A white elephant from Mandalay
In November 1885, after the deposition of King Thibaw at the end of the Third Anglo-Burmese War, British forces moved into the palace at Mandalay, where they found ‘a small royal white elephant’ in the menagerie, with another regular elephant kept as its companion.
Minute paper regarding the discovery of the white elephant in the palace at Mandalay - IOR/L/PJ/6/192, File 27
In the era of the Konbaung dynasty, to which Thibaw belonged, the possession of a white elephant was required in order to assume the title of Hsinbyushin or Hysinbyumyashin - Lord of the White Elephants - and legitimise one’s position as ruler. Owning a white elephant signified royalty and status but most importantly, wealth, since housing and keeping these creatures was an expensive endeavour - as the British would soon find out. Indeed, in English the term ‘white elephant’ now means something that is a financial burden, with little to no benefit.
Note by Sir Ashley Eden of the India Office making reference to white elephants as ‘an emblem of royalty’ and recommending that the animal should not be sent out of Burma - IOR/L/PJ/6/192, File 27
In a series of letters between the Chief Commissioner of British Burma and the Foreign Department in Simla (Shimla), the question of what to do with these two young elephants - and the financial and political concerns involved - was posited back and forth, with three eventual solutions being proposed:
• The white elephant could be presented to the King of Siam as a gift
• It could be transported to the Royal Zoological Society in London
• It could be kept in the Phayre Gardens at Rangoon (now Yangon).
In these letters, the Secretary for Upper Burma to the Chief Commissioner, Herbert Thirkell White, referred to the ‘uselessness’ of the two elephants, and the ‘inconvenient arrangement’ of paying 140 Burmese rupees a month for their care. On 14 April 1886 the animals were handed over to the Transport Department, despite not being old enough to serve as beasts of burden.
In the interest of avoiding a political incident, the decision was made not to gift the animals to the King of Siam. As a letter to the Chief Commissioner explained, presenting a Burmese royal white elephant to the King ‘would be regarded as a humiliation in the eyes of the Siamese’.
A series of letters between Burma, India and Siam discussing the white elephant - IOR/L/PJ/6/192, File 27
Despite concerns about the white elephant being acquired by ‘pretenders to the throne’ should it be sold within Burma, there was a similar political risk involved in removing the animal from the country. The Secretary of State for India, Viscount Cross, wrote in a letter to the Governor General of India: ‘... it has been suggested to me that the removal of the animal to this country may produce an unfavourable effect upon the minds of some portion of the natives of Burma, and that it might on that account be more advisable to keep it in the Phayre Gardens at Rangoon’.
Copy of a letter from Viscount Cross, Secretary of State for India, to the Governor General of India, 3 February 1887 - IOR/L/PJ/6/192, File 27
Copy of a letter from the Chief Secretary to the Chief Commissioner of Burma to the Foreign Department in Simla dated 25 May 1887, reporting the decision to transport the white elephant to the Phayre Gardens in Rangoon IOR/L/PJ/6/206, File 1208
Although we have found no record of what happened to its companion, the white elephant’s story has a happy ending, and it was eventually moved to the Phayre Gardens. In 1901, the Gardens were commissioned as a memorial to Queen Victoria and reopened in 1906 as the Victoria Memorial Park and Zoological Gardens, where the white elephant was touted as the central attraction.
Ely Nott
Library, Information and Archives Services Apprentice
Further reading:
IOR/L/PJ/6/192, File 27 Disposal of a white elephant found in the palace at Mandalay, 14 December 1886-3 February 1887.
IOR/L/PJ/6/206, File 1208 The white elephant found in the palace at Mandalay to be lodged in the Phayre Gardens at Rangoon, 17 June 1887.