Memsahibs

For young Englishwomen stepping off the steamer, the sights and sounds of humid colonial India were like nothing they’d ever experienced. For many, this was the ultimate destination to find a perfect civil servant husband. For still more, however, India offered a chance to fling off the shackles of Victorian social mores. The word ‘memsahib’ conjures up visions of silly aristocrats, well-staffed bungalows and languorous days at the club. Yet these women had sought out the uncertainties of life in Britain’s largest, busiest colony. Memsahibs introduces readers to the likes of Flora Annie Steel, Fanny Parks and Emily Eden, accompanying their husbands on expeditions, travelling solo across dangerous terrain, engaging with political questions, and recording their experiences. Yet the Raj was not all adventure. There was disease, and great risk to young women travelling alone; for colonial wives in far-flung outposts, there was little access to ‘society’. Cut off from modernity and the Western world, many women suffered terrible trauma and depression. From the hill-stations to the capital, this is a sweeping, vividly written anthology of colonial women’s lives across British India. Their honesty and bravery, in their actions and their writings, shine fresh light on this historical world.

Thousands of British women lived in India during Victorian times. They first went out as wives, mothers, sisters; others followed as teachers, doctors, missionaries. What they did and how they responded to their strange environment were seldom thought worthy of record, and writers have handed down to us a fictional image of the typical 'memsahib' as a frivolous, snobbish and selfish creature flitting from bridge to tennis parties 'in the hills'. For the most part, these clichés bear little resemblance to the truth; many women loyally and stoically accepted their share of the responsibility with endurance, courage and resilience. This story is developed around a number of women who wrote in an entertaining and intelligent fashion about their Indian experiences, starting with the arrival on the scene of one of the wittiest and cleverest of them all - Emily Eden, sister of Lord Auckland who was Governor-General from 1836 to 1842. It ends with Maud Diver, who maintained that the random assertion made by Kipling about the 'lower tone of social morality' in India was unjust and untrue. The dramatis personae of the book include Vicereines, wives of Civil Servants and missionaries struggling to break down the subservience of women throughout the vast sub-continent. Through women's eyes we witness the principal historic events at the time - the Afghan conflicts, the Mutiny - as well as the daily routines in very different cantonments and some of the British personalities who made their mark on nineteenth-century India - Honoria Lawrence, Flora Steel, Lady Sale. In this vivid account, Pat Barr evokes the sights and smells of Victorian India, its teeming masses, its problems so impossible, it seemed, for Englishwomen to solve.

Drawing Upon A Wide Range And Variety Of Literary And Non-Literary Sources Of Nineteenth Century British India, Woman And Empire Examines Perceptions Of Gender Over The 1858 1900 Period. The Book Focuses On Representations Of White And Indian Women, In Addition To Women Of Mixed Races, In Fiction As Well As In Colonial Newspapers And Journals.

The white women of colonial India wrote extensively during their years of residence in India. This anthology brings together a fascinating collection of such European women's narratives. Mapped along the historical shifts that took place over the hundred-year period, the book captures the many facets and nuances of gender relations across racial divide. Imaginatively organised around key sites of contact, the narratives are arranged in fourteen thematic clusters. This book will appeal to readers interested in gender and colonialism and the writings of the Raj.

This exciting anthology provides the best of travel writing by the memsahibs of the Raj who were anxious to see `the real India'. The book salvages long-forgotten writings by Englishwomen travelling in India. These historically valuable writings are perceptive and amusing, and have long been out of print. It also contains biographical notes on the travellers.

The Compassionate Memsahibs refutes the traditional view--perpetuated in the works of writers like Rudyard Kipling--of the memsahibs as a homogeneous group of aloof, pampered women who had little interest in India. Here Mary Ann Lind presents information about the lives of fifteen memsahibs--all of which is previously unpublished--who voluntarily participated in reform and welfare activities in India during the first half of this century. Their activities and experiences placed them outside the more expected lifestyle of the memsahib and offer contemporary social historians a new window through which to view the Raj.

A study of British imperial history, intended for those who are interested in exploring the underlying realities of British expansion on the world stage. This book deals specifically with sex and its effect on the Empire.

This is an absorbing work by a Canadian author and journalist, Sara Jeannette Duncan. This work sheds light on Indian social life and customs of the 19th century. Her close observations, description of manners, and wry humor make this a fascinating read, transforming the readers to a different time and place.