Cox and Kings, Delhi and the Rebellion of 1857

 

What connects Delhi, Leeds and the famous travel company, Cox and Kings? A hint, it’s not what you're thinking. This is a requisitioning letter from Cox and Company which later became Cox and Kings. Cox and Company began as an army agent, an intermediary looking after the welfare of regimental soldiers. Over time, they expanded, turned into Cox and Kings and travel became their mainstay. 

 

Interestingly, here Cox and Company are lobbying for Jane Mitchell, the sister of a man called Newland Ashworth who took part in the Rebellion of 1857 in Delhi. Ashworth died in 1864 and as it says, his sister was the beneficiary of the so called ‘Prize Money’ i.e. loot that was promised to British soldiers participating in the recapture of places like Delhi. Soldiers like Ashworth were given a free hand in looting Delhi, the bounty they seized was sold off by prize agents in European markets. Subsequently, a percentage went into the pockets of the soldiers. Here, Cox and Co on behalf of Ashworth’s sister ask for the remittance to be paid to her in Leeds in the 1870s. 

 

There’s much on the looting of Delhi in 1857 and this is first hand evidence of the circulation of its ‘prize money’ in Britain well into the 1870s. Now, as fascinating as this object is, in my book I have also written that the capture, desecration and pillage of Delhi was almost simultaneously followed by a unique and very colonial policy of ‘compensation’ by the likes of John Lawrence, the Viceroy of India. 

 

As the prize money made its way to Europe, Lawrence wanted to re-establish the reins of Empire and began calling for compensation to those who were wrongly accused (i.e. those who remained ‘loyal’) of participating in the Rebellion. This was of course, no easy feat and was to be worked out on the ground by imperial officers. In Delhi, a policy of compensation turned into an unwieldy scheme of property transfers through tickets. The idea was that loyal men (almost all Hindus as Muslims were considered to be the real culprits) could be given seized house property of those who had offended and participated in the Rebellion. Loyalists would be issued tickets to the value of their losses and could theoretically, buy house property in lieu. As I show in the book, however, the scheme was incoherent, tickets were traded and hoarded by all sorts of unconnected/unrelated people, all for some promised 'profit' from house auctions. But somehow in this incoherence or because of it, empire managed to sustain itself.

 

Anyway, below is the front cover of the Cox and Company letter. See you next Friday.

The Associated Hotels of India and Delhi

This is a section from article on the Associated Hotels of India Ltd., a company which managed hotels all across British India. It’s most popular property, the ‘Maiden’s Hotel’ (today’s Oberoi Maidens) can be seen above. This article was featured in a magazine in 1931 and documents the successes of the company in maintaining its properties in places like Lahore and Delhi. As far as I understand the magazine this was published in – ‘The Annual of the East’, was a government publication and this article comes in the wake of the inauguration of New Delhi.

 

The Maiden’s Hotel was popular with European tourists (I have mentioned the hotel when writing about Imre Schwaiger’s museum which was opposite) and I imagine this piece was targeted at visitors or potential visitors to Delhi for the event of the inauguration. There is scant information on its managing director, J.B. Faletti. What I can gather is that Faletti was an Italian immigrant to who came to India and changed his name from Giovanni to John. He managed an extensive network of properties and became a ‘Member of the Victorian Order’ in 1921. As with Schwaiger from Hungary, here is another case of entrepreneurship, migration and Empire. 

 

Anyway, under the Associated Hotels, Maidens went from strength to strength. It was revamped before the inauguration of New Delhi to accommodate 200 guests and ran a range of private tours around what was then called ‘Old’ Delhi (Mehrauli). It even published a tour guide for guests with a range of recommendations of where to bivouac and how long to spend at various attractions. Once back at Maidens, guests were encouraged to enjoy the ballroom and orchestra, the latter was a particular highlight. 

 

On the one hand, Maiden’s Hotel began an enclave of European sociability, away from native habitation and located in the salubrious Civil (‘Civilised’) Lines, an area to the North of Shahjahanabad. On the other, Maiden’s was (and is) a large employer of Indian personnel, providing training and experience to Delhiwallas in the burgeoning hospitality sector. Maidens now operates as a 4* heritage hotel in Delhi, in case you are interested.

 

See you next week.

European toys for M. Bulaqi Dass and Sons. of Chandni Chowk

 

This is a fantastic little piece of Delhi’s postal history which I found on a website. The obverse of the postal cover has the name of M. Bulaqi Dass and Sons. of Chandni Chowk on it. As you can see, it’s addressed to Muller and Froebel of Sonneberg in Germany. 

 

The fascinating thing is that this is a letter in English from an importer of toys in Delhi, specifically toy dolls in 1909. The letter asks Muller and Frobel to send samples of their goods along with pricelists for M. Bulaqi Dass so that they can order goods. It mentions that the company is well capitalised and a ‘large business in this line’.  

 

Now, what can we make of this? M.Bulaqi Dass and Sons are clearly successful importers and are reaching out to a German toy manufacturer to do business. Global connections fostered by Empire enable this. Interestingly, Muller and Froebel are a reputed toy manufacturer from Sonneberg, known at the time as the world’s toy production capital. Secondly, the name ‘Froebel’ comes from Fredrich Froebel, the pioneer of child-centered education in the late 19^th century. Froebel believed in childhood as a time of ‘spiritual purity’ instead of seeing is as a phase prior to (or in preparation for) adulthood. He also made highly prized toys or ‘Froebel’s gifts’ in the first ever kindergarten for children. M. Bulaqi Dass and Sons were aware of this and we know this because their letter refers to them having consulted the ‘Fleischmann Buyers Guide’ for information on Muller and Froebel. Indeed, one might argue that the world’s toy production capital could only emerge because of connections with imperial spaces like India and the demands they placed for goods. 

 

And what about Delhiwallas in particular? As mentioned, there is an interest in developmental toys for children and a potential market in 1909. German products and consumable are finding their way to Delhi, as are new ideas about childhood and human development. However, how did people in Delhi interpret (or re-interpret) such ideas in their own cultural context at the time? This is a much difficult but interesting line of enquiry. I’m going to have to do a bit more reading around this. 

In the meantime, here is the cover of the letter:

 

See you next Friday. 

Asaf Ali and local elections in Delhi

 

Since election season is upon us, I thought it would be apt to share this picture of the Central Legislature elections in 1945 with people queuing up outside the Town Hall in Delhi (note the neo classical columns in the top right-hand corner of the picture). This is an isolated picture which I came across on the internet and I’m not sure who the photographer was or whether this was a picture meant for internal consumption by the Congress Party cadres.

 

The Indian National Congress’ candidate here was the lawyer Asaf Ali, contesting the seat from his hometown. Ali was born nearby in the locality of Kucha Chelan, knew the area and its people intimately and was above all, a Muslim candidate for the Congress that wanted to brandish its secular credentials and the ability to speak for all Indians. The Muslim League and its leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah did not field a candidate in Delhi at the time. In the end, Ali won the election quite comfortably and after the independence of India in 1947, led diplomatic missions abroad. 

See you next week.

Stereoscope views of Delhi and 'night soil'

This is another stereoscope image showing the back of the Jama Masjid in Shahjahanabad/Delhi. I have discussed stereoscopes and their uses, particularly in Delhi previously. The reason I find this interesting is that this typical ‘street view' captures cart traffic in Delhi in the foreground. There are men on left pushing cart out of the way while those on the Ox cart behind wait to clear. Whether capturing this form of traffic was an intentional part of the picture or not, we do not know. However, it gives me a good opportunity to write about the carting of goods in Delhi, and in today’s case- the carting of ‘night soil’, a Victorian euphemism for human waste. 

 

You might ask what made night soil a part of ‘goods’ traffic? Well, during the 19^th century the Delhi Municipality sold the rights to collect night soil from the city to the zamindars (landlords) of Chandrawal, an area, largely agricultural at the time, just outside the city. In a nutshell, villagers would cart it to their fields, treat and use it as manure to fertilise the soil. This was a lucrative trade for the municipality who had wrested it away from the poorly paid sweepers of Delhi. Sweepers previously had the monopoly to sell the night soil but when they became (or rather, were forced to become) employees of the municipality, they had to forgo such benefits.

 

Nightsoil cart traffic would have made its way out through the Nigam Bodh and Kela ghat gates of Shahjahanabad (two of its 14 gates) and then further northwards to Chandrawal. With the exception of nightsoil being transported away by trams in the 1890s, the cart system remained a feature of waste collection in colonial Delhi.

 

Signing off until next Friday.