Colonial gifts: Family politics and the exchange of goods in British India, c. 1780-1820

Modern Asian Studies

Volumn 40, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 203-231

  Finn, Margot C ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

POLITICS;

EID: 33646909633     PISSN: 0026749X     EISSN: 14698099     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0026749X06001739     Document Type: Article

References (82)

1. This paper was originally presented at a workshop on 'Consumption, Modernity and the West' supported by the AHRB-ESRC Consumption project and the California Institute of Technology. Revised versions of the paper were delivered to the History Department seminar at the University of York and the Long Eighteenth Century Seminar, Institute of Historical Research, London. The author is grateful to the audiences of those meetings for their comments, criticisms and suggestions, and to John Brewer, Sarah Hodges,Josephine McDonagh and Frank Trentman for their close readings of earlier versions of the text.
2. Charles Russell to Sir Henry Russell, 19 August 1851, Bodleian Library, MS Eng. lett. e. 42, fols. 138-139 verso.
3. Sir Henry Russell to Charles Russell, 28 August 1851, Bodleian Library, MS Eng. lett. e. 42, fols. 142-142 verso.
4. 'Anglo-Indian' is used throughout this essay to denote British residents in India and their family members (in both India and Britain). For the structure and sentiments of the Anglo-Indian community in this period, see P. J. Marshall, 'British Society in India under the East India Company', Modern Asian Studies, 31, 1 (1997), pp. 89-108.
5. For broader discussions of the overlap between gift and commodity exchange in 'modernising' societies, see esp. Jonathan Parry and Maurice Bloch (eds), Money and the Morality of Exchange (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
6. Bernard S. Cohn, 'Representing Authority in Victorian India', in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 168.
7. See similarly Gavin R. G. Hambly, 'The Emperor's Clothes: Robing and "Robes of Honour" in Mughal India', in Stewart Gordon (ed.), Robes of Honour: Khil'at in Pre-Colonial and Colonial India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 31-49.
8. C. A. Bayly, 'The Origins of Swadeshi (Home Industry): Cloth and Indian Society, 1700-1930', in Arjun Appadurai (ed.), The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 285-321, citation p. 286.
9. See for example John Habakkuk, Marriage, Debt and the Estates System: English Landownership 1650-1950 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994),
10. and Marcia Pointon, Strategies for Showing: Women, Possession and Representation in English Visual Culture 1665-1800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), chap. 2.
11. See esp. Maxine Berg, 'Women's Consumption and the Industrial Classes of Eighteenth-Century England', Journal of Social History, 30, 2 (Winter 1996), pp. 415-34;
12. Margot Finn, 'Men's Things: Masculine Possession and the Consumer Revolution', Social History, 25, 2 (May 2000), pp. 133-55
13. and Amanda Vickery, The Gentleman's Daughter. Women's Lives in Georgian England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998).
14. The early modern antecedents of the English gift economy, with particular reference to textiles, the body and the self, are explored in Ann Rosiland Jones and Peter Stallybrass (eds), Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
15. Recognition of these limitations has been promoted in particular by gender analysis. For an overview to these issues, see Julia A. Nelson, 'Abstraction, Reality and the Gender of "Economic Man"', in James G. Carrier and Daniel Miller (eds), Virtualism: A New Political Economy (Oxford: Berg Press, 1998), pp. 75-94.
16. For an analysis of this problem in Britain, see Margot Finn, The Character of Credit: Personal Debt in English Culture, 1740-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
17. Philip D. Curtin, Death by Migration: Europe's Encounters with the Tropical World in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 4.
18. Nigel Goose and Nesta Evans, 'Wills as an Historical Source', in Tom Arkell, Nesta Evans and Nigel Goose (eds), When Death Do Us Part: Understanding and Interpreting the Probate Records of Early Modern England (Oxford: Leopard's Head Press, 2000), p. 65.
19. The prevalence of irregular unions between British men and indigenous women in this period further exacerbated this problem, as these mistresses, concubines and wives were often unknown to or not accepted by the government or family members who remained in Britain. See esp. Christopher Hawes, Poor Relations: The Making of an Eurasian Community, 1773-1833 (Richmond: Curzon, 1996),
20. and Durba Ghosh, 'Making and Un-Making Loyal Subjects: Pensioning Widows and Educating Orphans in Early Colonial India', Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 31, 1 (January 2003), pp. 1-28.
21. Cited by E. M. Collingham, Imperial Bodies. The Physical Experience of the Raj, c. 1800-1947 (Cambridge: Polity, 2001), p. 1.
22. Oriental and India Office Collection, British Library (henceforth OIOC), L/AG/34/27/30, Bengal Inventories, inventory 36.
23. OIOC, L/AG/34/27/1, Bengal Inventories, inventory 10. Such social and cultural hybridity was pervasive in this period, as Swati Chattopadhyay argues in 'Blurring Boundaries: The Limits of "White Town" in Colonial Calcutta', Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 59, 2 (2000), pp. 154-79.
24. See esp. Collingham, Imperial Bodies, pp. 13-49;
25. William Dalrymple, White Mughals. Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India (London: HarperCollins, 2002);
26. and Hawes, Poor Relations.
27. John Elliot to Lord Minto, 28 September 1805, National Library of Scotland (henceforth NLS), Minto Papers, MS 11094, fol. 74 verso.
28. John Elliot to Lady Minto, [October 1811], NLS, Minto Papers, MS 11095, fol. 193. The use of rings or broaches to circulate the hair of distant or departed kin between metropole and colony was a commonplace in Anglo-Indian material and emotional life. When Lady Anne Russell, the mother of Charles and Henry, dispatched her third son (Frank) to join his father and brothers in India in 1808, she gave him three broaches for circulation that contained 'the hair of each individual of our family now in England'. She also promised to send her sons rings made with the hair of Colonel Kirkpatrick, who until his demise had been their patron and superior in Hyderabad. Anne Russell to Charles Russell, 25 February 1808, Bodleian, MS Eng. lett. c.154, fol. 120. On memorial objects crafted with hair, see A. L. Luthi, Sentimental Jewellery: Antique Jewels of Love and Sorrow (Princes Risborough: Shire Publications, 1998).
29. John Elliot to Lady Minto, 2 April 1812, NLS, Minto Papers, MS 11095, fols 228 verso-229.
30. Ibid.
31. John Elliot to Lady Minto, 22 June 1812, NLS, Minto Papers, MS 11095, fol. 243 verso.
32. Henry Russell to Charles Russell, 29 December 1808, Bodleian, MS Eng. lett. c. 156, fols. 107-108. He reiterated these sentiments constantly. See for example Henry Russell to Mrs Casamaijor, [1809], ibid., fols 183-183 verso.
33. Henry Russell to Charles Russell, 1 January 1809, Bodleian, MS Eng. lett. c. 156, fol. 137.
34. Henry Russell to Charles Russell, 26 February 1809, Bodleian, MS Eng. lett. c. 156, fol. 154 verso.
35. Henry Russell to Charles Russell, 22 March 1809, Bodleian, MS Eng. lett. c. 156, fols. 191 verso-192.
36. Henry Russell to James Casamaijor, 2 August 1810, Bodleian, MS Eng. lett. d. 162, fol. 65 verso. Somewhat to Henry's embarrassment, his servant dispatched the wrong chair to Casamaijor, and the intended gift was claimed instead by Henry's former office-mate, Parker. 'I shall send him a Seal that I have always worn, as a Keepsake, for which Purpose he seems desirous to keep the Chair', he explained. 'The Chair must be yours.' Henry Russell to James Casamaijor, 31 August 1810, ibid., fols. 72-72 verso.
37. Henry Russell to James Casamaijor, 13 July 181, Bodleian, MS Eng. lett. d. 163, fol. 14 verso-15.
38. Henry Russell to James Casamaijor, 20 June 1810, Bodleian, MS Eng. lett. d. 162, fol. 46.
39. Henry Russell to James Casamaijor, 3 February 1812, Bodleian, MS Eng. lett. d. 163, fol. 87 verso.
40. Henry Russell to James Casamaijor, ibid., 13 February 1810, fols. 89 verso-90.
41. For the social and representational significance of such portraits, see Beth Fowkes Tobin, Picturing Imperial Power. Colonial Subjects in Eighteenth-Century British Painting (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999), pp. 110-38.
42. Henry Russell to James Casamaijor, 26 February 1819, Bodleian, MS Eng. lett. d. 164, fol. 122. For Bacon's imperial statuary, see Barbara Groseclose, 'Imag(in)ing Indians', Art History, 13, 4 (December 1990), pp. 488-515, esp. pp. 488, 507-10.
43. Henry Russell to James Casamaijor, 12 August 1813, Bodleian, MS Eng. lett. d. 164, fols 64-64 verso. 45 Henry Russell to James Casamaijor, February [1813], Bodleian, MS Eng. lett. d. 164, fol. 74. The social economy of miniatures in elite British society is detailed by Marcia Pointon, '"Surrounded with Brilliants": Miniature Portraits in Eighteenth-Century England', Art Bulletin, 83, 1 (March 2001), pp. 48-71
44. their particular utility in colonial circuits of emotional exchange is noted by Patrick Conner, George Chinnery 1774-1852: Artist of India and the China Coast (Woodbridge: Antique Collectors' Club, 1993) pp. 58-9.
45. For Sir Henry's background see Lady Caroline Russell, Swallowfield and Its Owners (London: Longman & Co, 1901), pp. 252-3.
46. Sir Henry Russell to Charles Russell, 20 November 1808, Bodleian, MS Eng. lett. c. 152, fol. 92 verso.
47. Henry Russell to Charles Russell, 25 February 1837, Bodleian, MS Eng. lett. c. 162, fol. 104.
48. Bayly, 'Origins of Swadeshi', pp. 286-302 provides a sensitive synopsis of pre-colonial and colonial Indian gifting, focusing on the exchange of cloth;
49. P. J. Marshall offers a detailed overview from the perspective of eighteenth-century Company servants in East Indian Fortunes: The British in Bengal in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), pp. 158-79.
50. Henry Russell to James Casamaijor, 28 April 1810, Bodleian, MS Eng. lett. d. 162, fols. 14-15. It was Sir George Barlow who convinced the Madras authorities to agree that Jane's tomb could be placed within the church itself rather than relegated to the churchyard. 'Nothing could be kinder than his Conduct; and I never will forget it as long as I live', Henry wrote. 'On many a stormy Night I have recollected, with Tears in my Eyes, that it is to him we are indebted for our sweet Love's Remains being deposited under Shelter.' Henry Russell to James Casamaijor, 29 July 1811, Bodleian, MS Eng. lett. d. 163, fol. 19.
51. Henry Russell to Charles Russell, 19 September 1809, Bodleian, MS Eng. lett. c. 156, fols. 266-266 verso. For the key role of elite women in English patronage networks, see esp. Elaine Chalus, 'Elite Women, Social Politics and the Political World of Late Eighteenth-Century England', Historical Journal, 43, 3 (2000), pp. 669-98.
52. Henry Russell to Charles Russell, 28 September 1809, Bodleian, MS Eng. lett. c. 156, fol. 268.
53. Henry Russell to James Casamaijor, 13 May 1810, Bodleian, MS Eng. lett. d. 162, fols. 20 verso-21.
54. Ibid., fols. 21 verso-22.
55. When Amelia Elliot prepared for her first confinement in 1810, Henry Russell sought 'a very rich Suit of Marhattah Cloaths for the Child' and commissioned his brother Charles to obtain a topi 'of the smallest Size, and as rich as it can be made'. Henry Russell to Charles Russell, 13 September 1810, Bodleian, MS Eng. lett. d. 151, fol. 253. 'I have got the beautiful black shawls sent to me by your invaluable and ever to be lamented Friend Col. Kirkpatrick.... they are quite the rage now in London, and nothing is sought after but black or scarlet shawls-they are however so scarce, that those sent to me really prove invaluable', Lady Anne Russell reported to her son Charles on 29 August 18o6. Bodleian, MS Eng. lett. c. 154, fol. 102 verso.
56. For the nabob, see Collingham, Imperial Bodies, pp. 13-49,
57. and Thomas Spear, The Nabobs: A Study in the Social Life of the English in Eighteenth Century India (2nd edn., London: Curzon, 1980).
58. John Elliot to Lord Minto, February 1806, NLS, MS 11094, fols 89-89 verso.
59. The high cost of genteel English goods in eighteenth-century India is noted by Marshall, East Indian Fortunes, p. 159.
60. Henry Russell to Charles Russell, 21 February 1802, Bodleian, MS Eng. lett. c. 155, fols 1-2.
61. John Elliot to Lady Minto, 7 April 1808, NLS, MS 11094, fol. 143.
62. John Elliot to Lady Minto, 21 April 1809, NLS, MS 11094, fol. 168.
63. Lord Minto to Lady Minto, 8 February 1809, NLS, MS 11064, fol. 15 verso.
64. Henry Russell to Charles Russell, 28 June 1810, Bodleian, MS Eng. lett. d. 162, fols 50 verso-51. 'It is a very extensive and complete Collection of Books; and to a Bookworm like me, will be a very great Source of Advantage and Amusement... besides which it was a kind and handsome Thing to Syndenham to take it of his Hands; and, as I have benefited so much by his Resignation, it is but fair that I should make my having succeeded him as beneficial as I can'.
65. OIOC, L/AG/34/27/46, 740, 1322.
66. Lord Minto to Lady Minto, 17 June 1808, NLS, MS 11063, 17 June 1808, fol. 139.
67. OIOC, L/AG/34/27/30, inventory of Charles Thomas Clarke. For the vogue of popular history in England, see esp. Karen O'Brien, 'The History Market in Eighteenth-Century England', in Isabel Rivers (ed.), Books and Their Readers in Eighteenth-Century England: New Essays (London: Leicester University Press, 2001), pp. 105-33.
68. OIOC, L/AG/34/27/30.
69. OIOC, L/AG/34/27/389.
70. OIOC, L/AG/34/27/290.
71. John Elliot to Lady Minto, 6 May [1807], NLS, MS 11094, fol. 126 verso.
72. Henry Russell to Caroline Russell, 6 July 1813, Bodleian, MS Eng. lett. d. 150, fol. 13.
73. Henry Russell to Charles Russell, 11 August 1814, Bodleian, MS Eng. lett. c. 157, fol. 23 verso. The offending politics of the poem, 'Unpublished Lines (inscribed on the Monument of a favourite Dog) by Lord Byron', contrasted the loyalty of 'the poor Dog, in life the firmest friend' to the machinations of aristocratic men, 'By nature, vile enobl'd but by name' (fol. 24).
74. Henry Russell to James Casamaijor, 9 May 1811, Bodleian, MS Eng. lett. d. 162, fol. 191 verso; Henry Russell to James Casamaijor, 1 June 1811, Bodleian, MS Eng. lett. d. 163, fol. 3 verso. The production of these texts by Romantic writers was itself caught up in and enabled by a complex gift economy. See Charles Rzepka, Sacramental Commodities: Gift, Text and the Sublime in De Quincey (Amherst: U Mass Press, 1995), esp. chap. 5.
75. Colin Campbell, The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987), pp. 200-1.
76. On Romantic bibliomania, see Philip Connell, 'Bibliomania: Book Collecting, Cultural Politics, and the Rise of Literary Heritage in Romantic Britain', Representations, 71 (Summer 2000), pp. 24-47.
77. For an intelligent syntheses of this critique, see Leonore Davidoff, Megan Doolittle, Janet Fink and Katherine Holden, The Family Story: Blood, Contract and Intimacy, 1830-1960 (London: Longman, 1999), esp. pp. 31-9,
78. and Naomi Tadmor, Family and Friends in Eighteenth-Century England: Household, Kinship, and Patronage (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
79. Jack Goody, The East in the West (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 192, 203.
80. This dichotomy persists despite repeated and long-standing calls to recognise the slippage that obtained between these categories within imperial domains. See, for example, Ann Stoler, 'Rethinking Colonial Categories: European Communities and the Boundaries of Rule', Comparative Studies in Society andHistory, 13 (May 1992), pp. 134-61.
81. Bernardo A. Michael, 'When Soldiers and Statesmen Meet: "Ethnographic Moments" on the Frontiers of Empire, 1800-15', in Gordon (ed.), Robes of Honour, p. 89.
82. Cohn, 'Representing Authority', p. 172.