by Miles Taylor
99. ‘Visit of H.R.H. Prince Albert’, Chief Secretariat Records (21 of 1889), 1–7, Karnataka State Archives. For the hunting portion of trip, see: J. D. Rees, ‘Prince Albert Victor in Travancore’, Macmillan’s Magazine 62 (May 1890), 71–80.
100. Harvey, ‘Tour with Prince Albert Victor’, entry for 17 November (throne), RA GV/PRIV/AA39A.
101. The Times, 16 December 1889, 5.
102. Lansdowne to the Prince of Wales, 7 January 1890, RA VIC/MAIN/N/46/54.
103. ‘Message of Welcome’, Cutwa municipality (‘dumb millions’), RA VIC/MAIN/N/46/54; cf. Kabi Bandhu Sen, Anshlata. The Creeper of Hope (Calcutta: Nibaran Chandra Ghosh, 1890) (QLB Bengal). The Times, 9 December 1889, 5 (student disruption).
104. Diary entry for 6 February 1890, Harvey, ‘Tour with Prince Albert Victor’, RA GV/PRIV/AA39A.
105. Harvey, ‘Tour with Prince Albert Victor’, entry for 19 January (statue); Albert Victor to Queen Victoria, 19 January 1890, RA VIC/MAIN/Z/92/76.
106. ToI, 26 March 1890, 5; Harvey, ‘Tour with Prince Albert Victor’, entry for 25 March (leper asylum), RA GV/PRIV/AA39A.
8 Queen-Empress
1. ‘Couronnement de l’Impèratrice des Indes’ (c. 1881), Dorot Jewish Division, Box 171: 331, New York Public Library. Disraeli is supposed to have refused a visit from Queen Victoria on his death bed on the grounds that she would ask him to communicate with Albert: Jonathan Parry, ‘Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield (1804–1881)’, ODNB.
2. Bernard S. Cohn, ‘Representing Authority in Victorian India’ in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 165–210; Thomas Metcalf, Ideologies of the Raj (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 59–65; David Cannadine, Ornamentalism: How the British Saw their Empire (London: Allen Lane, 2001), ch. 4; Julie F. Codell, ‘Photography and the Delhi Coronation Durbars’ in Codell (ed.), Power and Resistance: The Delhi Coronation Durbars, 1877, 1903, 1911 (New Delhi: Mapin, 2012), 16–43. For a more nuanced account, see: L. A. Knight, ‘The Royal Titles Act and India’, Historical Journal 11 (1968), 488–507.
3. Queen Victoria to Crown Princess Victoria, 1 October 1873, Crown Princess Victoria to Queen Victoria, 4 October 1873 in Letters of Queen Victoria, 2nd ser., ii, 283–4.
4. Queen Victoria to Disraeli, 13 January 1876, Bodleian Library, Oxford, Dep. Hughenden, 79/2, fols 35–8; QVJl., 26 February 1876.
5. Disraeli to Cairns, 7 January 1876 in G. E. Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, 6 vols (London: John Murray, 1910–20), v, 457; O. T. Burne, ‘Memorandum’, IOR/L/PS/20/MEMO31/5 (22 December 1875).
6. Disraeli to Queen Victoria, 11 January 1876, RA VIC/MAIN/N/31/3.
7. HC Debs, 227 (17 February 1876), 408–10.
8. Ibid., 410–17.
9. Disraeli to Queen Victoria, 18 February 1876, RA VIC/MAIN/F/16/1; Ponsonby to Disraeli, 19 February 1876, ibid., fol. 3; Queen Victoria to Ponsonby, 19 February 1876, ibid., fol. 4; Granville to Queen Victoria, 23 February 1876, ibid., fol. 17; Queen Victoria to Ponsonby (n.d. c. 24 February 1876), ibid., fol. 21; Gladstone to Granville, 18 February 1876, reprinted in Agatha Ramm (ed.), The Political Correspondence of Mr Gladstone and Lord Granville, 1868–1876, 2 vols Camden 3rd ser., 81–2, (London: Royal Historical Society, 1952), ii, 482–3.
10. Queen Victoria to Theodore Martin, 14 March 1876, RA VIC/MAIN/F/16/38. For hostility in the press, see for example: The Times, 11 March 1876, 9 (‘ludicrous’), Spectator, 11 March 1876, 4 (‘vulgarity’).
11. Ponsonby to Disraeli, 15 March 1876, Disraeli papers, Dep. Hughenden 79/2, fols 130–3. Queen Victoria to Disraeli, 18 March 1876 (copy), RA VIC/MAIN/F/16/69.
12. HC Debs, 227, (9 March 1876), 1719–60; ibid., 228, (16 March 1876), 77; ‘Notes’ (n.d. c. early March 1876), Disraeli papers, Dep. Hughenden, 86/2, fols 128–9; Lord Salisbury to Disraeli, 14 March 1876, ibid., fols 147–8.
13. HC Debs, 228 (20 March 1876), 499; Disraeli to Queen Victoria, 23 March 1876, RA VIC/MAIN/F/16/78. Ponsonby to Queen Victoria, 23 March 1876, fol. 79. The geography text book referred to was John Guy, Geography for Children, on a Perfectly Easy Plan: Adapted for the Use of Schools and Private Families. Originally published in 1810, it was in its 89th edition by 1876; cf. An Almanack for the Year of Our Lord 1876 (London: J. Whitaker, 1876), 64.
14. HL Debs, 228 (3 April 1876), 1047, 1049.
15. Reynolds’ News, 2 April 1876, 5; [James Thomson], A Commission of Enquiry into Royalty, etc. (1876) in The Speedy Extinction of Evil and Misery. Selected Prose of James Thomson, ed. William David Schaefer (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), esp. 40–1.
16. [E. Jenkins], The Blot on the Queen’s Head; or, How Little Ben, the Head Waiter, Changed the Sign of the “Queen’s Inn” to “Empress Hotel, Limited” (London: Strahan & Co., 1876). Jenkins also criticised the bill in Parliament: ‘Was this to be a new avatar to the people of India?’: HC Debs, 228 (20 March 1876), 296.
17. ‘Ranee Bahadoor’ and ‘Her Imperial Majesty the Queen of all the Britains [sic] and Sovereign Lady of India’ were suggested: A Septuagenarian Tory, Queen Alone, in every Heart and on Every Tongue (London: Edward Stanford, 1876), 9–12; E. G. Highton, Our Imperial Crown. A Letter Addressed to the Statesmen of the British Empire Containing an Unobjectionable Adequate Solution of the Difficulties Involved in the Proposed Extension of the Royal Titles (London: J. Westall, 1876), 7. For attacks on and caricatures of Disraeli, see: ‘God save the Queen’: Being a Last Few Words on the Royal Titles Bill, a Protest by A Loyal Subject and True Englishman (London: C. F. Hodgson, 1876), 13–14; ‘New Crowns for Old Ones’, Punch, 15 April 1876, 147. On demonology around Disraeli at this time, see: Anthony Wohl, ‘“Dizzi-Ben-Dizzi”: Disraeli as Alien’, Journal of British Studies 34 (1995), 375–411.
18. HC Debs, 228 (4 April 1876), 1181; Disraeli to Queen Victoria, 4 April 1876, RA VIC/MAIN/F/17/10; Disraeli to Queen Victoria, 26 April 1876, RA VIC/MAIN/F/17/30; Lord Derby to Disraeli, 7 April 1876, Disraeli papers, Dep. Hughenden, 79/2, fols 174–6.
19. HL Debs, 228 (7 April 1876), 1388.
20. HC Debs, 317 (25 July 1887), 1890–1; ibid., 337 (9 July 1889), 1827–8.
21. Queen Victoria suggested four names to Salisbury, Lytton not amongst them: Queen Victoria to Salisbury, 1 November 1875, 3rd Marquess Salisbury papers, Hatfield House, 3M/F; Lytton to Disraeli, 30 November 1875, Disraeli papers, Dep. Hughenden 105/1, fols 24–9.
22. For Lytton, see: David Washbrook, ‘Lytton, Edward Robert Bulwer-, first earl of Lytton (1831–1891)’, ODNB; E. Neill Raymond, Victorian Viceroy: The Life of Robert, the First Earl of Lytton (London: Regency Press, 1980).
23. Betty Balfour (ed.), Personal and Literary Letters of Robert, First Earl of Lytton, 2 vols (London: Longmans, 1906), i, 70–71, 159–70; [Lytton], ‘Germany: Past, Present and Future’, Fortnightly Review 9 (June 1871), 677–708, esp. 680–1, 706–7; idem., ‘The French Constitutional Monarchy of 1830: An Enquiry into the Causes of its Failure’, Contemporary Review 24 (June 1874), 856–74, esp. 871–4.
24. Balfour (ed.), Personal and Literary Letters, i, 179–81; Lytton ‘Philosophy in Cunieform’, Macmillan’s Magazine 15 (April 1867), 499–509.
25. Lytton to Montagu Corry (Disraeli’s private secretary), 20 April 1876, Disraeli papers, Dep. Hughenden, 105/1, fols 56–60; cf. Lytton to Queen Victoria, 4 May 1876, RA VIC/MAIN/N/31/43.
26. Lytton to Disraeli, 30 April 1876, Disraeli papers, Dep. Hughenden, 105/1, fols 68–81; Salisbury to Lytton, 30 August 1876, IOR E2183; Lytton to Queen Victoria, 4 May 1876, RA VIC/MAIN/N/31/46, partially reprinted in Letters of Queen Victoria, 2nd ser., ii, 460–3, but without the allusion to Austria.
27. Lytton to Disraeli, 3 October 1876, Disraeli papers, Dep. Hughenden, 105/1, fols 98–103.
28. ‘Memorandum by the Viceroy’ (11 May 1876, rev. 29 July and 10 August 1876), IOR Mss Eur. F86/166, fols 7–15. Cf. the original memorandum at IOR L/PS/20/MEMO33/19.
29. L
ytton to Disraeli, 3 October 1876, Disraeli papers, Dep. Hughenden, 105/1, fols 98–103; T. H. Thornton to Lepel Griffin, 28 October 1876, Foreign Dept Proceedings, NAI, Pol. B., 872, fol. 4.
30. Lytton to Queen Victoria, 12 August 1876, RA VIC/MAIN/N/31/87. Lord Salisbury explained that the Order of British India was an award from the days of the East India Company, and was now ‘quite full’: Lord Salisbury to Ponsonby, 29 August 1876, RA VIC/MAIN/N/31/103–4. It was later revived as a campaign medal.
31. Lytton to Queen Victoria, 11 September 1876, IOR Mss Eur E218/18, fols 545–7; Salisbury to Lytton, 12 September 1876, IOR Mss Eur E218/3, fol. 481; W. H. Doyly to Temple, 3 December 1876, IOR Mss Eur F86/166. For the college of heralds and the banners, see: ‘Memorandum by the Viceroy’ (11 May 1876), 11, 13. For the role of Lockwood Kipling, see: T. H. Thornton to Lepel Griffin, 29 September 1876, NAI, Foreign Dept Proceedings, Pol. B. 554; Catherine Arbuthnott, ‘Designs for the Imperial Assemblage’ in Julius Bryant and Susan Weber (eds), John Lockwood Kipling: Arts and Crafts in the Punjab and London (London: Yale University Press, 2017), 151–68. For the final approval of the Indian Privy Council and suggestions for Indian members, see: Ponsonby to Queen Victoria, 7 December 1876, RA VIC/MAIN/N/32/28.
32. O. T. Burne to Richard Temple, 14 October 1876 and 16 December 1876, IOR Mss Eur F86/166; Val C. Prinsep, Imperial India: An Artist’s Journals (London: Chapman and Hall, 1879), 35.
33. Lytton to Wodehouse, 23 July 1876, IOR Mss Eur D726/9; ‘Memorandum by the Viceroy’ (11 May 1876), 8; The Times, 16 September 1876, 7.
34. Major Davies to Col. Sir R. J. Meade, 18 September 1876, Delhi Commissioner’s Records, Delhi District Archives, 192/1876 I, fol. 12.
35. ‘Editors of Native Papers to be Invited to Delhi’ (10 September 1876), IOR Mss Eur F86/166.
36. Lytton to Queen Victoria, 20 August 1876, IOR Mss Eur E218/18, fols 376–8.
37. Owen Tudor Burne, Memories (London: E. Arnold, 1907), 220. A miniature of the gold medal can be seen at RCIN 443439. For the special anna, see: Financial Dept to the Collector, 23 November 1876, NAI, Foreign Dept Proceedings, Pol. B, 878–80, of which there is an example at RCIN 445772.
38. Salisbury to Lytton, 12 September 1876, IOR E218/3, fols 366–8; T. E. Colebrooke, ‘On Imperial and Other Titles’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 9 (1877), 314–420; G. W. Leitner, Kaisar-i-Hind, the Only Appropriate Translation of the Title of Empress of India, etc. (Lahore: I. P. O. Press, 1876).
39. Lytton to Queen Victoria, 2 August 1876, RA VIC/MAIN/N/31/81 (copy of a telegram), Lytton to Queen Victoria, 12 August 1876, RA VIC/MAIN/N/31/87. For the queen’s reactions to the designs, see: Queen Victoria to Salisbury, 19 August 1876, 9 October 1876, 21 October 1876, Salisbury papers, 3M/F.
40. Ponsonby to Queen Victoria, 5 November 1876, RA VIC/MAIN/N/32/15; Disraeli to Queen Victoria, 30 August 1876, RA VIC/MAIN/N/31/105.
41. Lytton to Queen Victoria, 15 November 1876, RA VIC/MAIN/N/32/20; Lytton to Queen Victoria, 11 September 1876, RA VIC/MAIN/N/32/1.
42. ‘Minute by Lord Salisbury on . . . Lord Lytton’s proposal for a Privy Council, etc.’ (2 November 1876); IOR L/PS/20/MEMO33/20 Disraeli to Salisbury, 3 September 1876 (copy), IOR Mss Eur. E218/3, fols 362–4.
43. Philip Melvill to Col. Sir R. J. Meade, 25 September 1876, Delhi Commissioner’s Records, Delhi District Archives, 192/1876 III, fol. 20; Captn C. A. Bayley to Meade, 11 November 1876, ibid., fol. 66; Captain E. A. Fraser to Meade, 23 November 1876, ibid., fol. 112.
44. For the programme of entry of the Viceroy, see: ToI, 28 December 1876, 2. J. Talboys Wheeler, The History of the Imperial Assemblage at Delhi held on the 1st January 1877 (1877; repr. New Delhi: Arhuja, 2007), 50–6; Lytton to Queen Victoria, 23 December 1876–10 January 1877, IOR Mss Eur E218/19, 3–19.
45. Lytton to Queen Victoria, 23 December 1876–10 January 1877, IOR Mss Eur E218/19, 13; John Robertson and L. A. Smith (comp.), The Imperial Assemblage Directory: Being a List of the Governors, Administrators, Princes, Chiefs, Nobles and Others Present in Camp at Delhi during the Assemblage, Together with Other Information and a Map Showing the Positions of the Several Camps (Allahabad: Pioneer Press, 1876).
46. Calcutta Gazette, 10 January 1877, 5–7; Talboys Wheeler, History, 57–9, 157; Lytton to Queen Victoria, 23 December 1876–10 January 1877, IOR Mss Eur, E218/19, 6; H. N. Miller to the under-secretary, Foreign Dept, 25 October 1876, NAI, Foreign Dept Proceedings, Pol. B, 516–18.
47. Talboys Wheeler, History, 70–89, is the official account. For other detailed descriptions, see: Pioneer, 4 January 1877, 2–3; Bombay Gazette, 5 January 1877, 3–4.
48. Lytton To Queen Victoria, 23 December 1876–10 January 1877, IOR Mss Eur E218/19, 18.
49. ‘Reply to the Deputation of the British India Association’ (30 January 1877), Selected Speeches, 53.
50. Government of India to the secretary of state for India, 2 February 1877, NAI, Foreign Dept Proceedings, Political A, 312.
51. Talboys Wheeler, History, 137–50.
52. Lytton to Hamilton, 19 January 1877, IOR Mss Eur E218/19, 44. Lytton’s officials calculated the net cost of the event to be nearer 1 million rupees (about £66,000): ‘Extract from the Financial Statement for 1877–8 Published in the Gazette of India, 15 March 1877’, NAI, Foreign Dept Proceedings (December 1877), Pol. A, 495.
53. Civil and Military Gazette, 4 January 1877, 1; Bangalore Spectator, 9 January 1877, 2.
54. Bharat Sangskarak (Calcutta), 15 January 1877, NNR, IOR L/R/5/3; Urdu Akbar (Akola), 30 December 1876, NNR, IOR L/R/5/54. cf. Rajkrishna Raya, Bharat-Bhagya; or, India’s Good Fortune (Calcutta: Albert Press, 1877), QLB (Bengal), a sarcastically titled criticism of the ‘imperial rejoicings’ amidst ‘famines and floods’. For Tagore’s work: S. Radhakrishnan (ed.), Rabindranath Tagore, 1861–1961. A Centenary Volume (New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1961), 453.
55. Indian Charivari, 5 January 1877, 6–7.
56. Bernard Cohn, ‘Representing Authority in Victorian India’, 172; Julie Codell, ‘On the Delhi Coronation Durbars, 1877, 1903, 1911’, http://www.branchcollective.org/?ps_articles=julie-codell-on-the-delhi-coronation-durbars-1877–1903–1911, 6 (accessed 4 April 2018); cf. Codell, ‘Photography and the Delhi Coronation Durbars’, 20–2. For the memory of 1857, see: Sonakshi Goyle, ‘Tracing a Cultural Memory: Commemoration of 1857 in the Delhi Durbars, 1877, 1903, and 1911’, Historical Journal 59 (2016), 799–815.
57. Tarjuma-e-tarikh-e-dakkan (c. 1877), Mss Hist. 247, Salar Jung Museum and Library, Hyderabad.
58. Barbara Metcalf, ‘Islam and Power in Colonial India: The Making and Unmaking of a Muslim Princess’, American Historical Review 116 (2011), 1–30; Teresa Segura-Garcia, ‘Baroda, the British Empire and the World, c. 1875–1939’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 2016).
59. Mirza Hatim Ali Beg Mehr, I’d Qaisarya/The Imperial Festival (Agra: the author, 1878), QLB (North-West Provinces). Mehr’s patron was the Nawab of Rampur. Beni Madhab Nyaratna, Bharateswari Kabyam/Empress of India (Calcutta: the author, 1879), QLB (Bengal).
60. The events across India receive cursory attention in Talboys Wheeler, History, ch. 11. A fuller account is at NAI, Foreign Dept Proceedings (December 1877), Political A, 330–496.
61. Ibid., 351a.
62. Frank Harris, Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata. A Chronicle of His Life (London: Humphrey Milford, 1925), 26–9.
63. H. S. Thomas to the chief secretary to the Government of Madras, 24 November 1876, NAI, Foreign Dept Proceedings (December 1877), Political A, 330.
64. NAI, Foreign Dept Proceedings (December 1877), Political A, 337 (Benares); 344 (Cachar).
65. Ibid., 380 (Dharwad); 392 (Farrukhabad); 395 (Aligarh).
66. Ibid., 332 (Alibag); 384 (Calcutta); 415 (Secunderabad); 376 (Poona).
67. Lytton to Queen Victoria, 11 September 1876, IOR Mss Eur. E218/18, fols 454–7. The ‘congratulatory poems’ are listed in NAI, Foreign Dept Proceedings (December 1877), Pol. A, 439. Unle
ss otherwise indicated the verses described here are taken from this source.
68. Sourindro Mohun Tagore, The National Anthem: Translated into Sanskrit and Bengali Verse, and Set to Twelve Varieties of Indian Melody (Calcutta: the author, 1882); Ponsonby to [Robert] Bickersteth, 23 February 1883, Kimberley papers, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, Ms Eng c. 4204, fol. 32–3; Harford to A. C. Tait, 17 November 1882, Tait papers, Lambeth Palace Library, 281, fols 176–7. See: Charles Capwell, ‘Sourindro Mohun Tagore and the National Anthem Project’, Ethnomusicology 31 (1987), 407–30.
69. Kokkonda Venkatarathnamu Pantulu, The Empress of India Nine Gems (Madras: C. Foster & Co., 1876); cf. Mukunda Chandra Lahiri, British-Sangita/British Song (Calcutta: Lahihri, Chakrabati & Co., 1881), QLB (Bengal).
70. Raj Krishna Raya, Bina/The Lute, 1 (1879), QLB (Bengal).
71. Abdul Gafur, Muraqqa-i-Salatin, Hissa-i-awwal-i-Asar-ul-Mutaakhkirin/The Gallery of Princes (Delhi: Muraru Lal’s Press, 1875), QLB (Punjab); Shahzada Mirza Muhammad Rais Bakht, Mauj-i-Sultani/The Wave of Kings (Lucknow: Nawal Kishore, 1884), QLB, (North-West Provinces).
72. Bowmanjee Cursetjee, On British Administration in India: Consisting of Various Events and Innovations (Bombay: Times of India, 1876).
73. ‘Speech at the Convocation of the Calcutta University’, 10 March 1877, in Selected Speeches of His Excellency Robert Lord Lytton, etc. (Calcutta: Bonnerjee & Co., 1877), 21–4, 33–4. For Lytton’s private views on the BIA, ‘the most pampered, pretentious, disloyal set of rascals in India’, see: Lytton to Lord Cranbrook, 12 May 1879, Cranbrook papers, Suffolk Record Office, Ipswich, HA 43 T501/32.
74. Annie Besant, England, India and Afghanistan (London: Freethought Publishing Company, 1878), 47.
75. QVJl., 1 January 1877; Lord George Hamilton to Lytton 2 January 1877 (telegram), NAI, Political Proceedings, 865.
76. QVJl., 8 May 1878; Andrekos Varnava, British Imperialism in Cyprus, 1878–1915: The Inconsequential Possession (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009), ch. 3.