India Office Library Research Articles

‘In trust for the three nations’? The India Office Library & Records dispute, 1947–72

ABSTRACT Between 1947 and 1972, governments of India and Pakistan laid claims to ownership, management and share of the India Office Library & Records. These attempts and the British government’s responses to them have been bypassed by scholars of decolonisation. This article traces the trajectory of that dispute’s three distinct phases, wherein different proposals were mooted to wrest and retain, respectively the riches and records of the IOL&R. Unlike the more-studied African and Southeast Asian cases from the former British Empire, this dispute was less clear-cut and therefore more demanding of both sides in their manoeuvres to pursue their desires. Legal, administrative and technical bids were made in historical and moral arguments, with cultural and economic factors listed in support. In providing their details, this article demonstrates a difficult episode for decolonisation, where at stake was both its curated imperial past and yet-to-be written national narratives. It shows how symbols of a shared history as well as sources of that history’s separate writing became an arena of contest as much for the old glory as for new profits. At a time when decolonising history is in vogue, this article depicts the difficulties of even diversifying the artefacts of colonial history.

Building a Library: The Arabic and Persian Manuscript Collection of Sir William Jones

AbstractThis article contributes to the established scholarship on Sir William Jones (d.1794) by providing a detailed overview and analysis of the Arabic and Persian manuscript collection that Jones acquired both before arriving in India in 1784, and during his time living in Kolkata. 118 manuscripts in Arabic, Persian and Urdu and 69 Sanskrit manuscripts, as well as nine Chinese manuscripts, were transferred to the Royal Society library by Jones in 1792. These were then transferred to the India Office Library in 1876 and are currently housed in the British Library. As well as an in-depth survey of these manuscripts, this article provides important information on the manuscripts which remained in the Jones's possession after 1792 and which were sold, along with the rest of Lady Jones's (d.1829) library, at auction in 1831 after her death. Within this overview of the Arabic and Persian manuscript collections, there will be a sustained focus on the methods of acquiring manuscripts and Jones's curatorial management of his library.

Transferring Sinosphere Knowledge to the Public: James Summers (1828-91) as Printer, Editor and Cataloguer

AbstractJames Summers occupied the professorship of Chinese for two decades at King’s College London. He was also a trailblazer in promoting the study of Japanese culture in Victorian Britain, but he has been an underrated and understudied figure in British history.Summers was an ardent supporter of modern printing. He believed printed media was the most effective medium to transform British perceptions of Asia, which in turn would help support Britain’s foreign political, commercial and missionary enterprise. He also orchestrated the printing of catalogues and journals in his capacity as library assistant to the British Museum and the India Office Library. He even set up his own press to print a newspaper in order to disseminate knowledge of East Asia to a broader readership. Based on primary materials that have rarely been used before, this paper positions Summers in the study of book history, material culture and print mediums in order to reassess his pioneering efforts in Sinological studies.

Malaysia. Letters of Sincerity. The Raffles collection of Malay letters (1780–1824). A descriptive account with notes and translation. By Ahmat Adam. Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2009. Pp. 420. Plates, Appendices, Notes, Bibliography and Index.

Letters of Sincerity. The Raffles collection of Malay letters (1780-1824). A descriptive account with notes and translation By AHMAT ADAM Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2009. Pp. 420. Plates, Appendices, Notes, Bibliography and Index. This book is based on an extended essay the author submitted at SOAS in fulfilment of the MA degree in History in 1971. Although the eminent Raffles expert, John Bastin, stimulated the author to submit the thesis for publication, Ahmat Adam did not find the time or opportunity to work on the revisions before his retirement in 2005. Fortunately, the fact that this is a 30-year old thesis did not deter the author or the publisher from 'dusting off and revising the old thesis. As might be expected the book certainly shows some flaws from its transition from thesis into a book, but its great merit is that for the first time the book allows a large audience to view and use these primary sources in transliterated form accompanied with a good and reliable English translation. The book contains more than eighty Malay documents predominantly related to the British endeavour to obtain military support and provisions, livestock and information from independent rulers in the Malay Peninsula and Indonesia on the eve of the invasion of Java by British troops in 1811. In 1969 Bastin rediscovered these documents with Raffles' descendants in Scotland and the letters were soon reunited with the other items in the Raffles' family collection of letters, papers and other materials in the India Office Library, first on permanent loan, but in 2007 the British Library raised the funds to purchase the collection. The author presents the documents in six parts and subdivides them in accordance with their geographical origin (e.g. Part III: Letters from Sumatra; Chap. VIII: Siak letters). Each part has a concise introduction about the historical context of the region at the beginning of the nineteenth century, while more specific information is provided in footnotes. Here I will briefly discuss three regions that form the main providers of the documents. Perhaps rather surprisingly, Bali was the third biggest contributor of Malay letters, as Raffles considered the island of paramount importance in his strategy to conquer Java and envisaged it to supply 15,000 men with provisions and livestock (p. 321). There are ten Malay letters from the polity of Buleleng, under the ruler of Karangasem at the time, discussing their friendly relations, the rulers' eagerness to get rid of the Dutch, and the presents exchanged. There is also one letter in Balinese on palm leaf written by the ruler himself of which the Balinese original was enclosed with a Malay letter (Bali IX). A transliteration of the Balinese text and a Malay translation are given in an appendix. The English translation in the main section on Bali contains some confusing mistakes, which may be caused by errors in the Balinese original, but were left without comments by the editor. For instance, the English translation mentions that the ruler is sending twenty men or slaves as presents which is also stated in the Balinese original, but in the Malay translation of the text, and in the Malay letter accompanying the Balinese lontar manuscript, only two slaves are mentioned. In the introduction to the Palembang documents, the second most important contributor to the collection with 11 documents, the rule of the rather unmanageable Sultan Mahmud Badaruddin is discussed, in particular, the prelude to the massacre of the Dutch garrison in September 1811. Ostensibly, Raffles instigated Sultan Badaruddin in killing the Dutch in the first letters he sent to Palembang which contain the phrase pukul buang habiskan sekali-kali segala orang Holandes ('attack, evict and finish off all the Dutch'). The ruler seemed quite reluctant initially as the Dutch had been friendly with the Palembang court, but evidently changed his mind and decided to kill the garrison. …

Curzon nostalgia: landscaping historical monuments in India

When ages grow to civility and elegancy men come to build stately, sooner than to garden finely. Sir Francis Bacon Soon after my book Flora's Empire: British Gardens in India appeared, an Indian ne...

The Katakarajavamsavali

The Katakarajavamsavali (KRV) is a free Sanskrit rendering of the Madala Panji, Puri’s famous Oriya chronicle. Dated in 1820 and written by an unknown author, it reveals a fascinating ‘biography’, directly linked with the colonial quest for acquiring traditional Indian knowledge. In 1825 it was transferred to the India Office Library at London and remained unnoticed until its rediscovery in 1974 and publication in 1987. In 1820 two British ‘administrators cum historians’, Andrew Stirling, Secretary to the Commissioner at Cuttack, and Colin Mackenzie, Surveyor General of India, met in Orissa and seem to have entrusted ‘a learned Brahmin of Puri’ to write a new and systematic chronicle of Orissa in Sanskrit. A detailed analysis makes it very likely that the author was Jagannath Rajguru who had already been the main informant of Groeme for the compilation of his famous Report on the Jagannath temple in 1805 and who was twice appointed Head Pariksha of the temple. The KRV became the major historical source of A. Stirling’s ‘An Account, Geographical, Statistical, and Historical of Orissa Proper or Cuttack’, published by the Asiatic Society at Calcutta in 1822 as the first ‘modern’ publication on Orissa.

Obituary Dr Mildred Archer OBE, MA(OXON), D.Litt (1911–2005)

AbstractDr Mildred Archer who died on February 4th 2005 aged 93 was the wife of Dr William “Bill” Archer OBE, MA (Cantab), D.Litt who died in 1979. For several decades she had been Curator of the Prints and Drawings Department at the old India Office Library before it amalgamated with the British Library. It was through her pioneering work on cataloguing those diverse and unknown collections that a new branch of art history came into being, an art form she called “Company” painting; art that had been drawn by European or Indian artists during the time of the East India Company.

The history of modern psychiatry in India, 1858-1947.

This article presents an introduction to the history of Indian psychiatry. It suggests that this history can be divided into four main periods, 1795 to 1857, 1858 to 1914, 1914 to 1947 and 1947 to the present day. The focus of the piece is on the periods 1858-1914 and 1914-1947, as it traces the main trends and developments of the colonial era and argues that the foundations of modern psychiatry in India were laid down in the period of British rule. A brief consideration of the post-Independence period suggests that the patterns established in the years of British rule have continued to influence the psychiatric system of modern India. Research for these conclusions is based on extensive archival work in Indian mental health institutions and in Indian records offices, as well as work conducted at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh and at the India Office Library, the Wellcome Institute Library and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

British drawings in the India Office Library. vol. III. By Patricia Kattenhorn. (Oriental and India Office Collections.) pp. xiv, 385, 64 pl. London, The British Library, 1994. £60.00.

British drawings in the India Office Library. vol. III. By Patricia Kattenhorn. (Oriental and India Office Collections.) pp. xiv, 385, 64 pl. London, The British Library, 1994. £60.00. - Volume 6 Issue 3

THE ANTI‐WAHHAB? REACTION IN NINETEENTH‐CENTURY AFGHANISTAN*

The Muslim WorldVolume 85, Issue 1-2 p. 23-48 THE ANTI-WAHHAB? REACTION IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY AFGHANISTAN* Christine Noelle, Christine Noelle Department of Near Eastern Studies University of California Berkeley CaliforniaSearch for more papers by this author Christine Noelle, Christine Noelle Department of Near Eastern Studies University of California Berkeley CaliforniaSearch for more papers by this author First published: April 1995 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-1913.1995.tb03608.xCitations: 3 † *This article is based in part on archival research conducted in 1989–90 at the India Office Library in London and the National Archives of India under the auspices of a Fulbright-Hays scholarship. I would also like to thank Hamid Algar, John K. Dixon, Ravan A. G. Farhadi. Ira Lapidus, Barbara Metcalf, and Sahar von Schlegell for their comments. All errors and shortcomings are entirely mine. AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume85, Issue1-2April 1995Pages 23-48 RelatedInformation

A Variation On the Origin and Characteristics of the Modern Corporation

AbstractThe business historian Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., has made many invaluable contributions to our understanding of the modern corporation, its origins, and characteristics. This paper shows how his paradigm can be applied to the East India Company at the beginning of the 19th century, thus providing new insights into the essential characteristics of the modern corporation and the emerging role of the professional manager.RésuméAlfred D. Chandler fils, historien des affaires, a contribué grandement à notre connaissance de la corporation moderne, ses origines et ses attributs. Cette étude montre de quelle façon son paradigme peut étre appliqué à la East India Company au début du dix‐neuvième siècle et done foumit de nouveaux aperçus sur les caractéristiques essentielles de la corporation moderne et sur le rǒle grandissant des gestionnaires professionnels.

Organization, cataloguing and storage of photographic materials

I ought at the outset of this paper to offer two disclaimers. The first relates to my presence at a conference specifically devoted to African subjects, since my present work with the India Office Library collections brings me into very little contact with material from that continent. The second is that while the question of storage of photographs has important conservation implications, I make no claims to either qualifications or indeed expertise in this field. As regards the first point, I can claim some past acquaintance with African photographs, but would also say that for the purposes of discussing general questions of cataloguing and storage the problems are, broadly speaking, similar for all historical photographs. As to storage and conservation, such decisions as are made in this area are inevitably connected to more general cataloguing questions and I will therefore do no more than raise a few broad points in this regard.

The Schlagintweit Collections

This article outlines the significance of some of the discoveries in natural science made in India and the Himalayas by the Schlagintweit brothers, who were eminent nineteenth century scientists and explorers employed by the East India Company to carry out survey work. The mainly natural history subject matter covers zoology, botany, geology, surveying and ethnography. The article also describes how various specimens were collected and transported to the United Kingdom their investigation by scientists and their eventual places of custody in various institutions. Although there are specimens collected by the Schlagintweits in German institutions, the present work concentrates on the collections that were originally housed in the India Museum of the East India Company before its dispersal in 1879. The paper was written whilst working at the India Office Library and Records, London, which is a department of the British Library, and the notes refer mainly to material held there.

Fragmentary Tibetan dkar čhag xylographs kept in the India Office Library, London

Fragmentary Tibetan dkar čhag xylographs kept in the India Office Library, London

Developments in the Conservation of Oriental (Islamic) Manuscripts at the India Office Library, London

Cet article presente un manuel d'application pratique sur la structure des livres islamiques. Les techniques les plus appropriees de conservation sont decrites, avec leurs avantages et inconvenients, ainsi que les methodes qui permettent de coudre, relier, lire et exposer ces manuscrits. La demarche retenue est fidele au contexte culturel et historique du manuscrit originel, mais retient le caractere traditionnel des techniques de reliure tout en etant facile a utiliser

Fragmentary Tibetan dkar čhag Xylographs Kept in the India Office Library, London

Fragmentary Tibetan dkar čhag Xylographs Kept in the India Office Library, London

Amaur Kaur Jasbir Singh: A guide to source materials in the India Office Library and Records for the history of Tibet, Sikkim and Bhutan 1765–1950. viii, 187 pp. London: The British Library, 1988. £30.

Amaur Kaur Jasbir Singh: A guide to source materials in the India Office Library and Records for the history of Tibet, Sikkim and Bhutan 1765–1950. viii, 187 pp. London: The British Library, 1988. £30. - Volume 52 Issue 3

Amaur Kaur Jasbir Singh: A guide to source materials in the India Office Library and Records for the history of Tibet, Sikkim and Bhutan1765– 1950. viii, 187.pp. London: The British Library, 1988. £.

Amaur Kaur Jasbir Singh: A guide to source materials in the India Office Library and Records for the history of Tibet, Sikkim and Bhutan1765– 1950. viii, 187.pp. London: The British Library, 1988. £.

Graham Shaw and Mary Lloyd (ed.): Publications proscribed by the Government of India: a catalogue of the collections in the India Office Library and Records and the Department of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books, British Library Reference Division, xv, 203 pp. London: The British Library, 1985

Graham Shaw and Mary Lloyd (ed.): Publications proscribed by the Government of India: a catalogue of the collections in the India Office Library and Records and the Department of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books, British Library Reference Division, xv, 203 pp. London: The British Library, 1985 - Volume 51 Issue 3

The Lost (?) Pedestal from Madanapāla's Reign, Year 14

Publication of a 19th-c. photo preserved at the India Office Library and Records (now: British Library) showing the lower part of a sculpture discovered at Lakhi Sarai (East Bihar) and bearing an inscription. This image is now lost or at least with a present location unknown.