect: Bogle, Narratives, ed. Markham, p. 23." "Our habitation, which was within a stone's throw of the palace, was extremely commodious, and well adapted to our use. We entered, by a door on the south side, into a square court-yard; not very large, but it served to confine our cattle, and, indeed more than we wished to have there . . . We inhabited the upper story, which displayed a good suite of rooms, boarded, and divided by doors that turned on pivots. The eastern front next the river had a commodious balcony, which projected sufficiently to command a view of as much of the valley as was visible from any one point . . .: Turner, Embassy, pp. 93-4." "Though the ambassador's house exhibits no appearance of diplomatic dignity, it was clean and commodious, and formed with the adjoining buildings a square court-yard, with stabling for the horses, and lodging for the servants and native attendants . . . The trees near this building are intended to be portraits of two pear-trees and a peach-tree. The latter hides the view of part of the Palace. The bridge leads to a level lawn or meadow, formed on the margin of the Teenchoo by alluvion, and ornamented with willows planted in rows. To this spot the order of priests from the castle occasionally repair for the purpose of religious ceremonial, and at other times for recreation. Two of these persons are represented in their usual dress, made of woollen cloth, of which there is abundance, and some of good quality, manufactured in Bootan. The rapid descent of the river, when swollen by the rains, renders it necessary to secure the bank, which is done in the manner represented in the view: William Daniell, Views in Bootan, caption [by Davis ?] to plate 3."  

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"Tassisudon [Tashicho Dzong] -- House in which the Embassy was Lodged," 1783, watercolour. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. "The palace of Tassisudon is situated in a valley about five miles long and one broad, entirely surrounded with high mountains. The river Chinchu [Thinchu] gallops by; the low grounds near it being covered with rice, and well peopled. Villages are scattered on the brow of the hills. Immediately behind Tassisudon there is a very high mountain . . . and some solitary cottages, the retreat of dervises, are here and there dropped as from the clouds. In these airy abodes they pass their days in counting their beads, and look down with indifference on all the business and bustle of the world, from which they are entirely excluded. The palace is a very large building, and contains near 3000 men, and not a woman. Of these about 1000 may be gylongs [Buddhist monks], some of the former chiefs [the ousted 16th Deb Raja] adherents, who are kept in a kind of imprisonment, and the rest the Rajah and Lama's officers, and all their train of servants. A tower, about five or six stories high, rises in the middle, and is appropriated to Lama-Rimboche [the acting head of state - see Appendix]: Bogle, Narratives, ed. Markham, pp. 23, 26." 

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"Bootan," three pencil studies of a Bhutanese warrior. Private collection. "The Booteeas are a strong and hardy race, by no means deficient in manly courage. Their feeble mode of attack and defence is, therefore, imputable only to their want of discipline; to their not fighting in compact files or platoons; and to their consequent distrust of each other; and something must also be attributed to [illegible] inexperience of war: for indeed, among this crowd of [illegible], we find merely husbandmen and villagers, called at [illegible] from their peaceful occupations to the field of battle. Every kind of discipline and order is totally disregarded in their mode of warfare, [illegible] is more practised than open assault; they engage in general [illegible] and wait their opportunity to fire unobserved. [illegible] so careful to conceal themselves, that seldom [illegible] but the top of a tufted helmet, or the end of a bow [illegible], that in their contests very few are killed. The accoutrements of a fighting [illegible], are extremely cumbrous. A prodigious deal of clothing surrounds the body: besides the common [illegible] very often a blanket, or thick quilted jacket. [illegible] as the helmet, (which is made either of stained cane, [illegible], or else of cotton rope, quilted between two cloths, [illegible] occasionally turn down over the ears, and a piece [illegible] the nose,) if not absolutely proof against the stroke of [illegible] arrow, must at least considerably weaken its force. He [illegible] upon his arm a large convex shield of painted cane, coiled [illegible] and a long straight sword is worn across the body, thrust [illegible] the belt before. To these arms must be added, a bow, and a quiver of arrows, slung by a belt behind the back; the arrows being commodiously drawn from it over the left shoulder. The bow is held in the right hand; it is commonly six feet long, made of bamboo, and, when unstrung, is perfectly straight . . . . . . Their fire-arms are very contemptible; evidently of no use, but in the fairest weather, when the match will burn, and the priming, in an open pan, take fire. In the management of the sword and shield they are sufficiently dexterous, and undoubtedly most excellent archers: Turner, Embassy, pp. 117-20." 

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"View of Bhootan," 1783, watercolour. Victoria Memorial, Calcutta, R. 1254, formerly in the possession of Warren Hastings, deposited 1916.

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William Daniell after Davis, engraved by W.J. Cooke. "Guard House near Tassisudon," 1838, engraving on steel. "A soldier in Bhutan has not a distinct profession. Every man is girt with a sword, and trained to the use of the bow. The hall of every public officer is hung round with matchlocks, with swords and shields. In times of war or danger, his servants and retainers are armed with these; the inhabitants, assembled from the different villages, are put under his command, and he marches in person against the enemy. The common weapons are a broadsword of a good temper, with shagreen handle; a cane-coiled target, painted with streaks of red; a bow formed of a piece of bamboo; a quiver of a junk of the same tree, the arrows of reeds, barbed, and often covered with a poison said to be so subtile that the slightest wound becomes mortal in a few hours. Some few are armed with a pike. They put great confidence in firearms; but are not so cunning in the use of the matchlock, as of their ancient weapons, the sword and the bow. Their warlike garb is various and not uniform. Some wear a cap quilted, or of cane and sugar-loaf shape, with a tuft of horse-hair stained; others, an iron-netted hood, or a helmet with the like ornament; under these they often put false locks to supply the want of their own hair, which among this tribe of Bhutanese is worn short. Sometimes a coat of mail is to be seen. In peace as well as in war, they are dressed in short trousers, like the highland philabeg; woollen hose, soled with leather and gartered under the knee; a jacket or tunic, and over all two or three striped blankets. Their leaders only are on horseback, and are covered with a cap, rough with red-dyed cowtails [yak-tails]. They sleep in the open air, and keep themselves warm with their plaids and their whisky. When they go to war or to an engagement, they whoop and howl, to encourage each other and intimidate the enemy. They are fond of attacking in the night time. As to their courage in battle, those can best speak who have tried it. I saw only some skirmishes: Bogle, Narratives, ed. Markham, pp. 62-3."

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View of part of the Thinphu valley, looking northwest, the temple of Dechen Phodrang visible on a hillock in the middle distance, and two monks in the foreground, no title, 1783, watercolour. Victoria Memorial, Calcutta R. 1722, deposited by the Director-General of Archaeology in India, 1952.

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"Near Tasissudon," 1783, wash-drawing. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. "This 'choten' shrine has a most unusual bulbous form that is not seen in Bhutan today. The imposing structure seen here stood on the banks of the Thinchu river, a few hundred yards east of the fortress of Tashicho Dzong. No trace of it remains today. A similar building is seen, placed like a centinel, as it were, by the road side, on each approach towards every consecrated habitation, proportionate in its dimensions to the magnitude and importance of the edifice with which it is connected: on each of the three great roads, that lead to Tassisudon, a very spacious one is found. They have one small doorway, which always remains closed [evidently not this one], at least I never could succeed in my endeavour to obtain a view of the interior; yet such is the superstitious respect of the inhabitants for its contents, that they constantly uncover their heads, and if travelling on horseback, dismount and walk while they pass by them: Turner, Embassy, p. 97." "The temples of Bode in Ceylong, Siam, and Pegu, as described by travellers, are generally solid structures of different forms. The temple shewn in the view is of this class, but enclosed in a building to defend it from the weather. It is erected on a level slip of alluvial land formed on the side of the river Teenchoo, about a mile below Tassisudon, and it serves the adjacent villagers for the exercise of their devotion. The idol is to be viewed in a niche on the side of the vase-shaped temple. In the distance is seen a small villa of the Rajah's [see Plates 34-5], and the view terminates with the mountain behind Tassisudon. The high poles erected at the angles of the building are such as occur throughout the country on elevated points of the road, or near temples and public edifices. They carry a strip of cloth, on which, in repetition from top to bottom, is printed the devout sentence - Om-ane-pee-mee-hon [Om mani padme hum]: William Daniell, Views in Bootan, caption [by Davis ?] to plate 6."  

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The temple of Dechen Phodrang, Thinphu, no title, c. 1800, wash-drawing by an unknown artist after Davis. The original watercolour, much faded, upon which this view is based is in the Victoria Memorial, Calcutta, R. 1728.
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

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Part 2 of 2

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Engraving by James Basire after a copy of Davis, "The Residence of Lam' Ghassa-too," The 'Palace of Great Happiness' (Dechen Phodrang) may have been the seat of the incarnations of Jampel Dorje (1631-?), who was the son of the founder of Bhutan, Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyel. "The low hill on which the palace, or residence, of Lam' Ghassatoo stands, is upon the left [of the site of the previous fortress], and as long as they lasted, we were induced to loiter away many an evening, in picking strawberries from its sides, which were clothed with them from its foot to the very foundation of the palace walls. The Gylongs [Buddhist monks] used to look at us from the windows with amazement . . . Our return, when we chose to vary from the road by which we came [on our walks back to our lodgings], was in front of the palace of Lam' Ghassatoo, on the south side of which was a long narrow tract of level ground, supporting many tall flagstaffs, that had narrow banners of white cloth reaching nearly from one end to the other, and inscribed with the mystic words, Oom maunie paimee oom: Turner, Embassy, pp. 95, 96-7."

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 The temple of Wangdutse, no title, 1783, wash-drawing. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. "The Raja [Jigme Senge] having determined, before the great festival, to retire to his villa ("Wandechy" of the Map] overhung, commanding a beautiful prospect of the valley' the castle, and the river, with many populous settlements, distributed over the surrounding mountains . . . Two musicians, placed at a distance, played upon reed instruments, in wild and not unharmonious strains, while the Raja held us in conversation, on the customs and produce of foreign countries; subjects on which he sought for information, with insatiable avidity. [The Raja speaks to them about "a race of people, of uncommon stature, inhabiting a prodigiously high mountain" east of Bhutan, also another race who live in the same area north of Assam who have "short straight tails, which, according to report, were extremely inconvenient to them, as they were inflexible"; and about "a sort of horse, with a horn growing from the middle of his forehead". The Raja continued with an account of his own pilgrimage incognito to Lhasa.] As the hour of dinner now approached, we were desirous awhile to stroll and look about us, which as soon as the Raja understood, he recommended to us to view the inside of his villa . . . On the lower floor we found a superb temple, in which some of the Gylongs [Buddhist monks] are perpetually employed in reading their sacred writings . . . Some mythological paintings, and symbols of their system of creation, decorated the walls; and in a large hall adjoining, were hung up representations of the city of Lassa, and the monastery of Pootalah, the residence of Dalai Lama; of Lubrong, the residence of Teshoo Lama, in Tibet; and of Cattamandu, the capital of Nipal, and Patan, in the same kingdom, as well as of other places of famed resort. Their representations partook both of plan and perspective; and, without the advantages of light and shade, a pretty good idea of the stile of building peculiar to each country might be collected from them . . . Some time elapsed, though we hastily ran over the different rooms; and when we descended to the pavilion, we were immediately called to dinner . . . The Raja supplied a dish of strange heterogeneous composition, for which, not all his rhetoric could give us a relish. It was an olio, consisting of rancid butter, various vegetables, rice, spices, and fat pork: a meat against which, our experience in this country, had inspired us with an invincible prejudice. The fermented infusion, called Chong, was more acceptable, and we drank of it plentifully. [The day ended with] a bull fight, between two animals, the strongest and fiercest of the species I ever beheld: Turner, Embassy, pp. 154-9."

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William Daniell after an untraced original by Davis, engraved by J. Redaway, "The Palace at Wandechy, Bootan," 1837, engraving on steel.

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"View near Tasisudon in Butan," 1783, watercolour. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. The cantilever bridge seen here across the Thinchu river has been replaced with a modern motor-bridge. It retains its old name, "The Bridge of Prophecy" (Lungtenzam). "A narrow slip of three or four miles in length, and in its widest part not exceeding one mile in breadth, has been made choice of (or the situation of the capital. It may rather be termed, I think, a softened glen, which lying betwixt the vast mountains that give a passage to the river Tehintchieu [Thinchu], ornament its border, by an easy slope of their bases to its sides; thus forming a bank of the richest soil, which the industrious Bootea well knows how to cultivate. It was, upon our arrival, luxuriantly clothed with the most promising crops of rice, which, in defect of rain, all the springs of the surrounding mountains, are artificially conducted to fertilize. There is no town, nor indeed any house, except that which we occupied, within a mile of the palace; but a few clusters of houses, distributed in different parts among the fields, when the eye is weary of contemplating the bold features of near and distant mountains, and scanning their wonderful combinations, serve as points of rest, and call back the wandering mind from a rude incoherent chaos, to repose amidst the fruitful and ingenious efforts of husbandry and population: Turner, Embassy, pp. 89-90." "The direction of this view, taken three miles below rassisudon, is on the course of the Teenchoo in its rapid descent towards Bengal. Seen in profile, the breadth of the bridge, which is about fifteen feet, scarcely appears. The buildings on each side of the river are such as often occur in Bootan by the road side: the most distant is of that class, which consists of a solid wall built to receive the red stripe, which is symbolical, and never fails to adorn religious structures. It bears likewise inscriptions in a character which appeared to the travellers to be deva-nagri, conveying, as they were informed, religious and moral instruction. It has niches, in which are sometimes placed idols, to be viewed through gratings, in a mode not dissimilar to what is observable in Roman Catholic countries, or the niche may be found to contain a wheel, the barrel of which encloses a roll of paper, printed all over with the sentence Om-ane-pee-mec-hon [Om mani padme hum]. This sentence is repeated by probationers for the priesthood during their noviciate, and by other devout persons as they tell their beads. Travellers are expected as they pass to give the wheel a twirl. The building on the foreground was converted into a post to command the passage of the river, in the course of the insurrection which happened when the embassy was at Tassisudon. [See Plate 28.] In the village seen on the summit of the hill in the middle of the view, resides a fraternity of Gylongs or Priests of Budha, or Bode: William Daniell, Views in Bootan, caption [by Davis ?] to plate 4."  

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"Near Tassisudon." This wash-drawing is devoted to an example of village architecture in the Thinphu valley. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. " This typical example of Bhutanese domestic architecture features tapering walls of pise construction, shingle roof, and projecting wooden balcony supported on pillars. Generally, the ground floor is used for domestic animals and storage, the middle floors for the family's living quarters, and the attic below the roof for storing fodder and grain.

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"In the Village near Tassisudon. This wash-drawing is devoted to an example of village architecture in the Thinphu valley. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. " This typical example of Bhutanese domestic architecture features tapering walls of pise construction, shingle roof, and projecting wooden balcony supported on pillars. Generally, the ground floor is used for domestic animals and storage, the middle floors for the family's living quarters, and the attic below the roof for storing fodder and grain.

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"In the Village near Tassisudon. This wash-drawing is devoted to an example of village architecture in the Thinphu valley. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. " This typical example of Bhutanese domestic architecture features tapering walls of pise construction, shingle roof, and projecting wooden balcony supported on pillars. Generally, the ground floor is used for domestic animals and storage, the middle floors for the family's living quarters, and the attic below the roof for storing fodder and grain.

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"Near Tassisudon." This wash-drawing is devoted to an example of village architecture in the Thinphu valley. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. "The phallic symbols hanging below the eaves as seen here are still found in many houses in Bhutan today; their purpose is said to ward off 'malicious gossip (mikha'.)" This typical example of Bhutanese domestic architecture features tapering walls of pise construction, shingle roof, and projecting wooden balcony supported on pillars. Generally, the ground floor is used for domestic animals and storage, the middle floors for the family's living quarters, and the attic below the roof for storing fodder and grain.

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Scene in the Thinphu valley, no title, 1783, watercolour. India Office Library, Department of Prints and Drawings.

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"Near Tacisudon," 1783, detail of a watercolour. India Office Library, Department of Prints and Drawings. The drawings in both Plates were acquired in 1974 from the Royal Geographical Society, together with the view of Punakha in the Frontispiece and two others. They had been presented to the Society in 1921 by Lord Curzon, who had received them from Sir Leicester Beaufort, great-grandson of Samuel Davis. Plate 42 shows a temple which still stands in the Thinphu valley and a distant view of Simtokha Dzong, founded by Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyel in 1629 as the first of his fortresses. Plate 41 is a view of the northern end of the Thinphu valley, with the temple of Dechen Phodrang (see Plates 32-3) visible on a hillock to the left and the bridge-house (see Plate 23) of Tashicho Dzong in the foreground to the right. "While I was at Tassisudon an insurrection broke out in favour of Deb Judhur [Zhidar], the former chief [see pp. 15-17 above], and the disturbances which this occasioned protracted my stay. The malcontents, after a fruitless attempt on the palace of Tassisudon, seized Simptoka [Simtokha], a castle in its neighbourhood, in which they found arms and ammunition . . . The castles [of Bhutan] . . . want but the mote and the bridge to resemble the gothic castles of our ancestors. There are only two ways of reducing them - by fire or by famine . . . But Simptoka having been built by Deb Seklu [?], a very popular Rajah, and being full of furniture and effects belonging to the government, it was resolved to blockade it. Troops were accordingly collected from the distant provinces, and three of the roads were stopped up. The fourth, however, was still open. The Deb Rajah's force increased every day. Deb Judhur's party saw no prospect of assistance; and after a siege of ten days they abandoned Simptoka, and being favoured by moonlight, escaped over the mountains into Teshu [Panchen] Lama's country. I left Tassisudon on the 13th of October, 1774, the day of their retreat . . . We passed Simptoka, and came up with a party of the Deb Rajah's men. They halted at a little village, and their leader sent for us . . . He enjoys the first place in the chief's favour, and his sagacity and superior abilities entitle him to it. In anything that relates to the government of his own country, he might be pitted against many a politic minister. As a philosopher, he would twist him round his finger. Of a truth, an ounce of mother-wit is worth a pound of clergy: Bogle, Narratives, ed. Markham, pp. 61-2."  

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William Daniell after Davis, engraved by J.C. Armytage, "View near Wandepore," 1837, engraving on steel.

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"Bhootan Scene," 1783, wash-drawing. Victoria memorial, Calcutta, deposited by the Director-General of Archaeology in India, 1932. "Bridges, in a country composed of mountains, and abounding with torrents, must necessarily be very frequent; the traveller has commonly some one to pass in every day's journey. They are of different constructions, generally of timber; and, if the width of the river will admit, laid horizontally from rock to rock [see Plate 7]. Over broader streams, a triple or quadruple row of timbers, one row projecting over the other, and inserted into the rock, sustain two sloping sides, which are united by an horizontal platform, of nearly equal length: thus the centre is, of course, raised very much above the current, and the whole bridge forms the figure nearly of three sides of an octagon. Piers [see Plate 45] are almost totally excluded, on account of the unequal heights, and extreme rapidity of the rivers. The widest river in Bootan has an iron bridge [see Plates 12-13], consisting of a number of iron chains, which support a matted platform . . .: Turner, Embassy, p. 191."

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"The Bridge at Wandepore, Bhootan," 1783, wash-drawing. Victoria Memorial, Calcutta, R. 1729, formerly in the possession of Sir Leicester Beaufort, deposited by Lord Curzon, 1921. "This famous bridge, Wangdu Zam, survived in almost exactly the same form as seen here until the early 1970s, when it was demolished and replaced with a steel structure for motor traffic. William Westhofen, an engineer employed by one of the main contractors responsible for the Forth Bridge, held the surprising view that the bridge at Wangdu Phodrang "may fairly be looked upon as the prototype of the proposed Forth Bridge": W. Westhofen, "The Forth Bridge", Engineering, xlix (28 Feb. 1890), p. 217 and fig. 9. "The bridge of Wandipore is of a singular lightness and beauty in its appearance. I am happy to annex a view of this structure, taken upon the spot by Mr. Davis [engraved by James Basire, in Turner, Embassy, plate 6, "The Castle of Wandipore"], and comprehending also the highly picturesque scenery around, as another proof of the talent, fidelity and taste, with which my friend seized on every appropriate feature, that marks the character of this peculiar country. The bridge is composed entirely of fir, and has not the smallest piece of iron, or any other metal, to connect its parts. It has three gateways; one on each side the river, and another erected in the stream, upon a pier, which is pointed like a wedge towards the current, but is on the opposite side a little convex; below it, the eddy, produced by the re-union of the divided water, has thrown up a large bed of sand, on which grows a large willow, that flourishes extremely. The gateway on the Tassisudon side, is a lofty square stone building, with projecting balconies near the top, bordered by a breast work, and pierced with a portcullis. [This description accords better with the view of the bridge-house in Plate 47.] The span of the first bridge, which occupies two thirds of the breadth of the river, measures one hundred and twelve feet: it consists of three parts, two sides and a centre, nearly equal to each other . . . The beams and planks are both of hewn fir: and they are pinned together by large wooden pegs. This is all the fastening I could observe: it is secured by a neat light rail . . . The sound state of this bridge, is a striking instance of the durability of the turpentine fir; for, without the application of any composition in use for the preservation of wood, it has stood exposed to the changes of the seasons for nearly a century and a half, as tradition goes, without exhibiting any symptoms of decay, or suffering any injury from the weather: Turner, Embassy, pp. 132-3."  

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"View from the Bridge at Wandepore [Wangdu Phodrang]", 1783, wash-drawing. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. A fortified bridge-house of a type not found in Bhutan today; since the bridge itself is clearly destroyed, only a few ropes still visibly in place, it may perhaps be surmised that the main bridge at Wangdu Phodrang (Plates 45-6,) was built to replace this one.

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"Wandepore [Wangdu Phodrang]", 1783, watercolour. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. "This is considered as one of the consecrated habitations of Bootan; and the Daeb Raja makes it a point to reside here some part of every year. It stands upon the southern extremity of the narrow end of a rocky hill, which is shaped like a wedge: the sides of the hill are washed by the Matchieu-Patchieu [Pochu- Mochu] on the west, which runs in a swift smooth stream, and by the Taantchieu [Dangchu] on the east, which rushes with much noise and agitation over a rocky bed; they both join at the base of the point, below the castle. This is an irregular, lofty building of stone, covering all the breadth of the rock, as far as it extends. The walls are high and solid: there is but one entrance in front, before which, there lies a large space of level ground, joined by an easy slope on the north-west, to the Punukka road. About a hundred yards in front of the castle rises a round tower, on a high eminence, perforated all round with loop holes, and supporting several projecting balconies. It is a very roomy lodgement, has a commanding position, and prevents the castle from being seen even at a small distance: Turner, Embassy, pp. 131-2.

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"View from Wandepore [Wangdu Phodrang] up the Valley towards Punokka with the snowy mountains seen on the frontier of Tibet," 1783, watercolour. Victoria Memorial, Calcutta, R. 1248, formerly in the possession of Warren Hastings, deposited 1916. "It was about seven o'clock [8th July] when we descended the hill of Wandipore, passing by a sort of barn, where a tame elephant was kept, the only one I had met with in Bootan . . . We were fortunate in our day: the weather was serene, the atmosphere clear, and the sun shone full upon the distant mountains. In the rear of all, swelling high above the rest, the mountains of Ghassa were distinctly visible, clothed with perpetual snow . . . Our road lay near the river, at the foot of the mountains, winding through a verdant valley of unequal width. In general, the mountains terminated with an easy slope; but their sides were divided into small beds, for the growth of corn: and they were not incumbered with trees. The few which were upon them consisted of pine and fir, with some barberry bushes intermixed; and every breeze of wind, diffusing the fragrance of the jessamine, gratefully convinced us of its presence: Turner, Embassy, p. 138."

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The fortress of Wangdu Phodrang Dzong, no title, 1783, watercolour. Victoria Memorial, Calcutta. "The castle of Wandipore [see Map] with its gilded canopy, is of equal antiquity with the bridge [see plate 45]; and both are said to have been erected by Lam' Sohroo [Shabdrung], about one hundred and forty years ago, when he first entered and possessed himself of Bootan. [As the fortress was built in 1638, it was one hundred and forty-five years old in 1783.] Nor did the conqueror of these regions, shew less judgment than good taste, in selecting Wandipore for the place of his principal residence: as it is a situation, both for strength and beauty, superior to every other that offered to his choice. Perhaps some objection might be made to the violent winds, which are drawn up the deep dells on every quarter, and urged furiously across the surface of the hill; but the strength of Wandipore is not lessened by the more lofty surrounding heights, which carry their high heads far distant, by gradual easy slopes, and contribute greatly to the majesty of the views: Turner, Embassy, p. 131."

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The former winter capital of Bhutan at Punakha Dzong, no title, 1783, watercolour. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. The great fortress of Punakha Dzong was founded by Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyel in 1667. It was intended to house six hundred state monks during the winter months, and does so to this day. It was the scene of several Tibetan attacks during the mid-seventeenth century, and numerous civil wars later. Three years before the mission which Davis took part in the building burnt down, and what we see here is the restoration of c. 1781.

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"View Near Poonaka," 1783, wash-drawing. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. Turner's mission, which proceeded to Tibet without Davis, returned to India by way of Punakha, spending a week there in December 1783. "We passed the summit of Soomoonang, that lofty range of mountains which forms the boundary of Tibet on the south, and divides it from Bootan, and hastened with our utmost speed to reach a milder region. This we found at Punukka, the winter residence of the Daeb Raja, who received us with every mark of hospitality and friendship. Compared with the land we had left, we now beheld this garden of Lam' Rimbochay [the regent, see Appendix] in high beauty, adorned with groves, crowded with rich loads of the finest oranges, citrons, and pomegranates. The mango and the peach tree had parted with their produce, but hoards of apples and of walnuts were opened for our gratification; and this vast profusion of ripe fruit, added to the temperature of the air, most gratefully convinced us of the prodigious disparity of climate, within so short a distance. My stay with the Daeb Raja, at his favourite palace of Punukka, was not of long duration. I hastened to make all the arrangements that appeared necessary, or expedient, with regard to the object of my mission. The Raja gave me frequent opportunities of meeting him, as well within doors, as by invitation to walk with him in the gardens. Indeed I was treated by him with the greatest freedom and cordiality. He urged me strongly to pass a long time with him, extolling the beauty of the place, and the mild temperature of the weather; but I was obliged to decline the honour. On the 30th of December I had my audience of leave, and received, at the Lama's hand, the valuable favour of a badge of thin crimson silk, over which various solemn incantations had been performed, and which was in future to secure forever, my prosperity and success. Valuable as the present was, I fear I have unfortunately lost it. In the evening, I took a long farewell of all the officers of his court, and on the following day, departed for Bengal: Turner, Embassy, pp. 357-8."
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

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George Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston
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The Most Honourable
The Marquess Curzon of Kedleston
KG GCSI GCIE PC FBA
Lord Curzon, as Viceroy of India
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
In office
23 October 1919 – 22 January 1924
Monarch George V
Prime Minister David Lloyd George
Bonar Law
Stanley Baldwin
Preceded by Arthur Balfour
Succeeded by Ramsay MacDonald
Viceroy and Governor-General of India
In office
6 January 1899 – 18 November 1905
Monarch Victoria
Edward VII
Deputy The Lord Ampthill
Preceded by The Earl of Elgin
Succeeded by The Earl of Minto
Leader of the House of Lords
In office
3 November 1924 – 20 March 1925
Monarch George V
Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin
Preceded by The Viscount Haldane
Succeeded by The Marquess of Salisbury
In office
10 December 1916 – 22 January 1924
Monarch George V
Prime Minister David Lloyd George
Bonar Law
Stanley Baldwin
Preceded by The Marquess of Crewe
Succeeded by The Viscount Haldane
Lord President of the Council
In office
10 December 1916 – 23 October 1919
Monarch George V
Prime Minister David Lloyd George
Preceded by The Marquess of Crewe
Succeeded by Arthur Balfour
In office
3 November 1924 – 20 March 1925
Monarch George V
Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin
Preceded by The Lord Parmoor
Succeeded by The Earl of Balfour
President of the Air Board
In office
15 May 1916 – 3 January 1917
Monarch George V
Prime Minister H.H. Asquith
David Lloyd George
Preceded by The Earl of Derby
Succeeded by The Viscount Cowdray
Personal details
Born George Nathaniel Curzon
11 January 1859
Kedleston, Derbyshire, England, UK
Died 20 March 1925 (aged 66)
London, England, UK
Political party Conservative
Spouse(s) Mary Leiter
(m. 1895; her death 1906)
Grace Duggan
(m. 1917; his death 1925)
Children Mary Curzon, 2nd Baroness Ravensdale
Lady Cynthia Mosley
Lady Alexandra Curzon
Alma mater Balliol College, Oxford

George Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, KG, GCSI, GCIE, PC, FBA (11 January 1859–20 March 1925), who was styled as Lord Curzon of Kedleston between 1898 and 1911, and as Earl Curzon of Kedleston between 1911 and 1921, and was known commonly as Lord Curzon, was a British Conservative statesman who served as Viceroy of India from 1899 to 1905, during which time he created the territory of Eastern Bengal and Assam, and as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from 1919 to 1924.

Despite his illustrious success as both Viceroy and Foreign Secretary, especially at the recent Conference of Lausanne, in 1923 Curzon was denied the office of Prime Minister. This was partly because Curzon was a member of the House of Lords, and partly because Lord Davidson—to whom Baldwin was loyal—and Sir Charles Waterhouse falsely claimed to Lord Stamfordham that the resigned Prime Minister Bonar Law had recommended that George V appoint Baldwin, not Curzon, as his successor.[1] Curzon had been the candidate for Prime Minister preferred by the 4th Marquess of Salisbury, the son of the former Prime Minister, the 3rd Marquess.

Winston S. Churchill, one of Curzon's main rivals, accurately contended that Curzon "sow[ed] gratitude and resentment along his path with equally lavish hands".[2] However, even contemporaries who envied Curzon, such as Stanley Baldwin, conceded that Curzon was, in the words of his biographer Leonard Mosley, 'a devoted and indefatigable public servant, dedicated to the idea of Empire'.[3]

Sir David Gilmour, in his biography Curzon: Imperial Statesman (1994), contends that the insuperable extent of Curzon's efforts for the British Empire was forever unrecompensed by the British polity subsequent to his retirement from the office of Viceroy of India, including after his brilliance as Foreign Secretary at the Conference of Lausanne.

Early life

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Curzon was educated at All Souls College, Oxford, of which he was a Prize Fellow

Curzon was the eldest son and the second of the eleven children of Alfred Curzon, 4th Baron Scarsdale (1831–1916), who was the Rector of Kedleston in Derbyshire. George Curzon's mother was Blanche (1837–1875), the daughter of Joseph Pocklington Senhouse of Netherhall in Cumberland. He was born at Kedleston Hall, built on the site where his family, who were of Norman ancestry, had lived since the 12th century. His mother, exhausted by childbirth, died when George was 16; her husband survived her by 41 years. Neither parent exerted a major influence on Curzon's life. Scarsdale was an austere and unindulgent father who believed in the long-held family tradition that landowners should stay on their land and not go "roaming about all over the world". He thus had little sympathy for those journeys across Asia between 1887 and 1895 which made his son one of the most traveled men who ever sat in a British cabinet. A more decisive presence in Curzon's childhood was that of his brutal, sadistic governess, Ellen Mary Paraman, whose tyranny in the nursery stimulated his combative qualities and encouraged the obsessional side of his nature. Paraman used to beat him and periodically forced him to parade through the village wearing a conical hat bearing the words liar, sneak, and coward. Curzon later noted, "No children well born and well-placed ever cried so much and so justly."[4]

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Curzon at Eton, 1870s

He was educated at Wixenford School,[5] Eton College,[6] and Balliol College, Oxford.[7] At Eton, he was a favourite of Oscar Browning, an over-intimate relationship that led to his tutor's dismissal.[8][9]

Browning's personal relationships with boys were a further matter of concern to Hornby.[52] Although Browning took a firm personal line against homosexuality, masturbation and any other sexual practices,[1] he maintained a series of romantic friendships with boys. He had favourites, who were often replaced with a brutal suddenness when they lost their appeal.[53] Sometimes, one of these would accompany him on his regular European trips during the summer holidays, as did Gerald Balfour, the future prime minister's brother, in 1869.[54][n 6] Although this type of close, even affectionate master-boy relationship was considered generally acceptable in Victorian public school life,[56] Browning's flamboyance and mannerisms were contrary to Hornby's vision for the school; Anstruther writes: "The mere sight of Oscar Browning with his pale face and effeminate manner was enough in itself to make Hornby suspicious".[57] Furthermore, Browning's friendship with the artist Simeon Solomon was widely known. Solomon, like Browning, was an advocate of "Greek love", a concept derived from Plato's Dialogues which held that the highest form of love was that of men for each other, exclusive of physical expression.[58]

Greek love is a term originally used by classicists to describe the primarily homoerotic customs, practices, and attitudes of the ancient Greeks. It was frequently used as a euphemism for homosexuality and pederasty.

-- Greek Love, by Wikipedia


The two holidayed together, and Solomon was a frequent visitor to Eton – he exchanged with Browning a series of intimate letters in which they mutually extolled the beauties of various boys.[59] In February 1873 Solomon was convicted of an act of gross indecency in a London public lavatory – a consensual act of sodomy with a mature working-class male was far from the ideals of Greek love, and Browning ended the relationship with Solomon immediately.[60][61]

Hornby's patience with Browning's conduct was tested further in 1874, when Browning began a friendship with a boy from another house – acting with the full approval of the boy's father. The boy was George Nathaniel Curzon, the future Conservative statesman and Viceroy of India.[62] The nature of this association became the occasion for gossip amongst the staff; Curzon's housemaster, Charles Wolley-Dod, complained to Hornby, who after some equivocation ordered Browning to end all contact with the boy during term-time.[63][64] Browning was outraged by what he took as a slur on his morals, and a heated correspondence with Hornby ensued. Since he had the support of Curzon's father, Lord Scarsdale, Browning challenged the headmaster's injunction and appealed to the provost, who upheld Hornby.[65] Under threat of dismissal unless he submitted, Browning did so reluctantly, while continuing to meet Curzon during the holidays.[64]

-- Oscar Browning, by Wikipedia


A spinal injury, incurred, during his adolescence, whist riding, left Curzon in lifelong pain, which often caused insomnia, and required him to wear a metal corset for the duration of his life.[10]

At Oxford, Curzon was President of the Union[7] and Secretary of the Oxford Canning Club (a Tory political club named for George Canning): as a consequence of the extent of his time-expenditure on political and social societies, he failed to achieve a first class degree in Greats, although he subsequently won both the Lothian and Arnold Prizes, the latter for an essay on Sir Thomas More, about whom he confessed to having known almost nothing before commencing study). In 1883, Curzon received the most prestigious fellowship at the university, a Prize Fellowship at All Souls College. Whilst at Eton and at Oxford, Curzon was a contemporary and close friend of Cecil Spring Rice and Edward Grey.[11] However, Spring Rice contributed, alongside John William Mackail, to the composition of a famous sardonic doggerel about Curzon that was published in The Balliol Masque:

My name is George Nathaniel Curzon,
I am a most superior person.
My cheeks are pink, my hair is sleek,
I dine at Blenheim once a week.


When Spring-Rice was British Ambassador to the United States, he was suspected by Curzon of trying to prevent Curzon's engagement to the American Mary Leiter, whom Curzon nevertheless married.[12] However, Spring Rice assumed for a certainty, like many of Curzon's other friends, that Curzon would inevitably become Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs: he wrote to Curzon in 1891, 'When you are Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs I hope you will restore the vanished glory of England, lead the European concert, decide the fate of nations, and give me three month's leave instead of two'.[13]

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Garter-encircled shield of arms of George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, KG, as displayed on his Order of the Garter stall plate in St. George's Chapel.

Early political career

Curzon became Assistant Private Secretary to Salisbury in 1885, and in 1886 entered Parliament as Member for Southport in south-west Lancashire.[7] His maiden speech, which was chiefly an attack on home rule and Irish nationalism, was regarded in much the same way as his oratory at the Oxford Union: brilliant and eloquent but also presumptuous and rather too self-assured. Subsequent performances in the Commons, often dealing with Ireland or reform of the House of Lords (which he supported), received similar verdicts. He was Under-Secretary of State for India in 1891–92 and Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in 1895–98.[14]

Asian travels and writings

In the meantime he had travelled around the world: Russia and Central Asia (1888–89), a long tour of Persia (September 1889 – January 1890), Siam, French Indochina and Korea (1892), and a daring foray into Afghanistan and the Pamirs (1894). He published several books describing central and eastern Asia and related policy issues.[7] A bold and compulsive traveler, fascinated by oriental life and geography, he was awarded the Patron's Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society for his exploration of the source of the Amu Darya (Oxus). His journeys allowed him to study the problems of Asia and their implications for British India, whilst reinforcing his pride in his nation and her imperial mission.

Curzon believed Russia to be the most likely threat to India, Britain's most valuable colony, from the 19th century through the early 20th century.
[15] In 1879 Russia had begun construction of the Transcaspian Railroad along the Silk Road, officially solely to enforce local control. The line starts from the city of Kzyzl Su (Krasnovodsk) (nowadays Turkmenbashi) (on the Caspian Sea), travels southeast along the Karakum Desert, through Ashgabat, continues along the Kopet Dagh Mountains until it reaches Tejen. Curzon dedicated an entire chapter in his book Russia in Central Asia to discussing the perceived threat to British control of India.[16] This railroad connected Russia with the most wealthy and influential cities in Central Asia at the time, including the Persian province of Khorasan,[17] and would allow the rapid deployment of Russian supplies and troops into the area. Curzon also believed that the resulting greater economic interdependence between Russia and Central Asia would be damaging to British interests.[18]

Persia and the Persian Question, written in 1892, has been considered Curzon's magnum opus and can be seen as a sequel to Russia in Central Asia.[19] Curzon was commissioned by The Times to write several articles on the Persian political environment, but while there he decided to write a book on the country as whole. This two-volume work covers Persia's history and governmental structure, as well as graphics, maps and pictures (some taken by Curzon himself). Curzon was aided by General Albert Houtum-Schindler and the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), both of which helped him gain access to material to which as a foreigner he would not have been entitled to have access. General Schindler provided Curzon with information regarding Persia's geography and resources, as well as serving as an unofficial editor. [20]

Curzon was appalled by his government's apathy towards Persia as a valuable defensive buffer to India from Russian encroachment.[21] Years later Curzon would lament that "Persia has alternatively advanced and receded in the estimation of British statesmen, occupying now a position of extravagant prominence, anon one of unmerited obscurity."[22]

First marriage (1895–1906)

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Mary Victoria Leiter by Alexandre Cabanel, 1887

In 1895 he married Mary Victoria Leiter, the daughter of Levi Ziegler Leiter, an American millionaire[7] of German Mennonite origin and co-founder of the Chicago department store Field & Leiter (later Marshall Field). Initially he had just married her for her money so he could save his estate but ended up falling head over heels for her. Mary had a long and nearly fatal illness near the end of summer 1904, from which she never really recovered. Falling ill again in July 1906, she died on the 18th of that month in her husband's arms, at the age of 36.[23] It was the greatest personal loss of his life.

She was buried in the church at Kedleston, where Curzon designed his memorial for her, a Gothic chapel added to the north side of the nave. Although he was neither a devout nor a conventional churchman, Curzon retained a simple religious faith; in later years he sometimes said that he was not afraid of death because it would enable him to join Mary in heaven.

They had three daughters during a firm and happy marriage: Mary Irene, who inherited her father's Barony of Ravensdale and was created a life peer in her own right; Cynthia, who became the first wife of the fascist politician Sir Oswald Mosley; and Alexandra Naldera ("Baba"), who married Edward "Fruity" Metcalfe, the best friend, best man and equerry of Edward VIII. Mosley exercised a strange fascination for the Curzon women: Irene had a brief romance with him before either were married; Baba became his mistress; and Curzon's second wife, Grace, had a long affair with him.

Viceroy of India (1899–1905)

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Curzon—procession to Sanchi Tope, 28 November 1899.

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Curzon and Madho Rao Scindia, Maharaja of Gwalior, pose with hunted tigers, 1901.

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Curzon and his wife and staff on tour of the Persian Gulf in 1903

In January 1899 he was appointed Viceroy of India.[7] He was created a Peer of Ireland as Baron Curzon of Kedleston, in the County of Derby,[24] on his appointment. This peerage was created in the Peerage of Ireland (the last so created) so that he would be free, until his father's death, to re-enter the House of Commons on his return to Britain.

Reaching India shortly after the suppression of the frontier risings of 1897–98, he paid special attention to the independent tribes of the north-west frontier, inaugurated a new province called the North West Frontier Province, and pursued a policy of forceful control mingled with conciliation. The only major armed outbreak on this frontier during the period of his administration was the Mahsud–Waziri campaign of 1901.

In the context of the Great Game between the British and Russian Empires for control of Central Asia, he held deep mistrust of Russian intentions. This led him to encourage British trade in Persia, and he paid a visit to the Persian Gulf in 1903. Curzon argued for an exclusive British presence in the Gulf, a policy originally proposed by John Malcolm. The British government was already making agreements with local sheiks/tribal leaders along the Persian Gulf coast to this end. Curzon had convinced his government to establish Britain as the unofficial protector of Kuwait with the Anglo-Kuwaiti Agreement of 1899. The Lansdowne Declaration in 1903 stated that the British would counter any other European power's attempt to establish a military presence in the Gulf.[25] Only four years later this position was abandoned and the Persian Gulf declared a neutral zone in the Anglo-Russian Agreement of 1907, prompted in part by the high economic cost of defending India from Russian advances.[26]

At the end of 1903, Curzon sent a British expedition to Tibet under Francis Younghusband, ostensibly to forestall a Russian advance. After bloody conflicts with Tibet's poorly armed defenders, the mission penetrated to Lhasa, where a treaty was signed in September 1904. No Russian presence was found in Lhasa.

During his tenure, Curzon undertook the restoration of the Taj Mahal and expressed satisfaction that he had done so.

Within India, Curzon appointed a number of commissions to inquire into education, irrigation, police and other branches of administration, on whose reports legislation was based during his second term of office as viceroy. Reappointed Governor-General in August 1904, he presided over the 1905 partition of Bengal, which roused such bitter opposition among the people of the province that it was later revoked (1911).[27]

Indian Army

Curzon also took an active interest in military matters. In 1901, he founded the Imperial Cadet Corps, or ICC. The ICC was a corps d'elite, designed to give Indian princes and aristocrats military training, after which a few would be given officer commissions in the Indian Army. But these commissions were "special commissions" which did not empower their holders to command any troops. Predictably, this was a major stumbling block to the ICC's success, as it caused much resentment among former cadets. Though the ICC closed in 1914, it was a crucial stage in the drive to Indianise the Indian Army's officer Corps, which was haltingly begun in 1917.

Military organisation proved to be the final issue faced by Curzon in India. It often involved petty issues that had much to do with clashes of personality: Curzon once wrote on a document "I rise from the perusal of these papers filled with the sense of the ineptitude of my military advisers", and once wrote to the Commander-in-Chief in India, Kitchener, advising him that signing himself "Kitchener of Khartoum" took up too much time and space, which Kitchener thought petty (Curzon simply signed himself "Curzon" as if he were a hereditary peer, although he later took to signing himself "Curzon of Kedleston").[28] A difference of opinion with Kitchener, regarding the status of the military member of the council in India (who controlled army supply and logistics, which Kitchener wanted under his own control), led to a controversy in which Curzon failed to obtain the support of the home government. He resigned in August 1905 and returned to England.

Indian famine

Main article: Indian famine of 1899–1900

A major famine coincided with Curzon's time as viceroy in which 1 to 4.5 million people died.[29][30][31] Large parts of India were affected and millions died, and Curzon has been criticised for allegedly having done little to fight the famine.[32] Curzon did implement a variety of measures, including opening up famine relief works that fed between 3 and 5 million, reducing taxes and spending vast amounts of money on irrigation works.[33] But he also stated that "any government which imperiled the financial position of India in the interests of prodigal philanthropy would be open to serious criticism; but any government which by indiscriminate alms-giving weakened the fibre and demoralized the self-reliance of the population, would be guilty of a public crime."[34] He also cut back rations that he characterized as "dangerously high" and stiffened relief eligibility by reinstating the Temple tests.[35]

Return to Britain

Arthur Balfour's refusal to recommend an earldom for Curzon in 1905 was repeated by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the Liberal Prime Minister, who formed his government the day after Curzon returned to England. In deference to the wishes of the King and the advice of his doctors, Curzon did not stand in the general election of 1906 and thus found himself excluded from public life for the first time in twenty years. It was at this time, the nadir of his career, that he suffered the greatest personal loss of his life. Mary died in 1906 and Curzon devoted himself to private matters, including establishing a new home. After the death of Lord Goschen in 1907, the post of Chancellor of Oxford University fell vacant. Curzon successfully became elected as Chancellor of Oxford after he won by 1001 votes to 440 against Lord Rosebery.[36] He proved to be quite an active Chancellor – "[he] threw himself so energetically into the cause of university reform that critics complained he was ruling Oxford like an Indian province."[37]

House of Lords

In 1908, Curzon was elected a representative peer for Ireland, and thus relinquished any idea of returning to the House of Commons.[7] In 1909–1910 he took an active part in opposing the Liberal government's[7] proposal to abolish the legislative veto of the House of Lords, and in 1911 was created Baron Ravensdale, of Ravensdale in the County of Derby, with remainder (in default of heirs male) to his daughters, Viscount Scarsdale, of Scarsdale in the County of Derby, with remainder (in default of heirs male) to the heirs male of his father, and Earl Curzon of Kedleston, in the County of Derby, with the normal remainder, all in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.[38]

He became involved with saving Tattershall Castle, Lincolnshire, from destruction. This experience strengthened his resolve for heritage protection. He was one of the sponsors of the Ancient Monuments Consolidation and Amendment Act 1913.[39]

On 5 May 1914, he spoke out against a bill in the House of Lords that would have permitted women who already had the right to vote in local elections the right to vote for members of Parliament.

First World War

Curzon joined the Cabinet, as Lord Privy Seal, when Asquith formed his coalition in May 1915.

Like other politicians (e.g. Chamberlain, Arthur Balfour) Curzon favoured British Empire efforts in Mesopotamia, believing that the increase in British prestige would discourage a German-inspired Muslim revolt in India.[40]

Curzon was a member of the Dardanelles Committee and told that body (October 1915) that the recent Salonika expedition was "quixotic chivalry".[41]

Early in 1916 Curzon visited Douglas Haig (newly appointed Commander-in-Chief of British forces in France) at his headquarters in France. Haig was impressed by Curzon's brains and decisiveness, considering that he had mellowed since his days as Viceroy (the then Major-General Haig had been Inspector-General of Cavalry, India, at the time) and had lost "his old pompous ways".[42]

Curzon served in Lloyd George's small War Cabinet as Leader of the House of Lords from December 1916, and he also served on the War Policy Committee. With Allied victory over Germany far from certain, Curzon wrote a paper (12 May 1917) for the War Cabinet urging that Britain seize Palestine and possibly Syria.[43] However, like other members of the War Cabinet, Curzon supported further Western Front offensives lest, with Russian commitment to the war wavering, France and Italy be tempted to make a separate peace. At the War Policy Committee (3 October 1917) Curzon objected in vain to plans to redeploy two divisions to Palestine, with a view to advancing into Syria and knocking Turkey out of the war altogether. Curzon's commitment wavered somewhat as the losses of Third Ypres mounted.[44] In the summer of 1917 the CIGS General Robertson sent Haig a biting description of the members of the War Cabinet, who he said were all frightened of Lloyd George; he described Curzon as "a gasbag".

During the crisis of February 1918, Curzon was one of the few members of the government to support Robertson, threatening in vain to resign if he were removed.[45]

Despite his continued opposition to votes for women (he had earlier headed the Anti-Suffrage League), the House of Lords voted conclusively in its favour.

Second marriage (1917)

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Grace Elvina, second wife

After a long affair with the romantic novelist Elinor Glyn, Curzon married the former Grace Elvina Hinds in January 1917. She was the wealthy Alabama-born widow of Alfredo Huberto Duggan (died 1915), a first-generation Irish Argentinian appointed to the Argentine Legation in London in 1905. Elinor Glyn was staying with Curzon at the time of the engagement and read about it in the morning newspapers.

Grace had three children from her first marriage, two sons, Alfred and Hubert, and a daughter, Grace Lucille. Alfred and Hubert, as Curzon's step-sons, grew up within his influential circle. Curzon had three daughters from his first marriage, but he and Grace (despite fertility-related operations and several miscarriages) did not have any children together, which put a strain on their marriage. Letters written between them in the early 1920s imply that they still lived together, and remained devoted to each other. In 1923, Curzon was passed over for the office of Prime Minister partly on the advice of Arthur Balfour, who joked that Curzon "has lost the hope of glory but he still possesses the means of Grace".

In 1917, Curzon bought Bodiam Castle in East Sussex, a 14th-century building that had been gutted during the English Civil War. He restored it extensively, then bequeathed it to the National Trust.[46]

Foreign Secretary (1919–24)

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Statue of Curzon in front of the Calcutta Victoria Memorial

Relations with Lloyd George

Curzon did not have David Lloyd George's support. Curzon and Lloyd George had disliked one another since the 1911 Parliament Crisis. The Prime Minister thought him overly pompous and self-important, and it was said that he used him as if he were using a Rolls-Royce to deliver a parcel to the station; Lloyd George said much later that Churchill treated his Ministers in a way that Lloyd George would never have treated his: "They were all men of substance — well, except Curzon."[47] Multiple drafts of resignation letters written at this time were found upon Curzon's death. Despite their antagonism, the two were often in agreement on government policy.[48] Lloyd George needed the wealth of knowledge Curzon possessed so was both his biggest critic and, simultaneously, his largest supporter. Likewise, Curzon was grateful for the leeway he was allowed by Lloyd George when it came to handling affairs in the Middle East.[49]

Other cabinet ministers also respected his vast knowledge of Central Asia but disliked his arrogance and often blunt criticism. Believing that the Foreign Secretary should be non-partisan, he would objectively present all the information on a subject to the Cabinet, as if placing faith in his colleagues to reach the appropriate decision. Conversely, Curzon would take personally and respond aggressively to any criticism.[50]

It has been suggested that Curzon's defensiveness reflected institutional insecurity by the Foreign Office as a whole. During the 1920s the Foreign Office was often a passive participant in decisions which were mainly reactive and dominated by the Prime Minister.[51] The creation of the job of Colonial Secretary, the Cabinet Secretariat and the League of Nations added to the Foreign Office's insecurity.[52]

Policy under Lloyd George

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The territorial changes of Poland. Light blue line: Curzon Line "B" as proposed by Lord Curzon in 1919. Dark blue line: "Curzon" Line "A" as proposed by the Soviet Union in 1940. Pink: Formerly German provinces annexed by Poland after World War II. Grey: Pre-World War II Polish territory east of the Curzon Line annexed by the Soviet Union after the war.

After nine months as acting Secretary while Balfour was at the Paris Peace Conference,[53] Curzon was appointed Foreign Secretary in October 1919. He gave his name to the British government's proposed Soviet-Polish boundary, the Curzon Line of December 1919. Although during the subsequent Russo-Polish War, Poland conquered ground in the east, after World War II, Poland was shifted westwards, leaving the border between Poland and its eastern neighbours today approximately at the Curzon Line.[54]

Curzon was largely responsible for the Peace Day ceremonies on 19 July 1919. These included the plaster Cenotaph, designed by the noted British architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, for the Allied Victory parade in London. It was so successful that it was reproduced in stone, and still stands.

In 1918, during World War I, as Britain occupied Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), Curzon tried to convince the Indian government to reconsider his scheme for Persia (modern Iran) to be a buffer against Russian advances.[55] British and Indian troops were in Persia protecting the oilfields at Abadan and watching the Afghan frontier – Curzon believed that British economic and military aid, sent via India, could prop up the Persian government and make her a British client state. However, the agreement of August 1919 was never ratified and the British government rejected the plan as Russia had the geographical advantage and the defensive benefits would not justify the high economic cost.[56]

Small British forces had twice occupied Baku on the Caspian in 1918, while an entire British division had occupied Batum on the Black Sea, supervising German and Turkish withdrawal. Against Curzon's wishes, but on the advice of Sir George Milne, the commander on the spot, the CIGS Henry Wilson, who wanted to concentrate troops in Britain, Ireland, India, and Egypt,[57] and of Churchill (Secretary of State for War), the British withdrew from Baku (the small British naval presence was also withdrawn from the Caspian Sea), at the end of August 1919 leaving only 3 battalions at Batum.

In January 1920 Curzon insisted that British troops remain in Batum, against the wishes of Wilson and the Prime Minister. In February, while Curzon was on holiday, Wilson persuaded the Cabinet to allow withdrawal, but Curzon had the decision reversed on his return, although to Curzon's fury (he thought it "abuse of authority") Wilson gave Milne permission to withdraw if he deemed it necessary. At Cabinet on 5 May 1920 Curzon "by a long-winded jaw" (in Wilson's description) argued for a stay in Batum. After a British garrison at Enzeli (on the Persian Caspian coast) was taken prisoner by Bolshevik forces on 19 May 1920, Lloyd George finally insisted on a withdrawal from Batum early in June 1920. For the rest of 1920 Curzon, supported by Milner (Colonial Secretary), argued that Britain should retain control of Persia. When Wilson asked (15 July 1920) to pull troops out of Persia to put down the rebellion in Mesopotamia and Ireland, Lloyd George blocked the move, saying that Curzon "would not stand it". In the end, financial retrenchment forced a British withdrawal from Persia in the spring of 1921.[58]

Curzon helped in several Middle Eastern problems: he helped to negotiate Egyptian independence (granted in 1922) and the division of the British Mandate of Palestine, despite the strong disagreement he held with the policy of his predecessor Arthur Balfour,[59] and helped create the Emirate of Transjordan for Faisal's brother, which may also have delayed the problems there. According to Sir David Gilmour, Curzon "was the only senior figure in the British government at the time who foresaw that its policy would lead to decades of Arab–Jewish hostility".[59]

During the Irish War of Independence, but before the introduction of martial law in December 1920, Curzon suggested the "Indian" solution of blockading villages and imposing collective fines for attacks on the police and army.[60]

In 1921 Curzon was created Earl of Kedleston, in the County of Derby, and Marquess Curzon of Kedleston.[61]

In 1922, he was the chief negotiator for the Allies of the Treaty of Lausanne.

Under Bonar Law

Unlike many leading Conservative members of Lloyd George's Coalition Cabinet, Curzon ceased to support Lloyd George over the Chanak Crisis and had just resigned when Conservative backbenchers voted at the Carlton Club meeting to end the Coalition in October 1922. Curzon was thus able to remain Foreign Secretary when Bonar Law formed a purely Conservative ministry.

In 1922–23 Curzon had to negotiate with France after French troops occupied the Ruhr to enforce the payment of German reparations; he described the French Prime Minister (and former President) Raymond Poincaré as a "horrid little man". Curzon had expansive ambitions and was not much happier with Bonar Law, whose foreign policy was based on "retrenchment and withdrawal", than he had been with Lloyd George. However he provided invaluable insight into the Middle East and was instrumental in shaping British foreign policy in that region.[62]

Passed over for Prime Minister, 1923

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Lord Curzon of Kedleston by John Singer Sargent, 1914. Royal Geographical Society

On Bonar Law's retirement as Prime Minister in May 1923, Curzon was passed over for the job in favour of Stanley Baldwin, despite having written Bonar Law a lengthy letter earlier in the year complaining of rumours that he was to retire in Baldwin's favour, and listing the reasons he should have the top job.

This decision was taken on the private advice of leading members of the party including former Prime Minister Arthur Balfour. Balfour advised the monarch that in a democratic age it was inappropriate for the Prime Minister to be a member of the House of Lords, especially when the Labour Party, which had few peers, had become the main opposition party in the Commons. In private Balfour admitted that he was prejudiced against Curzon, whose character was objectionable to some. George V shared this prejudice. A letter purporting to detail the opinions of Bonar Law but actually written by Baldwin sympathisers was delivered to the King's Private Secretary Lord Stamfordham, though it is unclear how much impact this had in the final outcome.

Curzon, summoned by Stamfordham, traveled to London by train assuming he was to be appointed Prime Minister, and is said to have burst into tears when told the truth. He later described Baldwin as "a man of the utmost insignificance", although he served under Baldwin and proposed him for the leadership of the Conservative Party.

Curzon remained Foreign Secretary under Baldwin until the government fell in January 1924. When Baldwin formed a new government in November 1924 he appointed Curzon Lord President of the Council.

Death

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The last photograph taken of Curzon on his way to attend a cabinet meeting (1925)

In March 1925 Curzon suffered a severe haemorrhage of the bladder. Surgery was unsuccessful and he died in London on 20 March 1925 at the age of 66. His coffin, made from the same tree at Kedleston that had encased his first wife, Mary, was taken to Westminster Abbey and from there to his ancestral home in Derbyshire, where he was interred beside Mary in the family vault at All Saints Church on 26 March. In his will, proven on 22 July, Curzon bequeathed his estate to his wife and his brother Francis; his estate was valued for probate at £343,279 10s. 4d. (roughly equivalent to £19,231,412 in 2018)[63].[64]

Upon his death the Barony, Earldom and Marquessate of Curzon of Kedleston and the Earldom of Kedleston became extinct, whilst the Viscountcy and Barony of Scarsdale were inherited by a nephew. The Barony of Ravensdale was inherited by his eldest daughter Mary and is today held by his second daughter Cynthia's great-grandson, Daniel Nicholas Mosley, 4th Baron Ravensdale.

There is now a blue plaque on the house in London where Curzon lived and died, No. 1 Carlton House Terrace, Westminster.[65]

Titles

On his appointment as Viceroy of India in 1898, he was created Baron Curzon of Kedleston, in the County of Derby. This title was created in the Peerage of Ireland to enable him to potentially return to the House of Commons, as Irish peers did not have an automatic right to sit in the House of Lords. His was the last title to be created in the Peerage of Ireland. In 1908, he was elected a representative of the Irish peerage in the British House of Lords, from which it followed that he would be a member of the House of Lords until death; indeed, his representative peerage would continue even if (as proved to be the case) he later received a United Kingdom peerage entitling him to a seat in the House of Lords in his own right.

In 1911 he was created Earl Curzon of Kedleston, Viscount Scarsdale, and Baron Ravensdale. All of these titles were in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.

Upon his father's death in 1916, he also became 5th Baron Scarsdale, in the Peerage of Great Britain. The title had been created in 1761.

In the 1921 Birthday Honours, he was created Marquess Curzon of Kedleston.[66] The title became extinct upon his death in 1925, as he was survived by three daughters and no sons.[67]

Assessment

Few statesmen have experienced such changes in fortune in both their public and their personal lives. Sir David Gilmour, 4th Baronet, concludes:

Curzon's career was an almost unparallelled blend of triumph and disappointment. Although he was the last and in many ways the greatest of Victorian viceroys, his term of office ended in resignation, empty of recognition and devoid of reward.... he was unable to assert himself fully as foreign secretary until the last weeks of Lloyd George's premiership. Finally, after he had restored his reputation at Lausanne, his ultimate ambition was thwarted by George V.[68]


Critics generally agreed that Curzon never reached the heights that his youthful talents had seemed destined to reach. This sense of opportunities missed was summed up by Winston Churchill in his book Great Contemporaries (1937):

The morning had been golden; the noontide was bronze; and the evening lead. But all were polished till it shone after its fashion.


Churchill also wrote there was certainly something lacking in Curzon:

it was certainly not information nor application, nor power of speech nor attractiveness of manner and appearance. Everything was in his equipment. You could unpack his knapsack and take an inventory item by item. Nothing on the list was missing, yet somehow or other the total was incomplete.[69]


His Cabinet colleague The Earl of Crawford provided a withering personal judgment in his diary; "I never knew a man less loved by his colleagues and more hated by his subordinates, never a man so bereft of conscience, of charity or of gratitude. On the other hand the combination of power, of industry, and of ambition with a mean personality is almost without parallel. I never attended a funeral ceremony at which the congregation was so dry-eyed!"[70]

The first leader of independent India, Jawaharlal Nehru, paid Curzon a surprising tribute, referring to the fact that Curzon as Viceroy exhibited real love of Indian culture and ordered a restoration project for several historic monuments, including the Taj Mahal:[71]

After every other Viceroy has been forgotten, Curzon will be remembered because he restored all that was beautiful in India.[72]


Legacy

Curzon Hall, the home of the faculty of science at the University of Dhaka, is named after him. Lord Curzon himself inaugurated the building in 1904.

Curzon Gate, a ceremonial gate, was erected by Maharaja Bijay Chand Mahatab in the heart of Burdwan town to commemorate Lord Curzon's visit to the town in 1904, which was renamed as Bijay Toran after the independence of India in 1947.

Curzon Road, the road connecting India Gate, the memorial dedicated to the Indian fallen during the Great War of 1914–18, and Connaught Place, in New Delhi was named after him. It has since been renamed Kasturba Gandhi Marg. The apartment buildings on the same road are still named after him.

Notes

1. Mosley, Leonard (1961). Curzon: The End of an Epoch. pp. 264–275.
2. Great Contemporaries, Winston S. Churchill
3. Mosley, Leonard (1961). Curzon: The End of an Epoch. p. 288.
4. Empire, Niall Ferguson
5. Philip Holden, Autobiography and Decolonization: Modernity, Masculinity, and the Nation-state (2008), p. 46
6. Eton, the Raj and modern India; By Alastair Lawson; 9 March 2005; BBC News.
7. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Curzon of Kedleston, George Nathaniel, 1st Baron". Encyclopædia Britannica. 7(11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 665.
8. "... Oscar Browning (1837–1923), who had been sacked from Eton in September 1875 under suspicion of paederasty, partly because of his involvement with young George Nathaniel Curzon" in Michael Kaylor, Secreted Desires 2006 p.98
9. "His intimate, indiscreet friendship with a boy in another boarding-house, G. N. Curzon [...] provoked a crisis with [Headmaster] Hornby [….] Amid national controversy he was dismissed in 1875 on the pretext of administrative inefficiency but actually because his influence was thought to be sexually contagious" in Richard Davenport-Hines, Oscar Browning DNB
10. Mosley, Leonard (1961). Curzon: The End of an Epoch. Longmans, Green, and Co. p. (need page).
11. Burton, David Henry (1990). Cecil Spring Rice: A Diplomat's Life. Page 22: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. ISBN 978-0-8386-3395-3.
12. Mosley, Leonard (1961). Curzon: The End of an Epoch. Longmans, Green, and Co. p. 26.
13. Mosley, Leonard (1961). Curzon: The End of an Epoch. Longmans, Green, and Co. p. 43.
14. Mosley, Leonard (1961). Curzon: The End of an Epoch.
15. Curzon, Russia in Central Asia (1967), p. 314.
16. Curzon, Russia in Central Asia (1967), p. 272.
17. Denis Wright, "Curzon and Persia," The Geographical Journal 153#3 (November 1987): 343.
18. Curzon, Russia in Central Asia p. 277.
19. Denis Wright, "Curzon and Persia," The Geographical Journal 153#3 (November 1987):346.
20. Wright, "Curzon and Persia," pp 346–7
21. Brockway, Thomas P (1941). "Britain and the Persian Bubble, 1888–1892". The Journal of Modern History. 13 (1): 46. doi:10.1086/243919.
22. George N. Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question (Volume 1). New York: Barnes & Noble, 1966, p 605.
23. Maximilian Genealogy Master Database, Mary Victoria LEITER, 2000 Archived 6 March 2008 at the Wayback Machine
24. "No. 27016". The London Gazette. 21 October 1898. p. 6140.
25. M. E. Yapp, "British Perceptions of the Russian Threat to India," Modern Asian Studies 21#4 (1987): 655.
26. Yapp, pp 655, 664.
27. "First Partition of Bengal". http://www.indhistory.com.
28. Reid 2006, p116
29. Fagan, Brian (2009), Floods, Famines, and Emperors: El Nino and the Fate of Civilizations, Basic Books. p. 13
30. Fieldhouse 1996, p. 132 Quote: "In the later nineteenth century there was a series of disastrous crop failures in India leading not only to starvation but to epidemics. Most were regional, but the death toll could be huge. Thus, to take only some of the worst famines for which the death rate is known, some 800,000 died in the North West Provinces, Punjab, and Rajasthan in 1837–38; perhaps 2 million in the same region in 1860–61; nearly a million in different areas in 1866–67; 4.3 million in widely spread areas in 1876–78, an additional 1.2 million in the North West Provinces and Kashmir in 1877–78; and, worst of all, over 5 million in a famine that affected a large population of India in 1896–97. In 1899–1900 more than a million were thought to have died, conditions being worse because of the shortage of food following the famines only two years earlier. Thereafter the only major loss of life through famine was in 1943 under exceptional wartime conditions.(p. 132)"
31. Davis, Mike. Late Victorian Holocausts. 1. Verso, 2000. ISBN 1-85984-739-0 pg 158
32. Mike Davis: Late Victorian Holocausts
33. David Gilmour's Curzon and Ruling Caste. In Curzon he writes that 3.5 million were on famine relief, in Ruling Caste he writes it was over five million.
34. Davis, Mike. Late Victorian Holocausts. 1. Verso, 2000. ISBN 1-85984-739-0 pg 162
35. Davis, Mike. Late Victorian Holocausts. 1. Verso, 2000. ISBN 1-85984-739-0 pg 164
36. The Rt. Hon. The Earl of Ronaldshay. The Life of Curszon Vol.3.
37. Oxford DNB
38. "No. 28547". The London Gazette. 3 November 1911. p. 7951.
39. Winterman, Denise (7 March 2013). "The man who demolished Shakespeare's house". BBC News.
40. Woodward, 1998, pp113, 118–9
41. Woodward, 1998, p.16
42. Groot 1988, p.226–7
43. Woodward, 1998, pp.155–7
44. Woodward, 1998, pp134, 159–61,
45. Woodward, 1998, p.200
46. Channel 4 history microsites: Bodiam Castle
47. Michael Foot: Aneurin Bevan
48. Johnson, Gaynor "Preparing for Office: Lord Curzon as Acting Foreign Secretary, January- October 1919." Contemporary British History 18.3 (2004): 56.
49. G.H. Bennett, "Lloyd George, Curzon and the Control of British Foreign Policy 1919–22," Australian Journal of Politics & History 45#4 (1999): 479.
50. Bennett, G.H. (1999). "Lloyd George, Curzon and the Control of British Foreign Policy 1919–22". Australian Journal of Politics & History. 45 (4): 472. doi:10.1111/1467-8497.00076.
51. Sharp, Alan "Adapting to a New World? British Foreign Policy in the 1920s." Contemporary British History 18.3 (2004): 76.
52. Bennett, G.H. (1999). "Lloyd George, Curzon and the Control of British Foreign Policy 1919–22". Australian Journal of Politics & History. 45 (4): 473. doi:10.1111/1467-8497.00076.
53. Gaynor Johnson, "Preparing for Office: Lord Curzon as Acting Foreign Secretary, January–October 1919", Contemporary British History, vol. 18, n°3, 2004, pp. 53–73.
54. Sarah Meiklejohn Terry (1983). Poland's Place in Europe: General Sikorski and the Origin of the Oder-Neisse Line, 1939–1943. Princeton University Press. p. 121. ISBN 9781400857173.
55. Yapp, p. 654.
56. Yapp, p. 653.
57. Jeffery 2006, pp. 251–252.
58. Jeffery 2006, pp. 233–234, 247–251.
59. Jump up to:a b Gilmour, David (1996). "The Unregarded Prophet: Lord Curzon and the Palestine Question". Journal of Palestine Studies. 25 (3): 60–68. doi:10.2307/2538259. JSTOR 2538259.
60. Jeffery 2006, pp. 266–267.
61. "No. 32376". The London Gazette. 1 July 1921. p. 5243.
62. Bennett, "Lloyd George, Curzon and the Control of British Foreign Policy 1919–22," p. 477.
63. UK Retail Price Index inflation figures are based on data from Clark, Gregory (2017). "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved 27 January 2019.
64. "Curzon of Kedleston". probatesearchservice.gov. UK Government. 1925. Retrieved 7 August2019.
65. "George Nathaniel Curzon blue plaque". openplaques.org. Retrieved 13 May 2013.
66. "No. 32346". The London Gazette (Supplement). 4 June 1921. p. 4529.
67. "Lord Curzon: A Great Career". The Times. The Times Digital Archive. 21 March 1925. p. 7.
68. David Gilmour, "Curzon, George Nathaniel, Marquess Curzon of Kedleston (1859–1925)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2011 accessed 30 Sept 2014 doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/32680
69. Churchill, Great Contemporaries, Chapter on Curzon
70. Lindsay, p. 507.
71. Roy, Amit (15 January 2005). "Reviled-Curzon-name-wins-new-respect-in-India". telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 29 August 2017.
72. "When Curzon rescued Ahmedabad's icon". timesofindia.indiatimes.com. Retrieved 5 July 2017.

Bibliography

George Nathaniel Curzon's writings

• Curzon, Russia in Central Asia in 1889 and the Anglo-Russian Question (1889) Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., London (reprinted Cass, 1967), Adamant Media Corporation; ISBN 978-1-4021-7543-5 (27 February 2001) Reprint (Paperback) Details
• Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question (1892) Longmans, Green, and Co., London and New York.; facsimile reprint:
o Volume 1 (Paperback) by George Nathaniel Curzon, Adamant Media Corporation; ISBN 978-1-4021-6179-7 (22 October 2001) Abstract
o Volume 2 (Paperback) by George Nathaniel Curzon, Adamant Media Corporation; ISBN 978-1-4021-6178-0 (22 October 2001) Abstract
• Curzon, On The Indian Frontier, Edited with an introduction by Dhara Anjaria; (Oxford U.P. 2011) 350 pages ISBN 978-0-19-906357-4
• Curzon, Problems of the Far East (1894; new ed., 1896) George Nathaniel Curzon Problems of the Far East. Japan -Korea – China, reprint; ISBN 1-4021-8480-8, ISBN 978-1-4021-8480-2 (25 December 2000) Adamant Media Corporation (Paperback)Abstract
• Curzon, The Pamirs and the Source of the Oxus, 1897, The Royal Geographical Society. Geographical Journal 8 (1896): 97–119, 239–63. A thorough study of the region's history and people and of the British–Russian conflict of interest in Turkestan based on Curzon's travels there in 1894. Reprint (paperback): Adamant Media Corporation, ISBN 978-1-4021-5983-1 (22 April 2002) Abstract. Unabridged reprint (2005): Elbiron Classics, Adamant Media Corporation; ISBN 1-4021-5983-8 (pbk); ISBN 1-4021-3090-2 (hardcover).
• Curzon, The Romanes Lecture 1907, FRONTIERS by the Right Hon Lord Curzon of Kedleston G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E., PC, D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., All Souls College, Chancellor of the University, Delivered in the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, 2 November 1907 full text.
• Curzon, Tales of Travel. First published by Hodder & Stoughton 1923 (Century Classic Ser.) London, Century. 1989, Facsimile Reprint; ISBN 0-7126-2245-4; reprint with Foreword by Lady Alexandra Metcalfe, Introduction by Peter King. A selection of Curzon's travel writing including essays on Egypt, Afghanistan, Persia, Iran, India, Iraq Waterfalls, etc. (includes the future viceroy's escapade into Afghanistan to meet the "Iron Emir", Abdu Rahman Khan, in 1894)
• Curzon, Travels with a Superior Person, London, Sidgwick & Jackson. 1985, Reprint; ISBN 978-0-283-99294-0, Hardcover, illustrated with 90 contemporary photographs most of them from Curzon's own collection (includes Greece in the Eighties, pp. 78–84; edited by Peter King; introduced by Elizabeth, Countess Longford)

Secondary sources

• Bennet, G. H. (1995). British Foreign Policy During the Curzon Period, 1919–1924. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-12650-6.
• Carrington, Michael. Officers, Gentlemen, and Murderers: Lord Curzon’s campaign against ‘collisions’ between Indians and Europeans, 1899–1905,Modern Asian Studies 47:03, May 2013, pp. 780–819.
• Carrington, Michael. A PhD thesis, "Empire and authority: Curzon, collisions, character and the Raj, 1899–1905.", discusses a number of interesting issues raised during Curzon's Viceroyalty (available through British Library).
• De Groot, Gerard Douglas Haig 1861–1928 (Larkfield, Maidstone: Unwin Hyman, 1988)
• Dilks, David; Curzon in India (2 volumes, 1970) online edition
• Edwardes, Michael. High Noon of Empire: India under Curzon (1965)
• Gilmour, David (1994). Curzon: Imperial Statesman. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. excerpt and text search
• Gilmour, David. "Curzon, George Nathaniel, Marquess Curzon of Kedleston (1859–1925)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 2004; online edn, Jan 2011 accessed 30 Sept 2014 doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/32680
• Goudie A. S. (1980). "George Nathaniel Curzon: Superior Geographer", The Geographical Journal, 146, 2 (1980): 203–209, doi:10.2307/632861 Abstract
• Goradia, Nayana. Lord Curzon The Last of the British Moghuls (1993) full text online free.
• Jeffery, Keith (2006). Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson: A Political Soldier. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-820358-2.
• Katouzian, Homa. "The Campaign Against the Anglo-Iranian Agreement of 1919." British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 25 (1) (1998): 5–46.
• Loades, David, ed. Reader's Guide to British History (2003) 1:324-25; historiography
• Lindsay, David (1984). John Vincent (ed.). The Crawford Papers: The journals of David Lindsay, twenty-seventh Earl of Crawford and tenth Earl of Balcarres 1871–1940 during the years 1892 to 1940. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-71900-948-8.
• McLane, John R.. "The Decision to Partition Bengal in 1905," Indian Economic and Social History Review, July 1965, 2#3, pp 221–237
• Mosley, Leonard Oswald. The glorious fault: The life of Lord Curzon
• Nicolson, Harold George (1934). Curzon: The Last Phase, 1919–1925: A Study in Post-war Diplomacy. London: Constable. ISBN 9780571258925
• Reid, Walter. Architect of Victory: Douglas Haig (Birlinn Ltd, Edinburgh, 2006.) ISBN 1-84158-517-3
• Ronaldshay, Earl of (1927). The life of Lord Curzon. Vol. 1–2. (London)
• Rose, Kenneth. Superior Person: A Portrait of Curzon and His Circle in Late Victorian England, Weidenfeld & Nicolson History, ISBN 1842122339
• Ross, Christopher N. B. "Lord Curzon and E. G. Browne Confront the 'Persian Question'", Historical Journal, 52, 2 (2009): 385–411, doi:10.1017/S0018246X09007511
• Woodward, David R, Field Marshal Sir William Robertson, Westport Connecticut & London: Praeger, 1998, ISBN 0-275-95422-6
• Wright, Denis. "Curzon and Persia." The Geographical Journal 153 (3) (1987): 343–350.

External links

• Analysis of George Curzon as Viceroy
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Marquess Curzon of Kedleston
• India under Curzon and after, By Lovat Fraser, Published by William Heinemann, London – 1911.Digital Rare Book :
• Problems of the Far East: Japan – Korea – China by George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston at archive.org
• Modern parliamentary eloquence; the Rede lecture, delivered before the University of Cambridge, 6 November 1913 by George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston at archive.org
• Russia In Central Asia In 1889 by George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston at archive.org
• War poems and other translations by George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston at archive.org
• "Archival material relating to George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston". UK National Archives.
• George Nathaniel CURZON was born 11 Jan 1859. He died 20 Mar 1925. George married Mary Victoria LEITER on 22 Apr 1895
• Newspaper clippings about George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
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