Travels of Samwise takes a huge amount of work to run. If you’re enjoying this labour of love, please do consider becoming a paid subscriber. Dont forget to check out my new book Shattered Lands, which is available in hardback as well as on Spotify as an audiobook. Its finally out in paperback in the UK next week and you can order it HERE.
In the last couple of years, I have become obsessed with tracking down the remnants of the Raj dotted around the UK.
Last month I covered the relics of the Raj in London’s Westminster, from the old India Office from which India was governed to the portrait of Jahangir and Thomas Roe hanging in British Parliament. I’ve also covered the Indian style architecture dotted around to UK, from Queen Victoria’s Durbar Hall on the Isle of Wight to the Chattri of Raja Ram Mohan Roy in Bristol and the Palace of Maharaja Duleep Singh of Punjab in Suffolk.
More recently, however, I have been exploring the houses of the Viceroys of India. These range enormously in scale, from stately homes like Viceroy Linlithgow’s Hopetoun House to Viceroy Reading’s small London flat on Bury Street.
Perhaps my favourite of all, though, is Kedleston Hall, the1760s Palladian residence of the Curzon family.
George Nathaniel Curzon remains one of the most reviled and controversial figures in Indian history for his role in the first Partition of Bengal. Yet Curzon’s legacy includes not just the Partition of Bengal, but the integration of the Gulf States into the Raj, the British invasion of Tibet, the restoration of the Taj Mahal and the passing of the Ancient Monuments Preservation Act.
Outside of the subcontinent, he helped draw the borders of modern Turkey, established the borders between Poland and the Soviet Union, oversaw the division of Palestine from the Emirate of Transjordan, and restored a bunch of pretty castles across England.
His legacy was also once regarded as distinctly more complex than it is today. Indeed in a speech that now seems utterly surprising, India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru lauded Curzon with the words:
“After every other Viceroy has been forgotten, Curzon will be remembered because he restored all that was beautiful in India.”
And of course, like every other Viceroy, he ended up collecting a huge number of antiques and ivories. The lower floor of his house at Kedleston is now a museum of the Viceroy's collections, and it deserves to be far better known than it is. Indeed, contrary to popular belief, the vast majority of Raj era Indian collections are not in the British Museum but in-situ in the houses of Raj officials. Curzon was no exception.
Its an insane story, and one that deserves to be understood far better than it does today. This article is my attempt to do so.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.