Empress

by Miles Taylor

  43. She raised the issue as early as October of the previous year: Queen Victoria to Hamilton, [15 October 1896], IOR Mss Eur. A147, fols 3–4. For arrangements for the procession, see: Sir Fleetwood Edwards to the Bishop of Winchester, 11 February 1897, Davidson papers, Lambeth Palace, Davidson 49, fols 348–51, Arthur Bigge to the Bishop of Winchester, 29 February 1887, ibid., fols 359–60.

  44. Hamilton to Elgin, 15 January 1897, IOR Mss Eur. C125/2, p. 3, Hamilton to Elgin, 26 February 1897 (copy), ibid., fol. 26; Elgin to Hamilton, 20 January 1897, Mss Eur. D509/4, fols 27–34; Steyning Edgerley to Mr Hunter, 2 February 1897, 13 March 1897, MSA, Pol. Proceedings (1897), vol. 101, 9, 41. At the beginning of June, the Viceroy sent out a kharita to various maharajas saying that invitations to London had not been issued because of the demands of the famine, ‘one more instance of the thoughtful care and tenderness for Her people’: ibid., vol. 102, 79.

  45. Hamilton to Elgin, 3 June 1897 (on the Maharaja of Kapurthala), IOR Mss Eur. C125/2, 247. The other Indian rulers who came were Kunwar Dokhal Singh, Raja Ajit Singh of Khetri, Rajkumar Ennaid Singh of Shahpura. The Eton boys were the sons of the Maharaja of Cooch Behar, the Thakur of Gondal, and the prime minister of Hyderabad, Viqar-ul-Umra; QVJl., 23 June 1897; The Times, 24 June 1897, 6.

  46. The Times, 23 June 1897, 14; ibid., 12 July 1897, 9; ibid., 14 July 1897, 10; QVJl. 21 June 1897. For the Thakur of Gondal’s elevation: Gazette of India, 22 June 1897, 3.

  47. For the arrangements for one of these officers, Rai Bahadur Thakur Dip Singh (of the Camel Corps), see: Proceedings of the Hazur Dept (Bikaner State), A121/5 (March 1897), Rajasthan State Archives, Bikaner. For the full list and details of their stay: ‘Native Officers and Men. Deputation to England, 1897’, IOR L/MIL/7/5778.

  48. For the order of procession, see: Daily News, 22 June 1897, 2. The newsreel footage is at: http://www.britishpathe.com/video/diamond-jubilee-of-queen-victoria (accessed 9 April 2018). Charlton’s painting, commissioned by the queen, is at RCIN 400211.

  49. Elgin to Hamilton, 12 May 1897, D509/5, fols 135–64 (commemorative medal); Hamilton to Elgin, 25 June 1897, C125/2, 297; QVJl., 19 June 1897, 29 June 1897, 5 July 1897, 8 July 1897, 10 July 1897. For the Swoboda portraits, see: RCIN 403809, 403819, 403820, 403821; Hamilton to Sir Fleetwood Edwards, 12 June 1897, RA, VIC/MAIN/R/46/29–29a; Daily News, 23 July 1897, 6.

  50. Elgin to Hamilton, 10 February 1897, IOR Mss Eur. D509/4, fols 51–60.

  51. ToI, 22 June 1897, 14; Bombay Gazette, 22 June 1897, 5. For the Holkar’s concern that proposed prisoner release was not ‘consistent with public peace and safety’, see Indore Durbar to Capt. A. D. Bannerman, 15 June 1897, For. Proceedings (1897), Madhya Pradesh State Archives, 17–14, fol. 137.

  52. MSA, Pol. Proceedings (1897), vol. 101, 53 (addresses to go to the government not the queen); ibid., 91 (no more than six per deputation); ibid., 107 (gifts).

  53. Hindoo Patriot, 27 May 1897, 2; Civil & Military Gazette, 24 May 1897, 2 (Elgin’s mocking speech); Bombay Gazette, 24 May 1897, 4; Karnataka Prakasika, 24 May 1897, NNR (Madras), IOR L/R/5/108, 125–6.

  54. MSA, Pol. Proceedings (1897), vol. 104, 183–92 (Poona Sabha); NAI, Pol. Proceedings (September 1897), Public, 573 (Punjab).

  55. Elgin to Hamilton, 15 June 1897, Mss Eur. D509/5, fols 323–9; Queen Victoria to Elgin, Vry 22 June 1897, telegram, no. 62, Mss Eur., F84/1, fol. 26.

  56. J. P. Hewett to chief secretary, Government of Bombay, 17 April 1897, MSA, Pol. Proceedings (1897), vol. 101, p. 247.

  57. Details of diamond jubilee events across India summarised here are drawn from two main sources: ‘Reports on the Measures Taken for the Celebration of the Completion of the Sixtieth Year of the Reign of Her Majesty the Queen, Empress of India’, NAI, Home Dept Proceedings (November 1897), 310–30, and ‘Congratulatory Addresses from Public Bodies and Letters from Native Chiefs’, (February 1898) NAI, Foreign Dept Proceedings (February 1898), 111–325.

  58. Political Dept, Government of Bombay to the Foreign Secretary of the Government of India, 27 August 1897, MSA, Political Proceedings (1897), vol. 102, fols 297–313 (Junagadh); ‘Account of the Native Jubilee Celebrations . . . in Native States under the Political Control of the Government of Madras, etc.’ (Travancore), Political Proceedings (2 August 1897), 507–8, Tamil Nadu State Archives.

  59. Hindoo Patriot, 24 June 1897, 3; ‘H.M.’s Diamond Jubilee’ (misc. circulars), IOR L/R/2/616/158 (for the ‘Indian Princes’ Health Institute’); M. R. Mehta to the Maharaja of Jaisalmer, 19 November 1898, Proceedings of the Office of the Dewan, Jaisalmer, (1898), 106/119, Rajasthan State Archives, Bikaner.

  60. Karnataka State Archives, Bangalore, Chief Secretariat records (1897), 102, 112–13, 116; ‘A Brief Account of the Celebration in the Mysore State of the Diamond Jubilee’, IOR/R/2/Box8/63.

  61. ‘Memorandum Showing the More Important Points on which the Deputy Commissioners should Address the Gentlemen Assembled at the Durbars to be Held on 22 June 1897’, Chief Secretariat Records, Karnataka State Archives, Bangalore, 102, fols 14–15.

  62. Mysore Gazette, 21 May 1897, 1; Memorandum (29 May 1897), Chief Secretariat Records, Karnataka State Archives, 102, fols 153–9.

  63. ‘Report on the Celebrations of the Diamond Jubilee Festivities in the Minor Towns of the Bangalore District on the 21 and 22 June 1897’, Chief Secretariat Records, Karnataka State Archives, 112, fol. 164; Deputy Commissioner, Shimoga District to the Secretary to the Government of Mysore, 5 July 1897, ibid., fols 204, 219.

  64. MSA, Pol. Proceedings (1897), vol. 104, 651 (Bombay); ‘Account of the Native Jubilee Celebration . . . in Native States under the Political Control of the Government of Madras, etc’ (Pudukkottai), Tamil Nadu State Archives, Pol. Proceedings (2 August 1897), 507–8.

  65. S. Muttu Aiyar and C. V. Swaminada, Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, Empress of India (Madras: the authors, 1898).

  66. Durga Das De, Yuvili yajna (The Jubilee Sacrifice) (Calcutta: Mukerji & Co., 1897), QLB (Bengal); Rajendra Narayan Mukherji, Hirakanjali (The Diamond Jubilee Offering) (Calcutta: K. P. Banerji, 1897), QLB (Bengal).

  67. Madras Times, 12 May 1897, 3 (viceregal pressure); Maharatta, 25 April 1897, 4 (calls for charity); Bengalee, 5 June 1897, 269–70 (charity and acts of grace), 26 June 1897, 304–5 (previous demonstrations of loyalty); Dainik-o-Samachar Chandrika, 29 June 1897, NNR (Bengal), L/R/5/23, p. 556 (sale of the queen’s jubilee message).

  68. Paisa Akhbar, 4 June 1897, Punjab Samachar, 19 June 1897, Rahbari-i-Hind, 28 June 1897, NNR (Punjab), L/R/5/181, 460–61, 515, 539–40; The Victoria Diamond Jubilee Hindu Technical Institute, Punjab. Inaugural Address on the Commercial and Industrial Development of India, Delivered on the Evening of the 21st June (Lahore: Tribune Press, 1897), 1.

  69. Dacca Prakash, 20 June 1897, NNR (Bengal), L/R/5/23, 535; Jami-ul-Ulum, 14 June 1897, NNR (North-West Provinces and Oudh), L/R/5/74, 391.

  70. Hamilton to Elgin, 25 June 1897, Mss Eur. C125/2, fol. 297.

  71. The Times, 22 June 1897, 5; ‘Report on the Measures Taken for the Celebration of the . . . Sixtieth Year of the Reign, etc.’, NAI, Home Dept Proceedings (November 1897), 318 (Punjab); P. L. Malhotra, Administration of Lord Elgin In India, 1894–99 (New Delhi: Vikas, 1979), 151–4.

  72. ‘Autobiography of Damodar Hari Chapekar’ (Bombay Police Abstracts, 1910), reproduced at: https://cultural.maharashtra.gov.in/english/gazetteer/VOL-II/autobiography.pdf (accessed 4 April 2018). For claims about the involvement of the INC, see: Arthur Crawford, Our Troubles in Poona and the Deccan (London: Archibald Constable, 1897), 90–2. For the background, see: Gordon Johnson, Provincial Politics and Indian Nationalism: Bombay and the Indian National Congress, 1880 to 1915 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), ch. 3; Prashant Kidambi, The Making of an Indian Metropolis: Colonial Governance and Public Culture in Bombay, 1890–1920 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), ch. 3.

  73. Richard Cashman, The Myth of the ‘Lokamanya’: Tilak and Mass Politics in Maharashtra (Berkeley: University of Cali
fornia Press, 1975); Biswamoy Pati (ed.), Bal Gangadhar Tilak: Popular Readings (Delhi: Primus, 2011), esp. chs 4–5; Sukeshi Kamra, ‘Law and Radical Rhetoric in British India: The 1897 trial of Bal Gangadhar Tilak’, South Asia, 39 (2016), 546–59.

  74. S. S. Setlur and K. G. Deshpande (eds), A Full and Authentic Report of the Trial of Bal Gangadhar Tilak: At The Fourth Criminal Sessions 1897 of the Bombay High Court before Justice Strachey and a Special Jury (Bombay: Education Society’s Press 1897), 31, 73, 80, 107.

  75. Arthur Godley to George Hamilton, 3 May 1897, IOR Mss Eur. D509/4, fols 413–14.

  12 The Last Years of the Qaisara

  1. QVJl., 21 July 1891. The progress of Bhai Ram Singh’s commission can be followed in the correspondence between Henry Ponsonby, Bhai Ram Singh and Lockwood Kipling during 1890–2, in the J. L. Kipling papers, Special Collections, University of Sussex, Ms 38, 1/15. Cf. Pervaiz and Sajida Vandal, The Raj, Lahore, and Bhai Ram Singh (Lahore: NCA Publication, 2006), 154–68; Julius Bryant ‘Kipling’s Royal Commissions: Bagshot Park and Osborne’ in Julius Bryant and Susan Weber (eds), John Lockwood Kipling: Arts and Crafts in the Punjab and London (London: Yale University Press 2017), 435–62.

  2. For the Manipur crisis, see: John Parratt, Queen Empress vs Tikendrajit Prince of Manipur: The Anglo-Manipuri Conflict of 1891 (New Delhi: Har-Anand Publications, 1992); Caroline Keen, An Imperial Crisis in British India: The Manipur Uprising of 1891 (London: IB Tauris, 2015).

  3. Ethel Grimwood, My Three Years in Manipur and Escape from the Recent Mutiny (London: Richard Bentley, 1891). For comparisons with 1857, see Morning Post, 11 May 1891, 5; M. J. Wright, Three Years in Cachar. With a Short Account of the Manipur Massacre (London: S. W. Partridge, 1895), 154; Northern Echo, 1 April 1891, 3 (an ‘Indian Isandula’).

  4. QVJl., 10 April 1891, 19 April 1891, 3 May 1891, 4 May 1891, 7 May 1891; Cross to Lansdowne, 26 June 1891, IOR Mss Eur D558/4, fol. 27; Queen Victoria to Cross, 3 May 1891, BL, Add. Ms. 83, 315, fols 23–4; Cross, ‘The Character of the Queen as Shown in her Private Letters’ (n.d.), BL, Add. Ms. 51, 289, fols 59–65.

  5. QVJl., 1 July 1891.

  6. QVJl., 8 August 1891; Lansdowne to Cross 14 July 1891 (‘catastrophic’), IOR Mss Eur. E243/30; Cross to Lansdowne, 12 August 1891, IOR Mss Eur. D558/4, fols 56–8; Manomohan Ghose, Memorandum of Arguments on Behalf of Kula Chandra Sing, Maharaja . . . of Manipur and Tikendrajit Bir Sing, Jubraj or Senapati of Manipur, etc. (London: W. Hutchinson & Co., 1891).

  7. QVJl., 17 August 1891.

  8. Queen Victoria to Cross, 5 May 1891, BL, Add. Ms, 85,315, fols 26–7.

  9. Queen Victoria to Cross, 27 June 1891, BL, Add. Ms. 85,315, fols 51–2, Queen Victoria to Cross, 4 July 1891, ibid., fols 60–1.

  10. Cross, HL Debs, 354 (22 June 1891), 1003; Queen Victoria to Cross, 27 June 1891, BL, Add. Ms., 85,315, fols 53–4.

  11. Queen Victoria to Cross, 11 August 1891, BL, Add. Ms. 85,315, fols 66–7; Cross to Lansdowne, 15 October 1891, IOR Mss Eur. D558/4, fols 75–7.

  12. IOR Mss Eur. A191 22/10/1887.

  13. Sushila Anand, Indian Sahib: Queen Victoria’s Dear Abdul (London: Duckworth, 1996); Shrabani Basu, Victoria and Abdul: The True Story of the Queen’s Closest Confidant (Stroud: History Press, 2011); Michaela Reid, Ask Sir James: The Life of Sir James Reid, Personal Physician to Queen Victoria (London: Eland, 1996), ch. 8.

  14. For Boehm’s busts, see: https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/lot.56.html/2011/19th-20th-century-european-sculpture-l11230 (accessed 4 April 2018); and for Swoboda’s portraits, see: the Royal Collection (RCIN 403831 Abdul Karim) and (RCIN 403641 Mahomet Buksh). The queen also commissioned Heinrich von Angeli to paint Abdul Karim (RCIN 406915); ‘Rules for Scotland Memorandum’, 20 August 1887, James Reid Archive, Jedburgh, vol. 7; Basu, Victoria and Abdul, 55.

  15. ‘Rules for Scotland Memorandum’, Reid Archive, vol. 7.

  16. James Reid to Sir William Jenner, 19 July 1889, 24 August 1889, Reid Archive, vol. 9.

  17. Cross to Lansdowne, 30 October 1890, IOR Mss Eur D558/3 no. 48; Lansdowne to Cross, 12 November 1890, no. 50; Lansdowne to Cross, 27 November 1890, ibid., no. 54; 29–30, no. 16: Fowler to Elgin, 17 May 1895, IOR Mss Eur F84/13, no. 16; Queen Victoria to Crown Princess Victoria, 9 December 1893, in Agatha Ramm (ed.), Beloved and Darling Child. Last letters between Queen Victoria and her Eldest Daughter, 1886–1901 (Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1990), 163–4.

  18. Reid, Ask Sir James, 131–2, 137–8.

  19. Lambert, ‘Memorandum’ (March–June 1896) in ‘Intelligence on Abdul Karim, munshi to Queen Victoria’, IOR/L/PS/8/61; Basu, Victoria and Abdul, chs 9–10.

  20. Reid, Ask Sir James, 137–8; Basu, Victoria and Abdul, ch. 11.

  21. Basu, Victoria and Abdul, 185.

  22. John Bradley (ed.), Lady Curzon’s India: Letters of a Vicereine (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1985), 126.

  23. Rafiuddin Ahmed or Ahmad (1865–1954). He later served as a minister in the government of Bombay presidency. Cf. Humayun Ansari, The Infidel Within: Muslims in Britain Since 1800 (2004), 78–9.

  24. The Times, 26 September 1890, 4, 13 October 1890, 3; Rafiuddin Ahmad, ‘The Legal Authority of English Women Compared to Muhammadan Women’, Asiatic Quarterly Review, 2nd ser., 1 (January 1891), 410–30.

  25. Rafiuddin Ahmad, ‘The Queen’s Hindustani Diary’, Strand Magazine 4 (December 1892), 551–7. Cf. his earlier ‘Kaiser-i-Hind and Hindoostani’, Nineteenth Century 29 (May 1891), 747–53.

  26. ILN, 31 December 1892, 834; Graphic, 31 December 1892, 794; Rafiuddin Ahmad, ‘The Royal Marriage from the Oriental Point of View’, Strand Magazine 6 (October 1893), 447–58. RCIN 403825 (Swoboda).

  27. ToI, 14 April 1891, 5. Ahmad claimed to have visited Balmoral in his 1891 article in Strand Magazine.

  28. Queen Victoria to Cross, 28 May 1891, BL, Add. Ms. 83, 315, fols 38–9.

  29. Cross to Lansdowne, 2 June 1892, 21 July 1892, IOR Mss Eur. D558/5, fols 39–40, 50; Lansdowne to Cross, 28 June 1892, ibid., fol. 73.

  30. H. H. Fowler to Lord Elgin, 8 June 1894, 12 October 1894, IOR Mss Eur. F84/12, fols 28–30, 54–8; Elgin to Fowler, 30 October 1894, ibid., fols 109–10; The Times, 28 May 1894, 6; Rafiuddin Ahmad, ‘A Moslem’s View of the Pan-Islamic Revival’, Nineteenth Century 42 (October 1897), 517–26.

  31. The Times, 24 October 1894, 3; cf. Rafiuddin Ahmad, ‘The Political Situation in India’, Pall Mall Gazette, 29 January 1895, 1–2; Elgin to Hamilton, 18 September 1895, IOR Mss Eur. F84/13, fols 126–30.

  32. Queen Victoria to Curzon, 30 December 1898, IOR Mss Eur. F111/135, no. 1.

  33. James Reid to Lord Salisbury, 25 January 1898, Reid Archive, vol. 20.

  34. Arthur Davidson to Reid, 1 May 1898 (‘ruffian’), Reid Archives, vol. 20; Hamilton to Elgin, 30 April 1897, IOR Mss Eur. C125/2, fol. 169 (‘Mahomedan intriguer’).

  35. Queen Victoria to Curzon, 13 April 1899, IOR Mss Eur. F111/135, no. 25.

  36. Hamilton to Elgin, 13 October 1896, F84/14, no. 43.

  37. Queen Victoria to Curzon, IOR Mss Eur. F111/135, no. 42; QVJl., 12 February 1900, 15 March 1900, 27 June 1900; Curzon to Hamilton, 14 June 1899, IOR Mss Eur. F111/158, no. 26; Curzon to Hamilton, 15 February 1900, 16 May 1900, IOR Mss Eur. F111/159, nos. 9, 28. For Curzon’s support: ‘Debate on the Budget, 28 March 1900’ in Speeches by Lord Curzon of Kedleston, Viceroy and Governor-General of India: 1898–1901 (Calcutta: Thacker, Spink & Co., 1901), 285.

  38. The Times, 12 July 1900, 7.

  39. QVJl., 29 October 1900; Queen Victoria to Curzon, 28 October 1900, IOR Mss Eur. F111/135, no. 71; Hamilton to Curzon, 1 November 1900, IOR Mss Eur. F111/159, no. 76.

  40. Queen Victoria to Curzon, 11 January 1901, IOR Mss Eur. F111/135, no. 76; Hamilton to Curzon, 7 February 1901, IOR Mss Eur. F111/160, no. 11. The Thakur of Morbi was the only Indian prince to attend the funeral of Queen Victoria.

  41. Daily Telegraph, 2 January 1901, 7–8; Rodney Atwood, The Life of Field Marshal Lord Roberts (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), 217–19. />
  42. Moslem Chronicle, 23 February 1901, 1608; ‘Notifications Connected with the Demise of the Queen-Empress’, Chief Secretariat records, Karnataka State Archives, Bangalore (1901), 126.

  43. For the service at Calcutta Cathedral, see: Englishman, 2 February 1901, 4; Service of Mourning Held on the Day of the Funeral of her Late Majesty Queen Victoria . . . in St Thomas’, Cathedral, Bombay (Bombay: n.p.), 5.

  44. For criticism, see: Mukbhir-i-Dakhan, 30 January 1901, NNR (Madras), IOR L/R/5/110, 46–7, Paisa Akhbar, 2 February 1901, NNR (Punjab), IOR L/R/5/185, p. 76.

  45. Hindoo Patriot, 5 February 1901, 5; Anon., In Memory of Victoria, Queen & Empress, 1837–1901 (Bombay: Caxton Works, 1901), 69–71.

  46. The fullest account is in A. Govindaraja Mudaliar (ed.), India’s Memorial Tribute to her Late Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria, Empress of India (Bombay: Thacker & Co., 1901).

  47. ‘Death of Her Majesty the Queen Empress’ (1 February 1901) in Speeches by Lord Curzon . . . 1898–1901, 418. Several newspapers reproduced the text of the 1858 proclamation, e.g. Mahratta, 10 February 1901, 9.

  48. Al Bashir (Etawah), 4 February 1901, NNR (North-West Provinces), IOR L/R/5/78, 90–1; Indu Prakash, 24 January 1901, NNR (Bombay), IOR L/R/5/156, 9–10; In Memory of Queen & Empress (Bombay), 66–7; The Times, 24 January 1901, 5; Friend of India, 14 February 1901, 15.

  49. Bengalee, 23 January 1901, 1, also Mudliar (ed.), Indian’s Memorial Tribute, 41–2; Wacha, ‘Presidential Address’, 17th Indian National Congress (Calcutta), reprinted in Speeches and Writings of Sir Dinshaw Edulji Wacha (Madras: G. A. Natesan & Co., 1920), 2–4; K. C. Duraisami, The True Victorian Glory (Madras: Thompson & Co., 1901), v; Lajjaram Sharma Mehta, Srimati Maharani Bharatesvari Vikt.oriya ka caritra, or Life of Queen Victoria, Empress of India (Bombay: Khemraj Shrikrishnadas, 1901); Vidhvan Periya Reddiar, The Maharani Ammanei (Madras: Ramalinga Swami, 1901).

  50. Primal energy.

  51. Raj Johgeshur Mitter (comp.), Bengal’s Tribute to her Late Majesty the Queen-Empress. Being a Collection of Speeches Delivered at Different Memorial Meetings (Calcutta: Standard Press, 1901), 17 (Tagore); Trailokyamohan Guha-niyogi, Geet Bharatam: The Lays of India. The Memorial Poem-temple of Empress Victoria (Calcutta: Sanyal & Co., 1902); Madras Mail, 2 February 1901, 7 (Iyer).