Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Series
  3. Cambridge Library Collection - South Asian History

This series focuses on South Asia during the colonial period. It includes contemporary accounts of European trade and settlement there, from the arrival of the East India companies to the full-blown colonial administration of the Victorian period, as well as works describing the earlier history of the region for the benefit of European readers.

Refine search

Refine search

Content type:
Publication date:
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

97 results in Cambridge Library Collection - South Asian History

Page 5 of 5

The Despatches, Minutes, and Correspondence of the Marquess Wellesley, K. G., during his Administration in India
  • Volume 2
  • Richard Colley Wellesley
  • Edited by Robert Montgomery Martin
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    02 June 2011
    First published in:
    1836
  • Richard, Marquess Wellesley (1760–1842) became one of the most controversial politicians of his generation during his time as Governor-General of Bengal (1798–1805). Although this period saw him achieve territorial gains and military victories in India - including the defeat of Tipu Sultan, the ruler of Mysore - the financial cost was considered too high. The East India Company Court of Directors in London disagreed with many of the changes he made, and Wellesley was forced to return to England. This five volume collection of papers, edited by the political activist and historian Robert Montgomery Martin (1800–1868), was published in 1836–1837 and documents Wellesley's period of office in India. Volume 2 spans the period from 1799 to 1802, including the settlement of Mysore, the treaty of Hyderabad and the encroaching threat from French troops. Wellesley also mentions his intention to establish a college to train civil servants.

A Journey Through the Kingdom of Oude in 1849–1850
  • With Private Correspondence Relative to the Annexation of Oude to British India, etc.
  • Volume 1
  • W. H. Sleeman
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    02 June 2011
    First published in:
    1858
  • Sir William Henry Sleeman (1788–1856) was a British soldier and administrator in India. While serving as Resident at the court of the King of Oude in Lucknow he travelled around the kingdom and made reports to the Governor-General regarding its proposed annexation by the East India Company. His letters and diaries reveal him as a capable and just administrator, who was at pains to weigh all the evidence for and against annexation, and who believed that reform of the existing administration would be possible. Sleeman described the kingdom of Oude as suffering from maladministration, lawlessness and corruption, but he stressed that illegal annexation would lead to resentment and rebellion. This book, containing Sleeman's account of his journey and a selection of private correspondence, was originally published in Lucknow in 1852; this reissue reproduces the 1858 London edition. Volume 1 covers the first six weeks of Sleeman's tour.

The Political History of India, from 1784 to 1823
  • Volume 1
  • John Malcolm
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    02 June 2011
    First published in:
    1826
  • Sir John Malcolm (1769–1833) was a diplomat and administrator in India. He arrived there in 1783 as a cadet in the East India Company, was quickly promoted, and soon moved into political and diplomatic roles where his linguistic skills proved extremely useful. In 1799 he was dispatched to Persia by Lord Wellesley, and concluded two important treaties. He returned to India in 1801 and towards the end of his career became the governor of Bengal (1827–1830). He wrote several books on India and Persia, including this two-volume history, published in 1826, which documents the period Malcolm himself had spent in India. Volume 1 incorporates content from Malcolm's earlier Sketch of Political India (1811). It covers the administrations of Lord Cornwallis, Sir John Shore, Marquess Wellesley, Lord Minto and the Marquess of Hastings, which marked a period of extensive British expansion into Indian territory.

The Political History of India, from 1784 to 1823
  • Volume 2
  • John Malcolm
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    02 June 2011
    First published in:
    1826
  • Sir John Malcolm (1769–1833) was a diplomat and administrator in India. He arrived there in 1783 as a cadet in the East India Company, was quickly promoted, and soon moved into political and diplomatic roles where his linguistic skills proved extremely useful. In 1799 he was dispatched to Persia by Lord Wellesley, and concluded two important treaties. He returned to India in 1801 and towards the end of his career became the governor of Bengal (1827–1830). He wrote several books on India and Persia, including this two-volume history, published in 1826, which documents the period Malcolm himself had spent in India. In Volume 2, Malcolm considers the changing nature of Britain's control in India, and in later chapters reflects on the type of governance that developed, examining the roles of governor-general and the issue of crime and justice, as well as observing the British community more widely.

A Memoir of Central India
  • Including Malwa, and Adjoining Provinces
  • Volume 1
  • John Malcolm
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    02 June 2011
    First published in:
    1823
  • Sir John Malcolm (1769–1833) was a soldier and diplomat in British India and Persia. He returned to India on the eve of the British conquest of Malwa, a region of central India previously little known to Europeans, in 1818. Malcolm studied the region's geology, its agriculture and the history of its ruling families in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. His reports were first published in Calcutta in 1821, and were revised and expanded for publication in two volumes in London in 1823. Based on interviews with native inhabitants and oral testimonies, Malcolm's work was the leading authority on Malwa until the 1930s. Despite more recent scholarship on the region, Malcolm's work remains valuable for its first-hand account of nineteenth-century Malwa's politics, culture and society. Volume 1 contains overviews of Malwa's geology, agriculture and the government of the leading families.

Note on the Historical Results Deducible from Recent Discoveries in Afghanistan
  • Henry Thoby Prinsep
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    30 June 2011
    First published in:
    1844
  • Henry T. Prinsep (1792–1878) was the son of a prominent East India Company servant, and like his father, Prinsep also spent much of his life in the East. He left Britain for Calcutta in 1809, at the age of seventeen, and stayed in India, working in a variety of roles, until his retirement in 1843. His brother James also lived in India and was a prominent scholar. Upon the latter's death in 1840, Prinsep found himself in possession of his brother's coin collection and a notebook, which became the basis of this work, published in 1844. Prinsep explains that the coins – which have inscriptions in both Greek and unknown languages – are valuable evidence of Alexander the Great's famous expedition to the east in the fourth century BCE. Prinsep also includes extensive illustrations of the coins, offering a fascinating view of an important archaeological discovery.

Report on the Territories Conquered from the Paishwa
  • Submitted to the Supreme Government of British India
  • Mountstuart Elphinstone
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    30 June 2011
    First published in:
    1821
  • Mountstuart Elphinstone (1779–1859) was a colonial official who spent his career in India, eventually becoming governor of Bombay in 1819. Before that he was resident in Poona (Pune) during the final days of the Maratha empire. He was fluent in Persian and took an interest in the culture of the region. This report, however, published in 1821, is a political work. The report describes the western Indian territory that the British had acquired by 1818, and Elphinstone provides a geographical overview of the area and the people who lived there. He then gives a brief sketch of Maratha history before moving on to the crux of the work: how to administer the territory, with the question of how to raise more revenue being of especial importance. This report provides a first-hand example of the inner workings of the British Empire in India.

Home Letters Written from India
  • Between the Years 1828 and 1841
  • Samuel Sneade Brown
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    02 June 2011
    First published in:
    1878
  • Between 1827 and 1841, Samuel Sneade Brown (1809–1875), a colonial administrator, was stationed in India. Published in 1878, this is a selection of the letters he sent home to his family during that period. Brown describes his correspondence as 'a journal of my heart, rather than a diary of my actions', and his letters are both poetic and humorous, telling a personal history of the British Empire. Brown reveals the high cost of colonial living, lamenting to his mother the fact that he could not afford to marry and support a family either in India or England. He communicates his strong bond of affection to his native country and to those he left behind. Making the connection between home and abroad, private and public, the domestic and the Empire, the letters present an insight into the economic changes and political challenges of the nineteenth century.

A Retrospective View and Consideration of India Affairs
  • Particularly of the Transactions of the Mharatta War, from its Commencement to the Month of October, 1782
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    27 January 2011
    First published in:
    1783
  • This anonymous work was published at the end of the First Anglo-Maratha war (1775–1782) to provide an English audience with a better understanding of the recent conflict. The author (who may have been a Major John Scott, and is likely to have been connected to the East India Company) is at times quite critical of the Company and some of the decisions which were made in relation to the conduct of the war. He suggests that India-based employees were not always giving the whole picture to the directors in England. He argues that war could have been avoided (blaming Warren Hastings, the governor-general of Bengal, for its outbreak),and that Britain had done badly out of negotiations for peace. The book is an early source of information about the Indian states which were soon to become incorporated into British India, and on Anglo-Indian relations.

The Complete Indian Housekeeper and Cook
  • Giving the Duties of Mistress and Servants, the General Management of the House and Practical Recipes for Cooking in All its Branches
  • Flora Annie Webster Steel, Grace Gardiner
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    04 November 2010
    First published in:
    1890
  • Flora Annie Steel and Grace Gardiner's classic work of Anglo-Indian household life was first published in 1888 and went through ten editions thanks to its great utility. Tailored specifically for the British community in India, the book covers household hints, domestic finances and house management, a glossary of common domestic terms, and a variety of recipes. For readers today, it provides a valuable insight into life in British India, as well as revealing contemporary attitudes to the native Indian people. Steel and Gardiner were witty and well-travelled women of lively intelligence, and the book makes entertaining and accessible, if highly opinionated, reading. Topics covered include the care of domestic and farm animals, clothing and dressmaking, practical cooking tips, camp and missionary life, and how to cope with the idiosyncrasies of the Indian servant. For more information on Steel, see http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=steefl

History of India from the Earliest Period to the Close of the East India Company's Government
  • John Clark Marshman
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    18 November 2010
    First published in:
    1876
  • John Clark Marshman (1794–1877) was an English missionary and civil servant who developed a fascination with the history of India after his long service in the country. Marshman emigrated with his missionary parents to India in 1799, settling at Serampore in West Bengal. With his father he founded the first Bengali magazine in 1818, and the first English magazine in India in 1821. After serving as a staff member at Serampore College and as the Official Bengali Translator for the Government, Marshman left India in 1855 and returned to England. This volume, first published in 1876, contains a condensed edition of Marshman's acclaimed History of India. He provides an overview of Indian history, providing details of the most powerful medieval kingdoms and the creation and administration of the East India Company. This volume also provides insights into contemporary theories concerning the prehistory and creation of various Indian states.

Correspondence of Charles, First Marquis Cornwallis
  • Volume 2
  • Charles Cornwallis
  • Edited by Charles Ross
  • Published online:
    05 August 2011
    Print publication:
    02 June 2011
    First published in:
    1859
  • Charles Cornwallis, first Marquis Cornwallis (1738–1805), was a highly influential colonial governor and British army officer, though he is best remembered for his role on the losing side in the American War of Independence (1775–1781). Cornwallis entered military service in 1757. Following the War of Independence, in 1786 he was appointed as first Governor General of India, where he instituted extensive military and civil reforms, and he became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1797. These fascinating volumes, first published in 1858, contain personal letters and official dispatches written by Cornwallis during his long career. These letters vividly describe the historical and political context of events in which Cornwallis participated, and succinctly illustrate his character and personal motivations. These volumes are reissued from the second edition of 1859. Volume 2 contains correspondence from 1790 to 1798.

Correspondence of Charles, First Marquis Cornwallis
  • Volume 1
  • Charles Cornwallis
  • Edited by Charles Ross
  • Published online:
    05 August 2011
    Print publication:
    02 June 2011
    First published in:
    1859
  • Charles Cornwallis, first Marquis Cornwallis (1738–1805), was a highly influential colonial governor and British army officer, though he is best remembered for his role on the losing side in the American War of Independence (1775–1781). Cornwallis entered military service in 1757. Following the War of Independence, in 1786 he was appointed as first Governor General of India, where he instituted extensive military and civil reforms, and he became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1797. These fascinating volumes, first published in 1858, contain personal letters and official dispatches written by Cornwallis during his long career. These letters vividly describe the historical and political context of events in which Cornwallis participated, and succinctly illustrate his character and personal motivations. These volumes are reissued from the second edition of 1859. Volume 1 contains correspondence from 1776 to 1790.

Narrative of a Journey through the Upper Provinces of India, from Calcutta to Bombay, 1824–1825
  • Volume 1
  • Reginald Heber
  • Edited by Amelia Shipley Heber
  • Published online:
    05 August 2011
    Print publication:
    02 June 2011
    First published in:
    1828
  • Reginald Heber (1783–1826) was appointed as the second Anglican Bishop of Calcutta in 1823, having previously been connected with both the Church Missionary Society and the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. At the time, the diocese of Calcutta covered all of India, and also southern Africa and Australia, and his short episcopate involved much travelling around his scattered flock. Heber's account of his travels in India and Sri Lanka was published by his widow Amelia in 1828, and expanded to three volumes in this third edition of 1828–1829, which provides a valuable description of the culture of India in the 1820s. Heber wrote positively about the moral character of Hindus, and identified faults as well as strengths in British rule in India. Volume 1 describes his voyage to India, his first impressions of Calcutta, and his journey from there to Allahabad.

My Diary in India, in the Year 1858–9
  • Volume 2
  • William Howard Russell
  • Published online:
    05 August 2011
    Print publication:
    09 December 2010
    First published in:
    1860
  • William Howard Russell was sent to India by The Times to report on the conflict of 1857–1859 known as the Indian Mutiny. His previous work was in the Crimean War and his exposés of conditions there led to the sending of Florence Nightingale and her nurses, improvements to supplies and conditions, and to the demand for military and administrative reform. It was largely because of his contributions that war correspondence emerged as a new branch of journalism. In his Indian diary, Russell criticises British snobbery as well as attitudes to and treatment of the Indians, and advocates leniency and conciliation. Volume 2 continues his experiences, recounting anecdotes of military and civilian life with sympathy for the native people, intermingled with an unswerving belief in the rightness of the British presence in India. His advocacy of non-military rule, however, made the work controversial in its time.

The History of British India
  • Volume 3
  • James Mill
  • Published online:
    07 June 2011
    Print publication:
    02 December 2010
    First published in:
    1817
  • James Mill's three volume History of British India was published from 1817 to 1818 and became an immediate success. A friend of Jeremy Bentham and a follower of utilitarianism, Mill focuses more on historical processes than human interest. He uses extensive sources rather than first-hand experience to create, as his preface claims, an 'objective' yet 'critical' history, often making harsh judgements of the country and its people within the context of a theoretical framework. He also criticises the British involvement in India and the process of conquest, colonization, and administration, the intention being to encourage the reader to a greater understanding of historical processes, ideas, and institutions with a view to encouraging thorough reform. Volume 3 examines the history of the colony from Pitt's India Act in 1784 to the end of the Second Anglo-Maratha War and the peace between the British and Maharaja Yashwantrao Holkar in 1805.

The Competition Wallah
  • George Otto Trevelyan
  • Published online:
    28 April 2011
    Print publication:
    09 December 2010
    First published in:
    1864
  • Sir George Otto Trevelyan's Competition Wallah was published in 1864 after previous serialisation in Macmillan's Magazine. Consisting of a series of letters from Henry Broughton, an imaginary young civil servant fresh from Cambridge, to a friend, the work was well-received in Britain and India, although it raised controversy in the Anglo-Indian community for its exposure of the attitudes of the British settlers to the Indian people in the wake of the Mutiny of 1857–1859. Extraordinary and courageous for its time, this book examines society in India, exploring the gulf of misunderstanding and racial prejudice, and attempting to bridge the gap between the early nineteenth-century reformist attitude and the defensive militarist imperialism of the latter half of the century. It is also notable for containing the first full publication in the west of the highly influential 'Minute on Education' of 1835 by Trevelyan's uncle, Thomas Babington Macaulay.

Page 5 of 5