Untold lives blog

As a volunteer house guide and researcher at the National Trust property Calke Abbey, I’ve been researching the origins of a historically significant state bed, perhaps the most renowned and prominent object at Calke Abbey.

The State Bed, with colourful Chinese silk hangings at Calke Abbey, Derbyshire. Image 48533. NTPL Commissioned (NTPL). ©National Trust Images/Mark Fiennes. Image courtesy of National Trust.

The bed features near-perfect embroidered silk hangings.  The vivid blue outer curtains, embroidered with silk, gold thread, and accents of peacock feathers, depict birds, dragons, butterflies, and trees, standing in striking contrast to the soft ivory silk interior adorned with enchanting designs of human figures, blossoming foliage, and wildlife.

The bed remained uninstalled when the estate was gifted to the National Trust in 1985.

My current research is re-evaluating the origins of the state bed.  I am examining physical characteristics of China trade silks, regional embroidery traditions, archival records, and locations where Chinese silks were traded and workshops where the silks were embroidered.  Part of a working theory explores possible connections to the East India Company (EIC) as part of the bed’s history.  I began my research by selecting a handful of EIC ships believed to be from the period of the state bed.

During the process, I came across an unexpected treasure: a journal from a 1709-1712 voyage of the ship Rochester, captained by Francis Stanes.  This journal, filled with beautiful handwriting and detailed drawings, chronicles the captain’s journey from England to China and back.

Journal of the ship Rochester - IOR/L/MAR/B/137B

Captain Stanes’s journal includes sketches of coastlines and wildlife, alongside meticulous notes on weather, his knowledge of navigation, and records of those who died aboard.

Captain Francis Stanes's drawing of the coast of China - IOR/L/MAR/B/137B 

Skull and crossbones marking the death of Chief Mate Robert Sheppard on board the Rochester March 1709/10 - IOR/L/MAR/B/137B 

Drawing of a fish -  IOR/L/MAR/B/137B 

Harbour of Chusan - IOR/L/MAR/B/137B

During my research, Margaret Makepeace, Lead Curator for EIC Records at the British Library, provided me with valuable information.  A letter from the Company directors to Fort St George dated 13 January 1713/14, stated that Captain Francis Stanes would not be employed again because of his mismanagement of the Rochester voyage.

Letter from the Company directors to Fort St George stating that Captain Francis Stanes would not be employed again because of his mismanagement of the Rochester's voyage - IOR/E/3/98 p.140.

Reports had surfaced that goods had been secretly loaded onto the Rochester, with claims that saltpetre had been purchased in Batavia for sale in China—a trade forbidden under penalty of death.

Minutes of the Court of Directors 13 February 1712/13 concerning saltpetre allegedly purchased at Batavia - IOR/B/52 p.311

Third Officer Robert Gardiner offered to provide evidence of fraud.

Third officer Robert Gardiner's offer to provide evidence of fraud in Minutes of the Court of Directors 25 March 1713 - IOR/B/52 p.348

The supercargoes had not kept proper business records (IOR/B/52 p.202).  Although an inquiry was held, the Court Minutes don’t provide a specific verdict; however, the directors barred Captain Stanes from future employment, citing mismanagement of the voyage.  Arbitrators ultimately determined payments owed to the supercargoes, captain, and officers, who appear to have had substantial allowances for private trade.

Eighteen years later, in July 1731, Jeremiah Glass, a sailor who had been on the Rochester, wrote to the East India Company offering to provide evidence of embezzlement involving Captain Francis Stanes and the chief supercargo Charles Douglas.

Letter to the East India Company from Jeremiah Glass and others - Mss Eur C618

Jeremiah Glass was at Spithead on a Royal Navy ship.  In August the EIC asked George Huish, its agent at Portsmouth, to talk to Glass.  Huish reported back that the evidence was just hearsay. The EIC told Huish to re-examine him, but the matter seems to have been dropped when Glass’s ship sailed.

EIC Secretary Christopher Mole at East India House to George Huish at Portsmouth, 5 August 1721 - IOR/E/1/203 p.81

Noah D. Nelson
Volunteer House Guide & Researcher (Calke Abbey, National Trust)

Further Reading:

Silberstein, Rachel. A Fashionable Century: Textile Artistry and Commerce in the Late Qing. University of Washington Press, 2020.

Calke Abbey State Bed 

Memento Mori brought to life in a painting

The British Library holds several early photograph albums compiled by the Dillwyn Llewelyn and Story-Maskelyne families (Photo 1246).  The broader collection includes eight albums containing photographs, two sketchbooks, watercolour drawings, seven journals, letters and a four-part memoir.  This collection showcases Thereza Dillwyn Llewelyn (later Story-Maskelyne) as one of the first female photographers during a period of discovery and experimentation in early photography.

Thereza Llewelyn and dickies, 1854. salted paper print from collodion negative. Photographer: John Dillwyn Llewelyn. © British Library, Photo 1246/1(11).

Thereza was the eldest child of John Dillwyn Llewelyn (1810-82), photographer and botanist, and Emma Thomasina Talbot (d. 1881), born on 3 May 1834 into a wealthy Welsh family with a strong interest in various scientific fields, including photography.

‘My earliest recollections connected with it carry me back to somewhere about 1841…, when as a child - I sat for my portrait taken by my Father … no one living at Penllergare could help being interested in what was of absorbing interest to my Father & Mother and I must have heard many conversations on the subject when letters to my Mother from her Cousin Henry Fox Talbot arrived.’ [Add MS 89120/10]

It was uncommon for women to practice photography during this period.  Thereza would assist her father with his photographic experiments, but her photographic albums and journals show that she was a photographer in her own right.  On her 22nd birthday (3 May 1856), she received a journal and a camera. ‘I saw Papa make 2 stereoscopes, with the new stereoscopic camera that he gave me for my birthday present - I intend to work hard with it, so as to get some pictures worthy of it.' [Add MS 89120/4]

Her journals describe her various photographic activities and highlight the prints in her photo albums.  The albums frequently contain the work of more than one individual, as nearly every family member and their friends were involved in photography.

‘September 6th - After lunch Emma dressed up as a gipsy, and Willy made a capital hut, and represented a wild looking gipsy man looking out, whilst Emma seated on a basket turned topsy-turvy told Caroline’s fortune.  Papa photographed the scene which was very picturesque & pretty, & I made a photo stereoscope thereof.’ [Add MS 89120/5]

Gipsies, 1856. salted paper print from stereoscopic collodion negative. Photographer: Thereza Story-Maskelyne. © British Library, Photo 1246/1(32).

Thereza had other scientific interests, including astronomy and botany, for which she used photography to record her findings.

Delesseria sanguinea or Sea Beech [Botanical Specimen], c. 1854. Negative paper contact Photographer: Thereza Story-Maskelyne. © British Library, Photo 1246/2(27).

Her father built an Equatorial Observatory for her in the early 1850s.  The Observatory made it possible for them to take photos of the moon.  In her memoirs, she mentions that her father ‘made a photo of the moon, and as moon light requires much slow exposure it was my business to keep the Telescope moving steadily as there [was]no clockwork action.’  She states, ‘That was one of the first [photographs] ever made of the moon’. [Add MS 89120/9]

Moon c. 1857. salted paper print. Photographer: John Dillwyn Llewelyn and Thereza Story-Maskelyne. © British Library, Photo 1246/1(49).

Her last entry in her journals was in August 1857, and next year, on 29 June 1858, she married (Mervyn Herbert) Nevil Story Maskelyne, a mineralogist and an associate of both her father and Fox Talbot.  Her interests may have taken a back seat to marriage and family.  Still, photography remained part of her life, as she took photographs of her family and travels.

[Portrait of Nevil Story-Maskelyne with Mary and William Arnold-Forster, 1890]. Albumen print. Photographer: Thereza Story-Maskelyne. © British Library, Photo 1246/7(12).

This collection is a beautiful insight into one of the earliest female photographers.

Susan M. Harris
Cataloguer of Photographs

Further Reading:
Dillwyn Llewelyn/Story-Maskelyne photographic collection, Photo 1246
The Papers of Thereza Story-Maskelyne (1834-1926), Add MS 89120
Noel Cahanan, The Photographer of Penllergare: a life of John Dillwyn Llewelyn 1810-1882 (2013)
Richard Morris, Penllergare A Victorian Paradise (1999)
V. Morton, Oxford Rebels: the life and friends of Nevil Story Maskelyne, 1823–1911 (1987)

The cataloguing and research of this collection (Photo 1246) is part of the British Library’s Unlocking Hidden Collections initiative, with the aim to open collections and make them more accessible to researchers and the public. Readers wishing to consult this collection should write to [email protected] and arrange an appointment in the British Library’s Print Room (Asia and Africa Reading Room).

Birkbeck, University of London, and the British Library are pleased to announce the availability of a fully funded Collaborative Doctoral Studentship from 1 October 2024 under the AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership Scheme.

The focus of this project is on identifying and researching the provenance, changing status and visibility of about 500 books of prints.  These were listed in an 1812 finding list written by then British Museum Keeper of Prints, William Alexander.  The list was later marked up by his successor, J. T. Smith, when about 90% of the books were returned to the Library, where they remain.  The recent discovery and sharing of this document has led to a rethinking of the history of the collection, overturning the previous broad assumption that all the prints considered of 'artistic' merit were transferred permanently to the new British Museum Print Room in 1808.

Cosmo III. [de Medici], Grand Duke of Tuscany. Il mondo festeggiante, balletto a cauallo, fatto ... per le reali nozze de' Serenissimi Principi Cosimo terzo di Toscana, e Margherita Luisa d'Orleans. [By Alessandro Carducci. The songs by Giovanni Andrea Moniglia. With Engravings by Stefano della Bella.] Firenze, 1661. British Museum 1877,0811.615

The student will investigate the implications of these works' categorisation, cataloguing and placing at the Museum, the Library and beyond.  While based around a quantitative methodology which will involve a deep dive into the collection, the project will explore larger questions around the role of visual materials in collecting history and scholarship, the emergence of expertise, disciplinary norms and museological frameworks in the nineteenth century, and the relative status of visual and textual knowledge.

This project will be jointly supervised by Kate Retford at Birkbeck (Professor of History of Art, School of Historical Studies) and Felicity Myrone at the British Library (Lead Curator, Western Prints and Drawings).  The student will spend time with both Birkbeck and the British Library and will become part of the wider cohort of AHRC CDP funded PhD students across the UK.

Birkbeck and the British Library are keen to encourage a wide range of potential students to apply for this studentship and are committed to welcoming students from different backgrounds.  We particularly welcome applications from Black, Asian, Minority, Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds, as currently underrepresented at this level in this area.  Applicants should normally have a master's degree, but evidence of equivalent relevant professional experience can also be taken into consideration.

Further information and how to apply (by 5pm on Monday 29 April 2024) 

On Monday 30 December 1851, following Turner’s funeral in St Paul’s Cathedral, his cousin and chief executor, Henry Harpur, who had been chief mourner, read the will to the other executors at Turner’s Queen Anne Street gallery.  It was later contested by a collection of Turner’s relations on his father’s side of the family and was not settled until 1856.  Henry and Philip Hardwick, the Royal Academy Treasurer, dealt with the financial aspects of the contested will, leaving other executors to deal with the artworks.

‘Interior of Turner's Gallery: The Artist showing his Works’ by George Jones, probably painted from memory, shortly after Turner's death. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

In the struggle over the will, Henry did battle with another of Turner’s cousins - Jabez Tepper, the son of Turner’s Devon cousin, Mary Turner Tepper (1770-1855).  He was also a London solicitor.

The most disappointing outcome for Henry was that ‘Turner’s Gift’, the proposed Twickenham alms houses for ‘decayd English artists (Landscape Painters only) and single men’, was never fulfilled because under the Mortmain Law, the transfer of the three quarters of an acre of land in Twickenham to a trust, had to be at least a year before Turner’s death, and this had not happened.  This oversight was probably the fault of Henry and Turner’s other legal adviser, George Cobb.

When Turner’s housekeeper, Hannah Danby, died in 1853, her will included the bequest to ‘Mrs Harpur of Cobourg Place Kennington my Tea Caddie’.  This was, of course, Henry’s second wife, Amelia, who had been kind to Hannah. 

The Westminster Hospital, London. Engraving, Wellcome Collection.

In 1868, Henry gave £10,000 to Westminster Hospital, with the request that a ward be endowed in his name.  The hospital was relocated several times and in 1992 amalgamated with Chelsea Hospital to form the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.  There is no longer a Harpur Ward.

Amelia Harpur died on 5 August 1868, aged 54.  Henry died on 2 March 1877, aged 86.  At the time of his death, he was living at 96 Upper Kennington Lane.  In the 1870s, Evelina Dupuis, Turner’s daughter, had moved into a house at the other end of Kennington Lane, number 154.  Following Evelina’s death there in August 1874, Henry made his last will, bequeathing the remaining money in Turner's Monument Account to her children.

Henry, Amelia and a number of Henry’s siblings are buried in West Norwood Cemetery but their memorials are probably among the 20,000 or so removed by Lambeth Council during the 1970s/80s.

In his will Henry left two Turner paintings to the National Gallery, on the condition that they put them on display.  Strangely, the Gallery refused the paintings.  Apart from several small personal bequests, and having no children, Henry left the bulk of his estate, including the two Turners, to his friend and fellow solicitor, Henry Drake, who was also the sole executor.  One of Drake’s sons, Bernard, had been given the middle name Harpur.

Drake exhibited the two Turner paintings in 1884, 1886 and 1892.  The larger painting, 'Fishing Boats Entering Calais Harbour' is now part of the Frick Collection in New York.  The smaller painting, described as 'Figures and boats in the foreground; low-lying coast seen across the sea on the horizon' is untraced.

In his will, Henry also made special provision for his cat to be cared for by Fanny Hodges.  One can only hope that, unlike the paintings, this bequest was fulfilled.

Report on Henry Harpur's will in Courier and West-End Advertiser 14 April 1877 British Newspaper Archive

CC-BY
David Meaden
Independent Researcher

Creative Commons Attribution licence

Further reading:
Selby Whittingham, Of Geese, Mallards and Drakes: Some Notes on Turner's Family, with contributions from others, Part 4 The Marshalls & Harpurs, Independent Turner Society (1999)
Franny Moyle, The Extraordinary Life and Momentous Times of J.M.W.Turner (London, 2016).

Henry Harpur – JMW Turner’s Cousin and Lawyer (Part 1)

Turner’s restored house in Twickenham is open to visitors.

Researching JMW Turner’s cousin, Henry Harpur, is complicated by the fact that he was Henry Harpur lV.  Henry Harpur l was a solicitor who rented a house in Islington to Turner’s grandparents, William and Sarah Marshall.  Their daughter Sarah married the landlord’s son, Henry Harpur ll.  Sarah was the sister of Turner’s mother, Mary.

Henry Harpur ll left London to become vicar of St Giles, Tonbridge, from 1756 to 1791.  Turner is believed to have stayed with Harpur during his summer holidays and on one visit painted a scene of Tonbridge Castle.

Joseph Mallord William Turner, 'Tonbridge Castle, Kent'. Grey and blue wash over graphite, on paper. 1794. Accession Number: 1588 Photograph copyright © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

Harpur’s son, Henry Harpur lll, returned to London, where he became a successful lawyer in Westminster, in partnership with a baronet.  He married Elizabeth Lambert at St Giles, Camberwell, on 21 October 1800; by this time the couple already had three children.  Their son, Henry Harpur lV, was probably born on 18 June 1791 and baptised at Christ Church, Southwark on 1 January 1792; he also entered the legal profession.  Despite the sixteen years’ difference in their ages, he and Turner had a close personal and professional relationship for nearly 50 years.

Painting of Henry Harpur lV - Chelsea and Westminster Hospital Art Collection

Henry married Eleanor Watkins on 11 May 1810 at Christ Church, Southwark and they set up house in Lambeth.  Eleanor was nine years older than Henry.

In 1820, Henry acted for himself and Turner in the challenge to their uncle Joseph Marshall’s will and, as a result, he became the owner of two properties in Wapping: numbers 9 and 10 New Crane, at the southern end of New Gravel Lane (now Garnet Street).

Henry and Eleanor accompanied Turner in 1840 on his trip to Venice, as far as Bregenz on the Rhine.  Leaving Turner, they next visited the Swiss Alps and then went south, via the lakes, to Italy, ending up in Milan.  While Turner was in Venice, Eleanor and Henry wrote to him, enthusing about the scenery in the Alps.  This may well have influenced Turner’s decision to visit Switzerland the following year.

Death notice for Eleanor Harpur Morning Herald (London) 25 June 1846 British Newspaper Archive

Eleanor Harpur died on 24 June 1846, aged 64.  She and Henry had no children.  On 22 December 1848, Henry married a widow, Amelia Stubbs, née Cotterell, at St James Westminster.

Henry retired as a solicitor in 1849 but still took care of Turner’s affairs and remained a close personal friend.  When Turner’s housekeeper, Hannah Danby, discovered where Turner was living with Sophia Booth, shortly before his death, it was Henry whom she informed of his whereabouts.  Hannah didn’t know that Henry and Amelia had remained in close contact with Turner and had visited him in Chelsea many times during his final illness.  It was Henry who, at the end of November 1851, told the Academy Treasurer, Philip Hardwick, that Turner would not be able to dine with him on Christmas Day ‘as was his custom’ because he was ‘confined to bed and had been since the commencement of October’.

Henry continued to visit Turner in his final days and later told his friend, the painter David Roberts, that Turner was ‘speechless two days at the end’.  This rather spoils the story that Turner expired with the words, ‘The sun is God’ on his lips.  After Turner’s death, to avoid any possible scandal about his relationship with Sophia Booth, Henry and Philip Hardwick arranged to move the body to Turner’s gallery in Queen Anne Street.  Turner had named Henry as his chief executor.

CC-BY
David Meaden
Independent Researcher

Creative Commons Attribution licence

Further reading:
Selby Whittingham, Of Geese, Mallards and Drakes: Some Notes on Turner's Family, with contributions from others, Part 4 The Marshalls & Harpurs, Independent Turner Society (1999).
Franny Moyle, The Extraordinary Life and Momentous Times of J.M.W.Turner (London, 2016).

Henry Harpur – JMW Turner’s Cousin and Lawyer (Part 2)

Turner’s restored house in Twickenham is open to visitors.

In the British Library, there is a portrait of Raja Chandu Lal, the famous minister to the Nizam of Hyderabad from 1809 to 1843.  He was an influential figure who was so powerful that the British suspiciously regarded him as the proxy ruler of Hyderabad.  The on-line catalogue entry for the portrait says that it was a gift from 'Mrs Moore'.  Who was she, and why did she have a painting of a man who Hyderabad’s British resident, Sir Charles Metcalfe, described as having 'the plausibility ascribed to Satan'?

British Library, Foster 16 – Portrait of Raja Chandu Lal (1809-1843) by John Godwin Williams (fl.1813-1837), c.1836.  Given to the India Office by Sophia Stewart Moore, née Yates (1808-1905), probably in the 1870s.

Sophia Stewart Yates was born at Madras in 1808.  Her parents, Richard Hassels Yates of the Madras Army and Benjamina, had ten children.  Sophia and her sisters were probably married off quite young, and her brothers would have been sent into the army.  On 29 July 1827, when she was 19, she married John Arthur Moore, an employee of the Nizam of Hyderabad from 1817 to 1838.  He began as a soldier in Hyderabad’s army, then served as the Nizam’s Military Secretary and Auditor of Accounts for 14 years.  He retired from the Nizam’s service for health reasons and returned to Britain with Sophia in 1839.

The painting of Raja Chandu Lal was printed in London as a mezzotint in 1841 by Charles Turner.  The caption below the mezzotint, written in English and Persian, celebrates Raja Chandu Lal as the 'Rajah of Rajahs… the devoted servant of Asuf Jah who is the Roostum of his Age'.   It is impossible to say why the mezzotint was commissioned, but it might relate to Raja Chandu Lal granting Major Moore a generous pension.

British Museum, 1861,0810.148 – Mezzotint of John Godwin Williams’ portrait of Raja Chandu Lal.  Engraved in 1841 by Charles Turner, 50 Warren Street, Fitzroy Square, London.

Unfortunately, the East India Company’s directors in London blocked Major Moore from receiving the pension of 500 rupees a month, claiming that it was 'extremely inexpedient for the Local Government to allow British Officers to be pensioned by the Nizam’s Government or by that of any other Native Prince or Chief'.  Several 'influential men petitioned the Company to allow him to collect the pension, including Charles Metcalfe, the resident at Hyderabad who once described Raja Chandu Lal as 'Satan'.

John Arthur Moore died on 7 July 1860, when Sophia was 52.  Following the East India Company’s liquidation and absorption into the British state, Adolphus Warburton Moore (1841-1887), John and Sophia’s son, became the India Office’s Political Secretary in the 1870s.  He prompted his mother to give the portrait of Raja Chandu Lal to the India Office.

Sophia died in 1905, at the age of 97.  It is intriguing to think that Raja Chandu Lal, a man who the British caricatured as evil, was the subject of a portrait that John and Sophia Moore cherished.  One wonders if young Sophia, who moved to Hyderabad as a teenager and left in her early 30s, personally knew Raja Chandu Lal.  It seems he was kind to her and her husband.

CC-BY Jennifer Howes
Art Historian specialising in South Asia

Creative Commons Attribution licence

Further reading:
Account of John Arthur Moore’s service in India, including letters of support from Charles Metcalfe and Lord Elphinstone to receive a pension from the Nizam of Hyderabad. British Library, IOR/F/4/1780/73179, f.1v-5.
Archer, Mildred. The India Office Collection of Paintings and Sculpture (London: 1986), 47-48.
Foster, William. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Paintings, Statues, &c. in the India Office (London: 1924), 16.
Raja Chandu Lal. 'Translation of a note from the Minister, under date 27th November 1838 to the Resident'. British Library, IOR/F/4/1780/73179, f.19.

In 1775, the East India Company commissioned a huge memorial in Westminster Abbey dedicated to Major General Stringer Lawrence (1698-1775).  It was completed in 1777 at a cost of £750, making it the most expensive artwork the Company had ever commissioned.  Unlike other soldiers who were memorialised in Westminster Abbey for dying in the line of duty, Lawrence died at home, almost 20 years after he retired.  What made him so important to the East India Company?

Memorial to Stringer Lawrence in Westminster Abbey by William Tyler.  Commissioned by the East India Company in 1775, completed in 1777.  Image copyright: Dean and Chapter of Westminster.

In 1746, the Company appointed Stringer Lawrence to establish a private army in India.  This militarisation accelerated the Company’s transformation from a mercantile business to an imperial power.  Lawrence’s most famous protégé was Robert Clive.  In the 1750s, they fought side by side, in a series of proxy battles against the French known today as the Carnatic Wars.  Lawrence and Clive commanded troops out of the inland fortress-town of Tiruchirappalli, an important base during these battles.  By 1756, Clive succeeded Lawrence as the Company’s Commander-in-Chief of the East Indies.

In 1760, to celebrate its military successes, the East India Company commissioned marble statues of Lawrence and Clive dressed as Roman soldiers.  These were placed in the General Court Room of East India House, the Company’s headquarters in London.  Lawrence may have founded the Company’s army, but Robert Clive, the younger of the two men, was by then considered more important, and was certainly more famous.  Clive’s fame worked against him in the early 1770s, when he was exposed as financially and morally corrupt, and on 22 November 1774, at the age of 49, he died after cutting his throat.

Sculptures of Robert Clive and Stringer Lawrence in Roman military costume by Peter Scheemakers. Commissioned by the East India Company in 1760, completed in 1764. Clive’s raised left hand indicates authority. British Library, Foster 53 and 54. Both statues are now in Britain’s Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office.

The East India Company went silent on all matters pertaining to Clive.  How could it divert attention away from his inauspicious end?  The answer came along seven weeks later, on 10 January 1775, when Stringer Lawrence died at the venerable age of 77.  The Company fixated on memorialising the respectable 'father' of its army by commissioning the enormous and costly monument in Westminster Abbey.  At its centre, two female figures, one an angel and the other a personification of the East India Company, flank a sculpted landscape of Tiruchirappalli, the fortified town where Clive and Lawrence commanded troops during the Carnatic Wars.

Detail at the centre of Stringer Lawrence’s memorial, Westminster Abbey. Image copyright: Dean and Chapter of Westminster.

In the 18th century, before the formation of museums and art galleries, Westminster Abbey was one of London’s most popular public attractions.  Stringer Lawrence’s conspicuous memorial was placed in an extremely prominent location, next to the Abbey’s main, west facing entrance.  To secure this location, the Company paid for a pre-existing monument to be moved to another part of the Abbey.  By memorialising Lawrence this way, the East India Company drew attention away from Robert Clive’s scandalous death.

CC-BY Jennifer Howes
Art Historian specialising in South Asia
 
Creative Commons Attribution licence

Further reading:
Howes, Jennifer. The Art of a Corporation: The East India Company as Patron and Collector. New Delhi: Routledge, April 2023. Pages 85 and 114-116.
Payments to William Tyler for the construction of Stringer Lawrence’s memorial British Library, IOR/B/92, pages 326 and 688.
Charges to the East India Company for relocating a pre-existing monument. Westminster Abbey Library, Chapter Act Book, CH/02/01/011.

The Institution for Promoting the Natural History of India was established by Governor-General Richard Wellesley at Barrackpore outside Calcutta in 1801.  The aim was to increase Western scientific knowledge of the fauna of India, which Wellesley viewed as being ‘altogether unknown to the naturalists of Europe, or [which] have been imperfectly and inaccurately described’.  The Institution was supervised initially by Dr Francis Buchanan (later Buchanan Hamilton), an East India Company surgeon and accomplished naturalist, and then by William Lloyd Gibbons, an assistant at the Calcutta Orphan School and member of the Bengal Asiatic Society.  Animals and birds were collected and sent to Barrackpore for scientific study, the process of which included making descriptive notes and commissioning drawings, often from Indian artists.  The Institution itself was short-lived, receiving little advocacy or financial support from the East India Company.  Barrackpore Menagerie survived as a public attraction until 1878, when the animals and birds were transferred to Alipore, to what later became Calcutta Zoo.

Moore & Horsfield catalogue entry for Falco tinninculus

Copies of many of the notes and drawings produced at Barrackpore are held at the British Library.  Some were deposited directly with the East India Company by Buchanan Hamilton, others sent to London by Gibbons, and still others ended up at East India House via intermediaries such as Nathanial Wallich and Dr John Fleming.  Drawings, notes, and physical specimens were housed as part of the India Museum, and many were worked on by Thomas Horsfield and Frederick Moore for their Catalogue of the birds in the Museum of the Honourable East India Company (London, 1854-58).

Mss Eur Mack Misc 167. 6. Notes on ‘Falco tinnunculus’ (Common Kestrel)

Mss Eur Mack Misc 167. 91. Notes on ‘Ardea purpurea' (Purple Heron)

Two volumes of scientific notes made at Barrackpore Menagerie are in India Office Records and Private Papers, the first of which (Mss Eur D541) deals exclusively with birds.  The notes were unbound, (or possibly dis-bound), which made it easier to consult the scientific writings alongside the drawings for identification purposes.  Unfortunately, this did historically make it easier for items to stray, so when the notes were eventually bound, nine of the descriptions – nos. 1-7 and 90-92 – were lacking.  Thankfully, the descriptions were numbered and with some research we have recently identified a small collection of bird descriptions relating to five birds of prey and two herons in the Colin Mackenzie Miscellaneous collection as being seven of the Buchanan Hamilton/Gibbons descriptions.

NHD2/191 Common Kestrel. ‘Falco tinnunculus’. Watercolour by Mahangu Lal, 1805-07.

Our Visual Arts Department holds the drawings, and they are exquisitely detailed.  They were drawn and painted by Indian artists such as Guru Dayal, Haludar, Mahangu Lal and Bishnu Prasad.  East India Company librarians and curators in the 19th century gave each of the natural history drawings in their care a running number in red ink.  The drawings that relate to birds of Barrackpore, as described in Mss Eur D541, are NHD2/186-284, otherwise known as the G & B (Gibbons & Buchanan) Collection.  Additional bird, mammal, and reptile drawings by Buchanan Hamilton are found in NHD3/311-536, the Buchanan Collection, and these relate to descriptions held in the second volume of notes from the Barrackpore Menagerie (Mss Eur D94).

NHD2/276 Purple Heron. ‘Ardea purpurea’. Watercolour by Guru Dayal, 1805-07.

The British Library’s newly opened exhibition Animals: Art, Science and Sound includes an important volume of watercolours of Gangetic fish, commissioned by Buchanan Hamilton and made by the artist Haludar.  These were published in An Account of the Fishes found in the river Ganges and its branches, etc. (Edinburgh, 1822), which remains a seminal work on Indian fish species.

Lesley Shapland
Cataloguer, India Office Records

Further reading:
India Office Records and Private Papers - Dr Francis Buchanan Hamilton papers, including Journals of his Deputation from Bengal to Ava [Burma], 1795-1798; Observations on Nepal, 1802; Natural history observations and drawings made at the Barrackpore Menagerie; Notes, descriptions and natural history illustrations in preparation for Fishes of the Ganges; Catalogue of Dried Plants presented to the East India Company Museum; Reports, statistics, drawings and vocabularies produced during the Survey of Bengal (1807-1814). These have various references, including Mss Eur C12-14; Mss Eur D70-98; Mss Eur E68-73; Mss Eur G10-25.
Mss Eur D541: Description of Birds and Animals in the Barrackpore Menagerie, Volume I
Mss Eur D94: Description of Birds and Animals in the Barrackpore Menagerie, Volume II
Mss Eur D487: Description by Dr F Hamilton (formerly Buchanan) of Birds, Quadrupeds and Tortoises
Mss Eur D562/21: Lists of Drawings Birds & Quadrupeds, 1817-1820
NHD2/186-284: The 'G & B' (Gibbons & Buchanan) Collection. Ninety-nine drawings in laid down in an album of birds from India and the East Indies, in a collection formed under the supervision of Francis Buchanan (afterwards Buchanan-Hamilton) and William Lloyd-Gibbons
NHD3/311-536: Two hundred and twenty-six drawings in watercolour and pencil depicting 169 birds (151 separate drawings and 18 duplicates), 38 mammals and 19 reptilia from India and the East Indies
Thomas Horsfield and Frederic Moore, A catalogue of the birds in the Museum of the Hon. East-India Company (London, 1854-58)
Mildred Archer, Natural History Drawings in the India Office Library (London, 1962)
Sally Walker ‘Zoological Gardens of India’, Chapter 8 in Zoo and aquarium history: ancient animal collections to zoological gardens by Vernon N Kisling, Jr. (ed) (Boca Raton, Florida : CRC Press, 2001)
Salim Ali ‘Bird Study in India: Its History and its Important’, India International Centre Quarterly, Vol 6., No. 2 (April 1927), pp.127-139