The personal possessions of Thomas and Dorothy Shore
India Office Private Papers recently acquired two fascinating documents concerning the personal possessions of Thomas and Dorothy Shore. Both Thomas and Dorothy came from families closely connected to the East India Company. Their son John Shore (1751-1834) became Governor-General of Bengal.
The first document is an inventory of the household goods, plate, jewels, china, linen, furniture, clothing, and books belonging to Thomas Shore which were in his London house at the time of his death in 1759.
India Office Private Papers MSS Eur F702
The second is an auction catalogue for furniture, fine china, and ‘other East Indian Curiosities’ which were sold in June 1775 when Dorothy Shore, ‘A Widow Lady,’ moved from Golden Square in London to the country.
India Office Private Papers MSS Eur F702
Thomas Shore (1712-1759) was the son of John Shore, the East India Company’s warehouse-keeper at Botolph Wharf on the River Thames. Thomas followed his father into Company service, becoming a supercargo in charge of the commercial business of several voyages to China.
In 1743 Thomas Shore married widow Mary Dorothea Edgell (née Hawthorn). Her stepfather was East India Company sea captain John Shepheard (d.1734). Mary Dorothea died, and in 1750 Thomas married her younger half-sister Dorothy Shepheard (c.1725-1783). Thomas and Mary had two sons, John and Thomas William. John continued the family tradition of East India Company service, whilst Thomas William became a Church of England priest.
The inventory lists the contents of Thomas Shore’s house room by room: servants’ garrets; bedrooms; closets; dining room; parlours; china room; kitchen; yard; wash house; pantry; and cellar. Every item is recorded from valuables to a cheese toaster and mops. Thomas owned many objects from Asia including Chinese snuff boxes, musical instruments, and ornaments; Indian textiles and tea kettles; dressing boxes and a bathing bowl from Japan. Thomas’s book collection ranged from works of religion and history to geometric problems and Gulliver’s Travels. Dorothy’s personal belongings in the house were itemised to distinguish them from her husband’s property, mostly jewellery but also her clothes, childbed linen, and textile pieces.
India Office Private Papers MSS Eur F702
The auction of Dorothy Shore’s household goods offered a ‘Variety of Furniture, useful and ornamental China, curious carvings in Ivory, &c brought from India by her Husband’. Amongst the items sold were an ‘India japan case with Mariner’s charts’ - 2s 6d; 27 small Indian pictures of birds and flowers - 6s; a parcel of India paper hangings on cloth - £1 6s 0d; ten blue dragon plates, two basins, a Nankeen sugar dish with handles, cover and plate – 7s; two Chinese summer houses with figures – 7s. Some lots can be matched to objects listed in her late husband’s inventory, for example the ‘Luxemburg gallery’ of prints. The sale raised a total of £103 5s 0d.
India Office Private Papers MSS Eur F702
We should like to thank the Friends of the British Library for their generous donation enabling the purchase of such interesting documents which allow us to peek into the homes of an East India Company family in the 18th century.
Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records
Further reading:
India Office Private Papers MSS Eur F702
The East India Company at Home 1757-1857