In 1869, newspapers in India and Britain reported that the Viceroy of India had approved a proposal to construct special carriages for Hindu and Muslim ‘Lady Travellers’ on the East India Railway.  This was considered the best means of preventing ‘insults’ to Indian women travelling by train.

East India Railway train  from Illustrated London News 19 September 1863 Image © Illustrated London News Group. British Newspaper Archive - image created courtesy of The British Library Board.

The carriages, reserved for ‘respectable native women’, were to be of a first-class standard but with lower fares than other first-class accommodation.  It was recommended that there should be a European female guard and a European female ticket collector in attendance.  The guard would ensure that the women were comfortable, and any male relatives would be provided for in an adjoining carriage.  The Dacca Prakash suggested that there should also be carriages where females could ride with relatives if they objected to being separated.

Article entitled 'Hindoo Lady Travellers' from Leicester Guardian 27 October 1869

In 1910 the Committee of the Bengal National Chamber of Commerce raised concerns about female carriages on the railways.  Committee Secretary Sita Nath Roy wrote to the President of the Railway Board expressing alarm at ‘the repeated robberies and outrages’ perpetrated in the carriages reserved for women travellers.  He referred to the recent robbery at Tinpahar when a Bengali woman was cut with a knife, her jewellery stolen, and three of her children thrown out of the train window.  Roy said that women in the secluded compartments found themselves ‘absolutely helpless in the hands of ruffians and desperadoes’, and did not know how to use the alarm bell when they or their property came under attack.

Article on women travelling on the railways in India from Englishman’s Overland Mail 4 August 1910

Unless remedial steps were taken, the Committee believed that there might be a considerable falling-off in passenger traffic on the railways.  The Committee therefore suggested some ‘protective measures’:
• Female carriages of all classes to be put together where possible and a trusted police officer with two or three constables place at the front and rear.
• Intermediate and third-class carriages should not be partitioned into compartments.
• Two female guards should be posted to protect women passengers on night trains.
• Windows should be protected with strong iron bars.
• Female carriages should have side lights.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
British Newspaper Archive (also available via Findmypast) e.g. Friend of India and Statesman 10 June 1869; Leicester Guardian 27 October 1869; Englishman’s Overland Mail 4 August 1910.

 

The East India Company ship Martha under Captain Thomas Raynes (or Raines) set sail from England in April 1700, destined for Bombay.  It zig-zagged across the globe on the prevailing winds, via the Canary Islands, Cape Verde, and Bahia de Todos os Santos (All Saints’ Bay) on the Brazilian coast, before heading towards Southern Africa, across to Sumatra, and then onwards to India.  By January 1701, the ship had reached the Malabar coast, sailing to Bombay via Cochin, Karwar and Goa.  After reaching Bombay, the Martha made a journey to the port of Gombroon (Bander Abbas), before heading back to Bombay and then on to Surat.

Title page of Samuel Goodman's journal  - IOR/L/MAR/A/CXLVI 

India Office Records and Private Papers holds the journal of this latter part of the Martha’s voyage, written by mate Samuel Goodman.  It is a daily account of the voyage, mostly detailing navigational information, and wind, weather and sea conditions- if you were on a sailing ship in the early 18th century, this is what you would expect to be occupying the mind of the ship’s senior crew.   The text is interspersed with an occasional sketch of the coastline as seen from the ship.

Page from Goodman's journal showing sketches of the coastline around the Cape -  IOR/L/MAR/A/CXLVI, f.38v

But on the morning of Sunday (‘Soonday’) 27 October 1700, having not long left the Cape of Good Hope, heading towards India, Goodman observed something that must have been so out of the ordinary that he choose to record it in detail.  He came across a group of peculiar birds - black and white creatures with fins and no visible legs, with a yellow streak on their heads.  He even made a sketch of one of the birds, and captioned it the ‘Sea Duck’.

Entry from the Journal of the Martha for 27 October 1700 with a sketch of the 'Sea Duck' - IOR/L/MAR/A/CXLVI, f.43v

Goodman wrote: ‘I saw beetwene 15 and 16 fishes or fowells ass it may bee termed, the[y] Came close too the ships side, the[y] had A head and neck And A yallow bill like A Duck And Ass well formed Ass A land fowel Is, And A bodey ass bigg Ass A midling Duck two fins like A turtell, butt A fishes tayle Ass you may see by the figer the[y] lay a pretty while upon the surface of the Watter Soe thatt I had A full vew And Saw them oute of the watter as the[y] playd too and froo: and one particuler thing I Observed Ass the[y] Came Close to the side the would stare you in the face: the[y] had all of them too yallow strakes upon there heds, the back parte wass blacke And the belley all White butt had Noe Leggs: wee Could not distinguish them from A Blacke duck butt by the fishes tayle and There finns’.

Sketch of the 'Sea Duck' - IOR/L/MAR/A/CXLVI, f.43v

So what animal did Samuel Goodman see playing in the waters off the Cape?  His physical description of the birds, as well as the description of their behaviour, lead us to believe that Goodman’s ‘Sea Duck’ wasn’t a duck at all , but actually a penguin.

Lesley Shapland
Cataloguer, India Office Records

Further Reading:
IOR/L/MAR/A/CXLVI: Journal of the Martha to Bombay, 20 Apr 1699 [1700] to 3 May 1702.
If you would like to delve further into the journal, it has been fully digitised and is available via the Qatar Digital Library . 
IOR/L/MAR/B/118A(1): The remainder of the Samuel Goodman’s journal of the Martha’s voyage, detailing the return voyage of the ship to England, 1702-1703, via Mauritius, Saint Helena, Ascension, Barbados, and Erith has also been digitised and is available via the Qatar Digital Library. 
Anthony Farrington, Catalogue of East India Company ships' journals and logs, 1600-1834 (London: British Library, 1999).
A copy of IOR/L/MAR/A/CXLVI, f.43v, showing the Sea Duck, with a transcription, can be found amongst the papers of Anthony Farrington Mss Eur F704/4/3/1 Visual material relating to ships (this collection will be available for consultation shortly).

 

Sir Edmond Stanley (1760-1843) was a lawyer and politician who had served as an MP for two separate constituencies in Ireland and was also Serjeant to the Parliament of Ireland.  In 1807 he was appointed as the first Recorder to the newly established Supreme Court of Penang, a post he would hold until 1815 when he was appointed as Puisne Justice, and later Chief Justice to the Supreme Court of Madras.  Stanley married Jane Talbot in 1786 and the couple had one daughter Mary Anne, born in Ireland in 1801.

Stanley had courted scandal for a number of years owing to his ever mounting financial debts, which had forced him to resign his position in the Parliament of Ireland.  He managed to avoid bankruptcy by selling off a number of prominent family estates in Ireland, and moving the family to London.

It was however his daughter Mary Anne who featured in a notable scandal.

'Gretna Wedding' from Peter Orlando Hutchinson, Chronicles of Gretna Green (London, 1844) BL flickr

On 21 May 1815, at the age of just thirteen, Mary Anne eloped to Gretna Green to be married.  Her husband-to-be was Captain Edward Trant Bontein, a 29-year-old widower, eldest son of Sir James Bontein.  Relatives of the bride attempted to chase the eloping couple and prevent them from reaching Gretna Green.  However they were unsuccessful and the couple were married there on 23 May 1815.

Report of the elopement Public Cause 14 June 1815 British Newspaper Archive

The newspapers of the time reported the story, some such as Public Cause simply reported the facts of the scandal, whereas others such as the Northampton Mercury were much more sensationalist:
‘An elopement (if it will bear that term), of a very singular nature has recently taken place, which is likely to undergo a severe legal investigation.  It is that of a female child of only thirteen years of age, being induced by some means yet unaccounted for, to be carried away by a captain of dragoons, (a widower), from a barrack near town, where this child was left a visitant to the officer’s mother’.

Despite the scandal brought on the family, Mary Anne’s relationship with her father clearly remained close.  Her eldest son was named Edmond Stanley after him and the family settled in Madras with her father.  Captain Bontein had obtained permission from the East India Company to travel to Madras in 1817 as a free merchant, and Mary Anne followed him in 1818 with their son who had been born earlier that year.  The couple had a second child James Talbot born in 1819, but tragically Edward died one month later on 10 November 1819 in Madras, leaving Mary Anne a widow at just eighteen years old.

Mary Anne never remarried, and returned to living with her parents.  In 1835, at her father’s request, she had applied to have the family’s surname changed by law from Bontein to Stanley.  When her father died in 1843, she and her sons Edmond and James were named as the heirs to his estates.

Mary Anne Bontein moved to Brussels in later life and died there in 1881 at the age of 71.

Karen Stapley
Curator, India Office Records

Further Reading:
Public Cause 14 June 1815 British Newspaper Archive also via Findmypast

 

Edwards’ Patent Preserved Potato was the 19th-century equivalent of Smash.  An advert from 1857 claimed that ‘This economical and pure Vegetable keeps good in all Climates, and is a preventative of Scurvy from the use of Salt Provisions’.  A dish of mashed potatoes could be cooked in a few minutes at a cost of less than ½d per 8oz ration.  The product also took up far fewer cubic feet than fresh potatoes.

Advertisement for Edwards’ Patent Preserved Potato, Nautical Magazine July 1857

Patent Preserved Potato had been used for many years by the Royal Navy, HM Emigration Commissioners, Greenwich Hospital, merchant shipping, and the East India Company.  In 1841 the East India Company put a small quantity of Edwards’ Patent Preserved Potato on board three ships, Seringapatam, Northumberland, and Reliance, as an experiment for feeding troops on the outward voyage to India.

Surgeon F Chapman who was in medical charge of the troops on the Seringapatam reported that the potato had been fed to the troops twice a week.  Chapman was enthusiastic about the potatoes, saying that he could ‘without hesitation speak of them in the most favourable terms, believing them to be highly nutritious and conducive to health and nearly if not quite as good as the fresh vegetable’.

The Medical Board at Fort William Calcutta also tested the dried potato. They thought the flavour ‘somewhat inferior’ to fresh potatoes but conceded that might have been caused by the sample coming from a cask which had been open for a long time, causing the contents to deteriorate.  On the whole, the Board considered the product would be a useful article of diet in situations where fresh potatoes could not be obtained.

Preserved Potato was fed to British troops in the Crimea.  The Times’ correspondent there said it was ‘too good to last’ and new supplies were awaited.

Professor of Chemistry, Dr Andrew Ure, provided an analysis of the nutritional value of the Preserved Potato – starch, ‘fibrine of demulcent antiscorbutic quality’, vegetable albumine, and lubricating gum.  It was nearly as nutritious as wheat flour and more nutritious than peas, beans, sago, or arrowroot.

Purchasers were warned to ensure that they procured the genuine article which had brass labels and red cases marked with the name of the sole manufacturers: F King & Son, late Edwards & Co.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
IOR/E/4/766 pp.125-127 Letter concerning the testing of Edwards’ Patent Preserved Potato on board ships, May 1841.
IOR/F/4/1987/87952 Report from the Medical Board on Edwards’ patent preserved potato, put on board the ship Seringapatam as an experiment for the use of the troops, 1841-1842.

 

The fourth child of Chaund Bebee and John Shore was their son George born on 1 July 1785. He was baptised in Calcutta on 11 May 1788.

George was living in Bengal in 1825.  By 1835 his residence was 4 Carlton Chambers, Regent Street, where his brother Francis had lived.  He later lived off Edgware Road at Cambridge Terrace and Sussex Gardens, and lastly at Pembridge Place, Bayswater.

George’s business interests intertwined with his brothers John and Francis.  He was an East India Company stockholder and active in the Marine Society, and it appears that he travelled between India and England.  For example, in March 1832 George was a passenger in the Charles Grant sailing to Calcutta.

George Shore named as a passenger for Calcutta in the Charles Grant, British Newspaper Archive Bombay Gazette 20 June 1832

He must have kept in touch with his mother Chaund Bebee as her will made in 1836 commented on his financial situation.  She left George a ring which had belonged to his father, asking him to wear it as testimony of her love. George’s half-sister Eliza Cordelia Sherriff was to show him the ring in their mother’s belongings.

Bequest of ring to George Shore from his mother Chaund Bebee, British Library IOR/L/AG/34/27/114.

George and his brother John are mentioned in the journal of Margaret Emily Shore, the granddaughter of their uncle Reverend Thomas William Shore.  In November 1838 Margaret Emily was staying in Wimpole Street London on her way to Madeira for health reasons (she died there in July 1839).  She reported that her brother Richard had received kind and warm invitations from Charles Lord Teignmouth, John Shore, George Shore and many others, so that he would have plenty of homes during his holidays from Haileybury College.

George Shore died aged 73 on 26 November 1858 at his home in Bayswater.  His will, written in 1851, asked that he should be buried at Highgate Cemetery.  He made bequests to his servants, past and present, and was especially generous to Martha Garskin who had been in his service since 1835.  Martha was to receive the choice of one of his gold watches, a clock, one of his Bibles, one of his prayer books, all his household linen and wearing apparel, together with £50 for her ‘present expenses’ and an annuity to enable her to end her days in comfort.

Bequests were also made to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and for an annual Christmas distribution to the poor of the parish where George died.  One executor, John Patch, barrister, was given George’s volumes of prints or caricatures by Hogarth and Gillray and the other, Jonathan Duncan Dow, was to have six dozen of the best wines from George’s cellar.

His brother John’s family were named in the will.  Jessie Hildyard, George’s great-niece and godchild, was to receive £200 as a memento.  Niece Elizabeth Shore at Pinhoe was left £65.  Nephew John Shore was given ‘nil’.  This explicit exclusion is perhaps explained by the allegations of drunkenness and offensive behaviour found in the divorce petition lodged by John’s wife Anna Maria shortly before his death in 1861.

The residue of George’s estate was left to his half-brother Charles John Shore, Lord Teignmouth, in whose hands it would be ‘well appropriated and expended, those calling themselves my relatives or connections being well off and provided as to worldly affairs’.

Our next story in this series will look at the life of George’s half-sister Eliza Cordelia, Chaund Bebee’s daughter with Charles Rothman.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
Baptism of George Shore at Calcutta 11 May 1788 IOR/N/1/4 f.52.
Westminster Rate Books via Findmypast.
Journal of Emily Shore (London, 1898) British Library shelfmark 10856.de.14.

The will of Chaund Bebee or Bebee Shore

The children of Chaund Bebee and John Shore – (1) John Shore

The children of Chaund Bebee and John Shore – (2) Francis and Martha Shore

 

When sixteen-year-old Thomas John Crawford joined the Second Battalion Royal Welch Fusiliers in August 1906 he was escaping a turbulent home life.  His parents Clara (née Jones) and Alfred were married on 8 July 1888 in Chester, and daughter Annie arrived later that year.  Thomas was born in Chester in 1890, younger brother William in Liverpool in 1894.  By this point, the marriage was at breaking point, and Alfred deserted his wife and children, leaving Clara to apply for poor relief.

Report of Alfred Crawford's court case, British Newspaper Archive Chester Chronicle 13 August 1898

In 1897, after dodging the law, Alfred appeared at Chester Petty Sessions and was sentenced to two months in jail.  The Justices were outraged at ‘one of the worst cases ever brought before them’ - Crawford earned a decent salary of around £2 per week as a compositor while his wife was claiming poor relief.  However the prison sentence was not enough to persuade Crawford to support his family, and he was sentenced to three months’ hard labour in August 1898.  By 1901 he had moved to Wales, and spent the period from 1911 to his death in 1925 as a ‘single’ man living in a boarding house in Warrington.  Clara moved on with her life, ‘marrying’ Samuel Griffiths in 1901 and starting another family.  As an abandoned wife she must have felt morally, if not legally, justified in marrying again.

Photograph of Quetta cantonment early 1890s - British Library IOR/L/MIL/7/6553

Thomas Crawford headed overseas, arriving in Shwebo, Burma, in early 1908.  On 31 December 1910, he left Rangoon for Karachi, en route for Quetta, Balochistan.  The Royal Welch took part in the series of events connected with the visit of George V and Queen Mary in that year, including the Coronation Durbar.  The Regimental Records of the Royal Welch state: ‘The Battalion is doing well and is very efficient… Men are clean, healthy and cheerful. There is a tremendous esprit de corps… I consider the Battalion has improved much during its stay in Quetta’.  Thomas’s service record shows a charge against him for neglect of duty, insubordination, and being absent from parade in November 1911, so perhaps Quetta did not improve him personally!  Despite this blemish, he is described as ‘Honest, sober and thoroughly reliable’.

Defaulter sheet from the service record of Thomas John Crawford, UK British Army World War I Service Records 1914-1920, The National Archives WO 363

Thomas returned from India in March 1913, transferring to the Army Reserve.  He married his cousin Elsie Maud Jones in July 1914, but Thomas, like many of the Royal Welch reservists, re-enlisted in early August 1914.  He was immediately sent to France as part of the British Expeditionary Force, serving there for two periods during 1914 and mid-1915, before being shot in the thigh and returning home to recuperate.

October 1915 saw Thomas leave for the Mesopotamia campaign, and by February 1916 he was in Basra.  A report describes the conditions: ‘The whole theatre of operations is as flat as a billiard table. It is impossible to locate one’s position except by compass bearing and pacing.  This induces in the individual a sense of isolation and an impotent feeling of being lost.  The mirage also distorts and confuses all objects…Man in these surroundings feels like an ant on a skating rink… Under the effect of rain or flood the country is turned into a bog of particularly tenacious mud’.  Thomas went missing in action on 9 April 1916 - his body could not be found.  His death was formally certified at Basra on 28 August 1917.

Lesley Shapland
Cataloguer, India Office Records

Further reading:
Reports of Alfred Crawford’s desertion of his wife and family can be found in the Chester Chronicle, 25 December 1897, 18 June 1898 and 13 August 1898, available at the British Newspaper Archive, also via www.findmypast.co.uk.
Regimental Records of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, late the 23rd Foot. Compiled by A. D. L. Cary ... & Stouppe McCance, 4 vols. (London: Royal United Service Institution, 1921-29) - quote from p.326.
IOR/L/MIL/7/6553: Defensive works in Quetta: plans and photographs 1888-1891.
New Horizons Volume 2 Number 1 2008 Cadet Gregory E. Lippiatt ‘No More Quetta Manners: The Social Evolution of the Royal Welch Fusiliers on the Western Front’.
IOR/l/MIL/15/72/1: Critical Study of the Campaign in Mesopotamia up to April 1917, Part I Report (Calcutta; Government of India Press, 1925) - quote from p.66.
1911 Census records the 300 men of the Second Battalion Royal Welch Fusiliers at the Roberts Barracks, Quetta.  Available via www.findmypast.co.uk and www.ancestry.co.uk. 

 

Francis and Martha, the second and third children of Chaund Bebee and John Shore, were baptised together in Calcutta on 2 February 1785.  John Shore was at that time a senior merchant in the service of the East India Company.  Francis was born about 1781 and Martha in about 1783.

When Francis made his will in 1825, he said that he had lately resided in Bengal but now lived in Regent Street, Westminster.  The Westminster Rate Books show his address as 4 Carlton Chambers, Regent Street.  Carlton Chambers was purpose-built for letting out as sets of rooms. A resident porter looked after the building, and a female servant also lived on the premises to light fires and clean for tenants.

Carlton Chambers in Regent Street from Tallis's London Street Views. No. 17, Regent Street, Division IV (1838)

Francis’s business interests were closely linked to his brothers John and George.  He was an East India Company stockholder and active in the Marine Society.  In 1832 Francis was elected a member of the Royal Asiatic Society.

On 5 November 1834 Francis Shore died aged 53 at his home in Regent Street, after a short illness of 4½ hours.  He was buried at St Pancras Church.  A memorial tablet originally on the west wall of the church is now in the crypt. 

Francis’s will bequeathed his estate in trust to his brothers John and George and his sister Martha, and after their deaths to their lawful children.  A bequest was made to John’s ‘natural’ daughter Elizabeth Shore who was living at Guilford Street London with her father and his family. Elizabeth was left 20,000 sicca rupees, or the equivalent in British currency, to be paid out of her father’s share at his death before it was divided between his other children.  Although Francis identified Elizabeth as his niece, a clear distinction was made between her and John's legitimate offspring.

St Sidwell's Church Exeter from British Newspaper Archive Illustrated London News 22 February 1845 Image © Illustrated London News Group

Martha Shore also moved from Bengal to England. She married Peter Mann Osborne on 28 September 1813 at St Sidwell's Church Exeter, Devon.  Osborne was a Church of England priest who was curate for the parish of Heavitree just outside Exeter.  They started their married life in a ‘neat modern-built’ house at Salutary Mount.

Sale of house occupied by Reverend Osborne at Heavitree - British Newspaper Archive Exeter Flying Post  11 August 1814

The couple moved to the village of Pinhoe, where Martha died aged 50 on 8 September 1834 after a severe illness.  She was buried at Clyst Hydon.

The 1841 and 1851 censuses show Martha’s niece Elizabeth Shore living with Reverend Osborne at Pinhoe.  Osborne died in Pinhoe at a house called Petersfield aged 81 in June 1860.  In his will he made provision for Elizabeth to live at Petersfield and have use of its contents for the rest of her life.  After Elizabeth’s death, Osborne's estate was to pass to the eldest son of his brother Thomas Osborne, and to Letitia Hildyard (née Shore, Elizabeth’s half-sister), her husband Frederick Hildyard, and their children.

In 1861 Elizabeth Shore was living at Petersfield with three servants and was described in the census as a landed proprietor.  She died there on 20 May 1865 aged 62.  Her will describes Peter Mann Osborne as ‘my deceased friend’.  She bequeathed her property in investments to the children of Letitia Hildyard.

Sale of Petersfield - British Newspaper Archive Exeter Flying Post  20 September 1865

Petersfield and its contents were put up for sale soon after Elizabeth’s death under the terms of Peter Mann Osborne’s will.

Sale of Peter Mann Osborne’s furniture and household effects -British Newspaper Archive Exeter Flying Post 6 September 1865

The next post in this series will look at the life of George Shore, Chaund Bebee’s youngest son.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
Baptism of Francis and Martha Shore at Calcutta 2 February 1785 IOR/N/1/4 f.11.
Death of Francis Shore – British Newspaper Archive English Chronicle 6 November 1834 and Satirist 9 November 1834.
Will and estate papers for Francis Shore - IOR/L/AG/34/29/57 pp.21-36; IOR/L/AG/34/27/108 p.574; IOR/L/AG/34/29/3; IOR/L/AG/34/27/109 p.262.
Death of Martha Shore - British Newspaper Archive Western Times 13 September 1834.
Death of Elizabeth Shore - British Newspaper Archive Exeter and Plymouth Gazette 26 May 1865.
Westminster Rate Books via Findmypast
Information about Carlton Chambers 
The will of Chaund Bebee or Bebee Shore 
The children of Chaund Bebee and John Shore – (1) John Shore 

 

In June 1870, the India Office received an address from India that had been sent directly to Buckingham Palace intended for the Queen.   It was not unusual for the India Office to receive addresses and petitions from people in India addressed to members of the Royal family or British politicians.  This particular address was from Aine, a pupil at the Secundra Female Normal School at Agra in what was then the North Western Provinces.  It had been sent to England by the Reverend Erhardt, Superintendent of the Secundra Orphanage on 21 April 1870, along with a sample of lace (which unfortunately is not in the file).

Address to Queen Victoria from Aine, a pupil at the Secundra Female Normal School at Agra - IOR/L/PJ/2/50, File 7/333.

The India Office provided a translation of the address for the Palace.  Aine began: ‘May the mercy of Jesus Christ be on your gracious Majesty!  Be it known to you that I am one of your subjects and a poor girl.  There is an orphan school here in which all the boys and girls are orphans.  Through God’s great mercy we have all been brought here and are very happy’.  Aine says that there were eleven classes in the school, consisting of 220 girls and 180 boys.  Mr and Mrs Erhardt taught them English, and two other female teachers taught them to read and ‘keep us from evil ways of every kind’.  Aine belonged to the normal class where she learned geography, sacred history and Hindi grammar.

Translation of the address by Aine to Queen Victoria - IOR/L/PJ/2/50, File 7/333.

Aine also described a visit to the school by Albert Edward Prince of Wales, Queen Victoria’s eldest son, who had toured India between November 1875 and March 1876. ‘ Be it known to you that Prince Alfred honoured the Secundrah School with a visit, that he came into our enclosure and then went to the boys, and then to the church where we sang a hymn and the Padre prayed for him.  He afterwards went away.’

Aine ends her address: ‘May God bless you and keep you and preserve you.   May the favour of our Lord Jesus and the grace of God and the help of the Holy Ghost for ever be with you and your family.  All the orphans send greeting.  This letter is written by your unworthy slave’. 

India Office file on Aine's address - IOR/L/PJ/2/50, File 7/333.

The address and translation were sent back to the India Office to be dealt with by the Secretary of State for India.  The official at the India Office seemed unimpressed by such a lovely document, and more concerned that the normal channels of communication had not been followed.  He advised that ‘as the present address asks for nothing, but contains an offering, and is only complimentary, it is submitted that it is better not to return it to the writer, as is done periodically in the case of petitions and such like.  From enquiry as to the course usually pursued in the Political Dept., it would appear to be best to take no notice of the communication’.

John O’Brien
India Office Records

Further Reading:
Public Home Correspondence for 1869-1870: address to the Queen from a pupil in the Secundra Female Normal School at Agra, shelfmark IOR/L/PJ/2/50, File 7/333.

Prince of Wales visit to India