In 1814 the East India ship Arniston was chartered as a British Government transport.  The ship sailed from Portsmouth in June and made for Ceylon, via Madeira and the Cape of Good Hope, arriving at Colombo in January 1815.

The old lighthouse, flagstaff, and gun battery at Colombo from John Ferguson, Ceylon in 1893 (London, 1893) British Library shelfmark: Digital Store 010057.e.2

The Arniston sailed on its return voyage from Ceylon on 4 April 1815 in a convoy with two Royal Navy ships and six East Indiamen.  Squally weather and heavy seas drove the ship away from the convoy.  All the sails were blown away or bent.  On 30 May 1815 the ship heeled and broke apart near Cape Lagullas or Aguilhas at the southern tip of Africa.

Only six of the crew managed to reach the shore and survive: Charles Stewart Scott, Philip Shea, William Drummond, William Fish, Thomas Mansfield, and John Lewis .  They tried to walk to safety but feared they were lost, so returned to the wreck and subsisted mainly on a cask of oatmeal which had come ashore.  On 14 June they were discovered by a farmer’s son who was out shooting.  The men stayed with the farmer for a week and then set off for Cape Town, arriving there on 26 June to tell their tragic tale.

Report of the wreck of the Arniston, naming the survivors and dead - Mirror of the Times 28 October 1815 British Newspaper Archive

About 345 men, women, and children drowned.  There were British Army invalids, and about 100 seamen from British warships in India.  The named fatalities included Lord Molesworth, Lt Col in the 2nd Ceylon Regiment, and his wife Frances; Lt Gilbert Brice, Royal Navy Agent for Transports; and Anna Twisleton, 12-year-old daughter of the Archdeacon of Colombo.

In September 1815 reports of the wreck began to appear in British newspapers.  Death notices were placed by the families of some of the victims, including one for seventeen-year-old Samuel Nugent Legh Richmond., eldest son of Reverend Legh Richmond of Turvey in Bedfordshire.  His father had planned for Nugent, as he was known, to follow him into the priesthood, and was very disappointed when the young man decided that he wanted to go to sea.  Nugent was found a place in a merchant vessel sailing to Ceylon – the Arniston.  In June 1814 Reverend Richmond said goodbye to his son at Portsmouth, giving him a Bible.

The family received letters from Nugent written on the outward voyage, expressing his regret for his past conduct and his hope that one day he would be a consolation to his parents.  Then his father saw reports of the loss of the Arniston. Nugent was not listed amongst the survivors and his family was plunged into mourning.

But in the winter, a letter from Nugent arrived.  He had not embarked for the return voyage of the Arniston and seemed unaware of what had happened to the ship.  He was then third officer of the brig Kandian.

Nugent stayed in Asia, working in different merchant ships.  In 1824 he was shipwrecked, losing his private investment in the voyage and nearly all his personal belongings except for a small trunk containing his Bible, a copy of Annals of the Poor, two suits of clothes, and his watch.  A subscription of 100 guineas was raised by Reverend Thomas Thomason to help him.

Having postponed marrying his fiancée in Calcutta until he had made money on another voyage, Nugent returned to discover that she had died in his absence.  Nugent then decided to go to his family in England, but died of fever on the way.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
Asiatic Journal 2 (1816) pp.32-34 - wreck of the Arniston
Thomas Shuttleworth Grimshawe, A Memoir of the Rev. Legh Richmond (5th edition, 1829) 
Thomas Fry, Domestic portraiture… (London, 1835)

 

During Robert Clive’s lifetime, the East India Company commissioned two portraits showing him as a hero.  The first of these, a marble statue of Clive in Roman military costume, was installed in 1764 inside East India House, their headquarters in London.  It was one of four marble portrait statues commissioned by the Company in 1760 of men dressed as Romans.  These neo-classical statues showed the Company as the conqueror of a new Asian empire, with London at its centre.

Statue of Robert Clive in Roman military costume.  Peter Scheemakers, 1764. British Library, Foster 53.  Today, the statue is in Britain’s Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office.

Less than a decade later, Robert Clive’s reputation as a hero had collapsed.  In the late 1760s he returned to Britain, bringing with him a staggering personal fortune that he had amassed in Bengal.  Regarded as one of the richest men in Europe, he conspicuously bought properties in England and Wales, and spared no expense on rebuilding and furnishing these new residences.  Clive’s spending spree coincided with reports of the Bengal Famine, a catastrophe that killed about 10 million people.  The source of Clive’s fortune came under scrutiny and his character was aggressively criticised by the British public.

In May 1771, Town & Country, a satirical magazine, published a searing memoir of Robert Clive which named him 'Nero Asiaticus', who had 'fleeced the Asiatics as much as he was able'.  This alias compared him to the insane emperor who watched Rome burn to the ground.  The comparison was derived from the marble statue of Robert Clive in Roman dress inside East India House.

Robert Clive receiving from the Nawab of Bengal the grant for Lord Clive’s Military Fund. Edward Penny, 1772. British Library, Foster 91. Today, the painting is in the Asia & Africa Reading Room of the British Library.

Perhaps to heal his toxifying reputation, the East India Company commissioned Edward Penny, the Royal Academy’s first 'Professor of Painting', to create the second artwork of Robert Clive, this time showing him performing a heroic deed.  Titled 'Lord Clive explaining to the Nabob the situation of the invalids in India', the painting shows him with the Nawab of Bengal, at the alleged moment when the East India Company’s Military Fund was founded.  In the background are the fund’s intended recipients.  On the right is a group of needy soldiers and at the centre, a beautiful young widow sits, surrounded by children.  The painting was completed in 1772 and exhibited in the Royal Academy’s annual show before being moved to East India House.

'The India Directors in the Suds.' Town & Country, December 1772. The cartoon is accompanied by a descriptive text.

The Royal Academy’s annual shows were busy, popular public events.  Edward Penny’s painting of Clive would have been seen by thousands of people.  One of those people happened to be a cartoonist who worked for Town & Country magazine.  The resulting cartoon, titled 'The India Directors in the Suds' (suds being a euphemism for excrement), was published later that same year.  In place of the Nawab of Bengal and his entourage, it shows a procession of Indian ghosts who represent the Bengal Famine’s victims.  A terrified Robert Clive is shown leaping backwards.   Behind him, in place of the invalids and the widow, the East India Company’s directors stare at the scene.

Artworks like these demonstrate how the East India Company tried to cultivate a strong, positive reputation in London by commissioning artworks.  However, such manoeuvring, particularly in Georgian London’s critical atmosphere, could also backfire.

Jennifer Howes
Art Historian specialising in South Asia

Further reading:
Anonymous. 'Memoirs of a Nabob.' Town & Country, London, May 1771: 255-256.
Anonymous. 'The India Directors in the Suds or the Jaghire Factor Dismayed at the Ghosts of the Black Merchants.' Town & Country, London, December 1772: 705-706.
Hazzard, Kieran. 'The Clives at Home: Self-fashioning, Collecting, and British India.' In Coutu, Joan. Politics and the English Country House, 1688-1800. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, February 2023.
Howes, Jennifer. The Art of a Corporation: The East India Company as Patron and Collector. New Delhi: Routledge, April 2023 

 

Ship’s captain, free mariner, surgeon, cleric and infantrymen – seven members of one family, spanning three generations between 1767 and 1868.  A story brought to life through the India Office Records at the British Library.

Three generations of Barkers employed by the East India Company

1st generation - Commander
Robert Barker (1767-1835) attested his age before Major John Burnett at Mansion House in London on 17 January 1780.  He was just twelve years and five months old.  He sailed as an ordinary seaman for three years aboard the sloop Echo until, at sixteen, he was a midshipman aboard the Dutton on a voyage to India and back that took nineteen months.  Rising through the ranks of fourth, third and first mate, he became captain in 1801 of the Northampton.  Barker made three voyages to India and China before retiring to Brazil in 1807, where he became a plantation owner.

Robert Barker's service as Captain of the Northampton - IOR/L/MAR/B/198C, 198P (1) & (2)

2nd generation – Free mariner, surgeon, and cleric
Robert’s nephew, Alexander Popham Barker (1787–c.1821), sailed with his uncle aboard the Northampton in 1803 as a midshipman and in 1805 as a fourth mate, eventually rising to first mate.  In 1815 he applied to the East India Company to become a free mariner in the intra-Asian ‘country trade’ and based himself in Bengal.  Alexander was presumed lost at sea sometime after 1821.

Alexander’s younger brother, Thomas Brown Barker (1796-1848), was a member of the Edinburgh Royal College of Surgeons at 21 and then applied to become an East India Company assistant surgeon.  By July 1818, he was working in Madras.  He served in infantry and cavalry regiments at Madras, Benares, Calcutta and Bengal, becoming surgeon in 1829 aged 33.  Then, in 1848, after some 30 years of service and eligible for retirement, he set sail for home aboard the Gloriana, only to die during the voyage.

Thomas Brown Barker’s application to be Assistant Surgeon - IOR/L/MIL/9/370/14-17

Alexander’s younger sister, Francis Brown Barker (1790-1885), married Rev Joseph Laurie in 1822.  Later that year, Rev Laurie was installed as chaplain for the Church of Scotland for the Bombay Presidency.  He served as minister at the Scotch Kirk, later named the Church of Saints Andrew and Columba.  The Lauries lived in Colabah.  They had four children between 1823 and 1833.  The younger two died in infancy; the elder two entered the Company's Infantry.


3rd generation – Infantry cousins
Alexander Popham Barker (2) (1822-1844), Robert Laurie (1823-1856), and John Joseph Laurie (1825-1868) were cousins. All joined the Bombay Infantry, and all three died early - one with honour, one in disgrace and one through illness.

On 10 April 1844, Lt Alexander Popham Barker was wounded in the arm and side while in command at Hunooman Ghaut and died the same day, aged 21.

Alexander Popham Barker’s service record - IOR/L/MIL/12/72/377

On 2 May 1854, Lt Robert Laurie was court-martialled for giving false testimony at the trial of Lt Col Gidley earlier that year and was cashiered from the service.  He returned to England in disgrace and died at his parent’s home at the age of 32. 

On 28 September 1868, Lt Col John Joseph Laurie of the Staff Corps was buried in Bombay by the chaplain of his father’s church, having died from brain and liver disease aged 43.

Mark Williams
Independent researcher

Further reading:
Anthony Farrington, Catalogue of East India Company Ships' Journals and Logs 1600-1834 (London: The British Library,1999), e.g. Northampton: Journal 12 May 1803 – 9 February 1805 IOR/L/MAR/B/198C; Ledger IOR/L/MAR/B/198P(1); Pay Book IOR/L/MAR/B/198P(2).
Anthony Farrington, A Biographical Index of East India Company Maritime Service Officers 1600-1834 (London: The British Library,1999) - officers by rank, ship and date of voyage.
Richard Morgan, An Introduction to British Ships in Indian Waters (London: The Families in British India Society (FIBIS), 2017).
The East India Register and Directory.
The Bombay Gazette via British Newspaper Archive and Findmypast.
Alexander Popham Barker’s application to be a free mariner - Minutes of Committee of Shipping IOR/L/MAR/C/29 1814-1815 ff. 778-9, 15 March 1815.
Thomas Brown Barker’s application to be Assistant Surgeon - IOR/L/MIL/9/370/14-17.
Alexander Popham Barker, Lt Bombay Infantry - IOR/L/MIL/12/72/377.
Robert Laurie, Lt Bombay Infantry – for Laurie’s court-martial, see Misbehaviour in the Bombay Army. 
John Joseph Laurie, Lt Col Bombay Staff Corps - Burial 28 September 1868 IOR/N/3/42 p.331
Cadet papers:
Alexander Popham Barker –IOR/L/MIL/9/195/535-37.
Robert Laurie - IOR/L/MIL/9/195/276-81.
John Joseph Laurie - IOR/L/MIL/9/196/769-75.