Date: Thursday 12th November 2026
Time: 6.00pm
Venue: The Army & Navy Club, (‘The Rag’), 36 Pall Mall, London, SW1Y 5JN

An Illustrated talk by Nigel Johnson-Hill entitled ‘From Hell With Love … the secret diary of a Burma Railway POW’, based on the diary which his father kept in secret while a prisoner of war of the Japanese building the Thailand-Burma Railway, often known as the Death Railway, between 1942 and 1944. Meanwhile his pregnant mother escaped from Singapore to Australia with her young son, ignorant for a long time whether or not her husband was alive.

The author will also be selling copies of his book.

Drinks & dinner The talk will be preceded by drinks from 6pm and followed by a curry dinner at the club.
Prices:
Talk and dinner (without drinks): £70
Talk only: £15

Drinks before the talk and to accompany dinner may be purchased separately at the club.
Booking via the Events tab on the Â鶹´«Ã½website will open on the website on Thursday 1 October. If you prefer not to use the website, please e-mail events@bacsa.org.uk.

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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’.)

The post ‘From Hell With Love’ – Burma Railway Talk and Dinner appeared first on BACSA.

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

Date / Time	Event	Place
On now (until Sunday 1 Nov 2026)	‘Journeys through cloth’ Exhibition of textiles from Karun Thakar’s collection ‘centring on Punjabi baghs and phulkari, traditionally embroidered by young girls and women’ at Osterley Park, a National Trust property.	Osterley Park, Jersey Road, London TW7 4RD 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.
On now (until Sunday 13 Dec 2026)	‘Colonial Views of India’ The ‘first exhibition focusing on photographs and negatives in the Ashmolean’, featuring ‘previously unseen photographs of India by Colonel Eugene Clutterbuck Impey (1830-1904)’	Ashmolean Museum (Gallery 29), Beaumont Street, Oxford OX1 2PH. Click for further details.
On now	‘The Visakhapatnam Cabinet’ Made from padauk wood in the port city of Visakhapatnam c.1760, this ivory-inlaid cabinet (‘the largest and most ornate piece of furniture of its kind in the National Trust’s collection’) returns to display at Kingston Lacy, a National Trust property, after conservation work at the Royal Oak Foundation Conservation Studio at Knole, Kent.	Kingston Lacy, Wimborne Minster, Dorset. Click for further details (and directions, eg ‘satnav unreliable; follow B3082 and brown signs’).
On now (until Sunday 21 Feb 2027)	‘Drawn on the Western Front: Paul Sarrut and the Indian Army’ Paul Sarrut, French artist, liaison officer and interpreter with British, French and Indian units ‘lived among the men he drew, capturing daily life at close quarters and offering a rare and personal perspective on the conflict’	National Army Museum, Royal Hospital Road, Chelsea, London SW3 4HT. Click for further details.
From Tuesday 8 Sep 2026 – Sunday 7 Mar 2027	‘A Mughal Songbook: Art, Music and Empire’ An exhibition of ‘treasures from the vibrant world of song, poetry and performance of Mughal South Asia from around 1750 to 1850’ .	Fitzwilliam Museum, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RB. Click for further details.
From Saturday 19 Sep 2026 – Sunday 31 Jan 2027	‘Sunil Gupta: Life with a Camera, 1970 – Now’ Sunil Gupta was born in New Delhi in 1953. This major survey exhibition will reveal his ‘pioneering contribution to photography over five decades… in Delhi, Montreal, New York and London’.	Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge, Castle Street, Cambridge CB3 0AQ. Click for further details.
Thursday 15 Oct 2026, 11:30am	Â鶹´«Ã½General Meeting (Â鶹´«Ã½Members only)	Union Jack Club, Sandell Street, London SE1 8UJ. Click here to register attendance
Friday 23 Oct 2026, 11:30am	Â鶹´«Ã½Tour of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Â鶹´«Ã½Members only). The Tour, conducted by FCDO historian(s) will cover the architecture, artwork and history of the India Office building.	Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), King Charles Street, London SW1A 2AH. Limited places. Click here to register attendance
Wednesday 28 Oct 2026, 5:00pm	Zoffany in India BIHT talk and (optional) dinner. This talk by Charles Greig will look at Zoffany’s years in India and discuss ‘both his greatest paintings and some previously unknown works identified by the speaker’.	East India Club, 16 St James’s Square, London SW1Y 4LH. Click for further details, including registration.
Thursday 12 Nov 2026, 6:00pm	Burma Railway Â鶹´«Ã½talk and (optional) dinner. This illustrated talk by Nigel Johnson-Hill will be based on the secret diary kept by his father, while a POW of the Japanese, building the Thailand-Burma Railway (the ‘Death Railway’).	Army & Navy Club (‘The Rag’), 36 Pall Mall, London SW1Y 5JN. Booking opens on the Â鶹´«Ã½website on Thursday 1 October.

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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’.)

The post Diary Dates (from 1 October 2026) appeared first on BACSA.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (“the Foreign Office�) was built by Sir George Gilbert Scott between 1861-8 in Victorian Italianate style, at the insistence of the Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, at broadly the same time as St Pancras Station, which Scott designed in his favoured Gothic style.

The building originally also housed the India Office, the courtyard and interiors of which were designed by Sir Mathew Digby Wyatt. Scott was responsible for remaining interiors.

After the Mutiny in 1857, the British Government decided to wind up the East India Company and to demolish East India House in Leadenhall Street. Its contents, including the Indian Museum, the library, the paintings and sculptures, were temporarily housed in Fife House in Whitehall before moving into the newly completed India Office in 1868. Thereafter parts were sent to the British Museum and the South Kensington Museum or scattered elsewhere but much was integrated into the India Office or the greater Foreign Office.

Our Tour will be conducted by Dr Luke Gibbon and/or Dr Richard Smith, historians at the FCDO and will cover the architecture, the art work and the history of the of the India Office building. It will last about 1½ hours and will start at 1130am.

Numbers are limited to 15 but, if there is sufficient demand, a further tour may be organised in early 2027. The tour is free and available to members of Â鶹´«Ã½only.

Travel: You will be expected to make your own way to the Foreign Office at King Charles St, London SW1A 2AH. The nearest underground station is Westminster.

Lunch: It is anticipated that there will be a party going for lunch afterwards which you would be very welcome to join.

Booking via the Events tab on the Â鶹´«Ã½website will open on the website on Thursday 24 September. If you prefer not to use the website, please e-mail chairman@bacsa.org.uk. Bookings will be taken on a first come, first served basis.

Paul Dean, Â鶹´«Ã½Chairman
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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’.)

The post Â鶹´«Ã½Tour of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office appeared first on BACSA.

‘Â鶹´«Ã½members will be saddened to learn of Caroline Whitehead’s death last month at the age of 95. She was an active member of the Association until the last couple of years, not only manning the book-stall at general meetings but also involved behind the scenes. It was to Caroline that BACSA’s founder Theon Wilkinson turned when he himself entered his final days. Both lived near each other in Putney, south west London and Caroline took over the task of storing and selling the large number of second-hand books donated to the Association that raised funds for restoration work.

It was Caroline’s many trips to India, where she supported a school, that got her interested in Â鶹´«Ã½according to her niece, Marina Luttrell. On one of Caroline’s trips, in 1986, the tour leader, Lady Penelope Betjeman died suddenly in a remote area of northern India and was cremated Hindu-style in the absence of any viable transport. Caroline’s diary of the tour recorded the event.

Born in 1931 in Abergavenny, south-east Wales, Caroline spent some of the war years in South Africa, then trained in Bristol as a social worker, working with children, mainly adolescents, for the rest of her working life. This took her to a number of hospitals and care centres, including one in Missouri, in the USA, Cirencester in Gloucestershire and finally Wandsworth where she moved to in 1986. There she became involved with the local Neighbourhood Watch and the Putney Society.

Caroline became an Executive member of Â鶹´«Ã½in the summer of 1998 and she took on two specific roles: Family History and Monumental Inscriptions. The latter is the archival record of Britons who, having served in South Asia, mainly in the Indian sub-continent, returned to Britain and are memorialised here. Family History was a bi-product of Â鶹´«Ã½that collected a number of genealogical studies now in our Archives at the British Library, St Pancras. With the establishment of our sister organisation Families in British India Society (FIBIS) in 1998, stories and enquiries about such families gradually migrated there from BACSA. When pursuing queries and following up leads, Caroline could often be found in the India Office Library on the third floor of the British Library. People who knew her and who used the Library regularly used to look out for her and the cheerful wave from her table.

It was the death of another Â鶹´«Ã½Executive member, Merilyn Hywel-Jones in 2016 that led to Caroline’s further tasks. Merilyn had not only collected a large amount of material about British cemeteries in the Middle East but had also compiled a number of ‘cemetery maps’. These were not maps of cemeteries but maps of where old British cemeteries were located in Indian towns and cities. Before the arrival of Google maps and GPS it could be difficult to find them and instructions for taxi-drivers to the ‘gora kabristan’ often met with baffled looks. All of this material, together with the second-hand books, went into two large sheds at her Putney home.

Caroline was a great asset to Â鶹´«Ã½for many years, not only for the work she did for the Association but also for her helpful and regular presence at its public meetings. She was a delight to talk to, often over a cup of her favourite black coffee, never imposing her own views, but listening sympathetically to others. She will be much missed’.

Rosie Llewellyn-Jones
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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’.)

The post Caroline Whitehead 1931-2026 appeared first on BACSA.

(This is the second part of Â鶹´«Ã½member Celia Brown’s article on the history of Darjeeling. Click here to read Part 1, which covered the early history of the town).

Many of Darjeeling’s founders and their families are buried in Hill Cart Cemetery, the first cemetery in the town, which was consecrated in 1824. Celia found it ‘in a bad way’ earlier this year, and hopes that Â鶹´«Ã½will soon be invited by the local church authorities to renovate the site.

Tea plantations

By 1868 the tea industry was well established. Pioneers such as Andreas Wernicke planted some of the most successful gardens. The Wernicke family belonged to a group of Moravian missionaries who were among the first European settlers. The leader of the group was Karl Neibel, who translated the Bible into Lepcha. The missionaries preached the gospel in pidgin Lepcha in the bazaars and rapidly ran out of funds.

Coming from agricultural backgrounds, they began running a farm, and were soon supplying the town with dairy food, beef and pork. Planting tea was also a natural step for Andreas to take, and soon he and his sons and daughters were in the business of planting tea. Other settlers were also encouraged to plant tea seeds and were initially helped by the government to establish many of the tea gardens which are still producing the famous Darjeeling brew.

Planter’s Club

By now there was a growing need for a place for planters to gather and socialise and in 1868 the present Planter’s Club, a residential and dining club, opened its doors to its first members. The Maharaja of Cooch Behar very generously donated the land on which the club was built.

Before the advent of cars, planters and their wives visited Darjeeling from their tea gardens, travelling long distances on their ponies, usually on the last Saturday of the month, and they would stay over the weekend. Women were banned from the club, so married men stayed in one of the many boarding houses in town.

It was a hard and lonely life for unmarried managers and assistants. The rule was that they could not marry until they were either 30 years old, or had become a manager. ‘Home leave’ was taken every five years.

During the 1920s and 1930s, malaria, dysentery and hookworm were the most common illnesses on the tea gardens.

Nowadays, diabetes, dysentery and skin diseases are probably the most prevalent diseases. Hospitals and clinics are dotted around the district, but they are never enough to cope with the ever-growing population. The witch doctor is still to be found in the poorer villages.

The first car to arrive in Darjeeling was a Baby Austin, in 1925. Up till then, most plantations only had dirt tracks at a steep gradient, and travelling depended largely on horses, so the arrival of cars was a welcome addition. Roads improved and soon cars were no longer a novelty. Nowadays, local people complain that Darjeeling is overwhelmed with cars and it is difficult to find parking space.

Mount Everest

Darjeeling is proud of its association with early climbing expeditions which assembled in the town, and the many local Sherpas who took part. The members of the 1924 expedition, which ended so tragically, assembled over a period of many months at their hotel base. Mallory, in his spare time, enjoyed a game of billiards at the Planters Club. When the expedition was ready to depart, they did so in stages. Some of the climbers rode mules, and their first night was spent at the Peshoke Dak Bungalow on the way to the Teesta River, where they probably had the usual Dak Bungalow fare for dinner of roast chicken, potatoes and locally grown vegetables, followed by stewed fruit and custard.

During their stay they recorded their heights on a wall and for many years afterwards, visitors to Kalimpong stopped at the bungalow just to see the wall. (Regrettably, the wall no longer exists, as the Dak Bungalow was burned down during a recent local riot).

After a comfortable night, they trekked downhill to the Teesta River in steamy conditions through a dense forest of Teak and Sal trees. After crossing the river, they were on their way to the border town of Kalimpong, and Mount Everest.

World War II

When war broke out in 1939, tea planters and their assistants left to join the armed forces; many Nepalese joined the Brigade of Gurkhas. Most of the planters were members of the Northern Bengal Mounted Rifles, which was raised in 1878 to protect the Darjeeling residents. At independence in 1947 it was disbanded.

A plaque in St Andrew’s Church commemorates the 17 members who ‘made the great sacrifice’ in the War.

Senior managers stayed behind to supervise their tea gardens and gardens with absent managers and assistants. The tea factories worked overtime, sometimes through the night during the Monsoons to satisfy the ever-increasing demand for tea.

The 1881 Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, the 2’ gauge steam train affectionately known as the ‘Toy Train’, travels from Siliguri to Darjeeling. The route has many twists, double loops, zig-zags, no tunnels and breathtaking views.

During the war Darjeeling was crowded with troops on leave or convalescing after illness or wounds at the Eden Sanatorium. They travelled by overnight train from Sealdah station in Calcutta to Siliguri, and next morning after breakfast in the station restaurant, would depart for Darjeeling on the Toy Train for a journey of 7 hours, with stops at Kurseong and Ghoom.

Every hotel and boarding house was full from April to the end of October. Refugees from Burma helped to swell the numbers. At one stage there was water and food rationing.

The Gymkhana Club, with its excellent facilities, provided much of the town’s entertainment and the races at Lebong in May and October were very popular. The racecourse was the highest in the world and probably the most crooked in every sense of the word! Jockeys were local lads who raced Tibetan ponies.

Independence

When the war ended and independence was declared in 1947, Darjeeling took a deep breath and found new ways to continue as a leading and popular tourist centre. New venues for trekking in the hills were recced, white water river rafting on the Rungneet and the Teesta rivers and the introduction of local arts and craft centres and shops were some of the options. The first daily flight by Indian Airlines Dakota aircraft from Calcutta landed at Bagdogra Airport in 1952 – flying time was one hour – what a contrast to the early days!

On the 3rd of June 1953, Tensing Norgay Sherpa, a Sherpa porter from Darjeeling, and Sir Edmund Hillary were the first people to climb Mount Everest. There was much pride locally that a Sherpa had made it to the top. His return from a visit to London to meet the Queen was eagerly awaited. On his arrival in Darjeeling, there were wild scenes and several days of celebration.

In looking back to the past, one of the sights much looked forward to during the Winter months were the colourful Tibetan caravans travelling from Tibet with their families, dogs and mule trains laden with wool, silks and other goods. They would descend on Kalimpong and Darjeeling, heralded by the bells hanging around the animals’ necks. The flags fluttering over the mules indicated their passports to trade. The Tibetans were a picturesque people with colourful jewellery and glowing faces. The women rouged their cheeks with pigs’ blood and, like most hill people, were cheerful and invariably had beautiful white teeth and flashing smiles.

Unfortunately, after Tibet was taken over by the Chinese the caravans stopped.

Darjeeling has obviously changed since 1947. Many of the old buildings such as the Town Hall, the Everest Hotel and the lovely Victorian houses and bungalows with names like Honeysuckle Cottage, Kenilworth and Ivanhoe – and the gardens where once English flowers grew, now look like remnants of a bygone age, which of course is true. However, the Windamere Hotel is still there and it hasn’t changed over the years. It’s still a delightful, cosy, chintzy, old fashioned hotel with coal fires in the bedrooms and hot water bottles in the beds – not one, but two – one for each foot!

The old Hill Cart Cemetery, established in 1840, is in a bad way. This is where so many pioneers, settlers, planters and military are buried.

In spite of its recent problems and calls for autonomy, Darjeeling continues to be a successful tourist centre – colourful and cosmopolitan. There is now a growing awareness that Darjeeling’s past should be celebrated and the newly formed heritage group has already made changes. Recently the Gymkhana Club and Planters Club were renovated, a sure sign that more might be done in the future, which will be good for the Town.

Celia Brown

Ed Notes:

• Dak Bungalow Chicken: Click here for a recent on this ‘classic Anglo-Indian dish’, including a recipe…
• Hill Cart Road Cemetery, Darjeeling: Click here to read about Â鶹´«Ã½Chairman Paul Dean’s visit there in spring 2024. If you would like to become involved with a forthcoming Â鶹´«Ã½project at this cemetery, please email Paul Dean (chairman@BACSA.org.uk) directly.

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’.)

The post Darjeeling Past and Present (Part 2) appeared first on BACSA.

Date: Thursday 15 October 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 10 yards to the left and the entrance to the Club is 15 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. Bookings must be made by Tuesday 6 October. 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 Events 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)

The post Â鶹´«Ã½General Meeting, 2026 appeared first on BACSA.

As this dramatic CCTV image shows, the border crossing post at Gyirong Port, an essential waypoint for pilgrims travelling from India and Nepal to Mount Kailash (‘Gang Rinpoche’ – ‘snow jewel mountain’), in Tibet, was completely engulfed by ‘a massive brownish mudflow’ just before 11:00am on 26 August – barely 7 minutes after the Ms 5.2 seismic event some 20km upstream at Langtang Lirung triggered catastrophic flash floods and mudslides, resulting in the deaths of over 1,000 people, injuring many more and rendering several thousand homeless.

Located in Nepal’s Rasuwa District, at the confluence of the Trishuli and Lhende Khola rivers, the Gyirong crossing had been transited by over 100,000 people in the first half of 2026, and accounted for 30% of all Nepal-China trade before the disaster.

Situated on the Tibetan side of the Nepal border, and close to the sources of four rivers (the Indus, Sutlej, Brahmaputra and Ghaggara), Mount Kailash, which stands 6638m (21,778’) high, was pronounced ‘utterly unclimbable’ in 1926 by Hugh Ruttledge (1884-1961), the deputy commissioner of Almora, Uttarakhand, and a keen mountaineer. Still unsummited, it has been forbidden territory to climbers for several years in view of its religious significance.

Considered sacred by Hindus (as the abode of Shiva), by Jains (as the place of moksha (liberation) for Rishabhadeva), by Buddhists (as the mythological Mount Meru), and by Bon followers (as the abode of Sipaimen and centre of the ancient Bon empire of Zhang Zhung), Mount Kailash is venerated by pilgrims who traditionally head for nearby Lake Manasarovar and then circuit the mountain – a journey of 33 miles (53 km), performed either on foot, over 3 days, or on bended knees – which can take up to 3 weeks.

The unprecedented events of 26 August are believed to have started when a large mass of glacial ice and bedrock broke off from the north face of Langtang Lirung (at 7,234 m (23,734 ft) – ‘the 99th highest mountain in the world’) and plummeted about 1,200m, before hitting the valley bottom and triggering an ice-rock avalanche (‘glacier collapse’) which continued to travel down the valley into the Lhende Khola river.

By the time it reached Gyirong Port, the resulting debris was travelling at a speed of around 50 metres per second (180 km/h; 110 mph). Floodwater reached settlements as high as 80 metres (270 ft) above the river level. Following the flood, more than 1.5m of silt was deposited in the main disaster zone.

On 27 August Times of India reported that over 500 Kailash-Manasarovar pilgrims, including 113 Nepalis, 133 Indians, and several smaller groups from a variety of different countries, were known to have been travelling in the area, or preparing to cross the Nepal-Tibet border, when the disaster struck. (Reported numbers of missing persons and identified casualties change daily, as more precise information becomes available).

The flood carried the bodies of victims up to 240 km (150 miles) away, with some being recovered as far downstream as Nawalparasi District in Nepal, and Kushinagar and Maharajgani districts in Uttar Pradesh, India.

Rachel Magowan

Ed Notes:
• For an illustrated explanation of the Langtang Lirung glacier collapse: Please see this .
• For regular updates on casualty figures: Please see the on the Nepal floods.
• To help the survivors: Please see the advice about making donations.

***

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

The post Gone in a flashflood – Gyirong Port, the pilgrim’s gateway to Mount Kailash appeared first on BACSA.

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

Date / Time	Event	Place
On now (until Sunday 1 Nov 2026)	‘Journeys through cloth’ Exhibition of textiles from Karun Thakar’s collection ‘centring on Punjabi baghs and phulkari, traditionally embroidered by young girls and women’ at Osterley Park, a National Trust property.	Osterley Park, Jersey Road, London TW7 4RD 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.
On now (until Sunday 13 Dec 2026)	‘Colonial Views of India’ The ‘first exhibition focusing on photographs and negatives in the Ashmolean’, featuring ‘previously unseen photographs of India by Colonel Eugene Clutterbuck Impey (1830-1904)’	Ashmolean Museum (Gallery 29), Beaumont Street, Oxford OX1 2PH. Click for further details.
On now	‘The Visakhapatnam Cabinet’ Made from padauk wood in the port city of Visakhapatnam c.1760, this ivory-inlaid cabinet (‘the largest and most ornate piece of furniture of its kind in the National Trust’s collection’) returns to display at Kingston Lacy, a National Trust property, after conservation work at the Royal Oak Foundation Conservation Studio at Knole, Kent.	Kingston Lacy, Wimborne Minster, Dorset. Click for further details (and directions, eg ‘satnav unreliable; follow B3082 and brown signs’).
On now (until Sunday 21 Feb 2027)	‘Drawn on the Western Front: Paul Sarrut and the Indian Army’ Paul Sarrut, French artist, liaison officer and interpreter with British, French and Indian units ‘lived among the men he drew, capturing daily life at close quarters and offering a rare and personal perspective on the conflict’	National Army Museum, Royal Hospital Road, Chelsea, London SW3 4HT. Click for further details.
From Tuesday 8 Sep 2026 – Sunday 7 Mar 2027	‘A Mughal Songbook: Art, Music and Empire’ An exhibition of ‘treasures from the vibrant world of song, poetry and performance of Mughal South Asia from around 1750 to 1850’ .	Fitzwilliam Museum, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RB. Click for further details.
From Saturday 19 Sep 2026 – Sunday 31 Jan 2027	‘Sunil Gupta: Life with a Camera, 1970 – Now’ Sunil Gupta was born in New Delhi in 1953. This major survey exhibition will reveal his ‘pioneering contribution to photography over five decades… in Delhi, Montreal, New York and London’.	Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge, Castle Street, Cambridge CB3 0AQ. Click for further details.
Thursday 15 Oct 2026, 11:30am	Â鶹´«Ã½General Meeting (Â鶹´«Ã½Members only)	Union Jack Club, Sandell Street, London SE1 8UJ. Speaker: TBC. Further details (including registration instructions) will be published nearer the date.
Friday 23 Oct 2026, 11:30am	Â鶹´«Ã½Tour of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Â鶹´«Ã½Members only). The Tour, conducted by FCDO historian(s) will cover the architecture, artwork and history of the India Office building.	Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), King Charles Street, London SW1A 2AH. Limited places. Booking opens on the Â鶹´«Ã½website on Thursday 24 September.
Wednesday 28 Oct 2026, 5:00pm	Zoffany in India BIHT talk and (optional) dinner. This talk by Charles Greig will look at Zoffany’s years in India and discuss ‘both his greatest paintings and some previously unknown works identified by the speaker’.	East India Club, 16 St James’s Square, London SW1Y 4LH. Click for further details, including registration.
Thursday 12 Nov 2026, 6:00pm	Burma Railway Â鶹´«Ã½talk and (optional) dinner. This illustrated talk by Nigel Johnson-Hill will be based on the secret diary kept by his father, while a POW of the Japanese, building the Thailand-Burma Railway (the ‘Death Railway’).	Army & Navy Club (‘The Rag’), 36 Pall Mall, London SW1Y 5JN. Booking opens on the Â鶹´«Ã½website on Thursday 1 October.

***

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

The post Diary Dates (from 1 September 2026) appeared first on BACSA.

A long-standing member of BACSA, Celia Brown is particularly concerned about the condition of the Hill Cart Road Cemetery at Darjeeling, where many of the district’s tea planters are buried. Celia grew up in the area, where her father, Sydney Emmett, managed the Glenburn Tea Estate, which had been created in 1859.

Celia still visits her beloved Darjeeling frequently, most recently in spring 2026. Here she tells us the story of Darjeeling: Part 1 of her article relates its early history, before tea planting became widespread; Part 2 brings us up to the present day.

‘Darjeeling has been described as the ‘Queen of the Indian Hill Stations’ with the Kanchenjunga snow clad massif dominating the town, the surrounding mountains and hills, the people of the area and the planting and manufacture of tea which has played a huge part historically and economically. However, Darjeeling has more to offer – it has a colourful history, having developed from a forest environment, with sparse habitation, into a town carefully planned and built by the East India Company.

The name of Darjeeling is a corruption of Dorje-ling, meaning a place of Dorje, the mystic thunderbolt of the Lamaist religion. A monastery was built on the hill (now named ‘Observatory Hill’), where the Chief Lama governed a Lepcha village of about 100 souls, who farmed and lived a simple religious life. There is a cave in the vicinity, and legend has it that a tunnel runs from there to the Tibetan capital Lhasa.

This was the way of life until the 1800’s, when disagreements, skirmishes and wars over frontier policy erupted in the region.

The birth of Darjeeling: Captain Lloyd

Darjeeling was part of Sikkim, which bordered Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan and India, then under the control of the East India Company.

In 1828, after resolving a dispute between Nepal and Sikkim, the Governor General’s Representative Lieutenant-General (then Captain) George Lloyd made his way to the Darjeeling spur to explore. For many years the British in Calcutta had begged the government to find a place in the hills to establish a summer resort to escape the intolerable heat of the plains, and to build a Sanatorium.

Lloyd was most impressed by the position and climate of Darjeeling (almost 7,000’ above sea level), and after several visits was sent by the Governor General, Lord William Bentinck, to open negotiations with the Raja of Sikkim for the transfer of Darjeeling for an equivalent in money and land. Negotiations ended with a Deed of Grant from the Raja of Sikkim, written in Lepcha on 25th February 1835:

On 8th February 1836, the Governor General wrote to the King to acknowledge his gratitude, and sent gifts that included a double-barrelled gun, a rifle and some pieces of fine cloth. The Governor General also offered to pay the King an allowance of Rupees 3000 in 1841 (increased to Rupees 6000 in 1846) for the agreed land.

Finally, in 1838, Darjeeling was born.

Aged 76, Lieut.-General Lloyd died on 4 June 1865. As the ‘Discoverer of Darjeeling’ his obelisk tomb, tiered into the steep hillside of the Hill Cart Road Cemetery at Darjeeling, is registered as a by the Archaeological Survey of India (Raiganj Circle).

He is also commemorated on an inlaid mural tablet in St Andrew’s Church.

Developing Darjeeling: Dr Archibald Campbell

In 1839 Dr Archibald Campbell, the British Resident in Nepal, was transferred to Darjeeling as Superintendent. He devoted himself to the task of developing the town, attracting immigrants to cultivate the slopes, and boosting trade and commerce. Settlers were encouraged with grants of forest land, and the population rose from 100 in 1839 to 10,000 in 1849. Immigrants came in large numbers from Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan, pleased to have the opportunity to work.

Darjeeling having established itself, the Catholic Archbishop Carey in Calcutta opened two schools, one for girls and one for boys.

On 10th August 1846, a party of five Loreto nuns, dressed in the thick black habits of their order, together with a priest, left Calcutta by river craft with a huge amount of luggage.

The first part of their journey went well. At Kishanganj they made preparations for the difficult forest stage, by hiring 6 palkis and 64 palki bearers. (A palki resembled a box in which travellers could sit upright – it had a roof and side shutters, and was carried by bearers, 4 to each palki).

The palkis travelled by torchlight at night to avoid the searing heat of the day. Staging posts were 12 miles apart, and the bearers averaged 3 miles an hour, singing as they went.

Soon the nuns and priest were on their way. One night, however, the bearers noticed fresh pugmarks on the road. Suddenly there was a cry of ‘bagh bagh’, (‘tiger, tiger’) – immediately, the bearers were off looking for somewhere to hide, leaving the travellers unable to do anything other than pull the shutters down and wait nervously for the bearers to return – which they did, eventually, after what must have seemed like an eternity.

The nuns and priest finally arrived in Darjeeling in October 1846 and opened a school – first at Snow View; later at a much larger Convent, which is still in use. As a novitiate at the Convent, Mother Teresa of Calcutta took her vows there. (Many years later, she left the Loreto Order to embark on missionary work in Calcutta, and founded the worldwide religious order of the Missionaries of Charity).

During the next few years girls and boys boarding schools of various Christian denominations were built to accommodate children from the plains, and latterly from Nepal, Burma and Thailand.

Travelling to Darjeeling

By 1852 a hospital and sanatorium had been built, which encouraged settlers and visitors to travel to Darjeeling.

The journey to get there was still difficult, uncomfortable and full of obstacles. Most people travelled on country boats from Chandpal Ghat in Calcutta, up the Hoogly and the Ganges to Karagola Ghat, which they would reach after a week or so, depending on the weather and currents. From there by palki-dak, pony or bullock cart to Purneah, where travellers might interrupt their journey for a day or two, staying in Dak Bungalows or boarding houses. Ahead of them lay the worst part of the journey, through the Terai Forest, where lurked wild animals and the dreaded mosquito, the cause of so much malaria (or ‘jungle fever’ as it was known then).

Cart Road

As the building of roads was a priority, Dr Campbell appointed Lieutenant Napier (a young Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers; later Lord Napier of Magdala) to construct a new road to Siliguri to accommodate the growing number of bullock carts, which were the main form of transport for carrying goods to and from the plains.

Completed in 1869, the ‘Cart Road’ is still very much in use today. The 2’ gauge Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (the ‘Toy Train’), opened in 1881, follows the alignment of this road for much of its journey to Darjeeling. The original road was the military road, which is still in use.

Tea Plant experiments

At about this time the first experimental stages of growing tea began. Doctor Campbell’s personal experiments in growing China tea seeds in his Darjeeling garden, however, were not successful, probably because of the altitude. Tea seeds were also distributed to interested parties who were prepared to experiment, and it was not long before there was success.

By about 1856 the tea industry had become established. At a later date, Doctor Campbell also experimented with growing coffee, and thought Glenburn Tea Estate with its breadth of altitude would be a perfect place, but this was unsuccessful. To this day there is a section called ‘Coffee Bari’, where Doctor Campbell experimented, and Glenburn is still known locally as ‘Kambal Kaman’ (a corruption of ‘Campbell’s Garden’). In 1860 cinchona plantations were started around Darjeeling. Quinine, extracted from the cinchona bark, was used to treat people affected with malaria.

The idea of planting tea in the Himalayas originated with Brian Hodgson whilst he was resident in Nepal, and tea was successfully grown in the Residence bungalow compound. The favourable result was reported to the Governor General, but the report was unfortunately shelved.

Hodgson later recalled that ‘20 years were suffered to elapse before any effective notice of so important an experiment could be obtained’.

Celia Brown (to be continued)

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‘Eric Arthur Blair, better known as George Orwell, the author of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, always described himself as coming from an Anglo-Indian family. Reading the recent BACSA post about Mussoorie’s Camel’s Back Cemetery led me to reflect on some sad tales from my own research trip to India on the trail of the author’s heritage.

, Richard W. Blair and Ida M. Limouzin, were married on the 15th June 1897 in Nainital, a popular hill station with the rare attraction of a natural lake, 345 km northeast of New Delhi. It was an exciting time in Naini as Diamond Jubilee celebrations for the 78-year-old Queen Victoria, Empress of India, were in full swing. This included an event, on the eve of their wedding at St John’s in the Wilderness Church, where a balloon ascended above the lake to 7000 feet before the heavy weather forced the balloonist to parachute spectacularly to safety, as the assembled crowds watched on.

The only relative who attended their wedding was Blanche Limouzin, Ida’s sister, who was working as a teacher in nearby Mussoorie. It is probable that Ida was also working as a teacher in Naini, where she rented Fern Cottage from Mr Elliott, a long-serving and well-respected local principal.

Richard Blair had spent his entire adult life, since the age of eighteen, working in the Opium Department of the Indian Civil Service. The nature of his work, as a Sub-Deputy Opium Agent – ensuring the quality of the supply, collection and distribution of the drug that helped keep the British Empire solvent – became clearer after I read employed in the same work.

On the 25th June 1903, their only son, Eric Arthur Blair, was born in sight of the Himalayan Mountains, at Motihari, where his father was stationed. Their three-room bungalow was conveniently located near a large warehouse (godown) used for storing opium before it was processed and exported to China. Ida must have been greatly saddened that her sister died of pneumonia just two months before Eric was born. Aged 28, Blanche was buried at Camel’s Back Road Cemetery in Mussoorie, on the 13th April 1903.

During the year he spent in India, like most Anglo-Indian children, . While visiting Motihari, I endeavoured to uncover this unknown woman’s identity without success. The photographer, Harry Bailey, had been employed by Johnston & Hoffmann in Calcutta before establishing his own business in Muzaffarpur. He died horribly from an ‘inflammation of the stomach’ a little over a year after taking a photo of baby Orwell.

Harry was buried by the same chaplain, Reginald Yates, who baptised Orwell. I visited the cemetery in Muzaffarpur but could not locate his final resting place.

Orwell really hated and feared rats. His novels, correspondence, diaries and essays detail this obsession. Anyone who has read Nineteen Eighty-Four knows the infamous episode where the protagonist, Winston Smith, is tortured by rats. Oral history indicates that by one as a baby in Motihari.

Young Orwell spent less than a year in India before escaping the plague sweeping Bihar with his mother and sister to England. Other British families in Motihari were not so fortunate.

On 28th March 1904, Richard Blair was transferred to a new station. The following month, Reverend George Hicks wrote ‘death and the grave are never far from the living in India’ after his first-born son, George Gibson Hicks, just three months old, died of dysentery brought on by malaria. Just a few days before his son died in Motihari, Hicks, who was a member of a newly formed interdenominational Protestant evangelical group, the Regions Beyond Missionary Union, had been appointed as registrar for births, deaths and marriages.

Orwell and to India are extensive and largely unknown. is ongoing as one of the keys to understanding Orwell’s outlook and writing is to understand his identity

Orwell constantly read and reviewed books about India and Burma. One book I would encourage you to track down and read is reviewed by Orwell in 1948.

If you are interested in exploring Orwell’s connections to the sub-continent in more depth, here is which includes video of his birthplace.’

Darcy Moore

NOTE ON THE CONTRIBUTOR

‘Darcy Moore received the Peter Davison Award from The Orwell Society for his distinguished research into the life and writings of George Orwell. He has chapters in the forthcoming Routledge Companion to George Orwell and Orwell in Context (Cambridge University Press). Darcy blogs at and his X/Twitter handle is . His Orwell Studies Library can be accessed at Darcy welcomes correspondence: »å´ÚÂá³¾´Ç´Ç°ù±ð°ª²µ³¾²¹¾±±ô.³¦´Ç³¾â€™.

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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 1 Nov 2026)	‘Journeys through cloth’ Exhibition of textiles from Karun Thakar’s collection ‘centring on Punjabi baghs and phulkari, traditionally embroidered by young girls and women’ at Osterley Park, a National Trust property.	Osterley Park, Jersey Road, London TW7 4RD 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.
On now (until Sunday 13 Dec 2026)	‘Colonial Views of India’ The ‘first exhibition focusing on photographs and negatives in the Ashmolean’, featuring ‘previously unseen photographs of India by Colonel Eugene Clutterbuck Impey (1830-1904)’	Ashmolean Museum (Gallery 29), Beaumont Street, Oxford OX1 2PH. Click for further details.
On now	‘The Visakhapatnam Cabinet’ Made from padauk wood in the port city of Visakhapatnam c.1760, this ivory-inlaid cabinet (‘the largest and most ornate piece of furniture of its kind in the National Trust’s collection’) returns to display at Kingston Lacy, a National Trust property, after conservation work at the Royal Oak Foundation Conservation Studio at Knole, Kent.	Kingston Lacy, Wimborne Minster, Dorset. Click for further details (and directions, eg ‘satnav unreliable; follow B3082 and brown signs’).
On now (until Sunday 21 Feb 2027)	‘Drawn on the Western Front: Paul Sarrut and the Indian Army’ Paul Sarrut, French artist, liaison officer and interpreter with British, French and Indian units ‘lived among the men he drew, capturing daily life at close quarters and offering a rare and personal perspective on the conflict’	National Army Museum, Royal Hospital Road, Chelsea, London SW3 4HT. Click for further details.
From Tuesday 8 Sep 2026 – Sunday 7 Mar 2027	‘A Mughal Songbook: Art, Music and Empire’ An exhibition of ‘treasures from the vibrant world of song, poetry and performance of Mughal South Asia from around 1750 to 1850’ .	Fitzwilliam Museum, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RB. Click for further details.
From Saturday 19 Sep 2026 – Sunday 31 Jan 2027	‘Sunil Gupta: Life with a Camera, 1970 – Now’ Sunil Gupta was born in New Delhi in 1953. This major survey exhibition will reveal his ‘pioneering contribution to photography over five decades… in Delhi, Montreal, New York and London’.	Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge, Castle Street, Cambridge CB3 0AQ. Click for further details.

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As the tells us: ‘Living among the men he drew, Sarrut captured their daily life at close quarters – in camps, billets and medical stations. He signed and dated most of his sketches, frequently also noting the regiment and location.

Paul Sarrut (1882-1969)
After completing his French national service in the 40th Regiment of Infantry in 1906, Paul Sarrut (1882-1969) studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. By 1909 he was an accomplished professional artist and engraver, exhibiting at the Salon des Artistes Français.

Two days after the general mobilisation of the French Army in August 1914, Sarrut re-joined from the reserves. Aged 32, Corporal Sarrut was immediately seconded to the British Army as a translator for the Indian and British troops in France.

Posted to Marseille, Sarrut became intrigued by the distinctive uniforms, languages and traditions of the men of the Indian Corps, who started arriving at the end of September. He began drawing simple line sketches of the men on their arrival, their life in camp and their progress north across France to the Western Front.

Captain Amar Singh
By 10 October Sarrut and the 3rd (Lahore) Division had reached Cercottes, just north of Orléans. Here Sarrut began drawing more detailed studies of officers and other ranks of the Indian Army, frequently annotated with their names. One in particular, dated 16 October 1914, depicts Captain Amar Singh, who served as an aide-de-camp with the 9th (Sirhind) Brigade, and kept a diary describing his unit’s part in the fighting on the Western Front.

Mohan Ram
Sarrut spent much of the winter of 1914-15 in the town of Locon, 8km north of Béthune, in Pas-de-Calais. Mohan Ram, drawn on 2 November 1914, was one of the dholi (stretcher) bearers whose work was seriously impacted by the very cold weather.

Sepoy Harnam Singh
One of the best-known images of a WW1 Indian soldier is that of Sepoy Harnam Singh, of the 34th Sikh Pioneers, whose portrait Sarrut sketched on 7 November 1914. Tragically Harnam Singh was killed in action later that month. Sarrut noted that Harnam Singh was a ‘T²¹°ù°ì³ó²¹²Ô’ [ ਤਰਖਾਣ ], a carpenter by trade.

(The also tells us that he was the son of Mahtab Singh, of Todar Majra, Kharar, Ambala, Punjab; his Service No. was 1756, and he is commemorated on Panels 29 and 30 of the Indian Memorial at Neuve Chapelle, in Pas-de-Calais).

Sarrut continued sketching the men of the Indian Corps until they were redeployed to Mesopotamia at the end of 1915. Continuing to serve as an interpreter, he sketched British officers and NCOs at Amiens until he was demobbed in 1919.

The NAM exhibition also includes uniforms, photographs, medals and archival material providing additional insight into the people, places and events captured in Sarrut’s drawings. Medals on display include the Victoria Crosses awarded to Lieutenant Frank de Pass, the first Jewish recipient, and to Sepoy Khudadad Khan, who was both the first Muslim, and the first soldier from the Indian subcontinent, to receive the award. Extracts from the diary of Jemadar Kirpal Singh of the 34th Sikh Pioneers, read in Punjabi by his grandson Dr Gurpreet Singh, form part of the interactive displays’.

Click for more information about the National Army Museum and this exhibition, which runs until 21 February 2027.
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Rachel Magowan

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