Warwick University & NYCRO
- a developing relationship
• Research for Dales Countryside Museum and
Warwick University seeking 17th - early 19th
century Asian sources in North Yorkshire 2010
• ‘Trading Eurasia: Europe’s Asian Centuries
1600-1830’ - ERC funded 2010-14
www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/ghcc/eac
• ‘The East India Company at Home 1757-1857’
- Leverhulme Trust funded 2011-14
started at Warwick, moved to UCL 2012
‘Trading Eurasia: Europe’s Asian Centuries
1600-1830’ - ERC funded 2010-14
www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/ghcc/eac
Investigating the long distance trade
between Asia and Europe in material
goods and culture that transformed the
early modern world
French, Swedish and British ‘factories’ on the Canton
waterfront, c.1780. .Detail from James Drummond’s
(1767-1851) Chinese wallpaper hung after return home
1807 from Canton.
The Cholmleys of Whitby
17th century diamond dealers
The East India
Company
at Home
1757-1857
Explores the routes by which
Asian luxury goods found their
way into the British country
house 1750s - 1850s
How do they get there?
By whose choice do they
appear?
What meanings do they
convey?
How does their status
and position in the
country house change
over time?
www.ucl.uk/eicah
WHAT is DIFFERENT about the research
strategy?
• TAP INTO - recent explosion of independent research conducted by family historians—much
assisted by the growth of online communication which has generated substantial new bodies of
knowledge
• CIRCULATING - largely outside scholarly circles and often conducted without reference to
larger issues of historical change
• POTENTIAL - to enrich understandings of British country houses as sites of social, cultural,
economic and political cohesion and conflict
• COMBINES - scholarly and amateur studies of the flow of Asian objects into British country
houses in the heyday of the East India Company
• INTEGRATES - dispersed studies of individual persons and objects into wider analytical
frameworks that assess the global transformations of consumer society in eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century Britain
A team of 4 academically trained
researchers
Integrate studies of individual
people, objects and houses into
wider analytical frameworks
Project Team at NYCRO with Keith
Sweetmore before the Workshop
How Do We
Do It?
Collaborate with non-academic
family & local historians, to
produce a cluster of case studies
(currently 200 project associates)
Case studies available to public via
website, able to leave comments,
which also has resources list
Connect at workshops across
country: London, NYCRO,
Edinburgh, Cardiff
Examples of OBJECT CASE STUDIES
The attar casket of Tipu
Sultan
The India Seal of Sir
Francis Sykes
The Unknown
Objects Series tracks
objects about which
we know little and
would like to find out
more
Examples of FAMIILY CASES TUDIES
Project Associate suggestions of other families to include
Wendy Wyman (09.05.12) Person of interest : my ancestors Lt. Colonel John Sutherland (Elgin
Regiment 67) and his wife Princess Ushrut Hussaini Begum ? Lt. Co. John Sutherland was the
Secretary to Governor Gen. of India Sir Charles Theosopholis Metcalfe.
Andrew Grout (02.08.12) Could I suggest Major Edward Moor (1771-1848) of Bealings House,
Great Bealings, nr Woodbridge, Suffolk. His large collection of hindu sculpture (which was
illustrated in his important Hindu Pantheon (1810)) is now held by the BM. There was (?is) a hindu
pyramid in the garden at Bealings decorated with at least one sculpture from taken from Elephanta.
The hindu pyramid at Bealings House is Grade II listed
Judith Everett (12.01.13) Person of interest: William Milburn? He wrote a marvellous book called
Oriental Commerce about the countries which the EIC traded with. The book was reprinted in the
1990s in Delhi. A great deal is known about his personal life because of all the court cases he was
involved in due to his second marriage. He had several wives simultaneously, and it is obvious that
he was marrying for money. He went bankrupt at least twice, and documents survive for at least
one of the bankruptcies. The bill of sale for his beautiful house in Tottenham, and a very complete
inventory, are in the National Archives.
Examples of HOUSE CASE STUDIES
Swallowfield Park, Berkshire
Home of the Russell Family
by Prof. Margot Finn
Valentines Mansion, Essex
Home of the Raymond
Family by local historian
Georgina Green
How Do We Do It?
Display at Osterley House
East India Company at Home
in collaboration with the
National Trust
Chinese Wallpaper known at the following NT houses:
Avebury Manor, Wiltshire (2: 1900s/2012)
Belton House, Lincolnshire (3: 1840s-50s)
Blicking, Norfolk (3: 1760s)
Castle Ward, County Down (1: 1765)
Clandon Park, Surrey (2: ?)
Croome Court, Worcestershire (2: 1763)
Dudmaston, Shropshire (1:?)
Erdigg, Wrexham (2: 1770s)
Felbrigg, Norfolk (1: 1752)
Florence Court, County Fermanagh (1:?)
Ickworth, Suffolk (2: 1851)
Ightham Mote, Kent (2: 1800)
Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire (1: by 1769)
Nostell Priory, West Yorkshire (3: 1771; 1: 1820)
Osterley Park, West London (2: 1772)
Oxburgh Hall, Norfolk (1: 1775)
Peckover, Cambridgeshire (1: ?)
Penrhyn Castle, Gwynedd (3: 1830s)
Powis Castle, Powys (1: 1815-18)
Saltram, Devon (4: 1757)
Sudbury Hall, Derbyshire (1: by 1751)
Tatton Park, Cheshire (1: 1768)
Uppark, West Sussex (1:1750)
West Wycombe, Buckinghamshire (1:1760)
24 from a total of c.160 houses in Britain with known
examples
Collaboration with North Yorkshire
County Record Office
• Rich archival resources, many unresearched
• NYCRO a leader in community engagement, museum
and library partnership
• Keith Sweetmore, Manager of NYCRO
member of our Advisory Group
• NYCRO EIC at Home project’s Northern Hub
Case Study - Aske Hall - Why?
Contains an unusually large number and
range of Asian made goods
Its owner from 1762 Lawrence Dundas
called the ‘The Nabob of the North’
Aske Hall, Richmond, North Yorkshire
Research revealed for the first time
extensive East India Company
Connections
Lots of unresearched Dundas archives at
NYCRO
Aske the last remaining Dundas
property in family ownership, with
research supported by the estate
Active Local and Family History Groups
The ‘Hindoo Fort’ at Aske Hall
Lacquer cabinet, Chinese, 18th c.
Painted screen, Chinese, 18th c.
Lawrence Dundas, by Thomas Hudson, c.1765.
Aske Hall. Photograph Stuart Howat.
Mug, Chinese, Qianlong (1735-96)
Lacquer Trunk, Japanese, Edo - 17th/18th c.
Main Properties Purchased by Dundas 1749 - 1772
All relatively near
ports:
Grangemouth,
Redcar and
London
Situated within
easy distance of
the Great North
Road running in
1760s via
Edinburgh,
Northallerton &
London
Major Property Purchases 1763-1772
The Dundas Show Houses
Aske Hall, North Yorkshire
JMW Turner, c.1816
Moor Park, Hertfordshire
World Gallery.co.uk
19 Arlington Street, London
City of Westminster Archives
Dundas Mansion, Edinburgh
Where are
the ‘India’
goods?
Sir Lawrence Dundas with his
grandson, at 19 Arlington Street
1769 by Johan Zoffany
Aske Hall, Yorkshire
The 1763 Kerse Inventory
Blew Silk Room
One four posted mahogany Bedstead
with Indian Work’d sattin
furniture & counterpain of the same
In the Gallery
28 Indian Pictures
Drawing Room
On settee Covered with blew
India Sattin Work’d
Two Elbow Chairs Eight plain Ditto
cover’d with Blew Indian Sattin
Two India Cabinets
One India Trunk
Two fire Screens cover’d
with Indian paper
Additions 1763 & 1830, demolished
1958. Country Life
Global Goods: ‘An Economy of Significance?’
• Asian goods coralled in a
geographically peripheral but
genealogically central home Kerse- first
house Lawrence Dundas purchases, symbolic of
restoration of family fortune, he chooses to be titled
Baron of Kerse
• Remain in the family, and are moved
to the new ‘family seat’ at Aske
• They are added to over time, suggesting
they continue to be an integral influence
in this ‘relational environment’
• Have a distinct and separate
significance within this specific
‘world of goods’
Early 20thc. lacquer cabinet, acquired by 2nd Marquess of Zetland (1876-1961) Governor of Bengal 1912 & Secretary of State for India 1937-40
THE VIEW FROM NYCRO
1. EIC at Home involvement seen as an activity project not
an income project, open ended and the value is in the doing
of it as opposed to production in terms of capacity or hard
outcomes
2. Low starting point in terms of profile with potential HE
users, HE community a target audience need to establish
dialogue
3. Wins new and extended audiences for archive content
4. Re-vivifies relationship with key depositors e.g. Aske
5. Reinforces view of NYCRO and its family
history users working together over something other
than the traditional territory
6. Renews links with institutions holding related
records e.g. Scotland and leads to consideration of
how we can work better with them
7. Helps us build towards concepts of collaboration
for the future
THOUGHTS from the Mid Project Conference
• LEVELS of COLLABORATION -like idea of anyone who is interested being
able to sign up and then choose how active a participant to be.
• REJECT - amateur/professional divide, often meaningless in terms of value of
output. Need to collaborate on equal terms
• WIDEN the SOCIAL SPAN beyond those directly linked to the EI Company how did the broader the country house community shared in the same material
culture?
• FRAMEWORKS - How do we satisfy academic/local government requirements
and commit to non academic/government demands? a) obstacles for collaborative
research in terms of published outcomes b) new type of peer group review to be
established c) what happens after project funding ends?
JOIN US!
The East India
Company
at Home
1757-1857
www.ucl.ac.uk/eicah
EICatHome@ucl.ac.uk