Churchill’s Forgotten Generals
Raymond Callahan
Tuesday 14 April 2026 18.30-20.00 BST (ZOOM)

‘Generals Auchinleck, Slim and Savory and their role in the campaigns in Northeast India and Burma have been largely forgotten by historians. Auchinleck, as C-in-C India, made sure the Army was geared towards jungle warfare and improved the lot of Indian officers and men. Slim was the successful Commander of the 14th Army, who led it from defeat into victory. Savory, as Director of Infantry, ensured that all infantry battalions were trained for jungle warfare. The appointments of Auchinleck, Slim and Savory in 1943 were pivotal in the defeat of the Japanese in Burma. For the first time in the war the key figures in Indian military affairs were all drawn from the Indian Army and understood its traditions and ways.’

Raymond Callahan is the author of Triumph at Imphal-Kohima: How the Indian Army Finally Stopped the Japanese Juggernaut and four other books on the Indian Army, including (with Daniel Marston) The Burma Campaign and the Transformation of the British Indian Army (2021), which won the Templer Medal Prize. He is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Delaware.

Lectures are broadcast via Zoom and are available UK-wide and to an international audience. Lectures are recorded and uploaded to YouTube for two weeks. Links are emailed to all ticket-holders.

Tickets for this lecture cost £5. Click to book tickets (online, by post, or by bank transfer).’

Valerie Haye, British in India Historical Trust
* (Suggestions for Â鶹´«Ã½website news items are always welcome – please send them to ‘comms@bacsa.org.uk’.)

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Â鶹´«Ã½Newsletter readers, family and friends may be interested in the following events:

Date / Time	Event	Place
On now (until Sunday 12 Apr 2026)	‘Flora Indica’ Exhibition of botanical illustrations by Indian artists commissioned by British botanists between 1790-1850.	Galleries 1-4, Shirley Sherwood Gallery, Kew Gardens, London TW9 3EG. Click for further details.
On now (until Sunday 12 Apr 2026)	‘Botanical Tales and Seeds of Empire’ In an exhibition inspired by Kew’s botanical archives, Amrit and Rabindra Kaur Singh (‘the Singh twins’) explore ‘the deep connections between botany, empire and trade’.	Gallery 5, Shirley Sherwood Gallery, Kew Gardens, London TW9 3EG. Click for further details.
On now (until Monday 13 Apr 2026)	‘Beyond Burma: Forgotten Armies’ An exhibition commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of the Burma Campaign, and the role played by the Indian, British, African and Asian forces in defeating the Imperial Japanese Army.	National Army Museum, Royal Hospital Road, London SW3 4HT Click for details of the exhibition and the accompanying series of public events.
On now (until Monday 4 May 2026)	‘Women of Influence: The Pattle Sisters’ An exhibition about the lives and work of the seven Anglo-Indian sisters whose influence in art, literature, photography and society ‘extended from Calcutta to Kensington, and from the salons of Little Holland House to the Bloomsbury Group’.	Watts Gallery, Down Lane, Compton, Guildford GU3 1DQ Click for further details.
On now (until Sunday 8 Nov 2026)	‘The last Princesses of Punjab’ Exhibition about the ‘Punjabi princess and suffragette icon’ Sophia Duleep Singh, and ‘the women who shaped her’	Kensington Palace, Kensington Gardens, London W8 4PX. Click for further details, including registration.
Tuesday 14 Apr 2026, 18:30-20:00	‘Churchill’s Forgotten Generals’ A BIHT lecture by Raymond Callahan (online)	Zoom Lecture Click for further details, including registration.
Tuesday 26 May 2026, 11:30-13:00	‘Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia’ A joint BIHT and Indian Civil Service Society lecture by Sam Dalrymple, followed by (optional) lunch	University Women’s Club, 2 Audley Square, Mayfair, London W1K 1DB Click for further details, including registration.
From Monday 8 Jun 2026 – Monday 13 Jul 2026	‘The relentless rise of the East India Company’ Lecture tour by the historian William Dalrymple, covering ‘more than two hundred years of tumultuous colonial history, covert political machinations, and bloody resistance’	Lectures will be held at venues in: Birmingham, Chester, Tunbridge Wells, Guildford, Cardiff, Edinburgh, London, Malvern. Click for further details (and to purchase tickets).

***

(Suggestions for Â鶹´«Ã½website news items, volunteering opportunities and diary entries, are always welcome – please send them to ‘comms@bacsa.org.uk’.)

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This is an abridged version of Andrew’s personal blog article. Click to read his full account.

‘This is the stunning Dutch cemetery at Pulicat in the north-east corner of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It’s just about all that’s left of Fort Geldria, the first Dutch settlement – and the only Dutch fort – in India.

It’s also all that remains of a much more sinister enterprise. Fort Geldria was for several decades the centre of the Dutch slave trade on India’s Coromandel coast.

Pulicat is now a fishing village on the south side of the vast Pulicat lake. In the medieval period it was a substantial coastal trading centre, particularly during the powerful and prosperous Tamil Chola dynasty. Middle Eastern merchants were present here from the 7th century. The Portuguese arrived at the start of the 16th century.

Around 1613 the and later ousted the Portuguese from this corner of South India. For the best part of a century, this was the centre of governance of the Dutch in India. The Dutch East India Company, the VOC (‘Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie’), was a powerful commercial force in Asia through the 17th and 18th centuries. The Dutch bought textiles produced in South India to trade with the Moluccas for their spices.

Under the Dutch, Pulicat also became a Labourers were forced onto ships and sent to work on plantations in what is now Indonesia. So the wealth and confidence so clearly expressed in these graves and monuments rested on the pernicious trade in human beings.

Research by Wil O Dijk in the National Archives of the Netherlands has indicated that to Java. The factors who captured and sold the slaves were in Chennai (then Madras) and that’s where they were shipped from – but Fort Geldria was the nerve centre of this trade, and the location of the money and power which underpinned this grotesque form of commerce.

The Dutch cemetery is now under the care of the Archaeological Survey of India (Chennai Circle, The gates have macabre ‘memento mori’ symbols – visual reminders that we all will die – which were common to both Catholic and Protestant religious iconography at the time.

There is nothing at all to indicate any connection with slavery. Indeed the slave trade on the Coromandel coast is one of the darker recesses of the Netherlands’ – and India’s – past, not erased, but not much talked about.

Most of the graves are from the 17th century, with inscriptions in Dutch. The adjoining fort was demolished by the British about 200 years ago, and the remnants are shielded under dense scrub.

The cemetery is broadly in good condition. The grounds are well kept and not at all overgrown. That’s probably thanks to the local goats which are sufficiently agile to leap over the wall into the burial ground even when the gates are closed. They seem to have taken it upon themselves to keep the grass cropped.

There are a small number of much later British graves in the cemetery, again in generally good condition. Some of the obelisks and mausoleums and a few of the graves could do with restoration before they suffer further erosion.

I went to Pulicat completely unaware of this magnificent cemetery and I was pleased to have the chance to look around – and then disturbed to discover the chilling link with the slave trade while researching this blog’.

Andrew Whitehead

(Suggestions for Â鶹´«Ã½website news items, volunteering opportunities and diary entries, are always welcome – please send them to ‘comms@bacsa.org.uk’.)

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Jason Beckett, BACSA’s Cemetery Records Officer, recently came across these beautifully situated Scottish graves with fascinating Indian connections:

‘Tucked into the corner of a small Scottish churchyard, in the village of Rosemarkie, lie the graves of three people who experienced some of the most remarkable events in the history of British India.

Dr William Brydon, his wife Colina and her brother Major General Donald Macintyre VC lie side by side, overlooking the beautiful Moray Firth.

William Brydon was born on the 10 October 1811, coming from an old Scottish border family. He studied medicine at University College, London, and at the University of Edinburgh.

In 1835 he entered the service of the East India Company as an assistant surgeon. His first three years were served with both British and native regiments in the wild North-Western Provinces of India. During this time, he accompanied the then Governor General Lord Auckland to the court of Maharajah Ranjit Singh.

At the outbreak of the First Afghan war in 1839 William was posted to the 5th native infantry and stayed behind in Kabul whilst the main body of the invading army returned to India. As a result, he took part in one of the most disastrous episodes in British Military history, the terrible 90-mile retreat from Kabul to Jalalabad in the winter of 1842.

The retreating army consisted of 16,500 souls, both British and Indian including camp followers. Over the course of just a few days the army was brutally slaughtered until only a handful of survivors remained. Some were taken hostage whilst a few officers tried to reach the British garrison at Jalalabad. Only Brydon, despite suffering a sword wound to the head, succeeded. This moment is famously captured in Lady Butler’s painting The Remnants of an Army.

Brydon recovered from his wounds and resumed his duties as a regimental surgeon with the ‘Army of Retribution’under General Pollock, which briefly reoccupied Kabul in September 1842. He once again narrowly escaped death from an exploding enemy shell.

On 10 October 1844, in Bareilly, he married Colina Maxwell Macintyre, the daughter of an East India merchant. She accompanied him for at least part of his military service to Jalalabad, Afghanistan, where their daughter Charlotte was born in 1850. In total they were to have three sons and three daughters.

In 1849 William was promoted to surgeon and posted with the 40th native infantry and served in Burma.

In 1853 he returned home on sick leave for three years before returning once again to India.

In May 1857 William and Colina, together with their two children, were living in a bungalow in the army cantonment in Lucknow. William was attached to the 71st Native Infantry.

In 1857 the Indian Mutiny tore through northern India and the city of Lucknow found itself flung into the midst of this catastrophic event. The famous siege of the Lucknow Residency commenced in June, lasting until November of that year. The defence of the Residency by the small garrison, including civilians and their families became a Victorian legend.

Colina’s account of the Siege can be found in ‘The Lucknow Siege Diary of Mrs. C.M. Brydon’, which was published in 1978. It sets out how she managed to feed her children, nurse the wounded and sick and even keep watch at Grants bastion, one of the Residency’s main defensive positions. Somehow the Brydon family survived, despite many close shaves including William being severely wounded when a rifle bullet passed through his loins, injuring his lower spine.

William was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath in November 1858 in recognition of his service.

Worn out from campaigning he retired in 1859 and returned home with Colina and their children to Scotland where he became honorary surgeon to the 96th Highland Rifle Militia. He lived peacefully in Westfield House at Nigg, on the peninsula above Cromarty Firth and died in his bed on the 20 March 1873.

Colina moved to the small fishing village of Cromarty and lived there until her death at the age of 70, on the 15 December 1899.

Colina’s brother Donald Macintyre was born in Kincraig, Scotland in 1831, the second son of Donald Macintyre and his wife, Margaret Mackenzie. He was educated at Addiscombe Military Seminary from 1848 to 1850.

He entered the Bengal Army on 14 June 1850. Joining the 1st Goorkhas (then known as the 66th Regiment Bengal Native Infantry), he served in several small campaigns on the North West Frontier.

In 1856 he served with them, under Sir Neville Bowles Chamberlain (1820-1902), in an expedition to the Kurram Valley, Afghanistan.

During the Indian Mutiny of 1857-1858, while raising what is now the 4th Gurkha Regiment, he was employed in protecting the hill tribes on the Kale Kumaon Frontier from the Rohilkhand rebels, and in maintaining order in the district.

It was for his service in the Lushai Expedition of 1872, that the now Major Macintyre was awarded the Victoria Cross. It recognised his valour for the following action which took place on the 4th of January that year.

The citation reads:
‘During the assault on the village of Lalgnoora on 4th January, MacIntyre was the first to lead the attack, and he reached the stockade first. Despite it being over eight feet high, he proceeded to climb over and disappeared into the flames and smoke of the burning village. The stockade was successfully attacked following the actions of Macintyre under heavy enemy fire’.

Donald was presented with his VC whilst serving in India later in the winter of 1872.

He last saw active service in the 2nd Afghan War of 1878-1880, where he commanded the 2nd Gurkhas with the Khyber Column, and took part in the expeditions to the Bazar Valley.

He finally retired from the Bengal Staff Corps on Christmas Eve 1880, with the rank of Major-General.

In addition to his outstanding military career, Donald was also a great traveller and fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. In 1889 he published an account of his experiences in Hindu Koh: Wanderings and Wild Sports on and beyond the Himalayas, available on

He subsequently lived in Fortrose, Ross-shire where he died on 15 April 1903, aged 71, and was buried in Rosemarkie churchyard beside his sister Colina and her husband Dr Brydon, overlooking the beautiful Moray Firth.’

Jason Beckett

**
(Suggestions for Â鶹´«Ã½website news items, volunteering opportunities and diary entries, are always welcome – please send them to ‘comms@bacsa.org.uk’.)

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‘I am pleased to report on the successful completion of a small Â鶹´«Ã½project at Cemetery No 2 in Lansdowne, Uttarakhand.

The cemetery was established early in the twentieth century and is in the care of the Garhwal Rifles Regimental Centre (GRRC). It is set among the serene and verdant landscape of the Garhwal Hills and is a well laid out site with a defined stone boundary, paths and graves in an organized set of plots.

The Regimental Centre was keen to repair breaks in the boundary, and to conserve the pre-Independence graves. Â鶹´«Ã½was happy to help, and the Centre asked the Architectural Division of INTACH (the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage) to undertake the work, so that it would be carried out in accordance with sound conservation principles. Â鶹´«Ã½agreed to give £5160, the estimated cost of the work involved.

INTACH has now finished its work, and we have received a report from Major Francis Hiwale of the GRRC, with the following comments:

‘The renovation works were carried out with due sensitivity to the cemetery’s historical importance. Efforts included structural stabilization of boundary walls, restoration of headstones and memorial plaques, improvement of drainage systems, landscaping and overall beautification of the premises’.

‘Accessibility within the cemetery has also been enhanced through the creation of steps leading to the upper space of the Cemetery, while pathways have been thoughtfully maintained. An Interpretive signage has also been installed to highlight the cultural and historical significance of Lansdowne Cemetery’.

Major Hiwale concluded his report:

‘On behalf of our team, I would like to extend our sincere gratitude for your generous financial support toward the restoration of Lansdowne Cemetery. Your contribution has played a vital role in advancing the preservation and conservation efforts at the cemetery. Your assistance has helped ensure that its heritage is protected and respectfully maintained for future generations’.

Denise Love, Â鶹´«Ã½Projects Coordinator

(Suggestions for Â鶹´«Ã½website news items, volunteering opportunities and diary entries, are always welcome – please send them to ‘comms@bacsa.org.uk’.)

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Date: Thursday 26 March 2026
Time: 11:30am
Venue: The Union Jack Club, Sandell Street, London SE1 8UJ

The Union Jack Club is in Sandell Street, directly opposite the Waterloo Station Jubilee Line ticket hall. Cross Waterloo Road at the traffic lights; Sandell Street is 11 yards to the left and the entrance to the Club is 16 yards along Sandell Street on the right-hand side.

Lunch will be served at 1:15pm, with drinks available at a pay bar. The charge for the two-course curry meal is £31.00. Payments and requests for lunch must reach Ms Tina Davies, the General Meetings Officer (GMO), by Tuesday 17 March. Requests received after this date may not be accepted.

Registration and Lunch:

If you wish to attend the meeting and have lunch, please either:
• Book and pay via the Meetings tab on the Â鶹´«Ã½website, or
• Make your cheque payable to BACSA, and email the General Meetings Officer (at gmo@bacsa.org.uk) for further instructions.

If you wish to attend the meeting but not stay for lunch, please notify the General Meetings Officer by email (at gmo@bacsa.org.uk).

**
(Suggestions for Â鶹´«Ã½website news items, volunteering opportunities and diary entries, are always welcome – please send them to ‘comms@bacsa.org.uk’.)

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These exquisitely worked swords were acquired at auction and from private dealers in London and Paris, during the latter half of the 19th century, by Sir Richard Wallace and the 4th Marquess of Hertford.

Struck into coins and depicted on the city’s archways, ‘Fish of Dignity’ (Mahi maritib) became the prime emblem of the court of Lucknow during the reign of Sa’adat Khan, the first Nawab of Awadh (r. 1722-39).

Lucknow ‘Fish’ symbols feature heavily on both these sword hilts. The golden tiger heads ‘commanding symbols of wealth and strength’ in the sword on the left were incorporated into the proposed new coat of arms drafted for the coronation of Ghazi-al- Din-Haidar, the seventh Nawab of Awadh (r.1814-27).

Shuja al-Daula, Nawab of Awadh (r.1754-1775), whose name is engraved on the blade of this sword.

The camel’s red ‘d³Ü±ô±ô²¹â€™ (an internal organ exposed by male camels to ‘show dominance or attract a mate’) on the late 18th / early 19th century whalebone sword hilt on the left suggests ‘bravery, virility and readiness to fight’.

Elements of the East India Company’s crest (a lion holding a crown, standing above a shield) suggest that the sword on the right may have been intended for a British EIC representative.

The Craftsmen

The unnamed artisans who made these swords, and their scabbards, had large workshops attached to the court at Lucknow.

Each sword produced was the result of a collaborative effort by several specialists:

• Blacksmiths forged steel into blades, then gently polished them with a weak acid to reveal an intricate rippled pattern in the metal.
• Enamelwork was applied to the hilts by placing different colours of powdered glass into recesses made on a metal background. Once fired, the glass melted into the grooves, producing a shiny finish.
• Embroidery or leatherwork was then used for the scabbards.

A 2-day conference on is being held in the Lower Ground Floor Theatre at the Wallace Collection (Hertford House, Manchester Square, London W1U 3BN), the home of ‘one of the finest assemblages of arms and armour in a public collection’, from Friday 13 – Saturday 14 March 2026. It will also be broadcast live on zoom.

Meanwhile the ‘Lucknow Swords’ exhibition continues in the Housekeepers Room until 22nd March 2026.

Rachel Magowan
**
(Suggestions for Â鶹´«Ã½website news items, volunteering opportunities and diary entries, are always welcome – please send them to ‘comms@bacsa.org.uk’.)

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Â鶹´«Ã½Newsletter readers, family and friends may be interested in the following events:

Date / Time	Event	Place
On now (until Sunday 22 Mar 2026)	‘Swords of Lucknow’ Exhibition of swords crafted in the splendour of the ‘flourishing centre of power, artistry and cultural exchange’ that was 18thc and 19thc Lucknow.	Wallace Collection, Hertford House, Manchester Square, London W1U 3BN. Click for further details.
On now (until Sunday 12 Apr 2026)	‘Flora Indica’ Exhibition of botanical illustrations by Indian artists commissioned by British botanists between 1790-1850.	Galleries 1-4, Shirley Sherwood Gallery, Kew Gardens, London TW9 3EG. Click for further details. (Click here if you would like to join the Â鶹´«Ã½group visit to the Kew Gardens Exhibitions on Wednesday 18 March 2026).
On now (until Sunday 12 Apr 2026)	‘Botanical Tales and Seeds of Empire’ In an exhibition inspired by Kew’s botanical archives, Amrit and Rabindra Kaur Singh (‘the Singh twins’) explore ‘the deep connections between botany, empire and trade’.	Gallery 5, Shirley Sherwood Gallery, Kew Gardens, London TW9 3EG. Click for further details. (Click here if you would like to join the Â鶹´«Ã½group visit to the Kew Gardens Exhibitions on Wednesday 18 March 2026).
On now (until Monday 13 Apr 2026)	‘Beyond Burma: Forgotten Armies’ An exhibition commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of the Burma Campaign, and the role played by the Indian, British, African and Asian forces in defeating the Imperial Japanese Army.	National Army Museum, Royal Hospital Road, London SW3 4HT Click for details of the exhibition and the accompanying series of public events.
On now (until Monday 4 May 2026)	‘Women of Influence: The Pattle Sisters’ An exhibition about the lives and work of the seven Anglo-Indian sisters whose influence in art, literature, photography and society ‘extended from Calcutta to Kensington, and from the salons of Little Holland House to the Bloomsbury Group’.	Watts Gallery, Down Lane, Compton, Guildford GU3 1DQ Click for further details.
Tuesday 10 Mar 2026, 18:30-20:00	‘Curzon’s Chosen Men: Political Officers on the Periphery of Empire’ A BIHT lecture by Alan Dillon (online)	Zoom Lecture Click for further details, including registration.
Friday 13 Mar 2026 (10:30-17:00) and Saturday 14 Mar 2026 (10:30-16:05)	‘Arms and Armour from Asia, Africa, and the Ottoman World’ A 2-day Conference organised by the Wallace Collection ‘one of the finest assemblages of arms and armour in a public collection’. (In person, and online)	The conference will be held in the Theatre, Lower Ground Floor, of the Wallace Collection, Hertford House, Manchester Square, London W1U 3BN. The conference will also be broadcast live on Zoom. Click for further details, including registration.
Wednesday 25 Mar 2026, 18:00-19:30	‘The Confrontation, 1962-1966’ A Lecture by Richard William Currie, in the Governor’s Lecture Series at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, London.	The State Apartments, Royal Hospital Chelsea, Royal Hospital Road, London SW3 4SR (Entry via London Gate) Click for further details, including registration.
Thursday 26 Mar 2026, 11:30	Â鶹´«Ã½Annual General Meeting (Members only)	Union Jack Club, Sandell Street, London SE1 8UJ. Click here for further details, including registration.
From Thursday 26 Mar 2026	‘The last Princesses of Punjab’ Exhibition about the ‘Punjabi princess and suffragette icon’ Sophia Duleep Singh, and ‘the women who shaped her’	Kensington Palace, Kensington Gardens, London W8 4PX. Click for further details, including registration.
Tuesday 14 Apr 2026, 18:30-20:00	‘Churchill’s Forgotten Generals’ A BIHT lecture by Raymond Callahan (online)	Zoom Lecture Click for further details, including registration.
From Monday 8 Jun 2026 – Monday 13 Jul 2026	‘The relentless rise of the East India Company’ Lecture tour by the historian William Dalrymple, covering ‘more than two hundred years of tumultuous colonial history, covert political machinations, and bloody resistance’	Lectures will be held at venues in: Birmingham, Chester, Tunbridge Wells, Guildford, Cardiff, Edinburgh, London, Malvern. Click for further details (and to purchase tickets).

***

(Suggestions for Â鶹´«Ã½website news items, volunteering opportunities and diary entries, are always welcome – please send them to ‘comms@bacsa.org.uk’.)

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Valerie Haye, of the British in India Historical Trust, has sent the following details of a zoom lecture being given on Tuesday 10 March by Alan Dillon:

Curzon’s Chosen Men – Political Officers on the Periphery of Empire
Alan Dillon
Tuesday 10 March 2026 18.30-20.00 GMT (ZOOM)

In the early 20th century, political resident John Gordon Lorimer ICS and political agent Captain William Shakespear of the Indian Foreign Department played prominent roles on behalf of the British and Indian Governments. As ‘warrior scholars’, both used their diplomatic, linguistic, intelligence and exploration skills in the Arabian Peninsula and Persia to enhance Britain’s understanding of the periphery of Empire, bequeathing geopolitical legacies that continue to resonate long after their careers were tragically cut short.

Alan Dillon is a serving diplomat who spent twelve years in the Royal Marines before joining the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 2000. He has served in Afghanistan, Taiwan, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia and Oman, interspersed by spells in Whitehall, mostly covering the Gulf and South Asia regions. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the author of Captain Shakespear: Desert Exploration, Arabian Intrigue and the Rise of Ibn Sa’ud (2019) and Lorimer: His Gazetteer and Britain’s Pursuit of Knowledge (2024).

Lectures are broadcast via Zoom and are available UK-wide and to an international audience. Lectures are recorded and uploaded to YouTube for two weeks. Links are emailed to all ticket-holders.

Tickets for this lecture cost £5. Click to book tickets (online, by post, or by bank transfer).

Valerie Haye, British in India Historical Trust
* (Suggestions for Â鶹´«Ã½website news items are always welcome – please send them to ‘comms@bacsa.org.uk’.)

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Our tour was arranged by Â鶹´«Ã½Chairman, Paul Dean, and led by Dr Jennifer Howes, whose book has recently become available in both paperback and Kindle editions.

This post describes our tour of the EIC memorials in Westminster Abbey. A future post will cover our visit to the India-related memorials in St Paul’s Cathedral.

By the mid-18th century, when Westminster Abbey – the site of royal burials since 1245 – began displaying memorials commissioned by the East India Company, it already housed numerous monuments to famous forbears. Visitors poured in to ‘the most popular and longest established public exhibition space in London’, to view this ‘de facto Valhalla’.

And still they come! About 3 million a year. Steering our group through the excited mêlée of 21st century visitors, Jennifer selected four 18thc EIC memorials, and explained how their dimensions, location, materials and iconography contributed to the subtle (or, in some cases, blatant) messages the Company wished to convey, in the context of their time.
 
1763: Vice-Admiral Charles Watson (1714-1757)

Aged 43, Charles Watson died shortly after providing naval support to Clive’s success at the Battle of Plassey. He was buried at St John’s Church, Calcutta.

The EIC requested PM Pitt’s permission to instal, in Westminster Abbey, a monument honouring this ‘key architect’ of the military victory. Executed by Peter Scheemakers (1691-1781), the neoclassical portrait sculpture was installed in a high arcade in the North Transept in 1763.

Watson, wearing a toga, and holding a palm branch – symbolising peace and victory – is the centrepiece of the composition. On one side a chained, naked man – labelled ‘Ghereah Taken’ – portrays action taken on 13 February 1756 against the inhabitants of Gheria (a piratical community south of Bombay, believed to have attacked the Company’s ships). On the other side a kneeling woman – labelled ‘Calcutta Freed’ – commemorates the 11 January 1757 retaking of the city, after over 100 prisoners had died in the ‘Black Hole’.

The inscription acknowledges the commercial advantages accruing to the EIC following Watson’s ‘valour and prudent conduct’. The neoclassical clothing – the toga – links Watson with the ‘traditions of Western antiquity’. By referencing Watson’s contribution to specific events, this monument presents the Company as a ‘paragon of Western civility’; a ‘benevolent power in a land where savages and tyrants threatened the liberty of its people’.
 
1777: Major-General Stringer Lawrence (1697-1775)

Major-General Stringer Lawrence, the first Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army, became a military hero in 1752, after defending Tiruchirappalli from invading French troops and securing the EIC’s victory over the French in S Asia.

Aged 77, Lawrence died in England in 1775, and was buried in Devon. In his honour the Company commissioned a sculpted stone memorial, to be placed inside the main entrance to Westminster Abbey – a prestigious site, made possible by paying the Dean and Chapter an additional sum of money to cover the cost of shifting the existing memorial elsewhere.

Sculpted by William Tyler (1728-1801), Lawrence’s memorial was installed in 1777. A bust of Lawrence, wearing a breastplate embossed with a lion’s head, a cloak draped over one shoulder, and a suit of armour over the other, sits above two life-sized female figures: one holding a shield inscribed with Lawrence’s epitaph; the other, representing the EIC, sitting on bales of goods. A relief landscape of Tiruchirappalli, depicting a British encampment under the Rock Fort, fills the mid-centre.

Memorialising Stringer Lawrence in this conspicuous way provided a distraction from numerous financial scandals, including Robert Clive’s ‘nabobbery’, which were tarnishing the EIC’s contemporary reputation.
 
1788: Lieutenant-General Sir Eyre Coote (1726-1783)

Another military hero, who also served as Commander-in-Chief of the EIC’s armies, Eyre Coote commanded the Company’s troops at the 1760 Battle of Wandiwash, and played a decisive role in the final months of the Carnatic Wars.

Aged 57, he died at Fort St George, Madras, in 1783. His body was repatriated, and he was buried in Hampshire. The memorial sculpture by Thomas Banks (1735-1805), commissioned by the EIC, was installed in the North Transept of Westminster Abbey in 1788.

A triangular white marble composition, this one features an angel, symbolising Victory, pinning a portrait medallion of Eyre Coote on to a palm tree. An Indian helmet with a nose guard, a ‘jubba’-style tunic, and a set of trophy weapons – some western; some (eg shield and chahar-kham bow) typically Indian, lie at the base of the tree. A weeping Indian man sits on the ground, beside an overflowing cornucopia.

Commissioning the Eyre Coote sculpture helped divert attention away from the dubious financial activities of the Madras Council, and the parliamentary developments in London that were altering the East India Company’s operations at the time.

Interpreting the overflowing cornucopia as ‘deliberate denial’ of the 1769-70 Bengal Famine, Jennifer suggests that this monument aimed to present the Company as a ‘magnanimous institution that brought prosperity and order to India’.
 
1806: Captain Edward Cooke (1772-1799)

Edward Cooke, the 27-year old commander of the British ship Sybille, was mortally wounded in 1799, in an engagement with a French frigate at the mouth of the River Hughli. He died at Chouringhee, and was buried in South Park Street Cemetery, Calcutta.

Commissioned by the EIC, Cooke’s enormous (26’ x 12’) memorial by John Bacon the Younger (1777-1859) was installed in 1806. It backs on to one of the Abbey’s most famous 18thc monuments – Joseph Wilton’s 1772 tribute to Major-General James Wolfe (who had died, aged 32, on the Plains of Abraham, Quebec, in 1759).

Cooke is portrayed in a semi-recumbent pose, surrounded by naval items – a cannon beside an anchor and rope; a ship’s mast above his head – and supported by a man wearing classical drapery. An angel carrying a palm frond and laurel wreath hovers above him.

The sculpture clearly honours a young man who died after a battle, celebrating him as a military hero. Jennifer (an alert Canadian!) suggests that its extraordinary size and curious location is an attempt to associate Edward Cooke’s death with the ‘politically charged patriotism’ associated with Wolfe.

Unlike most of the artworks commissioned by the EIC, these four sculptures (and those at St Paul’s Cathedral and St George’s Church, Bloomsbury), are still in their initially intended locations. In her book Jennifer also examines the paintings and sculptures originally commissioned for East India House (and now dispersed across a variety of places), and traces the changing ‘messages’ emerging during the EIC’s gradual transition from a trading company to a bureaucratic agency of imperial rule.

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Information about the Abbey’s opening hours, times of services, range of tours and other events is available on their website .

(Suggestions for Â鶹´«Ã½website news items, volunteering opportunities and diary entries, are always welcome – please send them to ‘comms@bacsa.org.uk’.)

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Valerie Haye, of the British in India Historical Trust, has sent the following details of a zoom lecture being given on Tuesday 10 February by Jeff Rosen:

Julia Margaret Cameron – The Colonial Shadows of Victorian Photography
Jeff Rosen
Tuesday 10 February 2026 18.30-20.00 GMT (ZOOM)

Julia Margaret Cameron, the celebrated Victorian photographer, was a child of Empire. The daughter of a governing official of the East India Company, she moved in the first circles of colonial Calcutta. Relocating to England in her thirties, she avidly followed press reports of the Indian Mutiny, taking up photography at a time when national and imperial politics transfixed Britain. Jeff Rosen explores Cameron’s colonial roots and how she embedded in her work imagery that visualised Britain’s imperial power.

Jeff Rosen is a former academic dean at Loyola University Chicago and professor of art history at Columbia College Chicago. He is now a scholar-in-residence at the Newberry Library, Chicago. He is the author of Julia Margaret Cameron: The Colonial Shadows of Victorian Photography (2024).

Lectures are broadcast via Zoom and are available UK-wide and to an international audience. Lectures are recorded and uploaded to YouTube for two weeks. Links are emailed to all ticket-holders.

Tickets for this lecture cost £5. Click to book tickets (online, by post, or by bank transfer).

Valerie Haye, British in India Historical Trust
* (Suggestions for Â鶹´«Ã½website news items are always welcome – please send them to ‘comms@bacsa.org.uk’.)

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Â鶹´«Ã½Newsletter readers, family and friends may be interested in the following events:

Date / Time	Event	Place
On now (until Sunday 22 Mar 2026)	‘Swords of Lucknow’ Exhibition of swords crafted in the splendour of the ‘flourishing centre of power, artistry and cultural exchange’ that was 18thc and 19thc Lucknow.	Wallace Collection, Hertford House, Manchester Square, London W1U 3BN. Click for further details.
On now (until Sunday 12 Apr 2026)	‘Flora Indica’ Exhibition of botanical illustrations by Indian artists commissioned by British botanists between 1790-1850.	Galleries 1-4, Shirley Sherwood Gallery, Kew Gardens, London TW9 3EG. Click for further details. (Click here if you would like to join the Â鶹´«Ã½group visit to the Kew Gardens Exhibitions on Wednesday 18 March 2026).
On now (until Sunday 12 Apr 2026)	‘Botanical Tales and Seeds of Empire’ In an exhibition inspired by Kew’s botanical archives, Amrit and Rabindra Kaur Singh (‘the Singh twins’) explore ‘the deep connections between botany, empire and trade’.	Gallery 5, Shirley Sherwood Gallery, Kew Gardens, London TW9 3EG. Click for further details. (Click here if you would like to join the Â鶹´«Ã½group visit to the Kew Gardens Exhibitions on Wednesday 18 March 2026).
On now (until Monday 13 Apr 2026)	‘Beyond Burma: Forgotten Armies’ An exhibition commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of the Burma Campaign, and the role played by the Indian, British, African and Asian forces in defeating the Imperial Japanese Army.	National Army Museum, Royal Hospital Road, London SW3 4HT Click for details of the exhibition and the accompanying series of public events.
On now (until Monday 4 May 2026)	‘Women of Influence: The Pattle Sisters’ An exhibition about the lives and work of the seven Anglo-Indian sisters whose influence in art, literature, photography and society ‘extended from Calcutta to Kensington, and from the salons of Little Holland House to the Bloomsbury Group’.	Watts Gallery, Down Lane, Compton, Guildford GU3 1DQ Click for further details.
Tuesday 10 Feb 2026, 18:30-20:00	‘Julia Margaret Cameron: The Colonial Shadows of Victorian Photography’ A BIHT lecture by Jeff Rosen (online)	Zoom Lecture Click for further details, including registration.
Wednesday 25 Feb 2026, 18:00-19:30	‘The Battle of the Tennis Court: Kohima, April – June 1944’ A Lecture by Bob Cook, Curator of the Kohima Museum, in the Governor’s Lecture Series at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, London.	Soane Stable Yard, Royal Hospital Chelsea, Royal Hospital Road, London SW3 4SR Click for further details, including registration.
Tuesday 10 Mar 2026, 18:30-20:00	‘Curzon’s Chosen Men: Political Officers on the Periphery of Empire’ A BIHT lecture by Alan Dillon (online)	Zoom Lecture Click for further details, including registration.
Thursday 26 Mar 2026	Â鶹´«Ã½Annual General Meeting (Members only)	Union Jack Club, Sandell Street, London SE1 8UJ. Further details (including registration instructions) will be published nearer the date.
From Thursday 26 Mar 2026	‘The last Princesses of Punjab’ Exhibition about the ‘Punjabi princess and suffragette icon’ Sophia Duleep Singh, and ‘the women who shaped her’	Kensington Palace, Kensington Gardens, London W8 4PX. Click for further details (including registration).
From Monday 8 Jun 2026 – Monday 13 Jul 2026	‘The relentless rise of the East India Company’ Lecture tour by the historian William Dalrymple, covering ‘more than two hundred years of tumultuous colonial history, covert political machinations, and bloody resistance’	Lectures will be held at venues in: Birmingham, Chester, Tunbridge Wells, Guildford, Cardiff, Edinburgh, London, Malvern. Click for further details (and to purchase tickets).

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(Suggestions for Â鶹´«Ã½website news items, volunteering opportunities and diary entries, are always welcome – please send them to ‘comms@bacsa.org.uk’.)

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