Home and Empire: Photographs of British Families in the Lucknow Album, 1856–57

Abstract

In this chapter, the author examines photographs of British families in the Lucknow Album to explore representations of imperial domesticity before its violent disruption. The content, purpose and circulation of these photographs reveal connections between domesticity and imperialism not only within Lucknow, but also between India and Britain. The author explores the ambivalent position of Ahmad Ali Khan as the photographer of pre-‘mutiny’ life in Lucknow and the paradoxical representation of British families within the Husainabad Imambara, where they were simultaneously located and yet dislocated in the ornate surroundings of a Muslim tomb. Events in May 1857 marked the start of what, in imperial terms, came to be known as the ‘Indian mutiny’ and, in nationalist terms, as the ‘First War of Independence’. Discourses of imperial domesticity helped to inscribe spaces of home and empire on household, national and transnational scales. As wives, mothers and consumers, women in Victorian Britain performed a range of domestic, national and imperial duties.