Empire, Gender, and Bio-geography
This book explores the relationships between empire, natural history, and gender in the production of geographical knowledge and its translation between
colonial Burma and Britain. Focusing on the work of the plant collector, botanical illustrator, and naturalist Charlotte Wheeler-Cuffe, this book illustrates
how natural history was practised and produced by a woman working in the
tropics from 1897 to 1921.
Drawing on the extensive and under-studied archive of private and official
correspondence, diaries, sketchbooks, photographs, paintings, and plant lists
of Wheeler-Cuffe, this book advances our conceptual understanding of the
‘invisible’ historical geographies underpinning scientific knowledge production, by focusing on the role of a female actor in the complex gendered setting
of colonial Burma. Using a bio-geographical approach, this analysis reconceptualises female agency beyond authorship and publication, and stresses how
Wheeler-Cuffe represents an instantiation of the occluded contribution of
women to the historiography of natural history. This book highlights WheelerCuffe’s production of scientific knowledge about Burma in the context of her
relationship, as a white Western woman, with local, indigenous actors and
details her practice of fieldwork and its embodied geographies in different
parts of Burma, while she maintained the domestic superstructure of a colonial wife.
This book will be of interest to advance-level students and researchers in
historical and cultural geography; the history of science; feminist geography;
women and natural history; colonial Burma and imperialism; and botanical
art and illustration.
Nuala C Johnson is Professor Emeritus of Geography in the School of Natural
and Built Environment, Queen’s University Belfast. She is a cultural-historical
geographer who specialises in the geographies of nationalism, war and public
memory, and the historical geography of botanical gardens. Her previous publications include Ireland, the Great War and Public Memory (2003); Nature Displaced, Nature Displayed: Order and Beauty in Botanical Gardens (2011); and
The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Cultural Geography, edited with R. H. Schein
and J. Winders (2013).
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Empire, Gender, and Bio-geography
Charlotte Wheeler-Cuffe and Colonial Burma
Nuala C Johnson
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Empire, Gender, and
Bio-geography
Charlotte Wheeler-Cuffe and
Colonial Burma
Nuala C Johnson
First published 2024
by Routledge
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© 2024 Nuala C Johnson
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Johnson, Nuala Christina, 1962- author.
Title: Empire, gender and bio-geography / Nuala C Johnson.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. |
Series: Routledge research in historical geography | Includes
bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2023005065
(print) | LCCN 2023005066 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367743932 (hardback) |
ISBN 9780367743949 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003157595 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Cuffe, Charlotte Wheeler, 1867-1967. | Botanical
artists--Great Britain--Biography. | Women naturalists--Great
Britain--Biography. | Scientific expeditions--Burma. |
Biogeography--Burma. | Great Britain--Colonies--Asia. |
Burma--History--1824-1948. | Imperialism and science--Great Britain.
Classification: LCC QK98.183.C84 J64 2022 (print) | LCC QK98.183.
C84 (ebook) | DDC 581.0022/2--dc23/eng/20230429
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023005065
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023005066
ISBN: 978-0-367-74393-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-74394-9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-15759-5 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003157595
Typeset in Times New Roman
by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)
To Máirín Nic Eoin
Contents
List of figures
Preface
Acknowledgements
Glossary of terms
1 Setting the scene
ix
x
xi
xii
1
PART I
Colonial encounters: the early years in the tropics
23
2 Family matters: Charlotte Wheeler-Cuffe, 1867–1897
25
3 Encountering the tropics, 1898–1899
46
PART II
Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
65
4 Mobility and cultures of expedition, 1900–1903
67
5 Networks of knowledge and exploring Upper
Burma, 1904–1910
97
6 Deepening connections: Rangoon, Mount Victoria,
and the Andaman Islands, 1911–1912
122
PART III
In the frontier regions
157
7 Hill stations, plant hunting, and the Irrawaddy-Salween
Divide, 1913–1914
159
viii Contents
8 Maymyo botanic garden and the final Burmese days,
1915–1921
183
9 Conclusion
209
Bibliography
Index
213
228
Figures
1.1
2.1
2.2
4.1
4.2
4.3
4.4
4.5
5.1
5.2
6.1
6.2
6.3
6.4
6.5
6.6
6.7
6.8
7.1
7.2
7.3
7.4
8.1
8.2
8.3
Map of Burma
Among the Hills, Bundara, Connemara, 1888
From the Flood Gauge, Thayetmyo, 1900
Acriopsis javanica, 1902
Dendrobium aureum, 1902
Dendrobium fimbriatum growing on a Bauhinia purpurea
over Chaung ta Shé, Mogôk
Ruby Mines Road ‘Po Sein’ the PWD elephant going home
to bed, 1913
Photograph of Wheeler-Cuffe sketching, Mandalay, n.d.
Sketch of Meiktila, 1905
Eria pannea (centre) and Coelogyne lentiginosa (left), Byingye,
April 1910
Map of Route to Mount Victoria
Popa from Kampetlet, 1911
Path to Mount Victoria, Kampetlet, 1911
Summit of Mount Victoria, May 1911
Rhododendron cuffeanum, April 1911
Rhododendron burmanicum, May 1911
S for Sambhar and T for Tiger, The Burma Alphabet, 1913
Cover of The Burma Alphabet, 1913
Simla, a deodar, 1913
Rhododendron, Htawgaw, April 1914
Shingaw Zup, ‘Nmai Hka Valley, March 1914
Hpimaw Road between Black Rock and Hpimlaw Hka,
March 1914
R. cuffeanum, plate 8721, Curtis’s Botanical Magazine,
1917, by Matilda Smith
Some of the staff in the palm garden, Maymyo Botanic Garden,
July 1919
Map of the Botanic Garden, 1920
20
27
33
75
77
89
90
93
102
118
129
131
132
136
140
142
145
147
168
176
177
177
190
199
202
Preface
This book explores the relationships between empire, natural history, and gender in the production of geographical knowledge, and its translation between
colonial Burma and Britain. Focusing on the work of the plant collector, botanical illustrator, and naturalist Charlotte Wheeler-Cuffe, this study illustrates
how natural history was practised and produced by a woman working in the
tropics from 1897 to 1921.
Drawing on the extensive, and under-studied, archive of private and official
correspondence, diaries, sketchbooks, paintings, photographs, and plant lists
of Wheeler-Cuffe, this book advances our conceptual understanding of the
‘invisible’ historical geographies underpinning the production of knowledge
about the natural history of colonial Burma, by focusing on the role of a female actor in this complex gendered setting. Appreciating the full extent of
women’s contributions to science requires moving beyond their role as published authors and privileged travellers producing texts for home audiences.
Using a bio-geographical approach, this analysis reconceptualises female
agency beyond authorship, and argues that Wheeler-Cuffe represents an instantiation of the occluded contribution of women to the historiography of
natural history.
The book highlights Wheeler-Cuffe’s contribution to scientific knowledge
about Burma in the context of her relationship, as a white Western woman,
with local, indigenous actors and colonial officials, and details her practice of
fieldwork and its embodied geographies in different regions of Burma, while at
the same time maintaining the domestic superstructure of her role as a colonial
wife. Through her botanical illustrations, plant discoveries, and the design of
the botanic garden in Maymyo, she increasingly made an impact on the field
of natural history and this study traces the networks of circulation and web of
linkages she cultivated within the colony and between Burma and Britain. The
book will appeal to those interested in historical and feminist geography, history of science, colonial Burma, botanical art, and women in natural history.
Acknowledgements
Many people contributed over the years to my thinking about the life and work
of Charlotte Wheeler-Cuffe. I am especially grateful to the stimulation and
support I received from my colleagues at Queen’s University Belfast. I am particularly indebted to Merav Amir, Keith Bennett, Oliver Dunnett, Diarmid
Finnegan, David Livingstone, and Tristan Sturm, who provided endless insight
and encouragement over many coffee breaks on Elmwood Avenue. I also benefitted immeasurably from conversations with Jim Duncan and Nancy Duncan.
My greatest debt of gratitude is to Máirín Nic Eoin for her careful reading
of the manuscript, her numerous suggestions for improving the clarity of argument, and her meticulous editorial suggestions on the prose. She provided endless encouragement and spent many hours with me looking at the paintings of
Charlotte Wheeler-Cuffe.
I wish to thank the staff of the National Botanic Gardens Library, Dublin,
in particular the former librarian, Alexandra Caccamo, who tirelessly assisted
me in navigating through the voluminous Wheeler-Cuffe archive. Matthew
Jebb, the Director of the National Botanic Gardens, was also extremely helpful
at every stage in the project. I wish to gratefully acknowledge the service I received from the librarians at Queen’s University Belfast and the National Library of Ireland. Finally, I am indebted to Simon Naylor, Faye Leerink, Prachi
Priyanka and all the editorial staff at Routledge who guided me through the
final production process.
Glossary of terms
Ayah
Chaprissi
Chokra
Chowkidar
Gyi
Khansama
Nullah
Sahib
Sawbwa
Syce
Rajah
Zup
nanny
government messenger
young male servant
caretaker
deer
butler
gully/ravine
polite form of address for a man “Mr”
king/chieftain in Shan States
groom
Indian King or Prince
confluence of a tributary with a main river
1
Setting the scene
I delight in the life out here, it is so full of interest, and the freedom and unconventionality of it suits me down to the ground.1
Botanist, botanical artist, and colonial wife, Charlotte Wheeler-­Cuffe certainly
lived an unconventional life after moving to Burma with her engineer husband,
Otway, in the final decade of the nineteenth century. Otway’s service in colonial
administration lasted for 24 years, and during this time Wheeler-­Cuffe availed
of the opportunities to investigate the natural history of Burma through exploration, plant collecting, and botanical illustration. This book seeks to explore
Wheeler-­Cuffe’s experience as a female naturalist living in the geographical
margins of British India, and at the intellectual fringes of a highly gendered
scientific world at home. The book will explore the relationships between empire, gender, and natural history in the production and transmission of geographical knowledge, and, using the example of a female actor in the complex
gendered setting of colonial Burma, it will seek specifically to advance our
understanding of the ‘invisible’ historical geographies underpinning scientific
knowledge production. The generation of knowledge about the colony is investigated in the context of Wheeler-­Cuffe’s position, as a white, Western woman
interacting with local indigenous actors within a distinct colonial hierarchy.
Her practice of fieldwork, from day excursions to more prolonged expeditions
and sojourns in different parts of Burma, was carried out in the context of her
domestic and public roles as colonial wife. This study also examines the
­networks of communication and circulation – material objects, ideas, and
­people – she created and developed both within the colony and between Burma
and Britain.
From the 1890s onwards increasing numbers of British people came to
Burma, some as visitors and travellers, and others as part of the colonial
administration. After the third Anglo-­
Burmese war and the extension of
1 Letter from Charlotte Wheeler-­Cuffe [hereafter CWC] to Aunt Cha, 12 August 1900 Thayetmyo,
Charlotte Wheeler-­Cuffe Archive, National Botanic Gardens Dublin. [All subsequent letters
quoted will be from this archive unless otherwise stated.]
DOI: 10.4324/9781003157595-1
2
Setting the scene
British rule, coupled with the abolition of the monarchy and the dramatic increase
of Burma’s rice production, further economic exploitation seemed likely.2 As such
“the land held the prospect of being a global leader in timber, oil and precious
minerals”.3 These economic opportunities, as well as military needs, ensured that
the colony’s infrastructure was developed, particularly in the area of road-­building
and railway construction. One of Otway Wheeler-­Cuffe’s chief tasks as an engineer with the Public Works Department [PWD hereafter] was the development of
the road network, and it was through this activity that Charlotte initially began to
explore the land and assemble knowledge about its flora. As Callahan has suggested, however, the mechanism for adding Burma to colonial India in the nineteenth century “was far from smooth and engaged first the East India Company
and then a succession of unimaginative governors-­general in a particular variant
of state-­building that never paid for itself, never accommodated any local interests,
and never hesitated to call in firepower when the profits of European firms were
threatened”.4 Burma served primarily as an appendage to British India, and a buffer zone between French Indo-­China and India, although its ambiguous position
in relation to the Raj, and its somewhat distinctive encounter with British imperialism in the wider region, has been acknowledged.5 It was not a priority location in
the development of imperial policy and struggled to establish and maintain law
and order.6 While an influential historiography characterised Burma, under colonialism, as an increasingly rational, bureaucratic state that was progressively intrusive, albeit separate, from Burmese society,7 recent scholars have challenged this
orthodoxy by scrutinising the complex ways the state was experienced in everyday
life and the role of Indian and Burmese subordinate state officials in mediating
between the colonial state and civil society.8 In particular, by focusing on the relationship between law and disorder Saha suggests that the colonial state was “more
amorphous and ambiguous … [and was] duplicitous, theatrical, despotic,
2 Siok-­Hwa, C. 1968. The Rice Industry of Burma 1852–1940, Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press; Myint-­U, T. 2001. The Making of Modern Burma, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
3 Keck, S. L. 2004. “Picturesque Burma: British travel writing 1890–1914”, Journal of Southeast
Asian Studies, 35, p. 388.
4 Callahan, M. P. 2002. “State formation in the shadow of the Raj: violence, warfare and politics
in colonial Burma”, Southeast Asian Studies, 39, p. 514.
5 Saha, J. 2016. “Is it in India? colonial Burma as a ‘problem’ in South Asian history”, South
Asian History and Culture, 7, pp. 23–29.
6 Brown, I. 2022. “Law and order, the rule of law, and the legitimation of the colonial presence in
late British Burma”, The Historical Journal, 65, pp. 1081–1101; Aung-­Thwin, M. 2010. “Discourses of emergency in colonial and postcolonial Burma”, in V. V. Ramraj and A. K. Thriuvengadam (eds.) Emergency Powers in Asia: Exploring the Limits of Legality, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, pp. 187–212.
7 Furnivall, J. 1991. The Fashioning of Leviathan: The Beginnings of British Rule in Burma, Canberra: Department of Anthropology, Australian National University; Taylor, R. H. 2008. The
State of Myanmar, London: Hurst.
8 Saha, J. 2013. Law, Disorder and the Colonial State: Corruption in Burma c. 1900, Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Setting the scene 3
highly personalised, and masculine”.9 Disorder, rather than rational order, remained a recurring feature of the colony, and Callahan claims that the British
built a “‘skinny’ or minimalist state, aimed at letting commerce flourish (which
it did) and paying for itself (which it never did) by taxation on land and some
commerce”.10 When the Wheeler-­Cuffes arrived in Burma in the late 1890s,
they were entering a colonial world which was brittle but which proved to be an
enabling environment in which a colonial wife like Charlotte could pursue her
interests in natural history.11
Polite botany, gender, and boundaries
From at least the eighteenth century women were botanically active as daughters and wives who worked alongside fathers and husbands in families with
botanical interests.12 Some of these women learned Latin and corresponded
with significant male botanists of the day. Their role became part of the gender
economy where women functioned as mothers and educators, providing instruction to children at home and producing popular science texts for family-­
based learning. Between 1790 and 1830 women were visible as authors of
books on botany and as illustrators of floral subjects. Harriet Beaufort’s child-­
centred Dialogues of Botany (1819) or Mary Robert’s religiously inspired Wonders of the Vegetable Kingdom Displayed (1822) represent two examples of the
genre. But as botany moved towards professionalisation from the 1830s to the
1860s women’s status as writers and producers of botanical knowledge began
to be tested. Shapin asserts that practices associated with politeness and gentility in scientific culture were rejected “in favour of seriously impolite utilitarian
culture”,13 and one which professionalised and sought state intervention in
support of the sciences. As Shteir has pointed out, this resulted in a deepening
divide between the academic and the popular and between “the ‘high’ science
9 Ibid., p. 2.
10 Callahan, “State formation in the shadow of the Raj”, p. 514.
11 Saha, J. 2010. “The male state: colonialism, corruption and rape investigations in the Irrawaddy
Delta c. 1900”, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 47, pp. 362–374; Aung-­Thwin,
M. 1985. “The British ‘pacification’ of Burma: order without meaning”, Journal of Southeast
Asian Studies, 16, pp. 245–261; Callahan, M. P. 2003. Making Enemies: War and State Building
in Burma, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, Chapter 1.
12 Abir-­Am, P. and Outram, D. (eds.) 1987. Uneasy Careers and Intimate Lives: Women in Science,
1789–1979, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press; Benjamin, M. (ed.) 1993. Science and
Sensibility: Gender and Scientific Enquiry, 1780–1945, Oxford: Wiley-­Blackwell; Bennett, J.
1991. Lillies of the Hearth: The Historical Relationship Between Women and Plants, New York:
Camden House; Meyers, G. D. 1955. The Scientific Lady in England, 1650–1760: An Account
of Her Rise, with Emphasis on the Major Roles of the Telescope and Microscope, Berkeley:
University of California Press; Phillips, P. 1990. The Scientific Lady: A Social History of
Woman’s Scientific Interests, 1520–1918, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson; Schiebinger, L.
2003. Nature’s Body: Gender in the Making of Modern Science, 2nd edition, New Brunswick:
Rutgers University Press.
13 Shapin, S. 1991. “A scholar and a gentleman: the problematic identity of the scientific practitioner in Early Modern England”, History of Science, 29, p. 313.
4
Setting the scene
gentlemen in metropolitan learned societies and the ‘low’ science practitioners
who diffused scientific knowledge for practical use”.14 This emerging division
had implications too for the defeminisation of botany as women’s ability and
suitability as botanists was questioned in the light of this increasing professionalisation of the subject. The first Professor of Botany at University College
London, John Lindley (1799–1865), distinguished between polite botany,
which he regarded as “amusement for ladies”,15 and botanical science, which
he determined was “an occupation for the serious thoughts of man”.16 Lindley’s gendered bifurcation of the study of botany signalled the route that botanical culture would take over the following decades of the nineteenth
century.17
The spaces in which many female botanists operated too reflected this increasing demarcation of gender roles as women practised botany in the domestic sphere in their kitchens and around their breakfast tables.18 Moreover the
emergence of learned societies mirrored this secondary status afforded to
women in science as the Victorian era progressed. The Royal Society, although
founded in 1662, did not admit women until 1945. The British Association for
the Advancement of Science (1831), the Linnean Society (1788), and the Royal
Geographical Society [RGS hereafter] (1830) also only admitted women to full
membership in the twentieth century.19 While women could usually attend public lectures at these institutions, their prohibition from full participation ensured their work remained marginalised and their role was performed as
consumers rather than producers of knowledge. Buoyed by the social norms of
Victorian society and the explanations of the women’s nature provided by the
sexual sciences, women’s scientific lives tended to be more proscribed than during the previous century, and their contributions underpinned by ideas about
separate geographical spheres, sexual difference, and gendered divisions of
labour.20
Despite this narrowing of opportunities for women to actively participate
in scientific endeavours, Shteir points out that the Victorian gender economy
was not entirely unbending and “Botany remained a multifaceted opportunity
for girls, young women, mothers and older women”.21 Mary Somerville, for
14 Shteir, A. B. 1996. Cultivating Women, Cultivating Science: Flora’s Daughters and Botany in
England 1760 to 1860, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, p. 151.
15 Lindley, J. 1829. An Introductory Lecture Delivered in the University of London on Thursday,
April 30, 1829, London: Taylor, p. 17.
16 Ibid.
17 Shteir, Cultivating Women, Cultivating Science.
18 Shteir, A. 1987. “Botany in the breakfast room: women in early nineteenth-­century British
plant study”, in P. Abir-­Am and D. Outram (eds.) Uneasy Careers and Intimate Lives: Women
in Science, 1789–1979, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, pp. 31–44.
19 Maddrell, A. 2009. Complex Locations: Women’s Geographical Work in the UK 1850–1970,
Oxford: Wiley-­Blackwell.
20 Fara, P. 2004. Pandora’s Breeches: Women, Science and Power in the Enlightenment. London:
Pimlico.
21 Shteir, Cultivating Women, Cultivating Science, p. 176.
Setting the scene 5
instance, devoted much of her time outside of her immediate domestic duties
developing her herbarium, while Emily Shore, supported by her family, pursued her interest in plant taxonomy and assembled of a large collection of
ferns. In her study of three female Victorian naturalists – Margaret Gatty,
Marianne North, and Eleanor Anne Ormerod – Le-­May Sheffield claims that
despite the gendered norms of the period these women tended to see themselves “as bold, opinionated, assertive and intelligent women who acknowledged boundaries for women in society and in science, but who at the same
time negotiated and manipulated, sometimes even battled, over the borders
between the dichotomies of female/male, public/private”.22 All three women
were popularisers in their scientific fields, and increasingly historians of science are deconstructing the rigid distinction between popularisers/amateur
and professional scientists, and hence enabling female contributions to be
more fully accepted.23 Moreover, studies of Victorian women’s literature more
broadly have recognised the role of female agency within and beyond the
dominant ideologies of womanhood and ideals of femininity that seemed to
prevail.24 Gatty, for example, specialised in writing scientific children’s books
on seaweeds and other marine life forms, the most important of which was
Parables of Nature which went through 18 different editions between 1855
and 1882.25
Family ties
Family networks, which proved important in the nurturing of female botanical
knowledge making in the eighteenth century, continued to exert influence for
the Victorians. J.G. Children, the first keeper of the Zoological Department at
22 Le-­May Sheffield, S. 2001. Revealing New Worlds: Three Victorian Women Naturalists, Oxford:
Routledge, p. 3.
23 Cooter, R. and Pumfrey, S. 1994. “Separate spheres and public places: reflections on the history
of science popularization and science in popular culture”, History of Science, 32, pp. 237–267;
Gates, B. T. and Shteir, A. B. (eds.) 1997. Natural Eloquence: Women Reinscribe Science,
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press; Allen, D. E. 1976. The Naturalist in Britain: A Social
History, London: Allen Lane.
24 There is a vast literature in this area including: Ayres, B. (ed.) 2003. Silent Voices: Forgotten
Novels by Victorian Women Writers, Connecticut and London: Praeger; Branca, P. 1975. Silent
Sisterhood: Middle-­
Class Women in Victorian Homes, Pittsburg: Carnergie-­
Melon Press;
Danahay, M. A. 2016. Gender at Work in Victorian Culture: Literature, Art and Masculinity,
London: Taylor and Francis; Easley, A. 2004. First-­Person Anonymous: Women Writers and
Victorian Print Media, 1830-­70, London: Routledge; Langland, E. 1995. Nobody’s Angels:
Middle Class Women and Domestic Ideology in Victorian Culture, Ithaca: Cornell University
Press; Peterson, J. M. 1989. Family, Love and Work in the Lives of Victorian Gentlewomen,
Indianapolis: Indiana University Press; Poovey, M. 1988. The Ideological Works of Gender in
Mid-­Victorian England, Chicago: Chicago University Press; Munich, A. A. 1989. Andromeda’s
Chains: Gender and Interpretation in Victorian Literature and Art, New York: Colombia Press;
Thompson, N. D. (ed.) 1999. Victorian Women Writers and the Woman Question, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
25 Le-­May Sheffield, Revealing New Worlds.
6
Setting the scene
the British Museum and Vice-­President of the Botanical Society of London,
for instance, nurtured his only child Anna Children Atkins’ interest in natural
history. In 1823 she illustrated her father’s translation of Lamarck’s Genera of
Shells and through his networks became acquainted with William Hooker,
who acted as her botanical mentor. Similarly, the daughters, wives, and sisters
of significant nineteenth-­
century botanists, such as Dawson Turner,
J.S. Henslow, and William Hooker and his son Joseph Hooker, were deployed
to assist in the production of their botanical works. Turner’s book on British
seaweeds, Fuci, was illustrated by his talented wife Mary. In turn, their daughter, Maria, married William Hooker and was his constant assistant during his
career at Glasgow University and Kew gardens. Hooker’s son Joseph married
Frances Henslow, the daughter of the distinguished Professor of Botany at
Cambridge and Charles Darwin’s teacher J.S. Henslow. She played a key role in
managing Hooker’s correspondence and preparing his works for publication.26
These women, bonded by close social connections of love, marriage, and reproduction, were, as Shteir claims, “part of ‘the Hidden Investment’, the economic enterprise that harnessed family patterns … and contributed invisible
and unpaid labor of many kinds to family businesses”.27
The careers of Matilda Smith and Harriet Anne Thiselton-­Dyer, second
cousin and daughter, respectively, of acclaimed botanist and Director of Kew
Gardens (from 1865 to 1885) Joseph Hooker, serve to illustrate how family ties
could result in more professional roles for certain women. Hooker encouraged
Smith’s training as a botanical artist by arranging for her to receive formal instruction in Kew Gardens. She was influenced by the work of Walter Hood
Fitch, the chief illustrator for Curtis’s Botanical Magazine.28 He left the magazine in 1877, and in 1878 her first illustration appeared in the publication. She
worked alongside Hooker’s daughter Thiselton-­Dyer, who was also an accomplished painter and who produced nearly 100 illustrations for the magazine
between 1878 and 1880.29 Smith rapidly became the key illustrator for the journal and produced over 20 images per issue between 1879 and 1881. Although
she acted as virtually the publication’s only botanical artist, it was not until
1898 that she was appointed as its sole official artist. During her 40 years of
service she produced over 2,300 plates for the magazine, including one of a
species discovered by Wheeler-­Cuffe, as well as producing the illustrations for
Hooker’s publications.30 Despite her key role as a late-­
nineteenth-­
century
26 Peterson, Family, Love and Work.
27 Shteir, Cultivating Women, Cultivating Science, p. 179. See also: Davidoff, L. and Hall, C. 1987.
Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780–1850, Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
28 Hemsley, W. B. 1906. “The history of the Botanical Magazine 1787–1904”, Index to the
Botanical Magazine, London: Lovell Reeve and Co, pp. v–Ixiii.
29 Kramer, J. 1996. Women of Flowers: A Tribute to Victorian Women Illustrators, New York:
Stewart, Tabori and Chang.
30 Durant, S. 2004. “Smith, Matilda (1854–1926)”, in B. Lightman (ed.) The Dictionary of
Nineteenth-­Century British Scientists, Bristol: Thoemmes, pp. 1841–1842.
Setting the scene 7
professional illustrator, Smith’s work has remained under-­studied and under-­
appreciated in the wider literature on botanical art.31
Not all women who contributed to botany enjoyed such privileged scientific
networks, melded through blood relationships and marital ties. Training in art,
etching, and illustration was one avenue through which women without pre-­
established scientific networks could enter, however obtusely, into the field of
botany.32 While women of the aristocracy in the eighteenth century had already
been practising botanical art as part of the polite culture of sociability associated with their social class, middle-­class women in the following century were
encouraged to develop their drawing and flower painting skills. These talents
could be safely nurtured within the confines of home, ensuring that women’s
domestic roles would not be too disrupted in the process. Mid-­nineteenth-­
century instruction manuals, as well as in-­person lessons, offered guidance to
women interested in perfecting the art of floral representation.33 Moreover, deploying artistic skills could be an important source of income, as was the case
for Emma Peachey, who served as wax-­flower maker to Queen Victoria. She
promoted the commercial potential of her work by publishing a Royal Guide to
Wax Flower Modelling (1851) and encouraging the use of wax flowers as illustrations for public botanical lectures and in art classes.34 Despite women’s increasing engagement with the production of botanical illustrations, this type
of artwork was often sidelined as feminine and considered to exemplify a
“‘lowly genre’ within academic discourses on art”.35 Straddling both science
and art as disciplines, requiring detailed botanical knowledge as well as the
skill of aesthetic composition, botanical art occupied an ambiguous position
between fine art and rigorous science, and consequently “not only has a poor
reputation as an art genre, but as an artistic endeavour can not be easily placed
within the world of science”.36 Nonetheless it played a critical part in the production of botanical knowledge, through its role in species identification, book
illustration, observation practices, and record keeping.
31 Gates, B. T. 2006. “Those who drew and those who wrote: women and Victorian popular science illustrations”, in A. B. Shteir and B. Lightman (eds.) Figuring It Out: Science, Gender and
Visual Culture, Hanover: Dartmouth College Press, pp. 192–213.
32 Blunt, W. 1971. The Art of Botanical Illustration: An Illustrated History, London: Collins; De
Bray, L. 2001. The Art of Botanical Illustration: A History of the Classic Illustrators and Their
Achievements, London: Quantum; Saunders, G. 1995. Picturing Plants: An Analytical History
of Botanical Illustration, Los Angeles: University of California Press; Norwood, V. 1993. Made
from the Earth: American Women in Nature, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press;
Kramer, 1996. Women of Flowers; Durant, 2004. “Smith, Matilda (1854–1926)”; Shteir, A. B.
and Lightman, B. (eds.) 2006. Figuring It Out: Science, Gender and Visual Culture, Hanover:
Dartmouth College Press.
33 Cherry, D. 1993. Painting Women: Victorian Women Artists, London: Routledge; Rice, R.
2020. “‘My dear Hooker’: the botanical landscape in colonial New Zealand”, Museum History
Journal, 13, pp. 20–41.
34 Shteir, Cultivating Women, Cultivating Science.
35 Ibid., p. 181.
36 Le-­May Sheffield, Revealing New Worlds, p. 112.
8
Setting the scene
Moving outside convention
Women within the home and at home in their national states were partly challenging gender norms through their participation in some spheres of botanical
investigation, while women travelling abroad were also fashioning spaces in
which they could engage in scientific research. At home in Cornwall, for example, Elizabeth Warren (1786–1864) assiduously collected plants from the
local region, ultimately assembling a three-­volume collection of native plants
and entering into a 25-­year correspondence with William Hooker.37 Similarly,
Isabella Gifford (1825–1891), an unmarried collector from Swansea, spent
much of her life studying and collecting plants from the seashore of Somerset
and entered into extensive correspondence with botanists sharing her interests.38 While these local practices involving amateur female botanists continued, an increasing number of women with botanical interests travelled across
the globe, working in the field and becoming part of an ever-­expanding correspondence network between individual collectors and influential botanists and
institutions.39 In contrast to male botanists who made grand expeditions researching the earth’s flora and fauna, Shteir claims, for early and mid-­Victorian
women, “[p]hysical geography and social ideology limited that topographical
expression of curiosity”.40 Following the so-­called ‘Age of European Exploration’ the desire to understand the native botany of places outside Europe
gained huge momentum and the quest to find exotic species gathered pace.
This paralleled the push to expand the territorial boundaries of empire in almost all directions. The study of biogeography in nineteenth-­century Britain
therefore was “one of the most obvious imperial sciences in an age of increasing imperialism”.41
From the 1770s to the 1840s three types of overseas collectors can be identified based on the institutional framework governing their travel. First, there
were the independent, freelance naturalists who were self-­supporting either
through independent means (e.g. the acclaimed naturalist Joseph Banks) or
through the sale of the specimens they collected. Second, there were the
37 Naylor, S. 2007. “Provincial authorities and botanical provinces: Elizabeth Warren’s Hortus
Siccus of the indigenous plants of Cornwall”, Garden History, 35, pp. 84–95; Naylor, S. 2010.
Regionalizing Science: Placing Knowledges in Victorian England, Pittsburgh: University of
Pittsburgh Press.
38 She published Gifford, E. 1848. The Marine Botanist: An Introduction to the Study of Alcology,
Containing Descriptions of the Commonest British Sea-­
Weeds, with Figures of the Most
Remarkable Species, London: Darton and Co.
39 For a discussion of these institutions as centres of accumulation and calculation see Latour, B.
1987. Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society, Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press. For an overview of the work carried out by geographers on
Latour’s thesis see Jöns, H. 2011. “Centre of Calculation”, in J. A. Agnew and D. N. Livingstone
(eds.) The Sage Handbook of Geographical Knowledge, London: Sage, pp. 158–170.
40 Shteir, Cultivating Women, Cultivating Science, p. 191.
41 Browne, J. 1996. “Biogeography and empire”, in L. Jardine, J. A. Secord and E. C. Spary (eds.)
Cultures of Natural History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 305.
Setting the scene 9
personnel who worked within the superstructure of empire. These included naval and military officers, colonial administrators, and diplomats sent overseas
to govern colonial institutions. Third, there were people directly or indirectly
employed to collect specimens for nurseries, seed suppliers, prestige institutions
(e.g. Kew Gardens or Horticultural Society of London) or who won the patronage of wealthy sponsors who sought plants or animals from abroad for
their private collections.42 These categories were never entirely discreet and
while there were overlaps between all three, they were overwhelmingly occupied
by men. However, there were some notable exceptions, as was the case with
Charlotte Wheeler-­Cuffe, who, as the wife of a colonial official in Burma, enjoyed the opportunity to travel and botanise in Britain’s overseas empire.
Women overseas: wealth, wives, and workers
Some women could travel as independent agents, relying either on inherited
wealth or on the trade of commodities they accumulated to support their
work. Blunt suggests that travel seemed “potentially liberating because of the
opportunities for transgression and questioning of ideas formulated at
home”,43 while acknowledging that it could also be alienating as one ran the
risk of becoming a stranger in one’s own land. Moreover, the position of female travellers was both challenging and contradictory. Simple caricatures of
the nineteenth-­century woman traveller as “Spinster Adventuress, her back to
Europe, fleeing the confines of her time and returning – sometimes – to write
about it”,44 have been replaced by more nuanced interpretations of the intersections between gender and empire and a recognition that “discourses of imperialism and of femininity articulated many contradictory voices”.45 The
explorer and scientific writer Mary Kingsley (1862–1900), for instance, made
two journeys alone to West Africa in the 1890s, including scaling Mount Cameroon on a route never before used by Europeans, and she returned home with
numerous new species of fish and reptiles. She published two books about her
travels,46 and Blunt concludes that, while she experienced gender subordination
at home, on her travels she temporarily shared “in racial superiority in the
context of power and authority. Such constructions were, however, ambivalent
rather than fixed”.47 More broadly, women travellers could celebrate their independence while overseas yet oppose the extension of such liberties at home, for
instance, through their opposition to suffrage.
42 Ibid.
43 Blunt, A. 1994. Travel, Gender and Imperialism: Mary Kingsley and West Africa, New York:
Guildford Press, p. 17.
44 Pratt, M. L. 1992. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation, London: Routledge, p.
171.
45 Blunt, Travel, Gender and Imperialism, p. 35.
46 Kingsley, M. H. 1897. Travels in West Africa: Congo Français, Corsico and Cameroons, London:
Macmillan; Kingsley, M. H. 1899. West African Studies, London: Macmillan.
47 Blunt, Travel, Gender and Imperialism, p. 161.
10 Setting the scene
Marianne North – the now celebrated botanical artist – also travelled independently, following the death of her father with whom she had a close
relationship and by whom her intellectual curiosity was nurtured.48 While
narratives about North attempted to contain her activities “within the tradition of lady-­like endeavours and the martyrdom of spinsterhood”,49 her personal drive and motives extended beyond these conventional Victorian
boundaries of femininity associated with an upper-­middle-­class woman of
independent means. Indeed, Le-­May Sheffield claims that travel provided her
“with physical adventure, mental challenge and hard work, all of which situated her … more firmly within the scientific community”.50 As well as painting the flora of the places she visited, she discovered five species of plants
unknown to Europeans, of which four were named after her, and from 1880
she began to write a series of texts based on her recollections of her travels.51
Her painting style deviated from the traditional representation of botanical
subjects, where water-­colour renditions of species on white paper was the
norm and a single plant was placed alone on a page rather than within a
broader botanical landscape. By contrast, North “adamantly and consistently used oils rather than watercolours to depict the natural world … She
refused to paint the disembodied, single specimen, or side-­bar details of
parts of the plant, onto a white page and instead painted numerous plants,
with appropriate backgrounds, rooted firmly into the ground”.52 This deviation from convention won the admiration of some botanists as the plants
could be clearly identified and seen in their natural habitat, while others considered her merely a good flower painter, rather than a serious scientific artist. North exhibited her paintings in various London galleries, and her
financial independence enabled her to fund the construction of the North
Gallery at Kew, built between 1881 and 1882, where her paintings could
hang. The gallery housed 848 of her works, representing 146 of the 200 orders of flowering plants, executed between 1872 and 1885. The ways in which
North practised her life and work indicate that she could simultaneously accommodate her activities within accepted norms of femininity whilst at the
same time escaping them through her independent travel, botanical output,
and financial security.
48 Ponsonby, L. 1990. Marianne North at Kew Gardens, Exeter: Webb and Bower in association
with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; Vellacott, H. (ed.) 1986. Some Recollections of a Happy
Life: Marianne North in Australia and New Zealand, Australia: Edward Arnold; Losano, A.
1997. “A preference for vegetables: the travel writings and botanical art of Marianne North”,
Women’s Studies, 26, pp. 423–428.
49 Le-­May Sheffield, Revealing New Worlds, p. 90.
50 Ibid., p. 91.
51 North, M. 1894. Recollections of a Happy Life: Being the Autobiography of Marianne North,
ed. Mrs John Addington Symonds, Vols I and II, New York: Macmillan and Co.; North, M.
1893. Some Further Recollections of a Happy Life: Selected from the Journals of Marianne
North Chiefly between the years 1859–1869, New York: Macmillan.
52 Le-­May Sheffield, Revealing New Worlds, p. 113.
Setting the scene 11
For women without independent wealth, the opportunity to travel overseas
often came in the form of accompanying husbands or family members on colonial service. This avenue of access to explore the non-­European world is reflected in the admission of women fellows to the Royal Geographical Society
in 1913, where half were considered explorers/travellers, many of whom had
travelled with their families on imperial duty or worked for the government.53
Lady Jane Franklin, for instance, married the naval commander and polar explorer John Franklin in 1828 and accompanied her husband to Van Diemen’s
Land when he was appointed to the post of Governor in 1836. As the Governor’s wife, and in collaboration with her husband, she established a school and
a scientific society there, which would later become the Royal Society of Tasmania.54 Marianne Cookson, the wife of a military officer, assisted in the drawing of Indian flora, including 30 paintings of indigenous plants. Colonial
women were also recruited to assist in larger imperial botany projects. William
Hooker, for example, engaged Annabella Telfair to collect marine plants. She
was living in Mauritius with her husband, who was supervisor of the botanic
garden there, and some of her botanical drawings were included in Curtis’s
Botanical Magazine. Similarly, the wife of Colonel Walker – an army colonel
stationed in Ceylon in the 1830s – contributed to the development of the flora
of the colony. She corresponded with William Hooker, and travelled extensively around the island with her husband, collecting, exchanging, and painting its plants. As Shteir suggests, while many women botanising in the colonies
as the wives of colonial officials remained within the gender economies experienced at home, the “colonial encounter also made possible for some women to
step outside conventional gender boundaries”.55 The opportunity to travel
with, and sometimes without, their spouses, the availability of relatively cheap
native labour to assist in the domestic sphere as well as during travel, and the
differing hierarchies that existed in some of the remoter parts of empire, all
facilitated women’s capacity to engage in natural history projects.
Ostensibly an amateur naturalist, Charlotte Wheeler-­Cuffe’s opportunity to
botanise in Burma came about due to her status as the wife of a colonial official. In this study I will examine how she established botanising and painting
routines as her primary activities while at the same time maintaining her gendered role as the mistress of their domestic sphere. Navigating her way through
the gender economies of the late nineteenth century provided obstacles and
opportunities for carrying out work on the biogeography of Burma. In this
book I will demonstrate how her exploration practices at times challenged orthodox doctrines of femininity, while at the same time many of her attitudes
towards the imperial project mirrored that of her male counterparts. As Bush
53 Maddrell, Complex Locations.
54 Middleton, D. 2004. “Franklin [née Griffin], Jane, Lady Franklin”, D. Cannadine ed. Oxford
Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/
ref:odnb/10089.
55 Shteir, Cultivating Women, Cultivating Science, p. 193.
12 Setting the scene
notes in relation to Edwardian Britain, the language of empire was moulded
first and foremost by its male exponents. But their choice of familial, and especially maternal, metaphor offered important meanings to women who wished
to share in the self-­congratulatory adventure. In the early twentieth century
many leading imperialists turned their attention from the excitements of conquest to the longer-­term issues of building a sustainable, civilising empire dependent upon female as well as male virtues.56 The extent to which Wheeler-­Cuffe
fully endorsed such a vision of empire is difficult to fully assess, but I will chart,
where possible, some of the attitudes she expressed towards native peoples’
knowledge; her views on ‘race’ and racial categories in the colony; and her
more general approach to the ‘civilising’ mission underpinning British imperial
ambitions in Burma.
Historical geographies of knowledge
Over recent years historical geographers have persuasively argued that space
and place are central to understanding the constitution, production, and circulation of science.57 Moreover, as geographer David Livingstone asserts, “[T]here
is no single, overarching formula explaining how space invariably shapes science … For in different locations, at different times, in different circumstances,
and at different scales, space has made its mark on science in different ways”.58
Livingstone’s examination of certain key sites of knowledge production and
dissemination – the laboratory, the museum, the botanic or zoological garden,
the field – and his analysis of the intellectual and social milieux which shape
and constitute interpretive strategies, reveal how space is significant in making
scientific judgments.59 The Royal Museum of Ethnology in Berlin, for example,
was founded on the theoretical claim that cultural artefacts were of little scientific value if viewed as single items and should be assembled together and interpreted as part of a series. This resulted in such a vast accumulation of specimens
that the site lacked any coherent order and consequently the “very site that had
cradled the developing discipline provided the structural foundation for discarding the approach to the subject it was originally established to advance”.60
Drawing on these observations, my study of the botanical gardens in Belfast,
Cambridge, and Dublin as locales for the development of botany demonstrated
that the geographical and social context in which each was established produced different approaches to displaying and understanding natural history,
56 Bush, J. 2000. Edwardian Ladies and Imperial Power, London: Leicester University Press, p. 2.
57 Livingstone, D. N. 2003. Putting Science in Its Place, Chicago: Chicago University Press;
Finnegan, D. A. 2009. Natural History Societies and Civic Culture in Victorian Scotland,
London: Pickering and Chatto; Withers, C. W. J. 2007. Placing the Enlightenment: Thinking
Geographically about the Age of Reason, Chicago: Chicago University Press.
58 Livingstone, Putting Science, p. 14.
59 Livingstone, D. N. 1995. “The spaces of knowledge: contributions towards a historical geography of science”, Society and Space, 13, pp. 5–34.
60 Livingstone, Putting Science, p. 37.
Setting the scene 13
and the debates underpinning their practices were significantly shaped by the
personnel, intellectual context, and urban setting in which each emerged.61
The ‘field’ proved to be a foundational site for scientific investigation in the
formalisation of the Victorian sciences of geology, botany, and physical geography. The narratives associated with fieldwork – manly work carried out in
often hazardous conditions and over long periods of time – contributed to the
marginalisation of women from these professionalising disciplines in their
early development.62 Whilst this characterisation of field science itself may
have been the product of a longer history of European exploration and empire
building in the non-­European world, the practices of working in the field often
defied such simple constructions as masculine endeavours. The fieldwork of
Alfred Russel Wallace in the Malay Archipelago, for example, was not an exemplar of rugged individualism as has often been claimed but was the product
of entangled relationships between the pre-­existing colonial apparatus and the
local population. As Livingstone claims, “[T]he idiom of heroic individual is
all wrong. Wallace’s field science was an inescapably social affair. And the
knowledge he acquired was the compound product of personal observation,
trusted testimony, and colonial infrastructure”.63 Indeed Wallace’s own lowly
position within the British social hierarchy contrasted so much with that of the
privileged Charles Darwin that it greatly conditioned the manner in which
their relative contributions as co-­founders of evolutionary theory were measured and narrated, and this echoes Shapin’s assertion of the “ineradicable role
of people-­knowing in the making of thing-­knowing”.64 In Wallace’s textual
representations of tropical nature, Stepan suggests there lay an ambivalent attitude, an ‘anti-­tropicalism’ that disrupted the conventions of narrating these
regions in the language and imagery of abundance, sublimity, and exoticism.65
The ‘spatial turn’ in the histories of science has broadened the intellectual
scope of scholarship to acknowledge the situatedness of scientific practice and
knowledge making in ways that map out the macro and micro geographies of
science production.66 Moreover this approach decentres the spaces of science
61 Johnson, N. C. 2011. Nature Displaced, Nature Displayed: Order and Beauty in Botanical
Gardens, London: IB Tauris.
62 Maddrell, Complex Locations; Carey, M., Jackson, M., Antonello, A. and Rushing, J. 2016.
“Glaciers, gender and science: a feminist glaciology framework for global environmental
change research”, Progress in Human Geography, 40, pp. 770–793.
63 Livingstone, Putting Science, p. 44.
64 Quoted in Livingstone, D. N. 2005. “Text, talk and testimony: geography reflections on scientific habits: an afterword”, British Journal for the History of Science, 38, p. 97.
65 Stepan, N. 2001. Picturing Tropical Nature, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 57–84.
66 Finnegan, D. 2008. “The spatial turn: geographical approaches in the history of science”,
Journal of the History of Biology, 41, pp. 369–388; Livingstone, D. N. and Withers, C. W. J.
(eds.) 2011. Geographies of Nineteenth-­Century Science, Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Shapin, S. 1998. “Placing the view from nowhere: historical and sociological problems in the
location of science”, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 23, pp. 1–8; Withers,
C. W. J. 1995. “Geography, natural history and the eighteenth-­century enlightenment: putting
the world in place”, History Workshop Journal, 39, pp. 137–163.
14 Setting the scene
away from diffusionist models that suggest that scientific knowledge seamlessly
moved from European centres to the colonial periphery.67 In his study of doing
science in the Himalayas in the nineteenth century, for instance, Lachlan Fleetwood demonstrates the dependency of European naturalists and surveyors
“on pre-­existing networks of labour and expertise”.68 He highlights the central
role played by Himalayan peoples in the exploration of this mountain region,
while acknowledging the archival silences that can often obscure the role of
indigenous knowledge. There has, consequently, been an increasing recognition that “although agents of a frequently brutal imperialism, explorers’ ability
to act out their supposed superiority was often limited in remote regions”.69 In
the case of Wheeler-­Cuffe in Burma, the success of her travels to the remoter
parts of the colony, often its upland regions, necessitated reliance on indigenous labour, local knowledge, and native social networks. In this book I seek to
highlight the central role of native assistants and the importance of her relationships with them.
While the sites of production of scientific knowledge have, in recent years,
been investigated from a range of disciplinary perspectives, and the lexicon
of Geography has been embraced to inform these studies, the reception and
consumption of these knowledges have also been inflected by the spatial turn
in the history of science alluded to above.70 From examining the intimate
speech spaces in which natural history societies in Victorian Scotland traded
their endeavours,71 to the recent analysis of how religious communities of
Scots Presbyterian origin engaged with Darwinism in Belfast, Edinburgh,
South Carolina, and Toronto, these studies reinforce, once again, how the
prism of place impinged upon the ways in which scientific theories were interpreted.72 They alert us to the significance of scale and movement in any discussion of the historical geographies of science. Site, region, nation, and
globe offer at least four scales that can shape the conceptual and empirical
map of how knowledge is produced/generated, disseminated, and received.73
The complicated ways in which science has been produced historically has
also been the focus of some recent debates on global histories of science
where the challenge “to reconsider the globe presents an opportunity to think
67 Raj, K. 2007. Relocating Modern Science: Circulation and Construction of Knowledge in South
Asia and Europe, 1650–1900, New York: Palgrave Macmillan; Nair, S. P. 2005. “Native collecting and natural knowledge (1798–1832): Raja Serfoji II of Tanjore as a ‘centre of calculation’”,
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 15, pp. 279–302.
68 Fleetwood, L. 2022. Science on the Roof of the World: Empire and the Remaking of Himalaya,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 7.
69 Fleetwood, Science on the Roof of the World, p. 26.
70 Finnegan, “The spatial turn”.
71 Finnegan, D. A. 2011. “Placing science in an age of Oratory: spaces of scientific speech in
mid-­Victorian Edinburgh”, in D. N. Livingstone and C. W. C. Withers (eds.) Geographies of
Nineteenth-­Century Science, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 153–177.
72 Livingstone, D. N. 2014 Dealing with Darwin, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
73 Livingstone, Putting Science, pp. 1–16.
Setting the scene 15
in fresh ways about issues of commensurability, translation and circulation …
[and where] connected histories will uncover the web of linkages and intermediaries that made science travel”.74 Eschewing approaches which focus exclusively on the local, national, or imperial as the unit of analysis, the emphasis
shifts to the zones of contact, the routes of mobility, and the mechanisms of
inclusion or erasure that went into the making of scientific knowledge across
the globe.75
Moreover when considering the role of women in the construction and mediation of scientific knowledge, private spaces associated with the home (and
its associated gendered divisions of labour), the garden, and the unofficial field
excursion are all significant sites of analysis. Women’s private correspondence,
and personal archives of diaries, drawings, and plant collections, often outweigh their public pronouncements or published treatises, and it is through
these important material artefacts that we can trace their contributions to natural history knowledge. In the case of Charlotte Wheeler-­Cuffe, observing,
recording, collecting, and painting the Burmese natural and cultural environment, and establishing venues and avenues through which she could construct
and communicate her knowledge, was itself shaped by the uneven geographies
of opportunity afforded to women practising natural history at the turn of the
twentieth century.
While much of the existing research on women focuses on travellers and on
the production and reception of their work at the imperial centre, and the celebrity status they achieved at home, this diminishes the significance of women
with long-­term residency in the colonies who also shaped how science was produced. In the case of Kingsley, Blunt76 suggests that she negotiated her private
and public spheres differently between West Africa and Britain. Her radical
insights into the anthropology of West Africa contrasted with her opposition
to women’s suffrage and membership of the RGS at home, leading Maddrell to
conclude that “her writing is riddled throughout with contradictory relationships between gender and colonialism”.77 On the other hand, Ciolkowski suggests that such gender ambiguities were carefully cultivated and render her the
model English woman where “[t]he female traveler of Kingsley’s text is a modern Britannia who, as ‘invincible global civilizing agent,’ links symbolically the
seemingly incompatible values of masculine strength and feminine moral leadership in the service of British imperial power”.78 The example of Wheeler-­
Cuffe is of a woman who was not a traveller or a travel writer, and who received
limited public recognition during her lifetime. The fact that she managed to
74 Sivasundaram, S. 2010. “Introduction”, Isis, 101, p. 96.
75 A special issue of Isis contains a series of essays which address this issue, (2010), “Focus: global
histories of science”, 101, pp. 95–158.
76 Blunt, Travel, Gender and Imperialism, pp. 46–56.
77 Maddrell, Complex Locations, p. 84.
78 Ciolkowski, L. E. 1998. “Travelers’ tales: empire, Victorian travel and the spectacle of English
womanhood in Mary Kingsley’s ‘Travels in Africa’”, Victorian Literature and Culture, 26, p. 349.
16 Setting the scene
pursue her scientific interests largely independently of the formal structures of
knowledge making while living in one of the more remote corners of the British empire make her a fascinating case study of the role of women and of female agency in the history of science.
A consideration of Wheeler-­Cuffe’s encounters with Burma also intersects
with the wider scholarly literature on the construction of the tropics as a discursive field, a material space and a hermeneutic endeavour.79 Historians have
delineated the various ways in which the tropics have been conceived over time,
from an earthly paradise of abundance and bountifulness to a pathological
space of disease, lethargy, and moral laxity.80 Geographers have stressed the
ways in which the idea of the tropics was conceived differentially across the
globe, from von Humboldt and Darwin in the nineteenth century, to Gourou
in the twentieth century.81 Most of this work focuses on the experience and
representation of the tropics by male naturalists, surveyors, travel writers, artists, and colonial administrators. While these studies offer a rich understanding
of how men interpreted the tropics, it is by no means self-­evident that women’s
experiences mirrored those of their male counterparts.82 Wheeler-­Cuffe’s writings and artworks offer an invaluable insight into the role of gender in fashioning Western conceptions of the tropics. The practice of being a plant collector,
explorer, gardener, and artist, alongside the quotidian duties of the wife of a
colonial official, also marks out Wheeler-­Cuffe as different to the professional
plant collectors (female or male) sent from Britain to seek out botanical treasures. The focus on material, textual, and visual artefacts, gathered and produced in situ, provides a different frame for understanding her knowledge
making activity than the work of travel writers whose texts were often ultimately produced, edited, and distributed at home and for a home audience.
Wheeler-­Cuffe’s position enabled her to straddle the spaces of public colonial wife and private resident, interacting with the officialdom of empire but
also developing strong links with the indigenous population (servants, pupils
in schools where she taught painting, guides, Burmese officials), upon whom
she relied, in various ways, to explore the colony’s natural history. Her experience in Burma deviates from traditional historiographies which claim that “science and colonization can be precisely expressed through the term colonial
science”,83 and reinforces a growing body of research that focuses on the
79 Livingstone, D. N. 2000. “Tropical hermeneutics: fragments for a historical narrative: an afterword”, Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 21, pp. 92–98.
80 Arnold, D. 2006. The Tropics and the Travelling Gaze, Seattle: University of Washington Press;
Miller, D. P. and Reill, P. H. (eds.) 1996. Visions of Empire, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
81 Driver, F. and Yeoh, B. S. A. 2000. “Constructing the tropics: an introduction”, Singapore
Journal of Tropical Geography, 21, pp. 1–5.
82 Arnold, The Tropics; Stepan, Picturing Tropical.
83 Kumar, D. 1995. Science and the Raj: A study of British India, Oxford: Oxford University Press,
Oxford, p. vii.
Setting the scene 17
complex network of entanglements between metropole and colony.84 How science travels across space in the nineteenth century is, as historical geographers
have proposed, neither unidirectional nor uniform.85 The natural history produced by Wheeler-­Cuffe, and her position within the wider world, reflects Ballintyne’s concept of “webs of empire”,86 and her practice of science in the
colonies, I suggest, was in conversation with, rather than determined by, the
science of the metropole.
Lifeworld and sources
Wheeler-­Cuffe’s work was translated primarily through the material artefacts
she collected or produced in the colonies (e.g. plant specimens and seeds, paintings) and in the private correspondence she maintained with family and friends.
In this respect she was like other relatively unrecognised female plant illustrators and collectors whose work was less visible than those who published
books or essays, or who were recorded in the official documents of the colonial
state. As Stoler has pointed out, the gendered nature of colonial archives has
obscured the active role of women as producers of knowledge.87 Saha agrees,
claiming that female “agency has been subsumed to gendered archival and
state practices”.88 Wheeler-­Cuffe produced, for example, many of the plans
and cross-­sections for her husband’s engineering projects in Burma, but it was
his name which appeared in the documents. As James Scott has put it, “The
thicker the paper trail you leave behind, the larger your place in the historical
record”.89 More generally, where scientific knowledge is concerned, the valorisation of printed texts and public speech spaces may have obscured the contributions of women who had limited opportunity to publicise their work in
these ways.90 An emphasis on the published text and image, or on the performance of scientific discourse and practice through public speech and demonstrations of natural phenomena, has contributed to the marginalisation of
certain voices in the histories of knowledge making. The role of indigenous
expertise in the construction of scientific theories and practices and the significance of women as knowledge makers, while receiving some critical attention
84 Endersby, J. 2008. Imperial Nature: Joseph Hooker and the Practices of Victorian Science,
Chicago: University of Chicago Press; Fan, F.-T. 2004. British Naturalists in Qing China, MA:
Harvard University Press.
85 Livingstone and Withers, Geographies of Nineteenth, pp. 1–19.
86 Ballantyne, T. 2002. Orientalism and Race: Aryanism and the British Empire, Basingstoke:
Palgrave, p. 39.
87 Stoler, A. 2010. Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense,
New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
88 Saha, “The male state”, p. 345.
89 Scott, J. C. 2009. The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast
Asia, New Haven: Yale University Press, p. 34.
90 Cooter and Pumfrey, “Separate spheres and public places”
18 Setting the scene
recently, are both largely secondary in much of the empirical research.91 In part
this is a consequence of the gendered practices of the scientific communities
under investigation, and the resulting absences in the archival record, especially as they relate to governmental sources. Uncovering the ‘hidden’ labours
and labourers requires focusing on different modes of engagement and reading
against the archival grain, and feminist geographers have gone some way towards highlighting the types of knowledge produced by nineteenth-­century
Western female travel writers and naturalists who spent time traversing
the globe.
In this book, I will use non-­published archival material to reconstruct and
interpret the life-­world of Wheeler-­Cuffe and assess her significance in the context of the academic literature cited above.92 Her archive is extensive and includes art works, personal letters, and official correspondence. Wheeler-­Cuffe
produced several hundred paintings of botanical subjects and depictions of
the landscape and people of Burma. Most of this work was made in situ while
she was travelling or painted when she returned from expeditions with plants
she personally collected, or occasionally plants collected by others. She produced numerous sketchbooks charting the work she carried out over 24 years.
In addition she retained a collection of photographs recording family images
and pictures of the Burmese population and its landscape. She regularly made
small sketches which she included in her correspondence, for instance, maps,
house elevations, and floor plans. Together, this visual data provides a compelling pictorial record of her botanical output and social milieu. Wheeler-­Cuffe
maintained a huge personal correspondence, comprising weekly letters she
wrote to her mother (Rosabelle Williams) in London and numbering over one
thousand. She also corresponded with her sister, Monie; her aunt Cha; and her
cousin Baroness Pauline Prochazka, who resided at Leyrath House in Kilkenny.
This latter correspondence increased particularly after her mother’s death in
1916. These letters provide detailed insights into her daily life in Burma and
invaluable accounts of her plant hunting expeditions, social networks, and domestic arrangements within the colonial compound. She produced detailed
lists of the plants she painted and maintained day diaries which provide supplementary information on her daily routines and engagements. There are also
some letters written by her husband, Otway, to his mother-­in-­law and Baroness
Prochazka. Together these texts allow for an intimate portrait of her life in
Burma. The official correspondence Wheeler-­
Cuffe maintained with Sir
Charles Moore (the Director of Royal Botanic Gardens, Dublin), as well as
91 Lightman, B. 2006. “Depicting nature, defining roles: the gender politics of Victorian illustration”, in A. B. Shteir and B. Lightman (eds.) Figuring It Out: Science, Gender and Visual
Culture, Hanover: Dartmouth College Press, pp. 214–239.
92 All of Charlotte Wheeler-­Cuffe’s archive is held at the National Botanical Gardens (NBG)
Library, Dublin. She donated this archive to the garden in the 1920s. See Nelson, E. C. 1982.
“The Lady of the rhododendrons – Charlotte Wheeler Cuffe 1867–1967”, Rhododendrons
1981–82, pp. 33–41; Nelson, E. C. 2013. Shadow among Splendours: Lady Wheeler-­Cuffe’s
Adventures among the Flowers of Burma 1897–1921, Dublin: National Botanic Gardens.
Setting the scene 19
letters to personnel from Kew gardens and other scientific institutions, are also
part of her archive, and are of particular importance as they provide evidence
of her network of botanical contacts, the mechanisms of exchange of plant
knowledge and physical specimens she developed, and the formal recognition
her work received during her lifetime. Finally, there are the publications in
which some of her paintings were re-­produced, including travel books about
the colony and her only major publication The Burma Alphabet (1913), for
which she produced all the illustrations.
While this book is ordered chronologically, the major themes that underpinned Wheeler-­Cuffe’s exploration of Burma’s natural history and life-­world
are mapped onto the different spaces she occupied during her life there. As she
moved to different locations around the colony, the focus of her work developed and, at times, transformed. Otway was stationed in 6 different locations
over the 24 years: Thayetmyo, Rangoon, Toungoo, Mandalay, Meiktila, and
Maymyo (Figure 1.1), and each new location provided different opportunities
for Charlotte. Chapters 2 and 3 are centred on a discussion of the family’s
background, Wheeler-­Cuffe’s arrival to Thayetmyo on the banks of Irrawaddy
in 1897, and her initial response to this tropical world during these early years
until they were moved briefly, in late 1899, to Rangoon. Focusing on both the
establishment of her domestic regime and the organisation of expeditions she
began to embark upon with her husband, we can unravel the complex ways in
which she started to cultivate a pattern of plant collecting and develop the
physical infrastructure for the production of plant illustrations. The following
three chapters (4, 5, and 6) focus on the themes of mobility and the evolution
of ever-­deepening knowledge networks as Wheeler-­Cuffe’s exploration of the
colony becomes embedded and her artistic output flourishes. From 1900 to
1912, the Wheeler-­Cuffes experienced numerous new postings. They returned
for a short period to Thayetmyo (1900–1901) before being stationed 86 miles
southeast to Toungoo (1901–1903). They were then posted to the old Burmese
capital of Mandalay (1903–1905), and after a period of leave, were instructed
to re-­locate 78 miles south to Meiktila (1905–1910), where they remained until
1910. They returned for a few more years to Rangoon (1910–1913). The regularity of movement to new stations around the colony was part of the habitual
routine for colonial officials, and whilst such moves were not always welcomed,
they provided Wheeler-­Cuffe with opportunities to explore new districts of
Burma. During this period, Charlotte honed her skills at working in the field
and mobilised the superstructure necessary for botanising and for nurturing
long-­distant connections and exchange networks between Burma and home.
This was one of her most productive periods from the point of view of painting, and it was during this period that she collected some plants unknown in
Europe, for which she received official recognition. The regulation of her domestic sphere was also consolidated and her attitudes towards indigenous people and the Eurasian population were framed. A visit to the penal colony on
the Andaman Islands sheds light on her response to the exercise of imperial
surveillance over the incarcerated peoples of British India. Chapters 7 and 8
20 Setting the scene
Figure 1.1 Map of Burma.
(Source: Libby Mulqueeny).
Setting the scene 21
chart her final years when they were stationed at the hill station of Maymyo
(1913–1921) and when she had the chance to explore extensively the frontier
regions of Upper Burma. The First World War cast a long shadow on her activities during this period and stimulated both philanthropic work and the sale
of numerous paintings in support of the war effort. A visit to Simla, excursions
to the Irrawaddy-­Salween Divide, and the establishment of a botanic garden in
Maymyo were all-­important episodes in her natural history career before she
finally departed Burma in 1921. In particular, the invitation to assist in the
design and management of a large botanic garden represents the pinnacle of
her achievements locally and is her most enduring material legacy on the landscape of Burma. It combined her knowledge of plants, gardening expertise,
and artistic skills, while also exhibiting the network of local, regional, and
global connections she had developed over the previous two decades.
Part I
Colonial encounters
The early years in the tropics
2
Family matters
Charlotte Wheeler-Cuffe,
1867–1897
Early life
Known affectionately to family and friends as ‘Shadow’, Charlotte Wheeler-Cuffe was elected a Fellow of the RGS in April 1922. While women were
officially admitted as members from 1913 onwards, by 1922 they still represented only 7.7% of the RGS’s entire membership.1 A quarter of that membership was scientists/teachers, another quarter was other types of professional
women, and the remainder was explorers/travellers. It is in this latter category
that the honour was bestowed on Wheeler-Cuffe, in recognition of her contribution to plant hunting and exploration; botanical illustration; and the geographical and anthropological knowledge she accumulated about Burma
during the quarter of a century (1897–1921) she resided there with her husband. As Maddrell points out, “Those who travelled with husbands or family
on imperial duty … represent a continuation of the strong link between the
RGS and state institutions and interests”.2 Moreover, Wheeler-Cuffe also represented a growing group of female naturalists who were, either officially or
unofficially, engaging in the production and dissemination of natural history
from the early Victorian period onwards.3 So what of Wheeler-Cuffe’s
background?
Charlotte Williams was born in Wimbledon, Surrey, on 24 May 1867. She
was the youngest daughter of William Williams (1816–1907) and his second
wife, Rose Isabella Langrishe (1828–1916), better known as Rosabelle. Rosabelle was the third daughter of the Reverend Sir Hercules Richard Langrishe
(1782–1862) and his wife Maria Cottingham (1795–1870). Langrishe was the
third baronet of Knocktopher Abbey, Co Kilkenny, and the Irish connection
went back several generations. The baronetcy had been established in 1777 for
Sir Hercules Langrishe, who had, since 1761, served as MP for Knocktopher in
the Irish House of Commons, until its abolition in 1800 by the Act of Union.
1 Personal communication with Sarah Evans regarding female membership of the Royal Geographical Society in 1922.
2 Maddrell, Complex Locations, p. 35.
3 Shteir, Cultivating Women, Cultivating Science; Abir-Am and Outram, Uneasy Careers and Intimate Lives; Phillips, The Scientific Lady.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003157595-3
26 Colonial encounters
He attended Trinity College Dublin where he obtained a BA degree in 1763. He
served as collector of revenue for Kilkenny (1758–1768), commissioner of barracks (1766–1774), commissioner of revenue (1774–1801), and was appointed
to the Irish Privy Council in 1792. In Parliament he proposed the relaxation of
penal statutes against Catholics and, in 1792, introduced the Catholic Relief
Bill. Although he was initially sceptical about the Act of Union (1800), he
eventually supported the government. After the union of Great Britain and
Ireland, however, he no longer took an active role in politics. In 1811 he was
succeeded by his eldest son, Robert, until his death in 1835. In turn, the baronetcy was passed on to Charlotte’s grandfather, the Reverend Sir Hercules Richard Langrishe.4 Charlotte’s grandmother, Maria Cottingham, came from
Somerville in Co Cavan, and her maternal aunt, also named Charlotte, and
known as Aunt Cha, had the tenancy of a farm in Firgrove, Co Kilkenny,
which Charlotte visited regularly in her youth. Her Irish ancestry on the maternal side of the family was long and deep-seated, and Ireland would remain an
important dimension of Wheeler-Cuffe’s cultural heritage for her entire life.
Her father, William Williams, was a solicitor and had been President of the
Law Society as well as playing a prominent role in the movement to erect the
Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand, London. His first marriage to Martha
Gates produced four children: a son, Charles Bridgewater, and daughters
Rosemary, Amy, and Alice. As well as these half-siblings, Charlotte also had an
older sister, Rosabel Mary, known as Monie, with whom she corresponded
regularly while living in Burma. Although the family’s principal residence was
at Parkside House in Wimbledon, London, Charlotte and her sister also spent
time at their family’s country house ‘Upperfold’, located between Lickford
Bridge and Fernhurst in West Sussex, a property her father had purchased
in 1889.
While there is not much extant evidence about the nature of Charlotte’s
childhood she did spend time travelling and developing her painting skills.
She regularly visited Ireland, particularly staying with her Aunt Cha, at Firgrove. Charlotte had her own dedicated room in the house which suggests
that she was a frequent visitor, and one of her earliest extant paintings in
watercolour dates from 1885 and is a view of Carrickmourne painted from
the lawn at Firgrove. In her early years she travelled extensively around Ireland and produced paintings such as The Scalp in Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, in
1888. In the same year she visited Connemara where she completed a number
of watercolours, including Among the Hills (1888), an image of the Bundara
river (Figure 2.1).
Apart from displaying early promise in the development of her artistic talent, this painting is significant as the reverse was annotated by W. Frank Calderon. He wrote:
4 Geoghegan, P. M. 2009. “Langrishe, Sir Hercules”, Dictionary of Irish Biography, https://doi.
org/10.3318/dib.004671.v1
Family matters 27
Figure 2.1 Among the Hills, Bundara, Connemara, 1888. (Courtesy of the National
­Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin).
A vigorous sketch – good for that reason. The rocks are too equally purple – in nature you would find much more variety of colour in them. There
would probably be more and greyer light on the tops. Not careful enough
in drawing each bit should be a portrait, & the leading lines carefully and
faithfully copied. The distance is very well done. W. Frank Calderon5
William Frank Calderon (1865–1943), son of the eminent artist and Keeper of
the Royal Academy Philip Hermogenes Calderon, was an English Victorian
painter of portraits, figure subjects, and sporting scenes. Trained at the Slade
School of Art, he established the School of Animal Painting at 54 Baker Street,
which focused on teaching animal and anatomy painting.6 While there is no
direct evidence of Charlotte receiving extended training in art, the annotation
suggests that she attended some classes given by Calderon and others. She was
also perfecting the art of French polishing and wood-carving, talents she
would use while living in the colony. In 1897, for instance, she recorded in her
diaries that she had been engaged in carving a post box, and later, when she
was stationed in Meiktila, she carved the lectern and a communion table for a
new church that was under construction.7 While there are few additional ­details
about her early life, the archive of sketches and watercolours completed in her
5 quoted in Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, p. 10.
6 Calderon, W. F. 1907. Who’s Who. Volume 59, p. 273.
7 Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, p. 10.
28 Colonial encounters
youth suggests a strong flair and enthusiasm for landscape, botanical, and animal painting. In January 1897, at the age of 29, her engagement to Otway
Fortescue Luke Wheeler-Cuffe (1866–1934, hereafter Otway Wheeler-Cuffe)
was announced.
Like Charlotte, her fiancé was also of Irish ancestry. While he was born in
1866 in Southsea, Hampshire, his parents Major Otway and Mrs Louisa Cuffe
lived much of their lives at Woodlands, a house near Waterford city. His uncle,
Sir Charles Wheeler-Cuffe, was the second baronet of Leyrath, an estate located a few miles from Kilkenny city. This baronetcy, established in 1800, was
the last ever created in the Baronetage of Ireland, and, on the death of his uncle in 1915, Otway Wheeler-Cuffe inherited the title and land at Leyrath as a
life tenant.8 The title became extinct after his death in 1934, but Charlotte continued to live on the estate until she died in 1967. The couple had known each
other since childhood through their family connections in Ireland and Otway
regularly stayed with the Williams at Parkside during his summer holidays
from boarding school. He was educated both in Ireland and England, and in
1886 he enrolled in the Royal Engineering College, at Cooper’s Hill in Surrey,
where he trained as a civil engineer. After qualifying he spent a year working
on a ship canal before entering the Public Works Department of India (PWD)
in 1890 as civil engineer and was stationed in Burma. The PWD was established as a separate branch of the Government of India in 1855 under Governor-General Lord Dalhousie and provided both a literal and metaphorical
scaffold of empire. It was devoted to developing the transport infrastructure
and utilitarian buildings which would ultimately restructure British India both
technologically and spatially.9 Roads, railways, waterways, ports, and public
buildings were all developed to integrate the colony geographically and to provide reliable routes for the transport of people, the conduct of trade, and the
performance of governance. It was to this branch of colonial administration
that Otway Wheeler-Cuffe would work for over 30 years.
Charlotte Williams wrote to her Aunt Cha to inform her of her imminent
engagement, and while Otway’s parents would have liked the marriage to be
postponed for a year, the pair resisted. She observed,
[I]f we went out this year [to Burma], we could come home the next,
when his furlough will be due … Moreover, (and to my mind is the most
particularly important reason of all) it would be a sort of trial trip to see
how the climate agreed with me & if it really did not then it would be
8 McGuire, J. and Quinn, J. (eds.) 2009. Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
9 Scriver, P. 2007. “Empire-building and thinking in the Public Works Department of British
India”, in P. Scriver and V. Prakash (eds.) Colonial Modernities: Building, Dwelling and Architecture in British India and Ceylon, London: Routledge, pp. 69–92.
Family matters 29
perhaps possible to make some other arrangements – Though I believe a
hot climate will rather suit me than otherwise.10
Charlotte relished the prospect of her marriage to Otway. The fact that they
knew each other from childhood further reinforced in her mind the suitability
of the match. She declared, “[W]e have never since our childhood disagreed
about anything – or even had the smallest misunderstanding – and we know
each other off by heart”.11 However, not everyone in the wider family circle was
entirely happy with the engagement. In a letter to her sister, Monie, who was in
Ireland at the time, Charlotte beseeched her to dispel any gossip she might hear
about the relationship. Referring to an encounter they had had with his uncle
and aunt, she explained, “Otway and I had the most awkward and unpleasant
job of explaining to them that we emphatically are not lovers. As Otway said
to Lady Cuffe, ‘we have grown up together like brother and sister, and why we
can’t be allowed to remain so in peace, passes my comprehension’”.12 Otway
reinforced his commitment to Charlotte by writing to her mother in Wimbledon expressing his delight at the engagement but adding his concerns about the
“uncomfortable circumstance [being] made for us by relations who have no
right to interfere … I know that Mr Williams will do all in his power to help me
in the difficult position I find myself placed”.13 It was thought that Sir Charles
Wheeler-Cuffe may have been the chief opponent to the marriage. Whatever
opposition had been aired was brushed aside, however, and Otway was granted
an extension of his leave from Burma for their wedding to take place on Thursday, 30 June 1897, a few days after Charlotte’s 30th birthday.14 They married at
Lodsworth parish church in West Sussex, not far from the Williams’ country
house ‘Upperfold’. They spent their short honeymoon boating along the River
Thames between Oxford and Reading, before returning to Wimbledon to complete their preparations for their departure to Burma. They boarded the train
to Liverpool and embarked on the Bibby Line’s SS Staffordshire on Wednesday, 16 June, for Rangoon, just a fortnight after their marriage.15 Their life together in Burma was about to begin.
A passage to Burma
Their adventure as a newly-wed couple began with this first sea voyage, a journey they would make on numerous occasions over the course of their life in
South Asia. As they began their journey, Charlotte reported in a letter to her
mother from the coast of Holyhead that the boat was almost empty and that
10 Letter from CWC to Aunt Cha, 27 February 1897, Parkside, Wimbledon.
11 Ibid.
12 Letter from CWC to Monie, 12 November 1896, Parkside, Wimbledon.
13 Letter from OWC to Mrs Williams, 10 April 1897, Woodlands, Waterford.
14 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 16 April 1897, Woodlands, Waterford.
15 Letter from CWC to Mrs. Williams, 15 June 1897, Liverpool.
30 Colonial encounters
they had secured a second large cabin beside their own, ensuring that they had
“any amount of room and are most comfortable”.16 This letter would mark the
start of a voluminous correspondence between Charlotte and her mother over
the coming two decades. As they crossed the Mediterranean, Otway wrote to
his mother-in-law on Jubilee Day, thanking her and Mr Williams for their support during the wedding preparations and commenting that Charlotte “has
done several nice sketches of the coast”.17 On their arrival at Marseilles, where
they were to stay overnight as the ship took on cargo, Charlotte commented
that they visited the Consul, a relative of Otway’s.18 They proceeded via the
Straits of Bonifacio into the Tyrrhenian Sea and through the Straits of
Messina, where Charlotte reported they got a good view of Mount Etna. The
boat travelled onwards to Port Said, where it docked. She commented on
the multicultural nature of the place where one witnessed “every race under the
sun and every language all going at once”.19 Having loaded coal and cargo,
the ship moved through the Suez Canal and into the Red Sea. This would be
the route that would transport them and their belongings – plant specimens,
pets, paintings, art equipment – over the next 24 years. At Suez Charlotte remarked, “We started through the canal at sunset, with a search light and it was
most curious and interesting, sliding noiselessly between the banks with a great
fan of light spreading out before us”.20 She used the time in her cabin “to try
for a sketch. There is a rather pretty range of hills on the Egyptian side”.21 She
never lost an opportunity to capture their journey in images and words, and
produced several watercolours of sites she observed on these sea voyages. After
they crossed the Indian Ocean and passed the Maldives, they arrived in Ceylon, where they stayed at the Grand Oriental Hotel in Colombo. Their ship had
plenty of cargo to unload, and thus it was customary to have at least one overnight stay in Ceylon. They were grateful for the stopover; she opined, “[I]t is
very nice to see something green again after the perpetual blue and white of the
sky”.22 They learned in Colombo that they would be stationed at Thayetmyo
on the Irrawaddy River, and that they should travel there as quickly as possible
after their scheduled arrival in Rangoon on 16 July. They were glad to learn of
their destination and were hopeful that they might take over the house and
furniture of Edward Gabbett, the man whom Otway was replacing.23
The Wheeler-Cuffes undertook this voyage many times and became accustomed to a routine of exercise and social interaction with other passengers,
many of whom were also on colonial service. Charlotte’s time was spent caring
for her cats and dogs, as well as reading, writing, and sketching. On this first
16 Letter from CWC to Mrs. Williams, 16 June 1897, SS Staffordshire.
17 Letter from OWC to Mrs. Williams, 22 June 1897, SS Staffordshire.
18 Letter from CWC to Mrs. Williams, 23 June 1897, SS Staffordshire.
19 Quoted in Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, p. 17.
20 Letter from CWC to Mrs. Williams, 30 June 1897, SS Staffordshire.
21 Ibid.
22 Letter from CWC to Mrs. Williams, 11 July 1897. Grand Oriental Hotel, Colombo, Ceylon.
23 Ibid.
Family matters 31
trip she received from the ship’s Captain a copy of George W. Bird’s recently
published book Wanderings in Burma (1897). Bird had served for 20 years in
the Educational Department in Burma and was an acquaintance of Otway.24
The book provided Charlotte with an early introduction to the colony and it
included many maps and illustrations. She would produce many sketch maps
and cross-sections of places she explored over the coming years and would
regularly assist with Otway’s engineering projects. The fact that her relative
Richard Langrishe (1834–1922) of Knocktopher was a distinguished engineer
and architect in Ireland may have stimulated her interest in surveying and infrastructure planning. Moreover, Langrishe also served as Fellow and
Vice-President of the Historical and Archaeological Association of Ireland, an
interest that Charlotte would also share when it came to Burmese sites of historic and archaeological merit.25 By choosing to work unofficially alongside
her husband in his engineering duties, Charlotte, from the outset, transgressed
the conventional role of the wife of a colonial official. While engineering works
and infrastructural development in the colonies have been regarded as important sites for the negotiation of colonial masculinities and the delineation of
racialised hierarchies between European male supervisors and workers, and
the indigenous lower-level overseers and labourers,26 the fact that Charlotte
Wheeler-Cuffe entered these spaces, however unofficially, presented a challenge to dominant ideas of colonial femininities. Upon arrival in Rangoon the
Wheeler-Cuffes spent their first week in the city with Charlotte’s cousin, Frank
Gates. Like many new arrivals, she visited various historic sites, including the
renowned Shwedagon pagoda, which she would later capture in watercolour,
and she made preparations for their transit by train and steamer to Thayetmyo.
This first posting to a small town on the western bank of the Irrawaddy River,
approximately 185 miles north of Rangoon, would be their home for the following four years.
First encounters with the tropics
Charlotte was immediately impressed by the prospect of living in the tropics
and was fascinated by the Burmese landscape and the possibilities it would
present for botanising. Having taken a night train from Rangoon to Prome,
they completed their journey by river steamer to Thayetmyo. She described the
trip by boat where the landscape immediately attracted her: “Such a river! Over
a mile wide and a current like a millrace. Pretty steep wooded hills on the
W. and lower ground with palm trees and rice fields on the E”.27 Her initial
24 Nelson, Shadow among Splendours.
25 Rouse, P. 2009. “Langrishe, Richard”, Dictionary of Irish Biography, https://doi.org/10.3318/
dib.004672.v1.
26 Woollacott, A. 2006. Gender and Empire. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
27 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 28 July 1897, Thayetmyo.
32 Colonial encounters
encounter with Burma anticipates more recent scholarly insights on the construction of the tropics as a material space and discursive field during the age
of empire.28 Her first impression of the Burmese landscape was of a space
characterised by exotic, tropical trees and rich vegetation associated with
warmer climates. She echoed images of a tropical landscape which valorised its
botanical plenitude and bountiful resources.29 She was immediately attracted
to Thayetmyo. Of her new abode she declared:
The place is charmingly pretty, & this house, though not actually on the
river bank, is not very far inland. The ground all about the station is just
like a big and very pretty park, with houses dotted about here and
there … we are not badly off here.30
In contrast to views of the tropics, which scripted them as spaces of torpor and
pestilence, Wheeler-Cuffe’s initial response to Lower Burma was as a space of
energy, vibrancy, and beauty.31 She captured the allure of the location in a
small watercolour, From the Flood Gauge, painted in 1900 (Figure 2.2).
The image evokes the movement of the vast river and draws on the practice,
developed in the eighteenth century, of using direct observation to represent
encounters with new places.32 She communicated the buoyancy of the Irrawaddy by including many Burmese riverboats, their colourful sails catching
the breeze while a native observes the scene from the river’s bank. The Irrawaddy was the principal conduit through which Burma’s resources were
transported for export through the port of Rangoon and through which British colonials travelled to Burma’s interior. The iconic significance of the river
in the management of empire was immediately grasped by Wheeler-Cuffe.
Moreover, her painting built on a tradition of the eyewitness as an authentic
recorder of geographical knowledge and studied observation as the means of
evoking a landscape visually.33 Such an approach is often considered a kind of
documentary art, yet as Burke reminds us it would be “unwise to attribute to
these artist-reporters an ‘innocent eye’ in the sense of a gaze which is totally
28 Livingstone, “Tropical hermeneutics”.
29 Arnold, The Tropics; Miller and Reill, Visions of Empire.
30 Letter from CWC to Mrs. Williams, 28 July 1897, Thayetmyo.
31 Livingstone, D. N. 1999. “Tropical climate and moral hygiene: the anatomy of a Victorian
debate”, British Journal for the History of Science, 32, pp. 93–110; Kennedy, D. 1990. “The
perils of the midday sun: climatic anxieties in the colonial tropics”, in J. M. MacKenzie (ed.)
Imperialism and the Natural World, Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 118–140.
32 Clayton, D. W. 2000. “The creation of imperial space in the Pacific Northwest”, Journal of
Historical Geography, 26, pp. 325–350.
33 Klonk, C. 1996. Science and the Perception of Nature: British Landscape Art in the Late
Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries, New Haven: Yale University Press; Smiles, S. 2000.
Eye Witness: Artists and Visual Documentation in Britain 1770–1930, Aldershot: Ashgate;
Stafford, B. M. 1984. Voyage into Substance: Art, Science, Nature and the Illustrated Travel
Account, 1760–1840, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Family matters 33
Figure 2.2 From the Flood Gauge, Thayetmyo, 1900. (Courtesy of the National Botanic
Gardens, Glasnevin).
objective, free from expectations or prejudices of any kind”.34 While Wheeler-Cuffe may have sketched in the field rather than in an artist’s studio, she
did not do so independent of the social and cultural values she brought with
her to the colony. And typically, she often, like other naturalists such as von
Humboldt, compared what she saw with what she had seen and learned about
at home.35
While the physical geography of the place impressed her, she also noted,
with some surprise, the social arrangements associated with the domestic superstructure of a colonial household. She declared:
I am rather alarmed at the small army of servants that seem necessary
out here! I have not clearly made out yet how many are servants and how
many are “hangers on” but there are about a dozen I think – 2 syce
(grooms), sweeper and his wife, water man, washerman, cook and his
“mate” (who is sort of an apprentice and doesn’t get paid), another man
who waits at table or cooks if needful, and the chokra, who “bosses
the show”.36
It is estimated that the smallest British households in colonial India required
10–12 servants, while larger households might employ over 30. By contrast, the
typical comparable British household of the period employed 3–5 servants.37
The higher number of Indian servants was usually attributed to caste restrictions, where individuals could only be employed to carry out particular duties.
34 Burke, P. 2001. Eyewitnessing: The Uses of Images as Historical Evidence, London: Reaktion,
p. 19.
35 Wulf, A. 2015. The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, the Lost
Hero of Science, London: John Murray.
36 Letter from CWC to Mrs. Williams, 28 July 1897, Thayetmyo.
37 Barr, P. 1976. The Memsahibs: in Praise of the Women of Victorian India, London Penguin.
34 Colonial encounters
However, in Burma such caste laws did not generally apply, yet the numbers of
servants were similar to India itself. Moreover, in either case with the exception
of the ayah who took care of babies and young children and performed the
duties of lady’s maid, all servants hired by the British were male.38 Clearly, living in the tropics appeared to require greater household labour, and was a
feature that surprised Wheeler-Cuffe, and yet one to which she became quickly
accustomed.
She rapidly set about acquainting herself with the other colonial settlers in
the town, realising that establishing social networks would facilitate her transition to colonial life and would, in time, evolve as an important conduit for
knowledge transmission and exchange.39 Her initial contacts were with the
Deputy Commissioner Carter and his wife, and military personnel including
Surgeons Major, army doctors, and the parson. She quickly learnt that Carter
was a great gardener and had already promised to provide her with plants. She
explained that her garden sloped away from the house and had “3 tall ‘toddy’
palms, several neem trees, something like ash, & others which I don’t know.
There are some fine orchids on the trees, brought in from the jungle”.40 She
produced a sketch of the elevation of their residence, which she observed was
all wood apart from the concrete ground floor. She also sketched a ground plan
of the spatial arrangement of their living quarters, as well as the location of the
servants’ wing. They inherited the property from their predecessor, Gabbett. It
was a government house that came with the appointment and for which they
paid a modest rent. Gabbett left his two dogs and a pony and trap for their use
until their own arrived. Otway’s three ponies, from his earlier postings, were
also expected to arrive from Bhamo. Animals would play an integral role in the
couple’s professional, social, and personal lives, and throughout their time in
Burma Charlotte bought, bred, and reared a large menagerie of work-related
domestic and, occasionally, wild animals. The settlement included a church,
social club, and library which she declared made them “very civilized”.41 In an
early letter to her aunt Cha, she reinforced her positive impressions of her
new abode:
The place is extremely pretty and there are dozens of lovely trees to paint,
though only a few that are particularly characteristic of the country and
some that might be at home until you look closely at the trees & see that
they are different. The place consists of a picturesque native town … and
the rest is just like a big and very pretty park, with barracks, church &
houses dotted about, each in its own “compound”, or bit of garden.42
38 Blunt, A. and Dowling, R. 2006. Home, London: Routledge.
39 Lambert, D. and Merriman, P. (eds.) 2020. Empire and Mobility in the Long Nineteenth Century.
Manchester: Manchester University Press.
40 Letter from CWC to Mrs. Williams, 28 July 1897, Thayetmyo.
41 Ibid.
42 Letter from CWC to Aunt Cha, 29 July 1897, Thayetmyo.
Family matters 35
From the outset it is clear that Wheeler-Cuffe was enamoured by her new residence and was rapidly becoming accustomed to the climate and to the mosquitoes that were “terribly big and hungry and have treated me rather badly but
they say one gets inoculated in time”.43 She was determined to acclimatise rapidly and to begin to develop her garden. Her botanical interests would be nurtured by her husband’s role as engineer, which involved regular travel around
his District, an area that extended approximately 35 miles in every direction
from Thayetmyo. As it was an old and well-established colonial administrative
station, Otway principally inspected and oversaw the management and maintenance of existing roads, bridges, and official buildings, rather than the erection
of new ones. An effective infrastructure was deemed necessary for the successful governance of the colony, and from the outset, Charlotte determined that
she would accompany him on these inspections as it would provide her with the
chance to develop a detailed knowledge of the geography of the territory and
its natural environment. Although Woollacott has claimed that “engineering
and construction sites were a crucible for the negotiation of colonial masculinities”,44 Wheeler-Cuffe immediately entered these masculine spaces as part of
her everyday life and refused to confine herself to the more typical female purview of the domestic sphere. In this respect she followed other colonial wives
who also deviated away from solely managing domestic duties as part of the
empire-building enterprise. Since the 1820s some colonial women, for instance,
had worked in missionary organisations and, in an Indian context, had an advantage over men by being able to enter the zenanas – the secluded women’s
spaces within Indian households. As such, female missionaries could “cast
themselves in masculine terms as the chivalrous saviours of these unfortunate
captives [women in zenanas] … to bring them the news of salvation that could
help them throw off their barbarous shackles”.45 These activities brought colonial women outside their homes and the restricted social networks of their settlements, but ironically much of their task was to persuade the indigenous
population to adopt European ideas of gendered respectability and model their
lives on the domestic architecture found in European households.46 Much more
rarely did women accompany their husbands to work, especially in fields like
road and railway construction. Most women’s encounters with the native population were practised through their employment of indigenous servants in
their households. This contact zone was important in the process of cultural
education and the exercise of power between native and newcomer, as hierarchies were established. While Wheeler-Cuffe certainly actively engaged in the
43 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 28 July 1897, Thayetmyo.
44 Woollacott, Gender and Empire, p. 85.
45 Ibid., p. 96.
46 Midgley, C. 2000. “Female emancipation in an imperial frame: English women and the campaign against Sat (widow-burning) in India, 1813–1830”, Women’s History Review, 9, pp.
95–121; Rountree, A. 2000. “Re-making the Maori female body: Marianne Williams’s mission
in the Bay of Islands”, The Journal of Pacific History, 35, pp. 49–56.
36 Colonial encounters
ordering and management of their domestic space in Thayetmyo, her appetite
for travelling with her husband ensured that she was not going to accept a
model of femininity that confined her to their compound. Indeed, not only did
she regularly accompany Otway on work expeditions, but over the coming two
decades she also occasionally travelled without her spouse, most notably on
her influential botanising excursions to Mount Victoria in 1911 and 1912
(Chapter 6).47
On the road
Analysis of travel has proven to be a persistent theme in the scholarly examination of empire, not least in investigations of how travelling and travel writing
played an important role in the construction of colonial discourses of difference.48 As Ballantyne and Burton have demonstrated through the lens of intimacy, colonial residents were highly mobile subjects, often relocated to new
postings, and in the process making and re-making the imperial spaces they
occupied as they encountered native inhabitants and new landscapes.49 Wheeler-Cuffe proved to be one such mobile subject, shifting locations as imperial
duty demanded, as well as engaging in quotidian movement as she accompanied her husband on his work duties. Within a week of her arrival at Thayetmyo
she undertook her first excursion with Otway. They crossed to the eastern shore
of the Irrawaddy on a ‘country boat’ where they were met by the PWD sub-divisional officer, Gupta. Charlotte observed that she had never felt so well in her
life and had developed a large appetite due to the heat.50 The party consisted of
a bullock cart carrying their baggage and equipment, as well as a cook, syce,
and a PWD chaprassi.51 The party rode two miles north to Allanmyo, and onwards for another two miles, where they inspected the bridges, roads, and culverts. The following day, Otway and Gupta travelled ten miles south from
Yuatoung, while Charlotte stayed behind to sketch. During inspection trips,
parties usually stayed in PWD bungalows, which provided basic accommodation and were typically scattered every 15 or so miles along the route. Visitors
supplied their own bed linen, food, and servants, and the standard diet consisted of chicken. The sign of a good jungle cook, Charlotte observed, was the
47 Johnson, N. C. 2017. “On the colonial frontier: gender, exploration and plant-hunting
on Mount Victoria in early 20th-century Burma”, Transactions of the Institute of British
Geographers, 42, pp. 417–431.
48 Some of the foundational work on the relationship between travel writing and scripting the
non-European world from critical post-colonial and feminist perspectives are found in these
works Said, E. W. 1978. Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient, London: Routledge
and Keegan; Pratt, Imperial Eyes.
49 Ballantyne, T. and Burton, A. (eds.) 2009. Moving Subjects: Gender, Mobility and Intimacy in
an Age of Global Empire, Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
50 Letter from CWC to Mrs. Williams, 4 August 1897, Kyaukpadoung.
51 A syce was a person who took care of horses/groom and a chaprassi was a government
messenger.
Family matters 37
number of ways “he can dress the inevitable poulet”.52 Even on this first trip she
quickly accustomed herself to the rituals of travel in the tropics and adapted to
the common practices associated with them. She typically referred to this type
of travel as going to the ‘jungle’ or ‘jungling’. The term ‘jungle’, introduced to
English from Indian vernaculars, came to evoke, according to Arnold, “a metaphor-rich contrast between the orderliness of temperate woodlands and the
tangled, menacing, malarial vegetation that constituted tropical nature”.53
On the third day the party rode to Kyaukpadoung along a road destined for
the town of Toungoo. Charlotte botanised while the men inspected the local
guardhouse. With a sliced and pointed bamboo she walked along the road,
trying to “dig up ferns, but found they wanted a more substantial weapon”.54
Otway came to her assistance and diverted some native labourers, who were
engaged in re-metalling the road, to help her collect some plants.55 Native expertise was immediately enrolled to aid with her botanical pursuits and re-assigned, in this case, from their direct duties in road construction. She recorded
that she “came back in triumph with great spoils – a lot of climbing ferns, a
lovely big thing with a flower like an orchid, something like a lily, and something like Solomon’s seal in growth”.56 Clearly, in her first excursion into the
field she instantly encountered unfamiliar species, and this experience stimulated her desire to undertake further collecting expeditions. Her reaction to this
first trip suggests that tropical nature, for some at least, was a source of intense
curiosity, rather than a burden to be stoically endured.57
Not only were human subjects mobile in the colonies, specimens of ornamental and botanical interest, and other related objects, also regularly moved.
Artefacts and plant/animal species circulated as part of formal and informal
scientific expeditions, and bioprospecting stimulated the development of exchange networks between empire and home. This movement of material objects was often critical to the development of Western scientific knowledge
about the colonies, and it could bestow authority on the collector. These objects made their way across space, sometimes ending up in centres of accumulation and calculation such as museums, universities, and botanical gardens or
in private collections.58 Wheeler-Cuffe’s first expedition was motivated by her
desire to transport plants from their natural habitats in the field to her garden
52 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 4 August 1897, Kyaukpadoung,
53 Arnold, D. 1998. “India’s place in the tropical world, 1770–1930”, Journal of Imperial and
Commonwealth History, 26, p. 8.
54 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 4 August 1897, Kyaukpadoung.
55 While Wheeler-Cuffe regularly refers to native labourers as ‘coolies’, I will use ‘labourer/hired
labour’ except when it appears as part of a quotation directly from her correspondence.
56 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 4 August 1897, Kyaukpadoung.
57 See Driver, F. and Yeoh, B. (eds.) 2000. “Constructing the tropics: special issue”, Singapore
Journal of Tropical Geography, 21, pp. 1–91.
58 MacKenzie, J. M. 1997. The Empire of Nature: Hunting, Conservation and British Imperialism,
Manchester: Manchester University Press; Jasanoff, M. 2006. Edge of Empire: Conquest and
Collecting in the East, 1750–1850, London: Harper Perennial.
38 Colonial encounters
in Thayetmyo, but as time went on, the specimens she assembled would travel
further afield as she sent seeds and plants to England and Ireland. Moreover, as
well as gathering physical plants she would represent them in a pictorial record
that also travelled across the globe. Her early activities indicate that she was
galvanised to depart from restricted versions of femininity that would confine
her spatially to the home. With a large retinue of servants to assist managing
her domestic space, she was partly freed from having to devote disproportionate amounts of her time in the compound. From the outset, she was more attracted to the expeditionary life, travelling as her husband’s work dictated.
The most exciting discovery she made on this initial trip was a Gloriosa that
was “growing by the roadside”.59 It was Gloriosa superba, a climbing species
with spectacular red and yellow flowers, and a native of tropical southern
­Africa and tropical and temperate Asia. It was used in traditional medicine on
both continents, but all parts of the plant, especially its tubers, are extremely
poisonous.60 For Wheeler-Cuffe observing this plant in the wild, for the first
time, was a thrilling pleasure and trumped her acquaintance with the species as
a cultivated, ornamental exotic in London. To transport the plants she had
collected in the field she used a pile of old flowerpots she found and recruited
the chaprassi, the chowkidar (caretaker) of the bungalow, and about a dozen
other locals to help.61 She acknowledged that the native population all seemed
“fond of flowers and were quite pleased at my wanting to take plants home,
and most anxious to help”.62 They informed her that there was an abundant
supply of ground orchids in this area and they would collect for her the next
time she visited. She was jubilant at the prospect of accumulating new plants
and rapidly concluded that designing her garden would involve a different set
of practical and aesthetic considerations than she had practised in Britain. She
observed,
Most people in Thaytemyo go in for trying to grow home flowers, but
they don’t really do well, so I think I shall try collecting things on our
various expeditions instead, and only grow home things that really flourish and not break my heart over things that die.63
Even within a month of her arrival in Burma, Wheeler-Cuffe was keen not to
merely imitate the gardening taste she had brought with her from England but
to embrace the challenge of learning about Burma’s flora and cultivating indigenous species in her new garden. She noted that government officials were permitted to accept as gifts fruit and flowers, and she welcomed the prospect of
59 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 4 August 1897, Kyaukpadoung.
60 Jana, S. and Shekhawat, G. S. 2011. “Critical review on medicinally potent plant species:
Gloriosa superba”, Fitoterapia”, 82, pp. 293–301.
61 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 4 August 1897, Kyaukpadoung.
62 Ibid.
63 Ibid.
Family matters 39
receiving both.64 While Duncan noted in the context of the Kandyan Highlands of Ceylon that in their plant selection and garden design “the British
could create a … mimetic portrait of Britain”,65 Wheeler-Cuffe, by contrast,
seemed keen to emulate a culture of cultivation that would accommodate native species and draw on indigenous planting methods, as well as using some
species from Britain that might thrive.
After her return to Thayetmyo she dispatched to her mother seeds of what
resembled a mallow plant. This represented her first effort to send plant material across the Indian Ocean to London and would mark the start of a sustained pattern of transporting and exchanging plants between Burma and
home. While native orchids and ferns did not grow wild around the town as the
ground was too dry, they thrived on the more moist terrain on the opposite side
of the river. Some residents had them transported across the Irrawaddy to
adorn their gardens where they could provide sufficient water for them to
thrive, and she hoped to do likewise.66 Her domestic arrangements were also
taking shape. She did not have an ayah (nanny), but the sweeper’s wife carried
out chores such as cleaning her bathroom and clothes washing. This arrangement suited Charlotte as “we are out in the jungle half of our time, an ayah
would be very little use, for one could not take her as she would only add extra
expense. I prefer having an extra pony!!”.67 Clearly for the life she envisaged in
Burma an additional transport animal would be of greater value than a domestic servant. Even though she had taken her first trip with Otway into the
surrounding countryside, she did not neglect the need to co-ordinate domestic
arrangements. To that end she was transforming the interior space of their new
home and making it more comfortable with the items they had transported
from England, which included crockery purchased from Harrods and muslin
for curtain-making.68 She was making her new home habitable, deploying a
hybrid aesthetic which combined British items brought from London and locally produced furniture.
In addition to establishing their new home in the early months of residency,
she took regular rides into the immediate countryside around the compound.
The pair, for example, took a trip along the bed of a local stream which she
described as “[p]erpendicular banks over leaning with great trees and creepers
that shut out the sun and made a cool, green twilight below, and a clear stream
with a gravel bed, almost dry in places, and deep in others”.69 They went on an
early morning 16-mile ride to inspect the re-metalling of the Mindon Road
which had been underway for two months. While road maintenance was
64 Letter from CWC to Mrs. Williams, 4 August 1897, Kyaukpadoung.
65 Duncan, J. S. 1998. “Dis-orientation: on the shock of the familiar in a far-away place”, in J. S.
Duncan and D. Gregory (eds.) Writes of Passage: Reading Travel Writing, London: Routledge,
p. 154.
66 Letter from CWC to Mrs. Williams, 3 September 1897, Thayetmyo.
67 Ibid.
68 Ibid.
69 Ibid.
40 Colonial encounters
central to developing the economic potential of the colony, she noted that poor
roads were “terribly hard on the country folk and their bullock carts who have
to get on as best they can on the sides of the roads”,70 often resulting in injury
to animals. As a keen animal lover she was impressed by how the Burmese
seemed “wonderfully kind to their animals, and how the domestic animals appeared to look upon humans as ‘friends and not enemies’”.71 This reciprocal
respect between human and beast that she observed in Burmese society was in
line with her own attitudes about domestic animals. Although she kept a large
menagerie of treasured domesticated species in her household, in line with
people of her social class she was also supportive of Otway’s passion for wildfowl shooting and big-game hunting. Hunting was typically regarded as essential for the creation of a masculine sporting spirit. Underpinned by Darwinian
interpretations of masculinity, game hunting was seen as a manifestation of a
pre-ordained hierarchical order of subordinate and superordinate breeds. For
the Victorian and Edwardian officer class, in particular, hunting was recognised as a sound preparation for imperial life and warfare.72 This reflected
broader patterns of behaviour in the colonies as Woollacott notes, “Only by
being muscular, fit and skilled on the playing fields and hunting fields could the
sahib assure others of his self-discipline and his fitness to rule”.73 Despite her
fondness for animals Charlotte did not deviate from this wider view of its role
in empire-building. These first weeks in Burma provided her with an introduction to the everyday life of a PWD official’s wife, yet she was quickly developing a taste for travel with Otway, even in an occupation that was considered one
of the most masculine.
Acclimatising to Burma
As well as becoming accustomed to the social, domestic and work-related routines of her new home, Wheeler-Cuffe was also acclimatising to the temperatures. Apart from experiencing the occasional headache from the heat, she
noted that one had to adjust to a different pace of life induced by the climate.
She claimed that she had “to do things in a more leisurely way in this heat and
I find I can’t skip into my clothes in the same hurry as at home … Still I don’t
really mind it that much”.74 Europeans had long grappled with the relationships between climate, morality, and race as they colonised the non-European
70 Ibid.
71 Ibid.
72 Lorimer, J. and Whatmore, S. 2009. “After ‘the King of Beasts’: Samuel Baker and the embodied historical geographies of his elephant-hunting in mid-19th century Ceylon”, Journal of
Historical Geography, 35, pp. 668–689; Mandala, V. J. 2015. “The Raj and the paradoxes
of wildlife conservation: British attitudes and experiences”, The Historical Journal, 58, pp.
75–110; Mangan, J. A. and McKenzie, C. 2010. Militarism, Hunting, Imperialism: ‘Blooding’
the Martial Male, London: Routledge; MacKenzie, The Empire of Nature.
73 Woollacott, Gender and Empire, p. 88.
74 Letter from CWC to Mrs. Williams, 25 September 1897, Thayetmyo.
Family matters 41
world. The tropics “became a Western way of defining something environmentally and culturally distinct from European”.75 Climate in particular contributed to the development of a set of imaginary geographies about the tropical
world, and its potential to arrest human development. Pronouncements about
the precise role of climate and climatic zones in determining human advancement, however, varied spatially and historically. The narrative hermeneutic was
polyvocal,76 and, as Duncan noted in the context of the nineteenth-century
Kandyan Highlands, writers “recognised the divergence of this place from the
archetypal tropics”.77 From versions of climatic determinism which deemed
that hot tropical environments were sites of lethargy, pestilence, and retarded
human development,78 to positive interpretations of the tropics as the original
sites of Paradisical or Edenic cultures,79 climate proved to be an enduring
pre-occupation for imperial strategists and colonial settlers, and these debates
intersected with ideas of race and gender.80 For Wheeler-Cuffe, her experience
of this new climate seemed to be one of adjustment rather than anxiety; she
was confident in her capacity to adapt to the experience of the tropical sun.81
Moreover, compensation for enduring the high temperatures was provided by
the extraordinary shapes and colours produced by certain weather conditions
in tropical climates.82 She witnessed a “beautiful [storm] on the other side of
the river … the great boiling masses of clouds were still tinged with crimson
from the sunset while through and around them the lightening darted like fiery
snakes”.83 Such tropical monsoons intrigued Burma’s new resident and did not
induce in her fear or dismay. Indeed, echoing the sentiments of scientists such
as Darwin, who was endeared by tropical nature, Wheeler-Cuffe’s initial response to her new life was one of elation and joy.84
75 Arnold, “India’s place in the tropical world”, p. 2.
76 Livingstone, “Tropical hermeneutics”.
77 Duncan, J. S. 2000. “The struggle to be temperate: climate and ‘moral masculinity’ in mid-nineteenth century Ceylon”, Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 21, p. 46.
78 For an overview of some of these debates about climatic determinism see Glacken, C. 1967.
Traces on the Rhodian Shore: Nature and Culture in Western Thought from Ancient Times to the
End of the Eighteenth Century, Berkeley: University of California Press.
79 Grove, R. H. 1995. Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the
Origins of Environmentalism, 1600–1860, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
80 See Arnold, The Tropics; Livingstone, D. N. 1991. “The moral discourse of climate: historical
considerations on race, place and virtue”, Journal of Historical Geography, 17, pp. 413–434;
Livingstone, “Tropical climate and moral hygiene”; McClintock, A. 1995. Imperial Leather:
Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Context, London: Routledge Pratt, Imperial Eyes;
Stepan, Picturing Tropical Nature.
81 Kennedy, “The Perils of the Midday Sun”.
82 Johnson, N. C. 2020. “Illustrating nature: exploration, natural history, and the travels of
Charlotte Wheeler-Cuffe in Burma”, in R. J. Mayhew and C. W. J. Withers (eds.) Geographies
of Knowledge: Science, Scale, and Spatiality in the Nineteenth Century, Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins Press, pp. 187–214.
83 Letter from CWC to Mrs. Williams, September 25 1897, Thayetmyo.
84 Martins, L. 2000. “A naturalists vision of the tropics: Charles Darwin and the Brazilian landscape”, Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 21, pp. 19–33.
42 Colonial encounters
As well as exploring the district for which her husband was responsible, she
also began deepening her acquaintance with the other colonial residents during the initial months of settlement. She was well aware of the importance of
establishing connections and friendships among the local community, and of
rapidly coming to terms with the social protocols of colonial society. She noted
how residents in Thayetmyo adapted to the climate by receiving no visitors
during the hottest period in the middle of the day.85 Having arrived during the
hot season, by late September the rainy season had begun and she experienced
for the first time the intensity of tropical downpours, and the size of the rain
droplets fascinated her. Otway acknowledged her quick adjustment to life in
Burma, commenting that she “delights in jungle life and is the best wife a Public Works Dept Officer could wish for”.86 Moreover he also confirmed that she
loved the heat “unlike most people who growl all day and all night”87 and that,
even within the first few months, her “sketchbook [w]as growing daily”.88 While
collecting physical specimens was key to the development of botanical knowledge, visual practices like sketching, cartography, and photography were also
important means for gaining knowledge of and representing the natural history of the place. Such visual media could ideologically and physically travel in
the material form through the sketchbook, map, or printed photograph.89
Wheeler-Cuffe recognised the value of these representations and once she completed a sketchbook, she often sent it to London to her mother.
While she began cultivating good social relations with other residents in the
colony, she also spent time laying the foundations for her new garden. Providing a space in which to grow and experiment with plants she collected during
expeditions was vital for developing an understanding of how tropical species
responded under domesticated circumstances. For instance, she removed a
henhouse at the bottom of their property and used the materials to build a
trellis to screen the back of the plot. She planted a border of phlox ‘drummondii’, petunias, verbenas, and zinnias which “grow wild here in the fields, like
poppies at home”.90 She deepened connections with the local community, especially those who shared her passion for horticulture and botany. She dined with
the Corys – the chaplain and his wife – who were “keen on science in general
and natural history in particular”.91 She went “out sketching a couple of
times”92 with Mrs Cory who had a great interest in Burma’s flora and fauna.
The Corys had spent six years stationed in Madagascar and they had “lovely
85 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 25 September 1897, Thayetmyo.
86 Letter from OWC to Mrs. Williams, 24 October 1897, Rangoon.
87 Ibid.
88 Ibid.
89 Davidson, K. 2017. Photography, Natural History and the Nineteenth-Century Museum:
Exchanging Views of Empire, London: Taylor and Francis.
90 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 5 November 1897, Thayetmyo.
91 Ibid.
92 Letter from CWC to Mrs. Williams, 27 November 1897, Thayetmyo.
Family matters 43
collections of the birds and butterflies they made themselves”.93 It was fortuitous that she quickly met a couple with whom she had common scientific interests. As well as interacting with the English population though, Wheeler-Cuffe
was “beginning to get along very well with the Burmese and can understand a
great deal – quite enough to ask my way in the jungle”.94 She would gradually
gain fluency in Burmese and would also learn Hindustani. Consequently, she
did not have to rely on translators, a practice which was common among travel
writers and officially sponsored scientific expeditions of Britain’s overseas
colonies.95
She also used other means in which to become better acquainted with other
colonial settlers. As an Anglican churchgoer, she admired the interior of their
local chapel and was keen to assist in its decoration for services. She also began
to ingratiate herself with the rest of the community by becoming the polo stick
mender, a sport in which Otway enthusiastically participated. Such roles helped
her to become part of the wider colonial circle while at the same time maintaining her own personal passions. She expanded her menagerie of animals, and by
late November the household had four ponies, four dogs, and two cats. Her
garden was progressing with the chrysanthemums doing “rather well here
though there are only two kinds that I ever see, small white and yellow”.96
Within another month she surmised that it would be “really worth looking
at”.97 Wheeler-Cuffe was a keen photographer and developed her own photographs, although most of her photographic record related to family subjects.98
She used pencil sketches and watercolours, rather than photographs to capture
the flora she collected in the field, and the landscapes she encountered while
travelling.
In December of their first year the Superintendent Engineer arrived on an
inspection visit of the district. This was the first occasion in which Charlotte
would witness first-hand the official oversight of Otway’s department. She
was anxious about the inspection, claiming that “the office is in an awful state –
incompetent clerks, important papers missing – one clerk on the drink, another
on sick leave, and everything in a muddle”.99 The management of empire was
a complex affair and Charlotte was immediately inclined to attribute any
93 Ibid.
94 Ibid.
95 See Hansen, P. H. 1999. “Partners: guides and sherpas in the Alps and Himalayas, 1850s-1950s”,
in J. Elsner and J.-P. Rubiés (eds.) Voyages and Visions: Towards a Cultural History of Travel,
London: Reaktion Books, pp. 210–231; Gribbin, M. and Gribbin, J. 2008. Flower Hunters,
Oxford: Oxford University Press; Driver, F. 2013. “Hidden histories made visible? reflections
on a geographical exhibition”, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 38, pp.
420–435. Konishi, S., Nugent, M. and Shellam, T. (eds.) 2015. Indigenous Intermediaries: New
Perspectives on Exploration Archives, Canberra: Australian University Press.
96 Letter from CWC to Mrs. Williams, 27 November 1897, Thayetmyo.
97 Ibid.
98 Ibid.
99 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 11 December 1897, Thayetmyo.
44 Colonial encounters
shortcomings in the administration of the district to the unreliability of subordinate local labour rather than any inefficiencies among the ruling white, colonial officials. As it turned out her anxieties were ill-founded and the visit passed
off without difficulty. They spent their first Christmas without any worries and
mingled with the Thayetmyo community, where they attended the horse races
and entered one of their ponies into a competition.100 In a Christmas letter to
her father, Charlotte enthused that she liked “the life out here very much,
though just this week there has been rather more going on than I feel at all inclined for. But in a small community like this one cannot hold aloof without
being selfish”.101 There was a balancing act to be struck between convivially
interacting with the other colonial families and the women in particular, whose
preoccupations often centred on the domestic social space, and Wheeler-Cuffe’s
desire to be outside of the community on expedition.
Conclusion
The transition of moving from Britain to Burma proved relatively smooth for
the newly married couple. Firstly, Charlotte and Otway shared a common social background and a friendship that had evolved since childhood. The fact
that both families also had strong ancestral and family links to Ireland provided an additional mutual cultural history from which they could both draw.
Secondly, Charlotte’s appetite for painting and her interest in the natural world
had developed from a young age, and although she does not appear to have
had much formal artistic training, her skills at drawing were being developed
especially in her early sketches of the Irish landscape. Consequently, following
her marriage to Otway, the prospect of spending their lives in Burma was welcomed as an exciting opportunity to explore the natural history of an unfamiliar place. Thirdly, Charlotte adapted quickly to her new life overseas. Despite
Western images of tropics which often constructed them as spaces of lassitude
and pathosis, especially unfitting to the female constitution, Charlotte was expressly energised by her initial encounter with Thayetmyo. The bountifulness
of the landscape impressed her and the first short expeditions she undertook
yielded an abundance of interesting flora that appealed to her thirst for botanical knowledge. While the temperatures were high, the climate did not appear
to negatively impact on Wheeler-Cuffe. She quickly adapted to the routines
practised under hot conditions. Fourthly, while she engaged positively with the
colonial community and began to develop relationships through the local
church and other institutions in Thayeymyo, she also strayed from the more
typical gendered activities practised by colonial wives. Through accompanying
her husband into the quintessentially masculine space of transport engineering, she diverged from tradition. With no children and a considerable number
of servants to assist in regulating the domestic sphere, she did not find it
100 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 1 January 1898, Thayetmyo.
101 Letter from CWC to Mr Williams, 31 December 1897, Thayetmyo.
Family matters 45
difficult to eschew conventional gender roles and carve out a space to pursue
her scientific interests. While she did not totally neglect the etiquette governing
social interactions among the white, female population, she tried to widen the
arc of femininity so as to embrace her ambition for travel. Fifth, she began to
establish networks of connectivity between Burma and Britain. While the
lands around Thayetmyo might provide inspiration for her artistic creativity,
plant hunting and gardening, the materials required to fulfil these passion often came from London. For instance, during her first Christmas she dispatched
an order for a new sketchbook to be sent from:
Bowdens (between Harveys and Harrods) …they are in a solid block,
bound so that when separated they remain in the book. They are covered
in brown Holland, with a place for a pencil … It ought to be packed in
tin foil or oiled paper, to prevent getting mildewed on the journey.102
Over the coming years regular shipments of sketching equipment, domestic
objects, and gardening items travelled across the Indian Ocean to Burma, while
correspondence, paintings, plants, seeds, and field notes reciprocally travelled
in the opposite direction. The infrastructure enabling this smooth circulation
of objects and information – trains, steamships, telegraphy – were all significant agents in the general performance and management of empire,103 and were
hugely important in Wheeler-Cuffe’s efforts to document, record, assemble,
and represent Burma’s botany. Finally, during the first months of residence
Charlotte set about engaging with the indigenous population on whom she
would come to rely heavily to expedite travel, manage her household, and provide knowledge about the plant life of the colony. Her first action to this end
was to begin to learn the Burmese language.
102 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 8 January 1898, Thayetmyo.
103 Spiers, E. 2015. Engines for Empire: The Victorian Army and Its Use of Railways, Manchester:
Manchester University Press; Burgess, D. R. 2016. Engines of Empire: Steamships and the
Victorian Imagination, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press; Anim-Addo, A. 2014. “‘The
great event of the fortnight’: steamship rhythms and colonial communications”, Mobilities,
9, pp. 369–383.
3
Encountering the tropics,
1898–1899
Geopolitical context
By the time the Wheeler-Cuffes arrived in Burma, the expansion of territory
under direct British rule had been consolidated. After three successive
­Anglo-Burmese wars the country had effectively been integrated as a province
of British India. After huge expense and loss of life on both sides, the first
­Anglo-Burmese War (1824–1826) ended in Britain achieving a decisive victory
and gaining control of Assam, Manipur, Arakan, and Tenasserim.1 By the conclusion of the second Anglo-Burmese War (1852–1853) all of Lower Burma
was annexed by the British from the Konbaung dynasty, and this ensured that
the sea outlet at Rangoon and the rich paddy fields of the Irrawaddy Delta were
now under colonial jurisdiction. The potential for the exploitation of timber
resources was also enhanced. The third Anglo-Burmese War (1885) further consolidated imperial authority, with the annexation of Upper Burma and the deposition of the Burmese king Thibaw Min. Anti-colonial resistance in the region
persisted, however, well into the late 1890s. Nonetheless, British and E
­ uropean
merchants and trading companies in Lower Burma now obtained freer trade
arrangements and easier access to the rich natural resources and trading routes
of Upper Burma. This typically resulted, on the ground, in forms of indirect
rule, rather than fully incorporated, colonial control of Upper Burma. It also
occasioned the exile of the last Burmese king from the old capital of Mandalay
to India.2 The royal palace in the city was abandoned and some of its
­buildings transformed into an Anglican chapel and a social club, the ­Upper
Burma Club. Rangoon became the administrative capital of the territory and
1 Blackburn, T. 2009. The Defeat of Ava: The First Anglo-Burmese War, 1824-26. New Delhi:
A.P.H. Publishing; Maung, H. A. 1967. A History of Burma, New York: Columbia University
Press; Cady, J. F. 1958. A History of Modern Burma, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 67–124.
2 Charney, M. W. 2006. Powerful Learning: Buddhist Literati and the Throne in Burma’s Last Dynasty, 1752–1885, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; Jones, M. W. D. 1989. “A war of
lost footsteps: a re-assessment of the third Burmese War, 1885-1896”, Bulletin of the Military
Historical Society, 157, pp. 36–40; Beckett, I. W. F. 2021. “The third Anglo-Burmese War and
the pacification of Burma, 1995-1895”, in S. M. Miller, (ed.) Queen Victoria’s Wars: British Military Campaigns, 1857–1902, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 220–239.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003157595-4
Encountering the tropics
47
reinforced British interests in Lower Burma. The political geography of the colony transformed as power shifted from the epicentre of Burmese authority in
Mandalay to the centre of British authority in the port city of Rangoon, and
this shaped the spatialities of colonial life by the end of the nineteenth century.
While the colony was now governed under the stewardship of a Lieutenant-Governor, British officials never created a state apparatus unique to Burma
but transferred many forms of governance and administration straight from
British India.3 Local resistance persisted, however, particularly along the long
frontier territories. Despite the widening arc of British influence, Burma has
been characterised as a fragile state where colonial power was contingent and
partial.4 Moreover, misconduct, corruption, and disorder have been integrated
into the analyses of how the colonial state was fashioned and where it was “not
simply a ‘thin white line’ of British officials and their coercive institutions, nor
was it a homogenous, wilful historical actor”.5 The vast and highly lucrative
rice cultivation regions of the Irrawaddy Delta made it an agricultural frontier
incomparable to any other part of South-East Asia. Yet even here the colonial
state operated somewhat opaquely.6 There was significant growth in Rangoon
as a processing port and railway centre after the third Anglo-Burmese war,7 yet
Lord Dufferin, Governor-General of India, proposed that the newly expanded
colony adopt the “simplest and cheapest system of administration”.8 Native
officials were to carry out the routine, day-to-day administrative roles, while
British administrators were to be responsible for the more general management of the colony. Even by 1900 this meant that the colonial government remained somewhat distant and remote from the local populations, and authority
was precarious. High-ranking officials mostly resided in district towns, only
occasionally visiting the surrounding countryside while the vast majority of
quotidian visible state activities “were performed by predominantly Burmese
and Indian subordinate officials”.9 It was within this geopolitical context that
Otway Wheeler-Cuffe was tasked with developing, maintaining, and enhancing Burma’s transport infrastructure, and where Charlotte would develop the
routines of everyday life as the wife of a colonial administrator. With Otway
occupying a mid-ranking post as a district engineer, the Wheeler-Cuffes held
an intermediate position between the upper echelons of British imperial authority and the native population over which they ruled. The nature of Otway’s
3 Charney, M. W. 2009. A History of Modern Burma, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press;
Taylor, The State of Myanmar.
4 Callanan “State formation in the shadow of the Raj” p. 516.
5 Saha, Law, Disorder and the Colonial State, p. 128.
6 Adas, M. 1974. The Burma Delta: Economic Development and Social Change as an Asian Rice
Frontier, 1852–1941, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
7 Furnivall, J. 1957. An Introduction to the Political Economy of Burma, Rangoon: Peoples’ Literature Committee and House.
8 Quoted in Maxim, S. H. 1992. The Resemblance in External Appearance: The Colonial Project in
Kuala Lumpur and Rangoon. PhD Dissertation, Cornell University, p. 5.
9 Saha, Law, Disorder and the Colonial State, p. 12.
48 Colonial encounters
work necessitated frequent visits into the Burmese countryside, and brought
him into regular, direct contact with the native population. The fact that Charlotte accompanied him on these trips, at every available opportunity, also connected her more intimately and visibly with people beyond her domestic staff.
The delicate and mutable nature of colonial jurisdiction on the ground may
have facilitated, to some degree, Charlotte’s capacity to explore the territory
freely, relatively unconstrained by the social patterns that might have prevailed
in more tightly regulated British colonies.
Since her arrival a few months earlier she had already confronted the orthodoxy of “women’s restricted mobility”,10 by engaging directly with her husband’s work and undertaking expeditions with him, as well as managing the
more intimate geographies of town life. In the initial year of settlement the
Wheeler-Cuffes made numerous expeditions, especially west of Thayetmyo towards the town of Mindon and the Arakan Yoma mountain range which
stretched between the Irrawaddy River and the Bay of Bengal. Charlotte was
impressed by the warm reception with which she was greeted by colonial officials and was “wonderfully struck and gratified by the kind way all of the head
of departments whom I have met hitherto have received me”.11 She quickly
became acquainted with all the principal PWD personnel and their spouses.
The fact that her cousin Frank was also serving in Burma further facilitated
the ease with which she became known to key administrators. As an unofficial
assistant to Otway, her cartographic and topographical drawing skills were
quickly recognised, and this shielded her from any potential criticism of her
presence during inspection trips. The fact that she also enthusiastically began
to learn Burmese so she could communicate effectively with local labour when
she was in the field, as well as in the domestic sphere, also aided in the transition to becoming a regular fieldworker.12
For women living in the colonies who did not enjoy independent wealth or
the imprimatur of a prestigious male relative, entering into the world of scientific collecting was, on the one hand, more informal and non-professional,
while, on the other, it allowed women to escape some of the more rigid codes of
late-Victorian gender roles in Britain.13 By assisting her husband’s road-building work, at a time when the colonial government was committed to the development of the colony’s infrastructure,14 Wheeler-Cuffe was charting a path
where she could pursue her interest in botany in the field while also playing an
10 Guelke, J. K. and Morin, M. M. 2001. “Gender, nature, empire: women naturalists in nineteenth-century British travel writing”, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 26,
p. 312.
11 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 5 November 1897, Thayetmyo.
12 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 27 November 1897, Thayetmyo.
13 See for instance, Cooper, F. and Stoler, A. L. (eds.) 1997. Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures
in a Bourgeois World, Berkeley: University of California Press; Cohn, B. 1996. Colonialism and
Its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India, Princeton: Princeton University Press; Wolf, E.
1982. Europe and the People without History, Berkeley: University of California Press.
14 Ikeya, C. 2011. Refiguring Women: Colonialism and Modernity in Burma, Honolulu: University
of Hawaii Press.
Encountering the tropics
49
‘unofficial’ role in the formal advancement of imperial interests. This chapter
will focus on Wheeler-Cuffe’s early life in Burma from 1898 to 1900 as she increasingly engaged in medium-range expeditions with her husband, while also
fostering the more gendered practices of everyday life that occupied women
who stayed within the more bounded spaces of the colonial community.15 I will
consider how her attitudes to the native population evolved; what her views of
the relationships between social class and racialised identities were articulated;
and how she managed her life as a colonial wife responsible for the ordering
and regulation of the domestic sphere, while exercising wider ambitions to extend and produce botanical knowledge through expeditionary practices.
A helping hand: expeditions at work
After their first Christmas, Charlotte accompanied Otway on a trip to a very
out-of-the-way place north of Mindon, to choose a site for a new police post:
“It is beautiful scenery up there, almost in the Arakan Mountains, but there
are no roads, so one can only go there during the dry weather when the jungle
tracks are passable”.16 The challenges of such terrain never deterred her from
engaging in Otway’s work. They were accompanied by the Corys part of the
way to Myothet, about 24 miles from Thayetmyo on the western frontier. After
departing from the Corys they “rode along a frontier road all day – it is a beautiful bit of country and an interesting bit of road, winding rather cleverly
through the hills”.17 They rested for lunch in the small village of Sangyi,
perched on the ridge of a hill. She declared that the locals were “such intelligent peasant people”18 who brought them grass and water for their ponies and
plantains and eggs for lunch. During their stop she completed a sketch of the
village, but as they sought to make rapid progress, they paid locals to prepare
breakfast and other meals in advance of their arrival at each resting post. Such
plans did not always run smoothly in practice, however, and when they arrived
at their next pit stop there were no carts or servants ahead of them. They soon
realised that the map they were using to navigate was inaccurate and had taken
them on a route three miles east of their desired destination. Such cartographic
mistakes quickly persuaded them of the advantages of employing local guides,
rather than solely relying on official maps. The role of native guides and their
expertise has only been recently receiving acknowledgement in the literature on
non-European scientific exploration. As McCormack has documented in the
case of Alfred Russel Wallace’s travels to the islands of South-East Asia, he
often hired “several local people as guides and porters, and his assistants, notably, helped with hunting and preserving collections. While the image of the
15 Eyles, J. 1989. “The geography of everyday life”, in D. Gregory and R. Walford, (eds.) Horizons
in Human Geography, London: Palgrave, pp. 102–117; Holloway, L. and Hubbard, P. 2001.
People and Place: The Extraordinary Geographies of Everyday Life, London: Routledge.
16 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 1 January 1898, Thayetmyo.
17 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 25 January 1898, Myothet.
18 Ibid.
50 Colonial encounters
solitary traveller provided a romantic literary device, it was no more than a
trope”.19 In Burma too local assistants would prove critical and when they arrived at their overnight destination at Shandatgyi the advance party were already in place. Charlotte witnessed her first solar eclipse and she commented
that she
saw it very well … looking like a fat crescent, [but] a godsend to us, having to ride all through the middle of the day through country where
though there were trees, there was little or no shade.20
She enjoyed this excursion despite the inaccuracies of the maps they had at
their disposal. This early experience partially challenged her confidence in the
superiority of Western cartography over the generational and experiential
knowledge of the terrain built up by the native population.21 She also left with
the impression that travelling was safe as they “always find the people very civil
and easy to get on with, and ready to bring us supplies at every village”.22 This
perception about the safety of travelling in remote areas contrasted with evidence which suggested that the “Burma Delta was, without question, a disorderly place at the turn of the twentieth century; abuses of power were common
among subordinate state employees and the recorded crime levels were among
the highest in British India”.23 Thus while official reports indicated that there
were high levels of criminal activity, during her time on expeditions in Burma
she rarely expressed any concern about her personal safety. While she did encounter petty theft at the local scale among her household staff, and did comment, from time to time, on larger expressions of political dissent among
Burma’s various ethnic groups, especially in the frontier regions of Upper
Burma, she never equated these acts of insubordination with any direct threat
to her as a representative of white, imperial authority.
When she returned from the trip a new sketchbook and violet seeds from
England had arrived. Although she could source some material she needed
locally she also regularly requested goods to be sent from home, including domestic items such as white darning cotton, half-inch white elastic, dress bones,
and white cotton gloves for riding.24 She asked for seeds from London, including the Nicotiana affinis, the white tobacco plant, which she surmised “would
do splendidly here”.25 She was gradually constructing a domestic world centred
around her garden and ensuring goods that would enhance the smooth running of her household were sourced from England and would ultimately help
facilitate her ambition to travel. To that end she employed a woman to do the
19 McCormack, C. 2017. “Collection and discovery: indigenous guides and Alfred Russel Wallace
in South-East Asia, 1854-1862”, Journal of Indian Ocean World Studies, 1, p. 117.
20 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 25 January 1898, Myothet.
21 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 25 January 1898, Myothet.
22 Letter from CWC to Mr Williams, 5 February 1898, Thayetmyo.
23 Saha, Law, Disorder and the Colonial State, p. 1.
24 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 26 February 1898, Thayetmyo.
25 Ibid.
Encountering the tropics
51
considerable amount of sewing and mending required by herself and her staff.
While her domestic labour was male, female labour was occasionally hired for
cleaning tasks and clothing repairs. She also expanded her herd of ponies to six
by purchasing a new bay, at a cost of 150 rupees.26
In early March she undertook a 5-day expedition with Otway to the Mindon Road area, covering around 107 miles in total. The object of the trip was
to trace the old survey for the Mindon Road beyond Kyaukgyi and establish
the suitability of the route. The original survey was undertaken in 1881, and
while the proposal had been sanctioned, it was never pursued due to lack of
funding. Otway’s task was to re-survey the proposed route and provide a new
estimate. She observed that it was extremely difficult territory in which to find
a line for a road as there was a “jumble of hills and nullahs [gully/ravine] crossing hither and tither and cut up in every direction”.27 There were a few ridges
where a road might be built, she thought, but they were difficult to access due
to their high, perpendicular slopes. They trekked around the district attempting to follow the original surveyed area, but the task was difficult because the
route was heavily overgrown. They passed through what she described as
‘queer’ little villages, where she was often the object of local fascination. While
Burmese men rode, she claimed that “no Burman woman ever does”,28 and
thus, witnessing a white woman on horseback was a source of amusement to
the native population. Her pony, Monkey, was of a skittish temperament so
she usually rode at the front of the expedition party. The beast’s regular dancing made it an even more entertaining spectacle for the locals to witness. Occasionally she spent time away from Otway to sketch, but by and large, she
accompanied him even through the steepest and most inaccessible parts of the
route. As well as seeing giant trees and bamboos, she encountered gibbons and
flocks of monkeys “chattering and squealing”.29 As they attempted to verify
the old plan for the road they sought out benchmarks that had been placed on
trees. Though the trek was physically demanding, Charlotte was, after a few
hours’ sleep, “quite ready for another ride to hunt up more of the survey
track”.30 After a week on the road they returned to Thayetmyo, and although
she did not appear to collect any new plants, she did make detailed field notes
about the geography of the region to help with Otway’s preparation of his final
report.31 Taking notes in the field had long been a preoccupation of travellers,
surveyors, and explorers, and the Royal Geographical Society’s advisory text
Hints to Travellers, first published in the mid-nineteenth century, provided
published guidance on how to make observations and records.32 Accurate notes
of field sites were important, as Bourguet reminds us, because of the “twin
26 Ibid.
27 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 24 March 1898, Thayetmyo.
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid.
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid.
32 Driver, F. 2000. Geography Militant: Cultures of Exploration and Empire, Oxford:
Wiley-Blackwell.
52 Colonial encounters
dangers of an unruly observation in the field and an unreliable memory”.33 A
disciplined hand at drawing and a keen eye to record the most useful information were important skills among both travellers and colonial engineers.34 Otway trusted Charlotte’s observation and record-keeping abilities, and she
regularly provided him with field notes and sketches. Even at this early stage
she was beginning to play an important, if unofficial, role in the engineering
and surveying work carried out by Otway and the PWD.
Travelling supplies: from Britain to Burma
Historians of empire have long studied the movement of goods and commodities across the globe, especially the long-distant trade of commercial products
like cotton, tobacco, rubber, spices, and rice,35 and the operation of imperial
trading companies like the United East India Company (Dutch) and the British East India Company.36 Yet there has been rather less attention paid to the
quotidian movement of small, seemingly inconsequential, everyday items,
whose mobility was significant for the effective and comfortable conduct of
administration among officials and their families living in the colonies.37 Supplies were regularly delivered from England at Charlotte’s request, while she
sent many botanical specimens and paintings home. In her first year she placed
large orders for goods that would enhance her domestic arrangements, the garden, and travel. These included, for instance, calico lace for petticoats and muslin for blouses; side combs and hairnets; and flower and vegetable seeds,
including larkspur, dianthus, phlox, balsam, nicotiana, cabbage, parsley, celery,
and cauliflower for her garden. She requested “a few cheap good editions of
novels for jungle reading”.38 She ordered canned and bottled food, including
figs, cherries, greengages, apricots, and meats. For repair work she requested
balls of strong and fine twine and various chemical compounds such as sulphur, glycerine, calamine, and oxide of zinc. She requested weighing scales as a
wedding gift and for her ponies she ordered leather straps and harnesses;
leather and calfskin for mending riding equipment; and a screw wrench. For
her servants she ordered 12 ‘cheap’ cardigans and for correspondence she ordered ‘thinnish’ grey writing paper with envelopes to match. This long list of
goods, indicative of the range of products she imported to Burma to make her
33 Bourguet, M.-N. 2010. “A portable world: the notebooks of European travellers eighteenth to
nineteenth centuries”, Intellectual History Review, 20, p. 381.
34 Withers, C. W. J. and Keighren, I. M. 2011. “Travels into print: authoring, editing and narratives
of travel and exploration, c 1815-c1857”, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers,
36, pp. 560–573.
35 Riello, G. 2013. Cotton: The Fabric that Made the Modern World, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
36 Ogborn, M. 2007. Indian Ink: Script and Print in the Making of the English East India Company,
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
37 Lambert and Merriman, Empire and Mobility.
38 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 1 April 1898, Thayetmyo.
Encountering the tropics
53
domestic life comfortable, accommodate expeditions, and treat illness,39 reinforces the significance of the wider circulation of everyday items between colonial residents and their homelands. The threat of tropical disease and the
capacity of white Europeans to acclimatise to a tropical climate had been a
regular preoccupation of scientists, planners, and administrators at the height
of empire.40 The Wheeler-Cuffes shared these anxieties, and in May 1898 Charlotte reported the presence of cholera in Thayetymyo. She assured her mother
that it was not an epidemic and that the recent rains should eliminate the likelihood of infection. In the case of a fatality of a colonial official she reported
that it was Otway’s responsibility to ensure that the burial ground was “forever
properly looked after by the PWD”.41
As Charlotte had goods sent from Britain to make living in the colonies
more agreeable, she and Otway also spent time consolidating good social relations among Thayetmyo’s residents. To that end they both rode “every morning and drive in the evening, and O plays polo two or three times a week, so
they are not often idle”.42 She purchased a Singer sewing machine that she
used, among other things, to make all the flags for the local racecourse.43 She
was keen to assimilate into the cultural activities of the town despite spending
a considerable amount of time away from home. As the wet season arrived she
welcomed the new environmental experience. She declared that the difference
of temperature caused by the rain
was extraordinary! Yesterday at this time (1 pm) it was 101 and now only
78! One can positively see the things growing. All my plants are out having their poor dusty faces washed…Showers as a rule, do more harm
than good as they just moisten things enough to let the tremendous heat
draw any poison there may be into the air but a deluge like this is perfect.44
Thayetmyo, which experienced annual precipitation of about 40 inches, contrasted with far higher and more unpleasant 100 inches of yearly rainfall in
Rangoon and made the location suitable for her gardening ambitions.
39 Ibid.
40 See for example: Seth, S. 2018. Difference and Disease: Medicine, Race and the EighteenthCentury British Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Downs, J. 2021. Maladies of
Empire: How Slavery, Imperialism, and War Transformed Medicine, Cambridge, MA: Belknap
Press; Curtin, P. D. 1998. Disease and Empire: The Health of European Troops in the Conquest
of Africa, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Anderson, W. 1996. “Race and acclimatization in colonial Medicine”, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 70, pp. 62–67; Harrison, M.
1996. “‘The tender frame of man’: disease, climate, and racial difference in India and the West
Indies, 1760-1860”, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 70, pp. 68–93; Livingstone, “The moral
discourse of climate”.
41 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 6 May 1898, Thayetmyo.
42 Ibid.
43 Ibid.
44 Ibid.
54 Colonial encounters
Back on the road: attitudes towards the native population
Back on the road in late May, they travelled to Tawmôn on the Western Frontier road, about 12 miles from Thayetmyo. She sent a map of the area to her
mother, which had been produced by an earlier executive engineer, but remarked that she must try to find “a better map of this district. How anyone
who knew the country at all … could have made a map so obviously wrong, I
can’t think. But even the R.E. [Royal Engineers] survey isn’t correct in many
places”.45 They were going to inspect two proposed irrigation projects that had
never come to fruition. The objective was to assess the feasibility of irrigating
a large fertile area to increase crop yields from one to two per annum. Intensifying agricultural production in the Irrawaddy Delta was a key public policy
priority. She collected plants, including a type of white lily similar to an
agapanthus but with a shorter stem and larger, spidery flowers with red stamens. The root bulb was coconut size and she had “it in a basket full of earth
and it seems quite happy”.46 During the trip they learned that a local village
had burned down, because of children playing with matches. She deduced that
the Burmese “are the queerest people in that way … They are very like children
and never think of the consequences”.47 Infantilising the native population was
often a trope of colonial discourse, and Wheeler-Cuffe was inclined to reproduce this type of caricature. Her view was reinforced by the following story
Otway had told her. A rice crop had not been properly harvested because the
local people attended a big pagoda festival in Mindon. This struck her as an
illustration of the irresponsibility of the native mind, rather than the community’s commitment to a religious ritual. Yet colonial officials regularly engaged
in events like horse racing, polo matches, and game shooting, which she never
considered ill-judged expenditures of time. Moreover, on this trip she regarded
the ploughs used by locals as rudimentary, capable of only scratching the surface of the soil and representing a “most comical arrangement”.48 Yet she was
compelled to acknowledge that the government’s introduction of Western deep
ploughs had proved inefficient and unproductive as the subsoil was too soft for
heavy equipment. The rudimentary ploughs she disparaged were, in fact, the
more rational tools for rice cultivation in this region than the modern ones
used in Western agriculture. She admired the native skills displayed in the terracing of the paddy fields with “each as level as a bowling green”,49 and ideally
designed for efficient irrigation. Her attitude towards indigenous knowledge
and social practices was contradictory, at times complimentary while also patronising and underpinned by a sense of imperial superiority.
As well as passing judgement on the behaviour of the Burmese rural population Wheeler-Cuffe encountered on her travels, she could also, on occasion,
45 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 19 May 1898, Tawmôn.
46 Ibid.
47 Ibid.
48 Ibid.
49 Ibid.
Encountering the tropics
55
adopt a racialised lens with regard to townspeople. She claimed Peters, a Madras Eurasian living in Thayetmyo, was fond of alcohol and was “a Eurasian
nominally, but as black as he can be. It is curious how as a rule Eurasians seem
to inherit the worst qualities of both races, but the Burman Eurasian seems a
degree better”.50 Seeing Peters through the prism of skin colour was not untypical in British India. The position of Eurasians within the overall British Raj
was a notable feature of colonial discourse. Their ambivalent situation, both
‘racially’ and culturally, was a source of continual anxiety and judgement
among white colonial settlers. There was a relatively high proportion of ‘mixed’
relationships in Burma, partly due to the large number of male migrants from
South Asia who settled in the Irrawaddy Delta, as well as the number of single
European men on colonial service. Inevitably, liaisons with local women developed and resulted in Eurasian and Indo-Burmese offspring. It is estimated that
there were 9,974 Eurasians and 20,423 Indo-Burmese in Burma in 1900. Three
decades later this had increased to 19,200 and 182,166, respectively. There was
also a significant Sino-Burmese population, but their numbers were not recorded in the Census.51 The hybrid position of these groups within British India more generally, and in Burma in particular, was an important feature in the
articulation of racial and class hierarchies. Wheeler-Cuffe’s attitude towards
the Eurasian population would come into even sharper focus when it impinged
on her immediate family life (Chapter 4).
By her own accounts Charlotte seemed to be integrating well into married,
colonial life, and Otway confirmed this in a letter to her mother. He declared,
[I]f Shadow’s contentment equals my own then you can rest assured that
we are both happy and that marriage is not a failure in our case at any
rate. The life seems to suit Shadow in a wonderful way and in spite of all
the jungle life we have had neither of us have been sick or sorry at all – in
fact never been better in our lives.52
The main challenge that life in the tropics presented, in his view, was the climate and Charlotte was holding up well.53 She rarely complained about the
weather, apart from its impact on her plants, and in this respect she differed
from the experience of other white women in the tropics. Lady Lucretia West,
for instance, the wife of a high-ranking colonial aristocrat in Bombay in the
early nineteenth century, was endlessly bothered by the climate. Her diaries
record that if the weather was hot she remained entirely indoors and resisted
all social visits and evening entertainment.54 Rather than acclimatising to the
50 Ibid.
51 Ikeya, Refiguring Women.
52 Letter from OWC to Mrs Williams, 19 May 1898, Tawmôn.
53 Ibid.
54 Adamson, G. 2012. “‘The languor of the hot weather’: everyday perspectives on weather and
climate in colonial Bombay, 1919-1828”, Journal of Historical Geography, 38, pp. 143–154.
56 Colonial encounters
heat, her languor and torpor increased over time to the point where she endlessly dwelt on “nostalgic memories of the English climate”.55 Charlotte embraced the warm climate and rarely had it curtail her day-to-day activities.
Otway was already readily recognising the key role that Charlotte was playing in assisting his engineering work and ultimately in the administration of
Burma. The couple began lessons in Hindustani, and Otway claimed she was
“able to read and write it quite nicely”.56 He would have liked her to take the
official language examinations instead of him, but the local government authorities would not permit her to do so. He acknowledged how important a
part she playing when he insisted that the PWD “would never have got as much
inspection out of me – if the Executive Engineer’s wife preferred station life to
the jungle”.57 While she had no official role within the PWD, she was awarded
a travel allowance in recognition of the assistance she was providing to the
Department. Moreover, Otway, from time to time, secretly left an imprint of
her contribution on official documents. Such acts of subterfuge underscore his
appreciation of her efforts, and the gendered division of labour within colonial
service that made gestures like this necessary. After one of their trips to Mindon, for instance, she produced
a map of the whole road … scale 1 inch to 1 mile … Of course it was
signed off by Otway [to go to Chief Engineer], but as I have made the
map, he said that my initials must go somewhere ‘unbeknownst’, so we
put a lovely monogram as the end of the north point instead of the usual
arrows point.58
Though she was an actor in the production of geographical knowledge about
Burma that benefitted colonial governance, she remained a silent, invisible
partner. While Charlotte was proving invaluable to Otway’s career, she was also
beginning to develop her own portfolio of botanical research. She vigorously
painted in the morning or evening as “the sun is too hot even in cold weather”,59 and had completed 11 works in her new drawing book by mid-1898.60
Domestic chores: servants and service
Controlling women’s sexuality, exalting maternity and breeding a virile
race of empire-builders were widely perceived as the paramount means
for controlling the health and wealth of the male imperial body politic.61
55 Ibid., p. 149.
56 Letter from OWC to Mrs Williams, 19 May 1898, Tawmôn.
57 Ibid.
58 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 21 August 1898, Thayetmyo.
59 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 17 June 1898, Thayetmyo.
60 Ibid.
61 McClintock, Imperial Leather, p. 47.
Encountering the tropics
57
Imperial writers generally agreed that the presence of British wives and mothers – the memsahibs – in imperial households was central for establishment of
British domestic life in the colonies. For these commentators, female homemakers were critical “not only for the reproduction of legitimate imperial rulers, but also for the reproduction of the domestic, social and moral values
legitimating imperial rule”.62 While after the Indian Mutiny of 1857–1858,
some observers thought that the presence of British women and their household organisation may have created separate and exclusive domestic and social
spheres of influence that disrupted authority, the home in British India continued to be the demesne where female roles as agents of empire were most visibly
displayed. In this light, Wheeler-Cuffe did not neglect the responsibilities entailed in the smooth management of her domestic space. However, the role did
not fill her with relish, and the insulated and gendered hierarchies within the
colonial household, at times, was frustrating to her. This was expressed when
she discovered two male servants had “been behaving disgracefully; running up
bills in our name and cheating in a way that is hard to describe”.63 Shopping for
the household at the local market, the servants had apparently run up high
expenditure and Charlotte “had no idea of prices here and of course one can’t
go down to the bazaar and bargain over every annas worth of food”.64 The
problem, she surmised, may have been exacerbated by her lack of fluency in
Burmese, but the episode reflected a wider attitude where native servants were
“represented as both devotional and devious, trustworthy and lascivious”.65
Charlotte offered the offenders a choice of immediate dismissal or “staying on
at much reduced wages and regaining their characters if possible”.66 She believed that the chokra “had a good deal of good in him and felt that he is so
young he might reform”.67 Moreover, if dismissed, she worried he would have
no opportunity to earn an honest living and might slip into further dishonesty.
Stoler claims that native servants were often “compared and equated with children, a representation that conveniently provided a moral justification for imperial policies of tutelage, discipline and specific paternalistic and maternalistic
strategies of custodial control”.68 By retaining her servants on reduced wages
Charlotte could be satisfied that she was operating under a reformatory impulse of moral improvement while also exacting some reparation for their misbehaviour. This whole episode, she declared, however, had made her ill and she
hoped her trip with Mrs Cory the following week would provide a welcome
distraction.69
62 Blunt and Dowling, Home, p. 150.
63 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 17 June 1898, Thayetmyo.
64 Ibid.
65 Stoler, A. L. 1995. Race and the Education of Desire: Foucault’s History of Sexuality and the
Colonial Order of Things, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, p. 150.
66 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 17 June 1898, Thayetmyo.
67 Ibid.
68 Stoler, Race and the Education of Desire, p. 150.
69 Ibid.
58 Colonial encounters
As well as managing her servants, Charlotte also assumed responsibility for
overseeing her husband’s welfare. While the heat occasionally bothered her,
Otway suffered more regularly from illness in the tropical climate. In November he developed a fever and they decided to visit Nôthé, 10 miles from and 450
feet higher than Thayetmyo, where he could enjoy cooler temperatures and
escape briefly from the pressures of work. The occasion provided Charlotte
with the opportunity to see somewhere new while also assuming her duty of
care for her husband. She reported that they got spectacular views of
the Arakan Mountains on the west and the Pegu Yomas on the east and
about 50 miles N & S as well. The jungle is in its Autumn colouring now,
bamboos gold and brown … trees with their big leaves crimson and scarlet … with some evergreen trees still dark green and grass red and brown.
You might almost imagine yourself on the top of Blackdown with the
Weald represented by the Irrawaddy valley, and the distant Kentish
Downs by the Pegu Yomas.70
This description enabled her mother to visualise the place using English topographical features as terms of reference. To pass the time during Otway’s recuperation they brought plenty of books, and as they practised their Burmese he
observed that “she will be as good as her Master in about as many days as he
has been years in this country”.71After their medicinal break, Charlotte returned to Thayetmyo where she resumed her domestic responsibilities. The
sketchbook and paints she had ordered from Bowden’s had arrived but she was
disappointed that they had sent loose-leaf sheets rather than a bound block
she expected, as in a tropical climate “paper curls up when you paint on it and
besides is much more apt to get mildewed than a block”.72 While visual media
were important means of transporting an “object of observation and observation itself ”,73 without the proper equipment, they could quickly disintegrate.
For professional and amateur naturalists alike, who produced pictorial records
of their observations and transported them over long distances, materials had
to suit local circumstances.74
Their domestic space shifted to Rangoon, where they spent their second
Christmas vacation. They travelled by the steamer along the Irrawaddy on a
vessel run by the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company. The company had been established in the nineteenth century and made travel on Burma’s inland waterways
70 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 16 November 1898, Nôthé.
71 Ibid.
72 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 18 December 1898, Thayetmyo.
73 Bleichmar, D. 2011. “The geography of observation: distance and visibility in eighteenth-century botanical travel”, in L. Daston and E. Lubeck (eds.) Histories of Scientific Observation,
Chicago: Chicago University Press, p. 376.
74 Withers, C. W. J. 2019. “Geography and ‘thing knowledge’: instrument epistemology, failure, and narratives of 19th-century exploration”, Transactions of the Institute of British
Geographers, 44, pp. 696–691.
Encountering the tropics
59
easy and comfortable.75 As they sailed south along the Delta, Charlotte observed that it was
a queer looking country – only a few feet above high water mark and
covered with dense vegetation all along the creeks – further in, all rice
fields, of which one gets a peep now and again – all as flat as your hand,
nothing except the trees and an occasional pagoda to break the sky line.76
This was the agricultural heartland of the Burmese rice economy, where the
highly profitable paddy cultivation had expanded on an unparalleled basis over
the previous half century. It resulted in a relatively uniform, ordered landscape
of intensive crop production which appealed less to Charlotte than the ‘jungle’
environment she had enjoyed further north.
Their Christmas in Rangoon proved relaxing and cemented some of the
social networks they had cultivated. They attended a polo match and horse
races, and viewed a small shrine that Rangoon Buddhists intended to send to
Ceylon. It was a pure gold “model of a pagoda about 2 ft high, thickly set with
rubies, emeralds and diamonds and is to be carried in a silver palankin (big
enough for one to sit in)”.77 After the Christmas festivities they returned to
Thayetmyo and Charlotte was inundated with local people bringing New
Year’s offerings of flowers, fruits, meats, and cakes. She treated such expressions of indigenous hospitality with suspicion, however, positing that “[t]he
worst of it is, they all directly or indirectly expect something in return, and one
has to be awfully sharp in looking out for ‘bribery and corruption’!”.78 Her
response seemed to mirror a common colonial anxiety about the motives of
imperial subjects. She declared that the
native mind cannot grasp that you will deal honestly and justly by them.
They expect to be bribed for anything more or less, and they look upon it
as a matter of course, and not in the least wrong that things should go, so
to speak.79
Such a negative moral assessment of the rituals of hospitality and exchange
practised by the native population reflects, it appears, her colonial frame of
mind, which failed to treat such customs as part of indigenous systems of social relations. Yet, as Endersby has illustrated in the context of colonial Australia, barter, gift-exchange, and patronage were the common currency
employed between colonial officials working in Sydney’s botanic gardens and
the personnel employed at Kew. Such acts of donation and gifting were
75 Keck, “Picturesque Burma”.
76 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 25 December 1898, Rangoon.
77 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 1 January 1899, Thayetmyo.
78 Ibid.
79 Ibid.
60 Colonial encounters
important in oiling the wheels of reciprocal benefit and were understood and
sanctioned as legitimate forms of exchange.80 Where Western gifting practices
were concerned, Wheeler-Cuffe elided any recognition that these types of exchanges might also be used to achieve cultural status or economic advantage,
in ways similar to Burmese practices. Moreover, in time she would regularly
engage in the practice of gifting and exchange when she sent Wardian cases of
plants, seed collections, and paintings to colonial residents in Burma and to
individuals and botanical institutions in Britain and Ireland.
After more than a year in Burma Wheeler-Cuffe concluded that the colony
would be unsuitable for women accustomed to London society. She thought
that they would be bored by the social life and ill-equipped to endure the adjustments required to happily survive.81 Seen through the lens of class and gender, she viewed Burma as a space more congenial to the expression of manly
pursuits and for women less enamoured by the versions of femininity found
among London’s social elites. The plantation literature produced about Ceylon, for example, echoed these types of sentiments where colonial life was conceived as a world in which “the planters’ manhood, race and class” were
tested.82 The coffee plantations in the Ceylonese uplands were characterised as
dominantly masculine spaces, and the voices of women were almost entirely
absent.83 Although Charlotte was born into a well-to-do London household,
she regarded herself as better suited to the challenges of a colonial existence
than aristocratic women who were accustomed to a more urbane life, with calendars filled by social engagements. She happily avoided many such activities,
even when they occurred in Burma. When they left Rangoon after their Christmas vacation, their host Lady Fryer regretted that they would miss the state
ball but Charlotte “was just as glad as I don’t care about such like much! They
were both so kind, and one felt as at home as possible in spite of the huge
house and the servants in Royal scarlet”.84 Perhaps because of her childhood
days spent in rural Ireland and her interest in natural history and plant collecting, she eschewed the normative expectations of femininity associated with her
social status.
The Wheeler-Cuffes were granted their first period of leave to return to Britain in 1899 (April–October). Before their voyage, however, they planned to
“make a dash for the one thing we have longed to do since we came here – a
week in the mountains beyond Mindon. We shall have to rough it considerably
and take as little baggage as possible”.85 Carts could only travel part of the
80 Endersby, J. 2000. “A garden enclosed: botanical barter in Sydney, 1818–39”, The British
Journal of the History of Science, 33, pp. 313–334.
81 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 1 January 1899, Thayetmyo.
82 Duncan, “The struggle to be temperate”, p. 46.
83 Duncan, J. S. 2007. In the Shadows of the Tropics: Climate, Race and Biopower in Nineteenth
Century Ceylon, London: Routledge.
84 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 1 January 1899, Thayetmyo.
85 Ibid.
Encountering the tropics
61
route and they would employ native workers and pack bullocks to travel the
remainder. She was enticed by the region’s remoteness where, she exclaimed,
No lady has ever attempted it before and very few men – only a half a
dozen at the most. Mrs Carson, an American Baptist Missionary’s wife
went a little way into the mountains further north once, but only as far as
the villages and only for two days. We hope to get right beyond the villages into the very heart of the mountains.86
Her confidence to explore inaccessible uplands, where women rarely ventured,
reveals that she recognised she was straying from customary patterns of femininity. This eagerness to visit secluded, yet picturesque, landscapes also found
expression in some female travel literature about Burma. Alice Hart’s Picturesque Burma: Past and Present (1897), for instance, included routes to places
off the beaten track that were aesthetically pleasing and scientifically interesting.87 This was their last long distance excursion before returning home on leave.
Homeward bound
Just before returning to Britain they were informed that they were to be stationed to Rangoon and Crompton would take over Otway’s position in Thayetmyo. Crompton was the oldest serving Executive Engineer in Burma, and she
expected that he would be granted a permanent post at Thayetmyo. The move
provoked some regret, as she declared:
I will be sorry to part with my little garden – It is so nice now… tobacco
and big ferns, lilies, and foliage begonias and orchids…just coming into
leaf, besides dianthus and phlox Drummondii and verbena all in bloom.
I have had a crate made and am going to bring home as many orchids as
will fit in it.88
She assumed responsibility for arranging the logistics of the move. Ponies and
many of their pets were distributed among residents, and most of their servants would also remain in Thayetmyo.89 The young servant, who had earlier
breached her trust, failed to turn up for work as they prepared for their departure. Rs 100 was missing from her locked dispatch box and she was disappointed to learn that he had stolen it – “just when we want all we have going
home”.90 The Cromptons were both Irish and Charlotte claimed his wife was
an “Armstrong of Farney Castle, and of course knows all the Tipperary
86 Ibid.
87 Keck, “Picturesque Burma”.
88 Ibid.
89 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 30 March 1899, SS China, Irrawaddy Flotilla.
90 Ibid.
62 Colonial encounters
people”.91 The Cromptons agreed to take her garden plants and furniture for
Rs 200. Although this was less than their value, she found it more convenient
than attempting to sell them. Charlotte acknowledged that plants were “precarious things to sell and though I had some beauties, I’d rather she [Mrs
Crompton] had them all than divide them, for she loves flowers”.92 She held on
to her piano, Otway’s armchair, a tea table and their china, books, linen, and a
few other personal items which were transferred to Rangoon. She declared that
there was “something very melancholy in dismantling a house – but it is one of
the things one needs to get used to out here”,93 and although they liked Thayetmyo, the move would represent a chance “to see some more of Burma”.94 She
hoped, however, that the posting to the Rangoon Secretariat would be short as
Otway “would never stand the continual office work and the climate (and there
would be no jungling at all) and I should hate it too”.95 Their shared love for
working in the field and travelling would be compromised by this move. Nonetheless, with the move managed by Charlotte, they set sail on April 22 aboard
the SS Derbyshire and arrived in Marseilles three weeks later before going
overland to London.96
Leave over: return to Burma
After six months on leave, the Wheeler-Cuffes prepared for their return to
Burma. During that time Otway learnt that he was to be posted to a subdivision of Rangoon, rather than at the Secretariat, which they found preferable as
it might involve more than just office-based tasks. He was replacing Gabbett,
who was moving to Maymyo to take charge of a new district, and an area
which Charlotte regarded as “the nicest division in Burma”.97 Otway would
assume Gabbett’s post as personal assistant to the Superintendent Engineer in
Rangoon, and this might result in a more attractive future posting. Friends
informed her that their initial posting to Thayetmyo was the result of representations made on their behalf for a place suitable for a newly married couple. Charlotte was grateful for the “two very happy years”98 they had spent there.
In Rangoon they found a house, ‘Glendalough’, located in the neighbourhood of Kokine, about two miles from the city centre.99 They set about establishing routines in their new posting. They re-ignited their linguistic training by
taking lessons in Burmese from “an excellent Munshi (teacher), and I hope
before long to be able to read and write it, and Otway is going to try for the
91 Ibid.
92 Ibid.
93 Ibid.
94 Ibid.
95 Ibid.
96 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 19 March 1899, Thayetmyo.
97 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 14 October 1899, SS Allandale, Rangoon.
98 Ibid.
99 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 22 October 1899, SS Allandale, Rangoon.
Encountering the tropics
63
higher standard exam, I think”.100 In keeping with Charlotte’s horticultural
interests, she immediately began getting “flowerbeds dug and planted and
[hoped] soon to have the garden nice and tidy”.101 Their settling-in period was
disrupted by a burglary. Although she suspected some of the servants were
responsible, she had no evidence to support this idea, and seemed to base her
speculation on her earlier experience in Thayeymyo and the wider imperial
impulse towards doubting the trustworthiness of servants.102 While Charlotte
expressed no fears about the ‘disorderly’ nature of colonial Burma when she
went on expedition, in her domestic environment the potential for criminality
appeared more visible.103 Consequently she took the decision to lock the servants out of the house at night and use their four dogs as a deterrent to thieves.
Despite her reservations about her staff she claimed that their new servant,
Hpoo Min, was “quick, intelligent and clean, keeps the silver beautifully,
brushes over clothes and puts them away”.104 She also employed a new cook
and his son who would be trained as a table servant. She hired a gardener, a
cook’s mate, two syces and a sweeper. She had set up her new household in the
city and she and Otway began the task of constructing a new social world. To
that end he began to play tennis and dine at the local club, while she initiated
house calls to introduce herself to other colonial wives and their families.
Conclusion
The first two years of settling into Burma laid the foundation for Wheeler-Cuffe’s way of life as the wife of a man on imperial duty. During this time
she began mapping out how she would negotiate her role as the architect of the
domestic space they shared, while also nurturing her desire to step outside this
defining expression of femininity, and actively engage in exploring the colony
and investigating its natural history. To this end she adopted a number of strategies. Firstly, rather than easing gradually into colonial life by focusing explicitly on the management of the household and her new home, she immediately
began to assist with Otway’s engineering work. Not only did she accompany
him on inspections, but she actively helped by using her surveying, sketching,
and cartographic skills in the field. These aided in his preparation of reports
for the PWD. Secondly, she used these trips to begin assembling a portfolio of
information about the botanical character of the district. She collected plant
species, began producing visual images of the flora, and while she assisted Otway in his work, he reciprocated by occasionally permitting staff to help in her
botanical work. She also learned about the logistics of travel in a colonial
100 Ibid.
101 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 29 October 1899, Kokine, Rangoon.
102 Blunt, A. 1999. “Imperial geographies of home: British domesticity in India, 1886–1925”,
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 24, pp. 421–440.
103 Saha, Law, Disorder and the Colonial State.
104 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 29 October 1899, Kokine, Rangoon.
64 Colonial encounters
context. The provision of transport, labour, accommodation, and food supplies all necessitated co-operation between official personnel and native people
and their animals. Without this expertise and manual labour, the work of the
PWD would have been much impeded. Thirdly, she did not neglect the domestic realm and undertook the major responsibility of running the home, including the garden, the servants, and internal decoration of their house. She ordered
and arranged supplies to be delivered from London to execute the smooth
running of her household. While her domestic staff were male, the hierarchies
of class and race ensured that she commanded authority within this space.
On expedition and in her home we begin to get insights into Charlotte’s attitudes towards the local population. At one level she appreciates the cultural
richness and diversity of Burmese society, yet she simultaneously displays signs
of what Pratt refers to as “female imperial authority in the contact zone”.105
From the supervision of her servants to encounters with native, hired labour in
the field, she begins to exhibit her perspective on the reliability and moral probity of native peoples in comparison to white Europeans. As Blunt and Dowling have reminded us, even the home as a private space is “intensely political
both in its internal relationships and through its interfaces with the wider
world”.106 Wheeler-Cuffe’s attitude towards servants’ behaviour or Eurasians’
physical appearance, in these initial encounters, is modulated by class and racial categories and prejudices. Yet over these first years she established a pattern of living which itself both challenged and conformed to accepted gendered
norms for a colonial wife. During the following decade she would intensify and
make more visible the botanical knowledge that the non-conforming elements
of her lifestyle made possible.
105 Pratt, Imperial Eyes, p. 170.
106 Blunt and Dowling, Home, p. 142.
Part II
Mobility, knowledge networks,
and exploration
4
Mobility and cultures
of expedition, 1900–1903
Movement and knowledge transfer
Mobilising travel and establishing trust are at least two areas in which moving
knowledge around the globe presented theoretical, cultural, and material challenges. For a woman with scientific interests working in the late nineteenth
century, achieving trust and having the material and social capital to travel
were far from straightforward. Yet as Forsyth has observed, “The where of
scientific practice at times was liberating, the colonies in particular affording
women space for practicing science”.1 Wheeler-Cuffe seemed to relish the freedom she enjoyed in Burma and the possibilities it afforded her to examine its
natural history. Historical geographers have demonstrated the significance of
location and movement in the development of particular types of scientific
knowledge, from that generated at sites such as the laboratory to field-based
locations used in sciences like botany and geology.2 As Livingstone puts it, the
significance of circulation in the geographies of science “is not restricted to the
movement of species and specimens, of course. Ideas and instruments, texts
and theories, individuals and inventions – to name just a few – all diffuse across
the surface of the earth”.3 The capacity to generate this movement and exercise
mobility is conditioned by, among other things, local social networks,
economic means, transport infrastructure, and the ability to garner trust
among assistants and the wider intellectual community. For Wheeler-Cuffe to
1 Forsyth, I. 2013. “The more-than-human geographies of field science”, Geography Compass,
7, p. 529.
2 Naylor, S. 2002. “The field, the museum and the lecture hall: the spaces of natural history in Victorian Cornwall’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 27, pp. 494–513; Withers
and Keighren, “Travels into print”; Veal, L., Enfield, G. and Naylor, S. 2014. “Knowing weather
in place: the Helm Wind of Cross Fell”, Journal of Historical Geography, 45, pp. 25–37; Finnegan, D. A. and Wright, J. J. (eds.) 2015. Spaces of Global Knowledge: Exhibition, Encounter and
Exchange in an Age of Empire, London: Ashgate. Johnson, Nature Displaced, Nature Displayed;
Johnson, N. C. 2011. “Botanical gardens and zoos”, in J.A. Agnew and D. N. Livingstone (eds.)
The SAGE Handbook of Geographical Knowledge, London: Sage, pp. 99–110; Livingstone and
Withers, Geographies of Nineteenth-Century Science; Ogborn, M. and Withers, C. W. J. (eds.)
2010. Geographies of the Book, London: Routledge.
3 Livingstone, Putting Science, p. 138.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003157595-6
68 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
accumulate knowledge about the flora of Burma she had to engage in numerous excursions into the field where she could observe, collect, and record plant
species, as well as find the means to circulate this information to wider audiences both in Burma and Britain.
Studies devoted to the practice of everyday mobilities have focused, in particular, on the role of technology. The speed and embodied experience of
movement and travel have animated discussions on how networks of knowledge are generated.4 Geographers have contributed to this body of research by
concentrating on the corporeal practices and representations of mobility at a
variety of scales. They have examined in detail modern infrastructures of travel
such as airports, roads, and railways as central sites where mobility is operationalised and experienced.5 As Merriman has observed, however, much of this
work has centred on twentieth-century and twenty-first-century mobility in the
West.6 By looking at travel in a historical, colonial context we can begin to
unravel how movement was achieved in an imperial milieu, where ponies, elephants, carts, carriages, and walking were often the primary modes of local
transport, and where a host of indigenous labour was necessary to expedite
these journeys, while long-distant mobility was achieved through more mechanised vehicles such as steam ships and railways. This combination of different
types and speeds of movement directs our attention to the relationships between “mobilities for knowledge in the process of its production and of knowledge as part of its dissemination and transfer, while stressing that geographical
and epistemological movement across different places and fields of knowledge
are closely intertwined”.7
As an amateur naturalist and not a member of any organised scientific expeditions, Wheeler-Cuffe’s mobility was conditioned by the circumstances of
her husband’s occupation and, infrequently, by opportunities she found to explore outside of this context. She usually travelled as part of PWD inspection
party and was typically the only woman in the group. Her accounts of these
trips exemplify how she mobilised herself, in this gendered situation, to collect
plants and to produce illustrations of species, which formed the bedrock of the
knowledge she produced, and once home how she marshalled the infrastructure and the social and intellectual networks required to circulate and transfer
this knowledge between Burma and Britain. Drawing on Bruno Latour’s work
on centres of accumulation and calculation of scientific knowledge,8 Jöns
4 Urry, J. 2007. Mobilities, Cambridge: Polity Press.
5 Adey, P. 2010. Aerial Life: Spaces, Mobilities, Effects, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell; Cresswell,
T. 2006. On the Move: The Politics of Mobility in the Modern West, London: Routledge; Merriman, P. 2007. Driving Spaces: A Cultural-Historical Geography of England’s M1 Motorway,
Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
6 Merriman, P. 2015. “Mobilities I: Departures”, Progress in Human Geography, 39, pp. 87–95.
7 Jöns, H., Heffernan, M. and Meusburger, P. 2017. “Mobilities of knowledge: an introduction”,
in H. Jöns, P. Meusburger and M. Heffernan (eds.) Mobilities of Knowledge, Cham, Switzerland:
Springer International, p. 2.
8 Latour, Science in Action.
Mobility and cultures of expedition 69
claims that the movement of specimens to such centres “shaped the cumulative
character of European science from the ages of discovery and exploration and
established Europe as the centre of the imperial age”.9 Nodes of accumulation
and calculation, however, not only developed in Europe’s metropolitan centres.10 As Chakrabarti reminds us there were “centres in the periphery”,11 such
as Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay where important work on the flora and
fauna of British India was undertaken.12 At Peridenya in Ceylon, the botanic
garden was hugely influential in advancing research in economic botany, especially with respect to commercially valuable plants such as coffee, tea, and rice.
Experiments on the cultivation of cinchona were conducted in Calcutta.13
Smaller, satellite institutions at hill stations also mushroomed in British India,
and the Agri-Horticultural Society in Rangoon housed a small garden that
held regular, public horticultural shows. Personnel also moved between institutions based in the colonies and Europe. Major David Prain, for example, served
as the curator of the Calcutta herbarium and library from 1887 to 1897 and
Superintendent of the botanic garden from 1897 to 1905, before being appointed Director at Kew.14 Notwithstanding the primacy of some major European scientific centres, the movement of objects, people, and knowledge was
multi-directional, moving back and forth across the globe.
Between 1900 and 1904 the Wheeler-Cuffes moved on four occasions as
Otway was given new assignments. Following a brief period working in Rangoon, they moved back to Thayetmyo, where they remained for one year, and
in the summer of 1901 they were transferred to Toungoo. In 1903 they were
again requested to move to Mandalay. These frequent transfers disrupted the
social networks they had been establishing since their arrival, but they also
provided opportunities for Charlotte to experience new regions, and after the
move to Mandalay, her first chance to explore parts of Upper Burma. In this
chapter I will consider the architecture of travel that underpinned the expeditions that Wheeler-Cuffe undertook during this period, especially her trips to
Yado, Thandaung, the Ruby Mine district, and the Gokteik gorge. In particular the macro and micro geographies of travel will be analysed with respect to
how movement was structured and how she operated within the gendered context of these trips. Second, I will focus on the botanical illustrations she
9 Jöns, “Centre of calculation”, p. 159.
10 Nair, “Native collecting and natural knowledge”.
11 Chakrabarti, P. 2004. Western Science in Modern India: Metropolitan Methods, Colonial
Practices. Delhi: Permanent Black, p. 48.
12 McCracken, D. P. 1997. Gardens of Empire: Botanical Institutions of the Victorian British
Empire. Leicester: Leicester University Press.
13 Brockway, L. 2002. Science and Colonial Expansion: The Role of the British Royal Botanic
Gardens, New Haven: Yale University Press; Kumar, D. 2016. “Scientific institutions as sites
for dissemination and contestation: emergence of colonial Calcutta as a science city”, in.
W. Wongsurawat (ed.) Sites of Modernity: Asian Cities in the Transitory Moments of Trade,
Colonialism and Nationalism, Berlin: Springer, pp. 33–46.
14 McCracken, Gardens of Empire.
70 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
produced as a result of these trips, especially her representation of orchids.
During this period she began to develop her portfolio of artwork, and she also
initiated connections with botanists and institutions in Britain and Ireland
where her work began to circulate. In Burma too her skills as an artist were
starting to attract attention and I will highlight how this translated in practice.
Charting the development of these networks will reveal how her arc of influence was expanding both locally and internationally. Third, her position as a
woman out in the field was always in conversation with her domestic role in the
home and colonial compound. As she fashioned her life within the more domestic space of the town, her position in relation to questions of race further
crystallised. In particular I will examine her views on the Eurasian population,
as expressed through an episode that impinged directly on her family circle.
On the move: Thayetmyo and Toungoo, 1900–1902
After their short period stationed in Rangoon, the Wheeler-Cuffes moved back
to Thayetmyo in April 1900.15 Even in these early days Charlotte occasionally
contemplated life after colonial service. There was a possibility that they would
inherit the estate at Leyrath which she did not relish. She claimed that she
could not picture herself
in the part of ‘grande dame’ at Leyrath! Neither can Otway. The place,
with all its pretentious grandeur does not appeal to me in the least – and
dear old tumble down Fir Grove does – it would be home – Leyrath
would be – well – a residence.16
This ambivalence towards the prospect of assuming the role of titled, landed
gentry held little appeal, and mirrored her distaste for some of the formalities
practised by women in Burma’s colonial society too. However, Otway did inherit the title and estate at Leyrath as a life tenant and when they returned from
service in 1921 they lived there until her death in the 1960s. However, her more
immediate concern was settling back into Thayetmyo where she appreciated
the less orthodox existence she enjoyed. She and Otway were “the crackedest
pair you ever saw sometimes, and I am sure if our proper friends and relations
at home saw us sometimes they’d have a fit!”.17
Having begun to re-establish routines in Thayetmyo they received word that
they were to move to Toungoo, a town 85 miles to the southeast. While she was
becoming accustomed to the frequency of transfers, they were paradoxically
disruptive to rooting social networks in a particular place, while at the same
time providing her with further scope to explore unfamiliar territories. She
immediately set about fashioning her domestic space in Toungoo. She had a
15 Letter from CWC to Aunt Cha, 25 March 1900. Kokine, Rangoon.
16 Letter from CWC to Aunt Cha, 15 June 1900, Thayetmyo.
17 Letter from CWC to Aunt Cha, 12 August 1900, Thayetmyo.
Mobility and cultures of expedition 71
tennis court installed, which she claimed was “quite a success and has been
played on three afternoons this week and is pronounced decidedly good”.18
This facility helped foster new social networks, and she quickly employed a
gardener to assist with designing her new garden. However, this stationary existence did not last long and in early December 1901 she and Otway planned a
three-week trip, over the mountains to Yado, northeast of Toungoo, using “all
ponies and one elephant for tents and heavy luggage”.19 They would not return
until Christmas. They undertook a short two-night preparatory reconnaissance journey “taking only ponies to test our new pack equipment and make
sure everything is all right – a break down at the ‘back of beyond’ would not be
pleasant!”20 Preparedness, for longer field visits to more remote areas, was vital
to ensure their success.21
Yado expedition
Having had to delay departure due to the death of one of their elephants, the
Wheeler-Cuffes travelled by train from Toungoo to Yedashà and were met by
the Petley’s Karen servant. The Petley family were British coffee planters who
had estates on the nearby hills. From the 1870s onwards, coffee plantations
in Ceylon witnessed the spread of a fungus Hemiliea vastatrix, a rust which
thrived in warm, wet conditions.22 Eventually, this fungal disease stretched to
all coffee growing regions around the world and became “a global economic
force that defied all co-ordinated attempts to combat it”.23 The Petley’s plantations had suffered from the disease and they were struggling financially,
and although plantations across Burma were affected, because the colony
was less reliant on coffee than rice, oil, and teak, it had a weaker economic
impact than in other regions of the empire. The Karen servant accompanied
the Wheeler-Cuffes along a bridle path, across the river Sittang until they
arrived at a small house owned by the Petleys. From here they employed ten
native labourers to assist their onward journey “up the most precipitous
places you ever saw”.24 They camped in the jungle using the tents they had
transported for the purpose. The following day they travelled through a
mountain pass over 4,000 feet, with their ponies, hired labour and 600 pounds
of equipment, of which 40 pounds belonged to Charlotte, including her
“painting materials”.25
18 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 24 November 1901, Toungoo.
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid.
21 Whatmore, S. 2002. Hybrid Geographies, London: Sage.
22 McCook, S. 2006. “The global rust belt: Hemileia Vastatrix and the Integration of world coffee
production since 1850”, Journal of Global History, 1, pp. 177–195.
23 Duncan, In the Shadows of the Tropics, p. 171.
24 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 6 December 1901, Leiktho.
25 Ibid.
72 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
By 13 December they had reached Yado safely, with a party which included:
two elephants, four pack ponies, their personal ponies Spar and Monkey, three
servants including their cook, a PWD timekeeper, a head constable, and two
Burmese policemen who were armed “to act sentry at night when we camped –
not for fear of ‘humans’ as much as tigers and leopards”.26 Of the landscape
they passed through she explained:
Our march of 30 miles to this place was over a series of steep ridges of
hills, all thickly covered with jungle – tree ferns, palms, wild plantains
and every sort of tropical tree and plant you can think of – in fact one of
the Kew hot houses spread up and down precipices with torrents in the
gorges – would give you the only illustration I can think of.27
The path they took was along an old Karen and Shan hill track and because it
was a well-used route by locals the terrain was very slippery and difficult for
animals and people to traverse. Their journey was even more treacherous as they
crossed the Thonk yè gat, or “drinking water river, so called from a legend that
a Burmese king drank of it on his travels and praised it for its purity”.28 The path
descended at an angle of 60 degrees, making it particularly difficult for their
pack mules and elephants, some of whom had to have their load carried by the
labourers. The landscape between Toungoo and Yado was composed of a network of mountains running mostly north and south, and after crossing the river,
they began a very steep ascent to “the rim of a lovely level valley – obviously an
old lake basin – walled in by steep limestone pinnacles of hills, and lying so to
speak, in a cleft near the top of the range”.29 While the topography proved a
challenge to traverse, the weather was not a barrier to travel, and Charlotte
seemed to have no trouble keeping pace with the male members of the party.
Yado itself was a mission station and they stayed in the mission house adjacent
to a Baptist school. At the time of their visit there was no “white missionary”,30
but the senior American missionary for the entire region had granted them permission to use the dwelling. While there had been a few schools established by
Catholic missionaries in eighteenth-century Burma, after the first Anglo-Burmese War Christian missions became more active. The American Baptist Mission opened their first schools for Burmese and Mon children in the 1840s.
Catholic missionaries founded Karen vernacular schools, and by the 1850s the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel also began to establish missionary
schools. Gradually these various Christian organisations set up a system of day
and boarding institutions in large towns and small villages across Burma.31
26 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 13 December 1901, Yado.
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid.
30 Ibid.
31 Ikeya, Refiguring Women
Mobility and cultures of expedition 73
Near Yado there was a Catholic mission which had its own small village and
was run by an Italian priest. Ironically though, meeting other Europeans presented its own obstacles. The priest could not speak English, French, or Burmese, all languages that Charlotte could converse in, while she could not speak
Italian, so they enlisted the services of a Karen intermediary to conduct a polyglot conversation: “Karen, Burmese, English and Italian”.32 She was impressed by the interior of the church, which was “a surprise – a really well
painted altar piece (the work of a former priest) of a life-sized figure of Our
Saviour in an attitude of benediction”.33 While colonial engineers like Otway
were creating a physical infrastructure to facilitate the management of an empire, Christian missionaries were significant actors in efforts to culturally transform Burma and its built environment through religious conversion and the
erection of Christian places of worship in the Western style.
As they made their way to the settlement of Leiktho, they were, she claimed
“on their way back to civilization once more”.34 Charlotte provided a detailed
account of how they navigated through the territory. To reach Leiktho they
rode over a pass of around 5,600 feet, where she completed “a prismatic compass survey of the peaks from the top and over the other side into the Shan
country”.35 Her surveying skills were once more pressed into service.
In her description of their caravan, she presented herself as leader. She
headed the group on her pony Spar, with Otway behind her on Monkey. The
Head Constable and the PWD timekeeper followed them, on ponies, and they
collectively constituted what she called the ‘cavalry’. The ‘infantry’ behind
comprised two policemen, the chaprassi, dressed in a “brown coat and putties
and a scarlet turban”,36 carrying Otway’s rifle and acting as baggage escort.
These were followed by more pack ponies carrying supplies and overseen by
the cook. At the rear were the two elephants, walking more slowly than the rest
of the party. They adopted a strict daily routine. Each morning they proceeded
until about 10:30 am when they halted for breakfast and rested for a couple of
hours, before the trek continued until a suitable camping place was found. She
and Otway occupied two tents, 7 feet square, while the servants had “a big
tarpaulin and waterproof sheet, and the ponies do well under this with their
thick rugs. We have a huge campfire, and a folding board, on the top of the
three pack saddles, makes a capital table”.37
The Wheeler-Cuffes enrolled the help of many local people, which, like
other field expeditions, involved “many intersecting geographies and histories”.38 The combination of a white, British official and his wife, Burmese
32 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 13 December 1901, Yado.
33 Ibid.
34 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 19 December 1901, Leiktho.
35 Ibid.
36 Ibid.
37 Ibid.
38 Lorimer, H. and Spedding, N. 2005. “Locating field science: a geographical family expedition
to Glen Roy, Scotland”, British Journal for the History of Science, 38, p. 30.
74 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
subordinate officials and domestic servants, and native Karen labour reflected
the diverse social and racial hierarchies at work in the spatial ordering of the
expedition. The positions held within the group reflected the imperial power
structure governing the management of the trip rather than the expertise of
each individual. The accommodation arrangements, the sequencing of the
caravan, the mode of transport (riding or walking) used, reveal the varied
corporeal experience of different members of the party39 and illuminates the
exercise of colonial power at the micro-scale.40 Even though Charlotte was the
only female participant, her position in the physical, as well as metaphorical,
pecking order of the group was calibrated more along racial than gender lines.
Though colonial hierarchies were maintained at the discursive and material
levels on this trip, the Wheeler-Cuffes’ dependence on native skills and local
animals made mobility always contingent and sometimes fragile, and in some
instances could expose the limits of imperial travellers’ ability to perform their
authority.41
During this trip Charlotte found the time to complete some sketching.
Found near Yado, she painted the species Acriopsis javanica, an epiphytic
orchid attached to a dead bamboo. A plant with dense, onion-shaped pseudobulbs, and small cream or pinkish flowers, born on wiry, branched pinnacles, it was portrayed by Charlotte in a naturalistic manner, evocative of the
appearance of the species in the wild. While the painting was completed in
March 1902, it was fashioned from sketches taken in the field during this trip
(Figure 4.1).
Thandaung expedition
Shortly after Christmas, they undertook another excursion, using their pack
ponies, to Thandaung, 23 miles from Toungoo. Although the village was supposed to act as “a hill station and Sanatorium for Lower Burma”.42 Charlotte
observed that it consisted of the Circuit House, a mission school run by a “not
very scrupulous Yankee”,43 and a couple of other “tumble down shanties built
by people who thought they were going to make their fortunes over coffee”.44
In the past troops were taken there during the hot season but the place had not
proved especially healthy. Otway was undertaking a survey for a possible new
road, with a view to rejuvenating the idea of developing a station there once
again. Hill stations had proved to be important for colonial residents across
Britain’s Indian empire and a significant ingredient for survival. Although difficult to give a precise number, due to differences in definition, Dane suggests
39 Urry, Mobilities, p. 47.
40 Jöns, Meusburger, and Heffernan, Mobilities of Knowledge.
41 Kennedy, D. 2013. The Last Blank Spaces: Exploring Africa and Australia. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
42 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 12 January 1902, Toungoo.
43 Ibid.
44 Ibid.
Mobility and cultures of expedition 75
Figure 4.1 Acriopsis javanica, 1902. (Courtesy of the National Botanic Gardens,
Glasnevin).
that there were about 65 in British India.45 They acted not only as material
spaces of refuge for colonial settlers bothered by the heat of the tropics but
also became the symbolic representation of imperial governance. As Kenny
puts it, “the imperial hill station reflected and reinforced a framework of meaning that influenced European views of the non-Western world”.46
45 Kennedy, D. 1996. The Magic Mountains: Hill Stations and the British Raj, London: University
of California Press, pp. 9–12.
46 Kenny, J. 1995. “Climate, race and imperial authority: the symbolic landscape of the British
Hill Station in India”, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 85, p. 694.
76 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
Otway spent the first two days with the surveyor and local labourers, inspecting and correcting plans for a proposed cart track, and laying out the
foundations for a small weir to supply water. The following day he and Charlotte scaled the local mountain, Thandaung gyi, located behind the Circuit
house where they were staying. The peak rose to 4,882 feet which Charlotte
likened to a “regular S African ‘kopje’ of granite boulders forming the top
most peak”.47 They ascended by pony as far as possible and walked the remainder of the way. They were accompanied by Dale, the local PWD official, who
succeeded in scaling the summit despite the fact, Charlotte claimed, “that he
weighs about 15 stone and has only one foot, having lost the other in a railway
accident when he was an engineer of the great Indian lines”.48 Charlotte enjoyed the climb and at the peak sketched the whole panorama to scale, with
Otway giving her the bearing at each point by prismatic compass.49
Based on observations made on the trip to Yado Charlotte painted an epiphytic orchid, the yellow-flowering Dendrobium aureum (Figure 4.2). This species was generally found in lowland evergreen or primary montane forests. In
her composition, she depicted the flower attached to the trunk of a tree, mirroring its habit in nature. The detail of the tree’s foliage and bark complimented
the intricate characteristics of the orchid’s flower. This family of plants more
generally had been increasingly enjoying popularity among British gardeners
as they saw first-hand examples of tropical species in the hothouses of botanical gardens.50 Orchids were also fascinating to botanists as they represented
one of the two largest families of flowering plants and were found in a huge
range of different habitats and climates. This enthusiasm for them among scientists and the general public rendered them an exemplar of the exotic riches
that could be found in the tropical regions, and prompted collectors to search
for them in some of the most remote parts of the planet.51 Clearly for Charlotte
orchids also were an extremely alluring species, worthy of her attention as a
plant to be collected and cultivated, and as a subject for her paintings. Moreover, Frederick Moore, Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Dublin, had a
keen interest in orchids and this mutual fascination facilitated Wheeler-Cuffe’s
success in establishing regular contact with him.52 The fact that she collected
them and produced visual images meant that she had two types of what Latour
47 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 12 January 1902, Toungoo.
48 Ibid.
49 Ibid.
50 Johnson, Nature Displaced, Nature Displayed.
51 Endersby, J. 2016. Orchid: A Cultural History. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
52 Nelson, E. C. and McCracken, E. M. 1987. The Brightest Jewel: A History of the National
Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin. Kilkenny: Boethius Press; Nelson, E. C. and Sayers, B.
2002. Orchids of Glasnevin: An Illustrated History of Orchids in Ireland’s National Botanic
Gardens, Dublin: Strawberry Tree; Nelson, E. C. 2009. “Moore, Sir Frederick William”,
Dictionary of National Biography. Online https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/96792.
Mobility and cultures of expedition 77
Figure 4.2 Dendrobium aureum, 1902. (Courtesy of the National Botanic Gardens,
Glasnevin).
refers to as immutable mobiles,53 which could be transported between Burma
and Britain. These trips proved successful from an artistic perspective, and by
1902 Charlotte had completed several orchid paintings. She began to loan the
illustrations to people “for examination and identification … I must do some
more soon. They are just beginning to come into flower”.54 She was starting to
53 Latour, Science in Action.
54 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 12 January 1902, Toungoo.
78 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
recognise the scientific potential of her botanical drawings for plant taxonomy,
and, although she was not employed as an artist, she was happy to have her
illustrations move through networks that were useful to botany.
On leave
In June 1902 the Wheeler-Cuffes obtained their second period of leave and
returned to Britain for three months. They travelled on the SS Derbyshire, taking the familiar route via Colombo, Suez, Port Said and Marseilles, from where
they travelled overland to London.55 They spent the summer visiting family in
England and Ireland before departing back to Burma in August. The trip enabled them to stock up on supplies to bring back with them. In their luggage
were three cases of wine, a cask of whiskey, and shoes from Harrods.56 While
Britons were travelling long distances on imperial duty, luxury goods were also
circulating with them. The Wheeler-Cuffes were part of this globalised network of commodity transfer across the empire. The practice applied to middle-ranking colonial officials, as well the highest echelons of imperial society.
Mary Curzon, Vicereine of India between 1899 and 1905, regularly ordered
clothing from the fashion houses of Europe to carry out her official duties in
India. Through a series of “complex transnational networks of production
and consumption”,57 she connected European haute couture with the exhibition of ceremonial governance in British India. Although Charlotte displayed
little interest in items of high fashion, she sourced utilitarian, and some luxury,
goods in London for transport to Burma.
During their return voyage Charlotte became very ill and while Otway travelled to Toungoo, she remained in Rangoon until she was fit to travel.58 In a
letter to her mother she apologised for not being well enough to write to Professor Dunstan about her orchids. She declared that she could not collect her
“brains sufficiently to think business”.59 Professor Wyndham Dunstan was a
chemist and Director of the Imperial Institute. It had been founded to “investigate and publicize new or little known mineral and vegetable resources of the
countries of the empire”.60 His expertise in pharmaceutical chemistry and the
medicinal use of plants may explain his interest in her plants and is one of the
first indications that her work was beginning to gain traction among some
professional scientists. She had also received a letter from the travel writer
Scott V.C. O’Connor, who wanted to use a few of her paintings to illustrate a
55 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 4 May 1902, Toungoo.
56 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 20 August 1902, SS Lancashire.
57 Thomas, N. J. 2007. “Embodying imperial spectacle: dressing Lady Curzon, Vicereine of India
1899-1905”, Cultural Geographies, 14, p. 394.
58 Letter from OWC to Mrs Williams, 7 September 1902, Kokine, Rangoon.
59 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 5 October 1902, Toungoo.
60 Henry, T. A. 2004. “Wyndham Dunstan”, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, accessed
online at http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/32938.
Mobility and cultures of expedition 79
travel book he was preparing on Burma.61 O’Connor was born in Umritsar,
West Bengal, in 1869, son of Irish-born Thomas Abbitt O’Connor and Bengal-born Emma Lavinia Scott whose parents were Scottish. He joined the Indian Civil Service as an administrator for the railways in 1890 and spent most
of his life working in colonial Burma, where he rose to the position of Accountant-General. His long residency in British India and his passion for travel
writing saw him produce a number of travel books about Burma and elsewhere.62 His most renowned work, the Silken East (1904), was undergirded by
a strong romantic impulse to capture the picturesque beauty of the Burmese
landscape, but he also “had another agenda: to demonstrate that Burma was
not India”.63 Wheeler-Cuffe shared his view and this reflected a wider historiographical question about Burma’s place within British India. The direct transfer of administrative, legal, and economic structures from India to Burma in
the nineteenth century, for instance, was frequently met with anxiety by colonial officials, and passive, or sometimes active, resistance by the native
population.64
O’Connor’s the Silken East covered many themes and particularly came
alive when he visited remote, inaccessible corners of the country. He relished
narrating the difficulties of travel to these places. The text was richly illustrated
with over 400 images, mainly black-and-white photographs, and 20 colour
plates. Two of the plates were paintings attributed in the text to Mrs Otway
Wheeler-Cuffe.65 The first striking image is a landscape painting capturing the
top of a pagoda in the town of Minhla, located between Thayetmyo and
Minbu. The pagoda is guarded by sculptured Chinthes, and the composition
nestles the building among palm trees and frames it within a jungle environment with mountain tops visible in the distance. The second painting features
two giant Chinthes, acting as a pair of guardians flanking the entrance to a
Buddhist pagoda at Kama on the east bank of the Irrawaddy, between Prome
and Thayetymyo. These typical features of Burmese iconography and architecture act as the focal point of the painting, with the banks of the river occupying the foreground and the pagoda complex located behind the lion guards.66
The fact that O’Connor considered her work of sufficient merit to be published
in this popular travel book is testament to her rising prominence as a talented artist.
61 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 5 October 1902, Toungoo.
62 For instance, see O’Connor, V. C. S. 1907. Mandalay and Other Cities of the Past in Burma,
London: Hutchinson; O’Connor, V. C. S. 1920. The Charm of Kashmir, London: Longman
Green; O’Connor, V. C. S. 1929. Isles of the Aegean, London: Hutchinson.
63 Keck, “Picturesque Burma”, p. 403.
64 Cady, A History of Modern Burma.
65 O’Connor, V.C. S. 1904. The Silken East: A Record of Life and Travel in Burma, London:
Hutchinson.
66 To view both images in their context, see V.C. Scott O’Connor, 1904. The Silken East, digital,
open access version at archive.org.
80 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
Meanwhile Charlotte moved to the hill station at Maymyo to complete her
recuperation. She asked from her mother the return of one of her sketchbooks
which had, she claimed,
only one or two decent sketches … It is on rough paper and has survey
notes in it on the backs of the sketches and a rough pencil outline of a
Padaung woman with rows and rows of brass rings round her neck –
I want the survey notes and that sketch especially.67
The reason for this request was that Cecil Lowis, a colonial official employed
by the Commission, asked her to “draw outlandish people for the ethnological
work he is doing for the gazetteer”.68 He particularly wanted a representation
of the Padaung people, but she feared she would not be able to get “another
shot at a Padaung, for they are very shy, and I have notes as to the colouring of
her garments”,69 hence requiring the old sketchbook. Her artistic skill and her
deepening acquaintance with different ethnic groups were clearly attracting
attention among Burma’s British officials. Lowis’ desire to include images of a
native population in his gazetteer continued a long history of Europeans not
only representing the natural history of the tropics, but using visual media to
depict ethnographic subjects. Line drawings, paintings, and photographs of
indigenous peoples were central to what Stepan has described as the project of,
“picturing tropical nature”.70 Textual descriptions came to life for European
audiences when accompanied by visual images of indigenous subjects and
Lowis regarded Wheeler-Cuffe as the ideal person to produce such an image.
As an active woman, her long recuperation, which kept her housebound,
was frustrating. She complained that she got “tired of reading and knitting all
day”.71 Her weight had reduced to 6 st and 8 lbs and she explained that it was
“very cold at night here now and I find it hard in the day to keep warm, getting
no exercise. Warm clothes don’t take the place of exercise a bit in getting my
circulation going”.72 By November Charlotte was fit enough to return to Toungoo. She paused en route in Mandalay and was delighted that the Burmese
buildings and the Palace were all looking “wonderfully picturesque, particularly when you get the background of the blue hills behind them looking eastward”.73 The weather proved more appealing in Mandalay. Maymyo had
become “too cold for Eastern manners and customs up there now and damp
inside and one doesn’t have European appliances. Here it is dry and cool and
67 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 5 October 1902, Toungoo.
68 Ibid.
69 Ibid.
70 Stepan, Picturing Tropical. See also Casid, J. H. 2005. Sowing Empire: Landscape and
Colonization, London: University of Minnesota Press.
71 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 31 October 1902, Maymyo.
72 Ibid.
73 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 23 November 1902, Mandalay.
Mobility and cultures of expedition 81
delightful”.74 The period spent in both places, however, facilitated her recovery
and her move back to Toungoo.75
When she arrived home her attention focused on the garden which had been
neglected with her long period of absence. She had:
potted up 20 big pots of Eucharis Lilies – that is, I sat and superintended
– The vegetable seeds are doing well but the idiotic man mixed up the
labels so I can only guess what plants are. Cardoons and artichokes galore, but I don’t know which is which. Is there any way you can tell by
leaf ? And how big should cardoons be before you earth them up?76
While she enjoyed the wilder landscape of the Burmese ‘jungle’ during her
travels, in her domestic space she preferred a more ordered version of nature.
Domesticating the garden with labelled vegetable beds, which appealed to a
European gastronomy, partly achieved this sense of difference. By Christmas
her health had improved enough that she was ready to order goods from Harrods and Harveys to decorate her house. In the meantime her mother had returned the sketchbook that contained the drawing of the Padaung woman.77
Her mother had also arranged for some of the orchid paintings she had sent to
Parkside to be framed. Although these works had been produced in Burma,
the preparation for their display took place in London. She had received a
book on the Culture of Greenhouse Orchids from which she was “getting some
hints as to potting and propagation generally… unfortunately there are very
few Burmese ones in it, which rather defeats me”.78 If the circulation of knowledge was taking place at a globalised scale, the content of that knowledge itself,
especially in the area of botany, was necessarily regionalised. Species of orchids, native to specific parts of the globe, often required their own specific
growing conditions and planting regimens. A general text on orchids grown in
greenhouses in temperate climates was of limited utility to a woman seeking to
propagate native species in a tropical environment. Indigenous knowledge, obtained from the locals, would ultimately be more helpful than a book produced
in Britain and transported by ship and rail around the globe.
Life continued apace in Toungoo as they entered into 1903. Charlotte acquired a new pony and reported that she was spending time tending her orchids in hanging baskets that Otway had made for her.79 While they were
settling back into life in the town, and rebuilding their house, which had been
destroyed in a storm, they unexpectedly received a telegram in February “for
immediate transfer to Mandalay”.80
74 Ibid.
75 Kennedy, “The Perils of the Midday Sun”; Livingstone, “Tropical climate and moral hygiene”.
76 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 14 December 1902, Toungoo.
77 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 20 December 1902, Toungoo.
78 Letter from CWC Mrs Williams, 28 December 1902, Toungoo.
79 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 4 January 1903, Toungoo.
80 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 8 February 1903, Toungoo.
82 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
The Eurasian question: crossing boundaries of race and gender
The prospect of moving to Mandalay appealed to both Otway and Charlotte.
He would be “delighted to get back among his old haunts”,81 having being
stationed in the city prior to his marriage. She enthused about the move too,
particularly emphasising its superior status in the social and political pecking
order of Burma. She claimed:
Everything in Toungoo is second rate – work, office, govt establishment –
and society! And in Mandalay it is first rate – and it does make a difference. I don’t think I am a snob but one does get sick of second rate
people, though one feels a beast for they are often kind and good – and
then there is the Eurasian element of which no one at home can in the
least realize the drawbacks and which one can not put into words without being ill mannered.82
She regarded the personnel living and working in Toungoo as inferior to her
experiences elsewhere and looked forward to the prospect of being posted to a
place which commanded high status in the spatial hierarchy of empire. The
question of mixing ‘races’ forever proved a thorny issue in the wider discourses
about empire both at home and overseas, and it would personally occupy some
of Charlotte’s thoughts during this time too.83
Even among historians, the category ‘Anglo-Indian’ has been an imprecise
one that has connoted anything from British residents living in colonial India
to the descendants of ‘mixed-race’ lineage.84 It regularly referred, at some
level, to the hybridity of those settled in colonies at the height of empire, and
often to the offspring of marriages between colonials and locals, most particularly between British men and local women. The predominance of male immigration, both among European and Asian migrants, meant that in urban areas
especially Burmese women outnumbered Burmese men and relationships with
migrant labour and British officials were not uncommon. Under colonial conditions this Eurasian community found itself often situated between the categories of ‘civilised’ and ‘less civilised’ in the calibration of racial groups within
the empire that were positioned along a continuum from tradition to modernity.85 While the East India Company, in the seventeenth century, attempted
to proscribe interracial liaisons between natives and white settlers, by the
81 Ibid.
82 Ibid.
83 Samson, J. 2005. Race and Empire, London: Routledge; McClintock, Imperial Leather;
MacKenzie, J. (ed.) 1986. Imperialism and Popular Culture, Manchester: Manchester University
Press.
84 Burton, A. 2006. ‘Review work: domicile and diaspora: Anglo-Indian women and the spatial
politics of home’, Women Studies Quarterly, 43, pp. 512–515.
85 Carton, A. 2012. Mixed-race and Modernity in Colonial India: Changing Concepts of Hybridity
across Empires, London: Routledge.
Mobility and cultures of expedition 83
eighteenth century the unworkability of such a policy saw the British authorities encourage their employees to marry native women provided they converted
to Protestantism.86 The New Charter of 1833 offered enhanced public recognition of English-speaking and better-educated Eurasians. Their role in the development of the telegraph and railway infrastructures, coupled with the
instrumental part they played in restoring British authority during the Indian
Mutiny of 1857, secured them advantage over natives in almost every aspect of
colonial society. Nonetheless, their status remained ambiguous and fragile, and
as an emerging indigenous nationalist movement in the late nineteenth century
gathered pace, Eurasians witnessed a shift in imperial policy towards the Indianisation of the colonial civil service. Consequently, the Eurasian community
found itself increasingly marginalised within both the indigenous and imperial
power structures.87 The source of Wheeler-Cuffe’s unease with the Eurasian
population partly stemmed from this wider political context and Britain’s anxieties about mixed race relationships, but it also reflected very particular personal circumstances.
During the previous six months her cousin, Rosie Langrishe, had been their
houseguest at Toungoo. While marriages between white European men and
native women were somewhat troubling but tolerated, the prospect of a white
European woman marrying someone of native or Eurasian descent was
deemed to be doubly troubling. The British administration categorised imperial subjects through official headcounts and Ikeya suggests “distinctly modern
categories of Burmese Buddhist ‘natives’ and European Christian, Indian
Hindu or Muslim, and Chinese ‘foreigners’ crystalized”.88 Such bureaucratic
boundary distinctions undergirded state practices and these Census categories
were used by colonial states to deter and police the melding of any powerful
alliances across common class interests both among the colonised populations
and between colonised and coloniser.89 Some scholars have suggested that such
taxonomies were not solely reducible to a ‘divide and rule’ policy but might
have been part of a wider belief among British colonial officialdom that religion and ‘race’ determined one’s identity.90 Either way such distinctions hugely
informed and impacted European conceptions of the significance of ‘race’ in
the regulation of social relations and in particular with respect to white
86 Carton, A. 2007. “Historicising hybridity and the politics of location: three early colonial
Indian narratives”, Journal of Intercultural Studies, 28, pp. 143–155.
87 Cressey, P. F. 1935. “The Anglo-Indians: a disorganised marginal group”, Social Forces, 4, pp.
263–264.
88 Ikeya, Refiguring Women, p. 26.
89 Stoler, A. L. 1989a. “Making empire respectable: the politics of race and sexual morality in 20th-century colonial cultures”, American Ethnologist, 16, pp. 634–660; Stoler, A. L.
1989b. “Rethinking colonial categories: European communities and the boundaries of rule”,
Comparative Studies in Society and History, 31, pp. 134–161.
90 Dirks, N. 2001. Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press; Bayly, S. 1999. Caste, Society and Politics in India from the
Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
84 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
European women. In the case of Charlotte’s cousin, she had become acquainted with a Major Charles Norman Bensley, an English-educated, widowed doctor, of Spanish and Bengali descent. As their relationship developed
and their engagement was announced Charlotte wrote to her Aunt Cha in Ireland, expressing her disapproval. She claimed, “[as] the hard facts of life out
here as the wife of a very dark Eurasian begin to press [I dread] that she will
resent it to him, poor man. He can’t help being black, of course, and as Eurasians go, he is rather nice, but there is (often alas! with too good cause), a very
strong feeling against them out here, and prejudices of that sort are not discriminating”.91 She did not elaborate on the source of those prejudices but in a
letter to her mother she reiterated her disapproval of the proposed marriage.
While her views were informed by the prevailing attitudes of the British settlers
of her acquaintance, they may also have reflected her own anxieties as a white
colonial of Irish ancestry. She had continued her close familial connections
with Ireland in an era when Irish nationalism was strengthening, and allegiances to the British state were being challenged and diluted. When Britons
travelled to the colonies on imperial service, their genealogies moved with
them, and political events at home could be deeply connected with identities
abroad. In a later letter to her Aunt Cha she sought to clarify her position:
Personally I have no prejudice against Eurasians at all, and I know some
charming ones; but such a prejudice does exist and very strongly and is often most cruel … I always liked the Bensleys, and used to stick up for them
when people said nasty slighting things about them for being ‘so black’ – In
fact my stock phrase always was ‘I don’t care if they are pea green or sky
blue or any other colour, I don’t see why one should not be nice to them’.92
Her attempt to distance herself from any overt racist prejudices was achieved
through projecting the negative disposition on to the colonial community
themselves and acknowledging that it was the one in which she operated.
Nonetheless there is little evidence that she explicitly resisted any attempts to
categorise people on the basis of skin colour. In fact, on a number of occasions, she commented on the physical appearance of different ethnic groups
she encountered in Burma. She continued, “To hear a roomful of people
laughing and joking at Rosie’s expense, and stop short and change the subject
when they see me coming isn’t a pleasant experience, and will be even less so for
Rosie herself ”.93 Her anxieties about her cousin’s social acceptance seemed to
shape her attitude, although she too seemed to reflect those prejudices. Nevertheless, Rosie did marry Bensley in 1903 and they had one daughter. Her husband rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel before they returned to live in
Dublin after his retirement. However, when the Irish Free State was established
91 Quoted in Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, p. 59.
92 Quoted in Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, p. 61.
93 Ibid. p. 61.
Mobility and cultures of expedition 85
in 1922, they moved to England, perhaps reflecting their attitudes to Irish independence and their position within a new Irish state. It was in the context of
this disquiet about the marriage that Charlotte prepared for their move to
Mandalay, and her fears about her cousin transgressing accepted racial boundaries, if not class ones, even in the colonies, animated her perspective on the
potential conjugal arrangements. Despite her opposition to the marriage she
maintained a close friendship with the newly married couple and visited them
regularly during their service in Burma.
New beginnings: Mandalay
Charlotte’s excitement at moving to Mandalay was reinforced by Otway who
was “rejoicing the proposal of good polo and a very nice lot of British officers
to associate with”.94 Much of her time was spent preparing for the move and
their personal effects were transported by rail. She claimed that she had
“shoved orchids and lilies and ferns into every hole and corner in the railway
trunk, and will take all I can besides when I go”.95 The person replacing Otway
in Toungoo, she claimed, “doesn’t care a pin for a garden … I shall just dig up
and take all that will move. I can’t bear to have them die for want of water”.96
On 5 March the Wheeler-Cuffes took the 6:25 pm train on the 230-mile journey from Toungoo to Mandalay accompanied by their two cats, three dogs,
servants, and two dun ponies. She hoped to develop a nice garden at their new
house, noting that, at present, it was a “howling wilderness”.97 The plants she
brought from Toungoo would provide her with a foundation and, because her
husband was to be in charge of Government House, he was permitted to have
as many flowers and vegetables as he liked from the garden when the Lieutenant Governor was away. She noted that her gardener was likely “to be a treasure – He is half Burman and half Gurkha – an excellent hybrid”.98 This remark
contrasted with her attitudes towards hybridity where Eurasians were concerned but is reflective of a wider acceptance of other inter-ethnic liaisons.
On arrival she set about the task of making comfortable her domestic space
and garden, in the knowledge that their new posting represented “one of the
most important divisions in the country both socially and officially, with a lot
of interesting country”.99 Having a home worthy of the status of the posting
was clearly important and Mandalay provided fresh opportunities for exploration.100 Charlotte’s mobility was partly facilitated by the fact that, after five
years of marriage, the Wheeler-Cuffes remained childless. Although she never
94 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 1 March 1903, Toungoo.
95 Ibid.
96 Ibid.
97 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 8 March 1903, Mandalay.
98 Ibid.
99 Quoted in Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, p. 59.
100 Johnson, N. C. 2015. “Global knowledge in a local world: Charlotte Wheeler Cuffe’s encounters
with Burma 1901-1902”, in D. A. Finnegan and J. J. Wright (eds.) Spaces of Global Knowledge:
Exhibition, Encounter and Exchange in an Age of Empire, London: Ashgate, pp. 19–38.
86 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
made any reference to the absence of children in her correspondence, the freedom resulting from not having the responsibility for any child rearing must
have aided her ambition to explore the territories of Burma as much as she
could. The new posting to Mandalay meant that her husband had a new district to inspect and supervise, and this brought her to unfamiliar parts of Upper Burma, especially into the interiors of the Shan and Kachin states.
Movement, whether it resulted from new postings, or expeditions with her husband as he inspected his district, was now an integral part of her everyday existence and central to her life.
The ruby mine district of Upper Burma 1903
A few days after settling into the city they undertook their first road inspection
trip to the well-known ruby mining district of Mogôk, 70 miles north of the
Mandalay. The first leg was made by steamer, on an Indian Marine Ship Bhamo
along the Irrawaddy to Thabeitkyin. From there they made the four-day trek
overland to Mogôk, with nine mules in tow. They marched the next day over 18
miles by road to Shwenyaungbin through what Charlotte described as “lovely
mountains”.101 The following morning they continued their trek to Kyapin,
over a 5,000 feet high pass where, she claimed, “there is the most glorious view
from the top in all directions. From there the road descends to 3,700ft … surrounded by high peaks”.102 Rubies, sapphires, garnets, moonstones, amethysts,
and aquamarine were all found in the alluvial deposits in the valleys below. At
Mogôk various employees of the Ruby Mines Company and other colonial
officials met them. While some scholars of empire have suggested that the exploitation of the Burmese ruby mining district motivated the annexation of
Upper Burma in 1885, ruby mining was never as central as the exploitation of
rice, teak, and oil to the economic life of Burma. In 1889 the Burma Ruby
Mines Company, formed by Lord Rothchild and Streeters (the London jewellers), issued capital stock which was heavily subscribed to within minutes of its
release. Based on knowledge about the vast fortunes that individuals had made
from the diamond mines in South Africa, investors were quick to act. However,
the mining operation proved costly and difficult to manage. Equipment such as
pumps, electric generators, drills had to be transported along the Irrawaddy to
Thabeitkyin and onwards by mule train to Kyabin and across the mountain
range to the mines. The inaccessibility of the region, its topography and poor
infrastructure made it costly and ultimately unprofitable to extract rubies. With
the introduction of synthetic rubies around 1900, the demand for more expensive authentic rubies declined and the Company went into liquidation in 1926.103
Nonetheless, Charlotte was interested in the operation of the mines in the district. The method of washing and sorting the gravel was similar to what she had
101 Letter from CWC to Mrs. Williams, 25 March 1903, Mogôk.
102 Ibid.
103 Samuels, S. L. 2003. Burma Ruby: A History of Mogôk’s Rubies from Antiquity to the Present,
Tuscon: SKS Enterprises.
Mobility and cultures of expedition 87
seen many years ago during the Colonial Exhibition of the Kimberley diamond
mines. She noted that natives also owned some of the mines but worked using
“primitive methods, washed and sorted by hand”.104 She took the opportunity
during this visit to order a ruby and was pleased with the outcome.105
During the day, while Otway inspected roads, Charlotte in the company of
one the wives living in the district “rode the mule track, 12 miles, and all
camped there for the night”.106 The following day the men went to Mainglon,
while the women accompanied them for 6 miles before returning to Mogôk.
Wheeler-Cuffe remarked that there were several projects underway in the area,
including erecting a jail and developing a water supply scheme from the natural
springs on the nearby slopes. Of the botanical life in the area she observed:
There are the loveliest great creamy yellow dog roses and white rhododendrons all over the hills; and huge trees of Bauhinia (the white flower
with a striped petal like a pelargonium Monie has the drawing of), and a
lovely scarlet tree whose name I don’t know, and any amount of orchids,
so I am in my glory.107
As well as botanising, Wheeler-Cuffe assisted her husband by riding with him
to the source of water supply and taking rough measurements. She felt confident that a water scheme could be successful, calculating that a supply of 20
gallons per day per head for the 1,200-strong population would be more than
achievable. She found four new orchids on one tree, three on another, and three
more on a knoll of limestone rock and thus had been “painting hard all
day!”.108 She would send her mother some seeds from the Bauhinia tree which
she thought might survive “in the open, in a sheltered place”.109 They spent
about a week in the area before leaving Mogôk for home, riding back through
the pass at Kyabin and then dropping down through a mule path which was
“short though very steep”.110 She observed the abrupt change in the biogeography of the region, and the role of altitude and orientation in determining the
plant distribution. It was curious, she claimed,
how the vegetation changes at the top of the pass – The tropical plants
have crept up the western side from the plains, but directly you get to the
top they cease, and you get into a region of wild roses, rhododendrons
and buttercups. The orchids don’t seem particular and flourish equally
on both sides of the pass.111
104 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 25 March 1903, Mogôk.
105 Ibid.
106 Ibid.
107 Ibid.
108 Ibid.
109 Ibid.
110 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 5 April 1903, Mandalay.
111 Ibid.
88 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
She worried that the orchids she collected would not thrive in Mandalay as the
air was “so frightfully dry – and they require a moist atmosphere”.112 While the
dry heat of the city might not suit orchids, she personally enjoyed the dryness
of the atmosphere despite daily temperatures rising to 105 degrees Fahrenheit daily.113
This first trip to Mogôk yielded several plants some of which she painted
and others she collected to stock her new garden. The orchids included Dendrobium crepidatum, a species she had painted in Toungoo from an earlier expedition. She also collected Cymbidium aloifolium and Dendrobium fimbriatum,
which she sketched as part of a large composition which included the Dendrobrium crepidatum (Figure 4.3). This detail from the larger watercolour captured the buttercup-yellow blooms of the Dendrobium fembriatum in flower
and in bud, as well as its shiny pale-green leaves. Wheeler-Cuffe illustrated it
attached to its host tree the Bauhinia purpurea, a native, small- to medium-sized,
deciduous tree common to India and Burma. The painting’s naturalistic setting denotes a composition that harmonises the individual orchid within its
wider habitat. This contrasted with approaches to orchid illustration that focused entirely on more stylised and systematic evocations of the key diagnostic
characteristics of a plant, a technique often favoured by professional plant illustrators. She also produced an alluring painting along the Ruby Mines Road
of the PWD’s elephant going home after a day’s work (Figure 4.4). This iconic
image of a working elephant, rounding a bend on the road and surrounded my
mountainous terrain, reminds us of the central role that animals played in the
extraction and transportation of natural resources in Burma. Her first trip
from their new posting proved a success and was the beginning of many excursions she made around this district. Her appetite for botanising and exploring
new territories had not diminished in the slightest despite her earlier illness and
the prospect of fresh adventures energised her.114
A break to Maymyo
The Wheeler-Cuffes spent their first Easter in Maymyo. Visiting hill stations
during vacations, and to escape the most intense heat of the tropical sun, was
an important part of the social calendar of British India. The hill station often
promoted a nostalgia for home because the upland landscapes and aesthetics
of the built environment, often resembled the architecture and environmental
features found in picturesque images of Britain. The cultural practices found in
112 Ibid.
113 Ibid.
114 Johnson, N. C. 2020. “Trekking around Upper Burma: Charlotte Wheeler-Cuffe’s exploration
of the frontier districts, 1903”, in D. Lambert and P. Merriman (eds.) Empire and Mobility in
the Long Nineteenth Century, Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 152–173.
Mobility and cultures of expedition 89
Figure 4.3 Dendrobium fimbriatum growing on a Bauhinia purpurea over Chaung ta
Shé, Mogôk. (Courtesy of the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin).
these settlements also closely mirrored those of the homeland.115 Wheeler-Cuffe
noted that there was a polo tournament taking place but she was unsure if
their ponies, Monkey and Spar, would be fit enough to take part.116 The gardens in the settlement, she observed, were
115 See Kenny, “Climate, race and imperial authority”; Kenny, J. 1997. “Claiming the high ground:
theories of imperial authority and the British hills stations in India”, Political Geography, 16,
pp. 655–673; Kennedy, The magic mountains.
116 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 11 April 1903, Maymyo.
90 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
Figure 4.4 Ruby Mines Road ‘Po Sein’ the PWD elephant going home to bed, 1913.
(Courtesy of the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin).
lovely and make one green with jealousy! [One] is a perfect show – like an
English garden with orchids and plantains and bamboos thrown in. My
dust heap in Mandalay nearly makes one weep, but I may get a few plants
to grow in the rains.117
117 Ibid.
Mobility and cultures of expedition 91
In his analysis of British travel narratives about the hill station of Nuwara
Eliya in Ceylon, for instance, Duncan noted how a grammar of romanticism,
governed by English landscape taste, prevailed as the “mountainous topography of the area around the capital and the relatively cool climate, for a tropical
location, lent themselves admirably to a peculiar type of cultural production,
the re-creation of a bit of Britain in the tropics”.118 Although Wheeler-Cuffe
was not a transient travel writer, the hill station provided an occasion for her to
use the familiar syntax of polo fields, rose gardens, and English landscape design to translate, to her family in Britain, a flavour of the character of Maymyo, and provide for them an imaginative geography of the place. When they
returned to Mandalay three of their ponies died in quick succession – Monkey,
John Chinaman, and Spar.119 While these animals were an important part of
their social life in Burma – playing polo and visiting friends around a compound – they were essential for their execution of expeditions. Although railways and riverboats were significant their most intimate, flexible and immediate
means of transportation were their ponies. Without them, their mobility would
be hugely restricted. Consequently, they quickly bought a half-Burman and
half-Arab mare named Bride, and a cream-coloured pony, possibly of Chinese
origin, called Bhamo.
Too hot to paint
Although the prestige of Mandalay was attractive to the Wheeler-Cuffes the
heat of the city, especially in summer months, proved an impediment to Charlotte’s artistic and gardening output. With temperatures soaring to 112 F she
claimed it was “almost impossible to paint now, the colours dry in one’s brush
before there is time to get them to paper”.120 On the positive side the dry heat
was more tolerable than the humid conditions elsewhere in Burma and the
absence of mosquitoes eliminated the need for bedroom curtains. She requested that some cyclamen plants be sent from Britain and if the city proved
too hot for their cultivation she would “pass them on to Janet at Maymyo”.121
Gardening was proving difficult, and aside from lilies which could “hold the
moisture in their thick fleshy stems”,122 most other plants frizzled up in the hot
temperatures, despite regular watering. The orchids and ferns she had transported by train from Toungoo had “suffered sadly”.123 She took advantage of
the access to Government House, courtesy of Otway’s position, and moved her
maidenhair ferns to the enclosed fernery there. Although the weather curtailed
the success of her garden and limited her painting, she nevertheless declared
118 Duncan, “Dis-orientation”, p. 153.
119 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 2 May 1903, Mandalay.
120 Ibid.
121 Ibid.
122 Ibid.
123 Ibid.
92 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
that there was “no doubt this place suits me far better than Toungoo did as
regards climate – it is hotter, but also dry”.124 The soaring temperatures continued through July and the landscape was “burnt dry and brown – but continuous gales rage night and day”.125 A pleasant distraction, however, was the first
official visit in August of the new Lieutenant Governor, Sir Hugh Barnes, to
Mandalay, having previously been stationed in the Punjab.126
Charlotte instructed her mother to attempt to sell some of the orchid paintings she had sent home, ideally to Kew. This was the first recorded occasion she
expressed a desire for her botanical illustrations to be sold in Britain. She pondered over the appropriate price, speculating that £60 for the collection might
be cheap while £1,000 might be excessive and thus somewhere between the two
would be ideal. She opined: “Never having sold drawings before, I am rather at
sea about their value”.127 She did recognise that their merit resided in her firsthand experience of painting them in the field. She observed:
I fancy their value consists chiefly in their being painted in the place the
orchids grew – so that they are perfectly natural as regards position and
surroundings. Lots of people can paint as well and better than I can; but
not many of them have the opportunity of painting orchids in their natural habitat.128
Establishing a regime of trust, as an eyewitness, had been a preoccupation
since the age of exploration had begun, and was emphasised in publications
like the RGS’s publication Hints to Travellers (1854).129 Although she sometimes completed paintings from specimens brought back from the field, she
usually made preparatory sketches in situ (Figure 4.5).
Given Kew’s importance as a centre of accumulation and calculation for
botanical studies, she would offer them her work at a lower price. Her mother,
thus, began acting as her unofficial agent for the sale of her paintings in Britain
and Ireland. While she was a keen amateur, she recognised the commercial potential of her work and their scientific value for large British botanical institutions. She would soon send to London six or seven new paintings, accompanied
with notes about where she had found the plants and descriptions of their growing habitats. Unfortunately, her mother indicated that Kew seemed reluctant to
purchase any of her work and her response was that she could not “make out
the Kew people. They must have seen the prices when they saw the drawings at
the [Imperial] Institute. It sounds like trying to get them for nothing!”.130 ­Despite
her paintings receiving public exposure at the Imperial Institute, Kew, perhaps
124 Ibid.
125 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 10 July 1903, Mandalay.
126 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 16 August 1903, Mandalay.
127 Ibid.
128 Letter from CWC to Mrs. Williams, 6 September 1903, Mandalay.
129 Driver, Geography Militant.
130 Letter from CWC to Mrs. Williams, 22 September 1903, Mandalay.
Mobility and cultures of expedition 93
Figure 4.5 Photograph of Wheeler-Cuffe sketching, Mandalay, n.d. (Courtesy of the
National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin).
through scarce funding and her relative obscurity, declined to buy them. While
Charlotte was disappointed, she consoled herself in the knowledge that she was
not “desperately anxious to sell them, and unless I can get a good price for
them, would rather keep the collection myself ”.131 Moreover, on a more positive
note, the nurseryman Harry Veitch had visited Parkside to see her work and this
reinforced in her mind that some prominent people from the scientific and
131 Quoted in Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, p. 192.
94 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
commercial plant worlds appreciated her efforts. Over the following years she
would begin to sell her paintings, with some considerable success, both to people in Burma and at home.
Gokteik Gorge
One of Charlotte’s last excursions of 1903 was a visit to the acclaimed Gokteik
Gorge, located about 60 miles northeast of Mandalay, between Maymyo and
Lashio in the Shan States. The gorge itself was renowned for its dramatic scenery, yet she disapproved of the viaduct crossing the ravine. It was, she said:
an ugly spider legged American girder thing that annoys my artistic soul
and makes me want to placard up Mr Hawkshaw’s (the president of the
Institute of Civil Engineers) remark that “engineers have no business to
uglify the world” – but holds I believe the world’s record for height being
330ft to the top of the natural bridge and another 500 ft to the river, so
that from the centre you look down absolutely sheer 830 ft to the river
disappearing into a cavern under your feet.132
The Gokteik Viaduct was fabricated by the American Pennsylvania Steel
Company and opened in 1901. The bridge spanned 2260ft and had a maximum
superstructure height of 320 feet, and at the time of its opening was the longest
railway trestle bridge in the world. It was intended as the cornerstone of a plan
to connect Kunming in China to Rangoon, and concomitantly facilitate the
transport of bulk goods such as lead, teak, silver ore, and jade from Yunnan.
Prior to the construction of the viaduct luxury, lighter-weight goods travelled
by mule caravans led by Chinese merchants across three natural bridge crossings of the Chungzoune River, that flowed through the gorge. According to
Baillargeon, however, the diverse Shan states through which the Burma-­
Yunnan railway would need to pass were not a “legible extension of Burma,
but instead a collection of unique states that had diverse ethnic populations,
each with their own historical relationships with both the Burmese and Chinese states [empires]”.133 Moreover Scott suggests that the peoples of these
highland regions of Upper Burma had perfected, over the centuries, the elusive
art of not being governed and exerted resistance to attempts at centralised
control.134 And, according to Wohlers and Waters, “Highlanders achieve this
end not by challenging planners directly but by avoiding their institutions,
thereby creating a situation in which land cannot be alienated, workers cannot
be subordinated to intrusive projects, tribute is minimised, and the centralised
132 Quoted in Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, p. 67.
133 Baillargeon, D. 2020. “‘On the road to Mandalay’: the development of railways in British
Burma, 1870–1900”, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 84, p. 665.
134 Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed; Scott, J. C. 1998. Seeing Like a State: How Certain
Schemes to Improve the Human Condition have Failed, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Mobility and cultures of expedition 95
political power needed for large infrastructure projects remains irrelevant”.135
The railway line, finished in 1903, ultimately terminated at Lashio, well short
of the Chinese border. The viaduct featured regularly in travel books, such
Walter Del Mar’s The Romantic East,136 where the narrative focused on the
picturesque landscape and alluring drop over the gorge made visible from a
railway carriage. Wheeler-Cuffe’s objections to the viaduct were aesthetic,
though the fact that an American steel company had been awarded the contract to build this prestigious bridge in colonial Burma may also have grated on
her nerves. This impressive steel construction, feted by many as an archetype
of modern engineering, failed to win her approval.
During this trip she and Otway were invited to dine with a Sawbwa (local
hereditary chief/king of a Shan state), Saw Hké. Charlotte’s principal observations related to his upbringing. She noted that he and his brothers were “educated in England, and have the manners of young English gentlemen, at least
with Europeans”.137 His private dining room, she observed, was furnished in
the “European style”.138 He provided a boat tour of his estate along the Myitgné River and she greatly admired his gardens and fruit groves located on islands around the property. Displays of indigenous hospitality by political and
social elites were appreciated on what she described as “a delightful day”.139
Conclusion
These opening years of the twentieth century proved highly productive ones
for Wheeler-Cuffe. Although the family experienced frequent transfers, and
these could be disruptive to domestic and professional routines, they also expanded Charlotte’s the field of territory in which she could plant collect and
paint. She progressively became a seasoned fieldworker, and the architectures
of mobility which underpinned her travel into the field, reveal the multiple actors and infrastructure necessarily to make movement possible. Transport to
remoter areas was usually non-mechanised, conducted primarily by pony or on
foot. Mobilising the necessary supplies to expedite such journeys required
large numbers of native labourers, subordinate officials, domestic servants and
animals. Although Charlotte was usually the only female member on these
expeditions, her status as a white, British colonial secured her position, along
with her husband, at the top of the social order. Class and race trumped gender
in the algebra of power exercised on these journeys, and while the trips were
physically exacting, she reported no concessions being awarded on the grounds
of femininity. Notwithstanding these overall geometries of influence, native
135 Wohlers, D. C. and Waters, T. 2022. “The Gokteik Viaduct: a tale of gentlemanly capitalists,
unseen people, and a bridge to nowhere”, Social Sciences, 11, p.16, https://doi.org/10.3390/
socsci11100440.
136 Del Mar, W. 1906. The Romantic East, London: Adam and Charles Black.
137 Quoted in Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, p. 69.
138 Ibid.
139 Ibid.
96 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
expertise was important, if under-recognised, in navigational, linguistic, and
security terms. As a result of this travel, Charlotte firstly produced numerous
botanical paintings, especially of orchids, from plants she collected in field. She
painted on site or finished work at home from sketches made in situ. Second,
unlike professional illustrators who rarely travelled into the field, she had developed a naturalistic style of composition, regularly displaying epiphytic species attached to their host phorophytes. Third, as her portfolio of botanical
and landscape subjects grew, she began to attract the attention of officials in
Burma who required visual illustrations for their travel books and gazetteers.
Her reputation as an artist began to diffuse around the colony. Concomitantly,
by sending her work to London, she also began to develop contacts with botanists and horticulturalists at institutions in Britain and Ireland. And as her
confidence began to increase she explored, for the first time, the commercial
potential of her art, recognising that her direct field experience made her plant
illustrations useful to male scientists who themselves would never visit Burma.
As much as she had an expeditionary impulse, her domestic space was never
neglected. She continued to manage her household servants and garden, and
although she exhibited prejudices with respect to the native ethnic groups she
encountered in the field, it was within the intimate family circle that her views
on the Eurasian population, in particular, took shape.
5
Networks of knowledge and
exploring Upper Burma,
1904–1910
On the move
While the Wheeler-­Cuffes were contented with the prestige attached to the
posting in Mandalay, it proved to be relatively short-­lived, and they were transferred to Meiktila in 1905. Nonetheless, the move still presented Charlotte with
the freedom to explore Upper Burma, particularly areas that formed part of
what Scott refers to as Zomia, or those highland regions that extended from
the Central Highlands of Vietnam to northeastern India.1 In the Burmese section of this large territory lay the Shan and Kachin states, some of the least
integrated parts of colonial Burma. Geographically remote, topographically
challenging, ethnically diverse, and politically de-­centralised, these mountainous regions and their peoples foxed the most assiduous administrators’ efforts
to bring them under the purview of colonial governance.2 As Scott puts it more
generally, “Aspiring to Linnaean specificity in the classification of peoples as
well as flora, territorial administrators were constantly frustrated by the bewildering flux of peoples who refused to stay put”.3 In contrast to the lowland
regions these mountain lands remained relatively stateless, and Scott suggests,
“resisted incorporation into the framework of the classical state, the colonial
state, and the independent nation-­state”.4 Although Charlotte explored these
regions, both from Mandalay and Meiktila, the move from one town to another refracted on her domestic arrangements and social connections. Places,
as Livingstone and Withers observe, “are very far from being just matters of
physical location and symbolic meaning. They are also constitutive of social
exchange, enabling or constraining activities”.5 Mandalay heralded a more
active social life among the colonial community than Meiktila. Moreover,
during these years Charlotte’s capacity to travel was interrupted by periods of
illness and bereavement, and two periods of furlough spent in Britain and
1 For a definition of Zomia see Scott, The Art of Not being Governed, pp. 13–25.
2 Leach, E. R. 1954. Political Systems of Highland Burma: A Study of Kachin Social Structure,
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
3 Scott, The Art of Not being Governed, p. 18
4 Scott, The Art of Not being Governed, p. 20.
5 Livingstone and Withers, Geographies of Nineteenth-­Century Science, p. 7.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003157595-7
98 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
Ireland. Their financial position in relation to familial commitments in Ireland
also impacted on their way of life overseas. Despite her restricted mobility, she
did travel and this chapter will document some of the major expeditions undertaken in Upper Burma between 1904 and 1910, and her efforts to consolidate
her influence through intensifying her web of connections with other plant
enthusiasts in Burma. Secondly, an analysis of the extended visit, made by
Otway’s father in 1907 following the death of his wife, reveals how the more
intimate sphere of the domestic was managed. Rather than going ‘jungling’
Charlotte acted as tour guide and embarked on numerous visits to famous sites
of historical interest with her father-­in-­law. Accepting the gendered responsibility of acting as principal host for their house guest, she introduced him to
the social world of Mandalay’s colonial community, which culminated in their
attendance at the official celebrations for the Viceregal visit to the city. Thirdly,
the restricted mobility, precipitated by illness and a long spell spent in Britain
away from her husband, brings us into the more intimate space of conjugal
roles as they played out when she was unable to accompany Otway on expedition, or assume a central role in the management of household affairs. Despite
the constraints placed on Charlotte’s personal mobility she did succeed in undertaking some important trips to the Shan States, to areas less frequently
travelled by white, colonial women, and she produced several new botanical
paintings.
Exploring Upper Burma
Otway’s district when stationed in Mandalay extended to the ruby mining region around Mogôk, the Shan states, and the Sino-­Burmese frontier territories. When on expedition Charlotte typically brought with her a sturdy case of
art materials including pencils, paints, brushes, and a water bottle to carry out
field sketches.6 In 1904 she undertook a trip to the Mogôk region and noted
the cooler climate compared to the dry heat of the city. She noted that it was
“bitterly cold at night and last night there was a hard frost; the first either Otway or I have seen since we were married”.7 They visited the village of Bernardmyo, ten miles north-­west of Mogôk. It had been founded as an army
garrison in the 1880s and named after Upper Burma’s Chief Commissioner
Sir Charles Edward Bernard. Charlotte thought, with its climate, that it would
have been a heavenly site to locate a hill station. It would, she claimed, “have
been paradise. I don’t mean to run down Maymyo but to begin with Bernardmyo is 2500 ft higher, and correspondingly cooler”.8 However, its relative
inaccessibility meant there was no rail link ever established and thus its suitability as a retreat from the lowlands could not be realised. On this trip she
climbed Toungmè mountain on a very steep track to the summit, established
6 Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, p. 65.
7 Letter from CWC to Mrs. Williams, 3 February 1904, Mogôk.
8 Letter from CWC to Mrs. Williams, 21 February 1904, Mandalay.
Networks of knowledge and exploring Upper Burma 99
by Gurkha signallers, who had set up a helio station there.9 At the summit she
found crimson rhododendrons, with sweet, white-­scented orchids growing
from them, as well as white immortelles and violets. She gathered seeds from
the latter and collected another orchid too,10 which may have been Cymbidium
longiflorium.11 This species had been identified by D. Don in 1825, and was a
large-­sized, cool to cold epiphyte or lithophyte found on rocks and trees, typically at elevations of 5,000–9,000 feet in the Chinese Himalayas, Assam, Eastern Himalayas, Nepal, Bhutan, and Burma. Back in Mandalay, she received a
new sketchbook from London and began painting a yellow orchid she had
found on the Mogôk Road.12
On a short visit to the small settlement of Lamaing, Otway deer-­hunted and
went cock-­shooting while she went “scrambling about and sketching and hunting for orchids”.13 She rode to within about eight miles of Maymyo and climbed
along a goat path in search of plants and was accompanied by her two syces
Moung Thet and Moung Tôk. Unfortunately, she discovered that the “jungle
thereabouts is too dry for orchids, and I only got one, a pretty blue one. It is
mostly bamboo of various kinds and a great deal of them are seeding this
year”.14 By May they were due to go on leave and they would “summer in England and winter in Ireland”.15
On furlough: 1904
In advance of their departure, rumours circulated that they were to be transferred to another post. She was dismayed at the prospect, declaring that she
would be “so sorry to leave Mandalay for good, as I doubt we shall ever come
back here”.16 Before boarding the SS Staffordshire she had dispatched her
plants, ponies, pets, and furniture to friends in Maymyo and Mandalay. Her
servants had also secured new appointments. They were due to arrive at the
Suez canal on 15 June, where they would set sail for Italy and would travel
overland to Switzerland to join Otway’s parents for a vacation.17 They spent
over a year at home in Britain and there is sparse extant correspondence during
this period. Charlotte wrote to London from Woodlands, where they were
staying with Otway’s parents, in December 1904 instructing her mother to send
some of her paintings to Rangoon. She wanted them sent by registered mail,
and insured for £1 each, as they were to appear in an exhibition in city in
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, p. 66.
12 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 19 March 19 1904, Mandalay.
13 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 3 April 1904, Mandalay.
14 Ibid.
15 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 3 February 3 1904, Mogôk.
16 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 8 May 8 1904, Mandalay.
17 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 22 May 1904, Mandalay.
100 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
January 1905.18 While she could not attend the event herself, she was keen that
her work be displayed to a wide audience.
The couple spent the first six months of 1905 in Ireland, staying at Woodlands in Waterford and Firgrove in Co Kilkenny. Curiously in mid-­May a
package arrived from London. It contained her drawing case which had mysteriously gone astray in Burma and included a drawing block, paint box, paint
brush, stylo pen, silver match box, silver box, bottle, and pencil. Before returning to London she was “seizing the last opportunity of finishing a beautiful
sketch”.19 She was also arranging for some of her new paintings to be framed.20
Clearly, even when they were on leave Charlotte enthusiastically continued
with painting and preparing her completed works for sale or exhibition. Her
plan to travel to London in the early summer was interrupted, however, by illness. Otway wrote to Mrs Williams on the occasion of their wedding anniversary, reporting that her doctor was “satisfied with her progress but says we
must expect for her recovery to be very slow”.21 As on previous occasions, having to rest proved tiresome. To break the boredom her mother dispatched to
her some orchids, including a yellow species, which she had originally found in
1899 in the Arakan Yomas. She went on to paint it when she was living in
Meiktila in 1906 from a specimen provided to her by Todd Naylor.22 She hoped,
if her health improved, to spend some time in Dublin visiting friends before
they would have to make preparations for their return to Burma. In the meantime Otway, in conjunction with Aunt Cha, was arranging for a new pony to be
transported via Liverpool to Burma.23 Sufficiently healthy, she visited London
in advance of her departure. Mrs Williams was anxious about the separation
from her daughter but Charlotte adopted a pragmatic view reckoning that “if
I put off going it would just be just as hard later on, if not worse, as the more
she gets used to my being here, the more she would miss me when I go”.24 As
her mother advanced in years, the time spent with Charlotte became more precious. Nonetheless, the Wheeler-­Cuffes boarded the SS Worcestershire and arrived in Rangoon in November.
Domestic affairs: Meiktila, 1905
After returning to Mandalay they learned that they were to be transferred to
the town of Meiktila, 65 miles southeast. Their servants, who were working
elsewhere while they were on furlough, would re-­join the household as soon as
possible, and their domestic space could be re-­
constructed once again.25
18 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 4 December 1904, Woodlands, Waterford.
19 Letter from Otway WC to Mrs Williams, 20 May 1905, Firgrove.
20 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 10 May 1905, Woodlands, Waterford.
21 Letter from OWC to Mrs Williams, 3 June 1905, Firgrove.
22 Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, p. 27.
23 Letter from OWC to Aunt Cha, 17 October 1905, Parkside, Wimbledon.
24 Letter from CWC to Aunt Cha, 24 October 1905, Parkside, Wimbledon.
25 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 27 November 1905, Rangoon.
Networks of knowledge and exploring Upper Burma 101
Although they had been on leave a long time Charlotte felt as if they “had ever
been away at all. The weather here now is simply perfection and the place looks
lovely. Certainly it is as pretty as any place I ever saw, and it is at its best now”.26
She explained to her mother that their new address would simply be Meiktila,
Burma, pronounced “Make – tilla with the accent on the first syllable”.27 When
they arrived to their new post Charlotte was disappointed by their accommodation. She declared that the house was not very nice “and is very shut in, the
high jail wall to the N and other peoples’ houses and roads to the E and W and
scrubby jungle on the W”.28 The trees on the property were insufficiently high
to provide shade yet were too dense to allow through breeze. She provided a
detailed description of the layout of the house. The ground floor had one large,
low-­ceilinged living room with pantry and storeroom at the back and a wraparound verandah. Upstairs there was one large bedroom, extending from the
front to the back of the house, with two small adjoining rooms and a bathroom
at the rear. While she was somewhat dismayed by the quality of the property
she was also confident that she could transform it to her taste.29
Vulcan, the new pony transported from Ireland, arrived and was adjusting
well to her new environment, while being trained by Charlotte’s syce. In contrast to the dry heat of Mandalay, the weather in Meiktila was favourable and
Charlotte liked the “bright sunshine and a cool breeze … and once we get settled, we shall I think be very comfortable here, though I don’t like the place
nearly as much as Mandalay”.30 This new town was not
as interesting or picturesque on the whole, though one gets pretty distant
glimpses of the Shan Hills on the E, and the curious isolated volcanic
peak of Popa on the West, but both are a long way off. The country between was flat or gently undulating, bare and almost treeless.31
Meiktila itself was divided into two quarters, bisected by a lake and connected
by bridge. She produced a detailed map of the settlement in ink and crayon
(Figure 5.1).
Located in the east was the Military Station, church, bazaar, railway station,
hospital, and social club, while the west included the Civil Station, civil house,
police station, and polo ground. Their house was located in the Civil Station.32
Despite, the absence of spectacular views, she immediately began to transform
her domestic space. She planted her garden with the seeds, bulbs, and vine cuttings she had brought from London. Otway was principally responsible for an
26 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 2 December 1905, Mandalay.
27 Letter from CWC to Aunt Cha, 10 December 1905, Meiktila.
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid.
30 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 17 December 1905, Meiktila.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid.
102 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
Figure 5.1 Sketch of Meiktila, 1905. (Courtesy of the National Botanic Gardens,
Glasnevin).
area that stretched to Mount Popa in the west and 60 miles northwest to Pagan
on the banks for Irrawaddy. Some of this represented new territory for the
Wheeler-­Cuffes and the prospect of visiting unknown places compensated, to
some degree, for leaving Mandalay.33 She quickly became acquainted with their
33 Nelson, Shadow among Splendours.
Networks of knowledge and exploring Upper Burma 103
new neighbours, and Otway was getting familiar with the local PWD staff,
some of whom had trained, like him, at Cooper’s Hill. The officers of the 72nd
Punjabis and the Middlesex Regiment were located in the settlement and represented to Charlotte Meiktila ‘Society’.34
A new year dawns
As a new year dawned, the Wheeler-­Cuffes undertook a week-­long vacation to
the renowned historic site of Pagan. Containing over 2,000 temples and shrines,
this place represented one of the most important centres of Buddhist culture in
Burma.35 They visited the Thamii Whet caves, cut into soft sandstone and used
by Buddhist hermits. Adorned with a huge carving of a Buddha, numerous
frescoes, and inscriptions, she noted that the caves had collapsed in places and
had been restored by the PWD. The Head of the Archaeology Department,
and a Cambridge-­educated scholar in Sanskrit and Chinese, Taw Sein Ko,
acted as their guide. They appreciated the expertise he provided and noted that
he spoke English “perfectly and has the manners of an English gentleman but
he has the good sense to keep to his native dress”.36 For Charlotte the display
of English etiquette by native people was a source of comfort, it seemed, and
reinforced her sense of the civilising influence of empire. They visited the
eleventh-­century Sulamani temple pagoda, which the PWD maintained, and
the renowned Ananda Temple, which was looked after by the Burmese. Taw
Sein Ko, she recounted, skilfully explained the imagery of the sculpture and
terra cotta bas-­reliefs.37 They climbed to the top of the Tha bin yu [Thatbinnyu] temple, from which they appreciated the spectacular views of the river and
mountains beyond. She claimed that, under ordinary circumstances,
the more bigoted Buddhists look upon anyone, especially a woman,
climbing up pagodas as a form of desecration, unless for the purpose of
repair or decoration in which case it is an act of … kudos … so that in
our own case … they were all enthusiastically delighted at our going into
every hole and corner.38
His status as representative of the PWD gave Otway, and by extension
Charlotte, dispensation to ascend the pagoda, although she appeared to
­
­devalue Buddhist beliefs about respecting this sacred site.
In June they went on a work trip to the Bago Yoma mountain range between the Irrawaddy and Sittaung Rivers, about 30 miles south of Meiktila.
34 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 17 December 1905, Meiktila.
35 Aung-­Thwin, M. 1985. Pagan: The Origins of Modern Burma, Honolulu: University of Hawai’i
Press; Leiberman, V. B. 2003. Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800–1830,
Volume 1, Integration on the Mainland, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
36 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 11 February 1906, Meiktila.
37 Ibid.
38 Ibid.
104 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
During the trip they saw about 50 thamin, or brow-­antlered deer; hence she
nicknamed this region ‘thamin country’ and annotated paintings produced
from this trip with the same name. While Otway carried out inspections, she
hunted for orchids and got two charming ground kinds that are new to
me – one like a white Roman hyacinth with a bent stalk and leaves like
crinkled lily of the valley, & another the same growth but pale lime-­
blossom-­green flowers.39
Nelson suggests that they were species of Calanthe. She also came across a
Vanda roxburghii,40 and she painted the orchids in situ while the men were surveying. When they reached the moated village of Yindaw she found white lotus
with “lovely great blossoms as big as one’s head … they won’t last gathered for
more than an hour or so”.41 They were not suitable for transportation back
home, yet the trip was seemingly yielding some exciting new species to observe
or collect.
Charlotte was intent on reproducing the kind of existence she had enjoyed
in Mandalay, and her desire to travel had not diminished.42 Her garden was
progressing, although it was challenging, and as they entered the rainy season
the trees needed thinning as they had “a regular jungle of prickly samosas
which give no shade and only cover the ground and smother the few good trees
there are, which I want to encourage”.43 She re-­employed her old trusted servant, Po Myit, as her existing servant was “rather careless, and wanted more
wages than is customary here … while Po Myit is one of the best Burman servants in the country”.44 From London she received an Irish songbook and ordered binding covers for her Harmsworth’s Encyclopaedia which she would
have bound locally. Otway had been supplied with an assistant engineer,
Sharpe, to help with the work of the district.45 The Lieutenant Governor had
visited and she claimed he was well received by the Burmese as “he has been in
Burma a long time, and can chat to them in their own language”.46 By mid-­
October her garden was “quite gay but I am longing for my seeds to arrive
from home, as the rains are nearly over and they should be sown this month”.47
In a shake-­up of posts, some of their friends would be leaving Meiktila, marking once again the ever-­changing rotation of personnel in colonial service.48
39 quoted in Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, pp. 73–74.
40 Ibid.
41 Quoted in Nelson, p. 74.
42 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 3 June 1906, Meiktila.
43 Ibid.
44 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 6 August 1906, Meiktila.
45 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 2 September 1906, Meiktila.
46 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 29 September 1906, Meiktila.
47 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 14 October 1906, Meiktila.
48 Ibid.
Networks of knowledge and exploring Upper Burma 105
During this period Charlotte had also to deal with matters related to home.
Her Aunt Cha requested a loan from them of £300 at 4% interest per annum to
maintain her house at Firgrove. The Wheeler-­Cuffes did not have the immediate funds to provide such a loan. Otway’s annual income from the PWD was
£773. They saved about £100 annually to cover the £200 required to make trips
home. In addition when on leave his salary was reduced to £340 per annum.
The previous year when they were Ireland they had spent their surplus income
paying for repairs to Firgrove. Charlotte also had an annual allowance from
her father of £65, which was deposited at Coutts Bank to pay for bills to London stores. As a compromise she proposed that they would partly pay the rent
on Firgrove (£40 pa) and that she and Aunt Cha would become joint tenants.
Otway’s name would be omitted from any legal agreement, so if his relatives
ever enquired into their affairs, he could claim that his wife’s money was her
own business and she had the right to spend it as she pleased.49 Even though
Charlotte would have liked to have the house as a retirement destination, financial considerations were ever-­present.50 As Christmas approached, Charlotte’s
father reached his 90th birthday and she sent a telegram to him to mark the
event. A few days later they learned of the sudden death of Otway’s mother.51
Exploring the Shan States, 1907
Visiting the Shan States was an important part of their itinerary during 1907
and over Christmas 1906–1907 they undertook their first of many excursions
to the region. They did so in the company of their long-­standing friend
MacNabb. As one of the areas of Burma least encroached by imperial authority, it would represent a new experience from an anthropological and botanical
perspective. The trip began by a train to Thazi, where their trap and pony
awaited them. After travelling nine-­and-­a-­half miles by trap, they were met by
two men from Kyauksè, Morris from the Irrigation Department and a Wesleyan Missionary, Vickery. They continued their journey by trap and, although
the terrain was steep and rocky in places, the pony navigated it carefully “and
once up the first rise things improved again, & the scenery began to be very
pretty, the road winding round wooded hills with glimpses of the blue
­mountains ahead growing nearer mile by mile”.52 The road had been metalled
here and there, but as they reached the precipice they discovered the bridge
they hoped to use had been dismantled. They abandoned their trap and
rode onwards to Tagundaing where they lodged in a half-­completed bungalow
overnight. They “dined in the open under the rising moon by the light of a
huge bonfire”.53 It was large party comprising 30 transport mules and their
49 Ibid.
50 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 29 September 1906, Meiktila.
51 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 25 December 1906, Meiktila.
52 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 6 January 1907, Meiktila.
53 Ibid.
106 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
11 drivers, and 8 ponies. At the Panlaung River Otway and the men beat for
game and although they spotted several deer, they failed to kill one. Game
shooting was a regular pastime among colonial officials, and as MacKenzie
has observed “hunting represented a historic cultural interaction which the
British were able to use to build social bridges with Indians”.54 They continued
the next day uphill to Nampandet where they entered the Shan States. Although the road was about 21 miles long, they took shortcuts “through beautiful wooded hills, with here & there a stream or a waterfall. It reminded me of
the steeper woods in dear old Woodstock”.55 By the end of December they
reached Kalaw, which lay at approximately 4,000 feet above sea level at the rim
of a fertile valley, surrounded by pine-­clad limestone mountains. The village of
Kalaw was relatively large and there were proposals to establish, in the surrounding hills, a military sanatorium for invalided soldiers. She commented
that the soil was
a brilliant ocre-­red, & covered with grass and homelike plants – bracken
and raspberry & hawkweed, & it is only when one comes to a village surrounded by groves of giant bamboos & huge ‘nyaung’ trees (very like
India rubber trees) inhabited by queer large hatted Shan or still queerer
blue clothed, turbaned Taungthus, the women gay with embroidery &
great filigree silver earrings – that one realizes where one is.56
They reached the village of Myinkyado where there was a “splendid view away
over the plains which lay, level as the sea, thousands of feet below”.57 The following day was New Year’s Day, which they spent in
cosy villages with gardens full of roses & peas & beans & other homelike
things, where cheery Shans were working, & jolly fat children playing;
now through a deep rocky valley with huge trees covered with orchids, &
a clear rushing stream at the bottom.58
While at one level she represented the Shan people as unfamiliar and exotic,
the landscape of the region seemed to resemble that of Hampshire or Sussex in
terms of garden design and plant species.59
After a ten-­mile trek they arrived at the village of Ywangan. Morris wanted
photos of the local Taungthu women, the kind of ethnographic record beloved
of Western travellers. Charlotte assisted him, much to the amusement of the
locals. As most of the villagers understood Burmese, reflecting the multilingual
54 MacKenzie, The Empire of Nature, p. 169.
55 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 6 January 1907, Meiktila.
56 Ibid.
57 Ibid.
58 Ibid.
59 Ibid.
Networks of knowledge and exploring Upper Burma 107
character of the people of the uplands, Charlotte could communicate with
them. After this interlude they began their descent into the Natteik Pass, “one
of the ancient trade routes into the Shan States from Burma”.60 The beginning
of the descent was easy to navigate, but it gradually became more hazardous
and, although they succeeded without mishap, Charlotte observed that “it was
awful, but where it was polished by hundreds of years of bullock traffic it was
worse”.61 They met a procession of 100 locals making the ascent “without apparent difficulty, & to judge by their splendid condition, they thrive on the
work”.62 The capacity of the local people to navigate the terrain with ease and
confidence resonates with Scott’s observation that the people of the mountains, cognisant of their own geography, could remain largely aloof from the
structures and influence of the colonial state found in the lowlands.63 During
this excursion Charlotte found several plants, including a Vanda caerulea,
which she had painted at an earlier date. She also collected a Dendrobium boxallii, which she had seen in 1904 in Mogôk, a Bulbophyllum picturatum, which
she had encountered on earlier trips to Leiktho and Thandaung, and a Thunia
alba orchid, which she had roughly painted in 1903. Her mule driver also collected a brown-­and yellow-­flowered orchid Coelogyne fimbriata. She acquired
a white-­and-­mauve Dendrodrium at the Natteik Pass, which she subsequently
painted in April 1907.64 Overall, from a plant hunting perspective, the trip
proved a success and although she mainly found plants with which she was
already familiar, the experience of entering the Shan States whetted her appetite for future visits. Otway was promoted to the position of First Executive
engineer in 1907, which came with a salary increase of £10 per month.65
After the Shan States trip Charlotte spent several weeks working on her
garden, which had developed, she thought, into the “gayest in Meiktila”.66 She
planted petunias, verbenas, phlox, calliopsis, and vegetables galore, including
cabbage, beetroot, and cauliflower. On her verandah and indoors she grew
ferns, amaryllis, palms, lilies, and a few orchids. She entered some paintings to
an art competition in Rangoon and was awarded second prize for three
sketches. She received the news, however, without much joy claiming that “the
critics and judges know so little about drawing that a prize there is not much of
a feather in one’s cap”.67 Whether this judgement was a commentary of the
provincial nature of the colonies compared to the metropolitan centres of
­Europe is hard to tell. She may also have been preoccupied by the news that her
60 Ibid.
61 Ibid.
62 Ibid.
63 Scott, The Art of Not being Governed.
64 Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, p. 79
65 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 3 March 1907, Meiktila.
66 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 10 March 1907, Meiktila.
67 Ibid.
108 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
father had died from a fall, and that Otway’s father, Major Cuffe, was suffering
ill-­health since the death of his wife.68
Charlotte undertook another orchid hunting trip in late April to the Shan
Hills. The party consisted of Otway and Hampton (Otway’s sub-­divisional officer for this area); 26 Indian hired labourers, and their 2 gangers; 3 syces and
6 servants; and 6 ponies. They stayed overnight at a PWD bungalow near
Bodègon about 2,500 feet above sea level, from where they continued along
narrow paths in an easterly direction “through forests, full of lovely orchids
and chattering monkeys, rising and falling between 2000 and 3500 ft”.69 They
stopped overnight at the small village of Taung nyo on a ridge running
E-­W. Their Burmese ponies adeptly navigated the steep hills the following day,
and they camped at a deserted village. There was a thunderstorm overnight, so
they decided to travel on foot as the paths were too slippery for animals. They
left their syces with the ponies and continued on with their hired help, who carried tents and food supplies for the entire party as there was no food supply
available after Taung nyo. From Zedigon they began their ascent of Sindaung
(Elephant) mountain which rose to an elevation of 6,022 feet. After trekking
through forests and open, grassy country they arrived at the village of Salì-­in
(5,200 feet) where they camped for two days. Charlotte described it as the
most charming place imaginable. Sheltered a little by the surrounding
mountains, but yet on a ridge with the most superb views all round; steep
open grassy hills with clumps of great trees here and there and limestone
crags and patches of forest and a climate that is simply magnificent.70
She described the local people, partly Shan and partly Burmese, as “shy, sturdy
hill folk, but full of fun and good humour”.71 The following day, they gave their
hired labour a rest and she, Otway, and Hampton climbed to the mountain’s
summit, where they found “a bunch of limestone pinnacles clothed in white
rhododendrons and exquisite orchids – mostly the lovely great white one
with an orange heart, and a tiny white one no bigger than a harebell, with a
purple lip”.72
Although she was the only woman among this large party, she never alluded
to the absence of any female company. The strain of climbing the peak tired
her and she struggled with the descent to Zediglon. Consequently, four of the
labourers carried her on a makeshift sedan assembled using a packsaddle slung
between two bamboos. As the slopes on the descent became steeper the entire
party had to slide down the track on leaf mould until they reached the bottom.
However, she successfully collected a white-­blossomed orchid, Dendrobium
68 Letter from OWC to Mrs Williams, 7 April 1907, Meiktila.
69 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 3 May 1907, Yamethin.
70 Ibid.
71 Ibid.
72 Ibid.
Networks of knowledge and exploring Upper Burma 109
infundibulum, and a Dendobrium ochreatum (found at 5,000 feet). She was familiar with both species as she had obtained them from a friend, Goode, who
found them in the Chin Hills in 1904. She produced a number of paintings
from this trip: a Thunia alba she had found on Sindaung Mountain and two
species she thought were ground orchids but were in fact members of the ginger family. Lastly, she collected some Dendrobium findlayanum, a species she
had originally painted in 1903. Clearly, she was now obtaining some new plants
but also many species with which she was already familiar. The trip proved
exciting and energising and it was a welcome distraction for Charlotte as she
mourned the death of her father. However, while her fitness levels had not been
an issue much over the previous ten years of exploration, this trip represented
the first signs that she might find scaling some of the steeper slopes of the
­Burmese uplands more challenging.
After this long trip Charlotte took a break from any major expeditions.
Major Cuffe was to arrive later in the year and they thought the fine winter
climate of Meiktila would appeal to him and the convivial demeanour of the
town’s colonial settlers would provide him with much-­needed companionship.73 While she recovered from the exertions of Shan States trip and news of
the death of her father, she focused on her garden, which she claimed was
really pretty. The borders from the gate are a sheet of pale mauve and
white petunias, with a hedge of sunflowers and dark coleus at the back ….
an arch covered with a rampant pink Antigon leading to a small formal
garden with beds of verbenas surrounding a paved place to sit out when
the grass is wet.74
It is clear from her letters that seeing her garden in Meiktila mature provided
her with great pleasure.
Major Cuffe visits Burma, 1907
Charlotte undertook some house renovations in anticipation of Major Cuffe’s
arrival. An office was installed on the ground floor and a new bathroom and
dressing room were created for her father-­in-­law upstairs. She planted fast-­
growing creepers along the wall outside the office to provide shade.75 Before his
arrival they undertook a ten-­day break to Maymyo and she visited the Ani
Sakhan waterfall which she painted. It was a popular beauty spot where the
plateau ended abruptly “in a great horse-­shoe cliff 600 or 700 ft high, clothed
in vegetation and scored with half a dozen waterfalls”.76 She collected a number of plants, including a purple-­blossomed ground orchid in the bog land at
73 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 28 July 1907, Meiktila.
74 Quoted in Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, p. 82.
75 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 11 August 1907, Meiktila.
76 Quoted in Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, pp. 82–83.
110 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
the foot the falls and a Habenaria susannae, both of which she later painted.77
Major Cuffe arrived and seemed “delighted with everything”.78 They stayed a
few days in the Rangoon after his arrival and brought him to see the Burma Oil
Company refinery as well as the Shwedagon Pagoda, which she claimed was
indescribable and no painting or description gives the least idea of it. It
is the centre and climax of all the aspirations of the whole Buddhist
world and who shall say but that its golden spire does not point truly
Heavenward along another road than ours, and when all truth is perfected and all dimness made clear, we shall not find our ways meeting in
the fullness of God’s perfect day?79
The climate in Meiktila entirely suited Major Cuffe and his health improved
considerably. They went to Mandalay for the Horse Show and this coincided
with a state visit by the Viceroy and Vicereine, the Earl and Countess Minto.80
Her account of the Vice-­Regal visit to Mandalay indicates that she enjoyed
immensely the pomp and ceremony of empire. She claimed they attended a
“charming water carnival in the Old Palace gardens, given by the Commission”.81
She and Major Cuffe had good seats to observe the welcoming party which
consisted of Shan and Burmese notables. The Shan Chiefs were dressed magnificently, with one adorning a “circular golden hat, of solid beaten gold with
a wreath and aigrette of rubies … beautiful embroidered Chinese shoes”.82
They enjoyed the Durbar at the Old Palace Hall where the Chiefs were in their
“brilliant uniforms and gorgeous dresses”.83 The formal procession of the vice-­
regal party consisted of the wife of the Lieutenant Governor of Burma, Lady
White and her daughters; Lady Minto and her daughters; Sir Herbert White;
and finally the Viceroy. He was welcomed by a 31-­gun salute, and the British
national anthem. The reception at Government House proved very enjoyable
and Charlotte commented that everyone displayed their “best bibs and tuckers
(my new black satin much approved of) and got home just before midnight”.84
The Mandalay trip proved a great success and Major Cuffe appreciated the
opportunity to meet the wider colonial community. Moreover, although Charlotte generally preferred ‘jungling’ to social events among the colonial community, it is clear from her letters that she enjoyed the display of imperial
governance as represented by the symbolism and formality associated with
public, Vice-­regal visits to Burma.
77 Nelson, Shadow among Splendours.
78 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 28 October 1907, Rangoon.
79 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 3 November 1907, Meiktila.
80 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 17 November 1907, Meiktila.
81 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 30 November 1907, Mandalay.
82 Ibid.
83 Ibid.
84 Ibid.
Networks of knowledge and exploring Upper Burma 111
Homeward bound: family matters, 1909
In January 1909, Otway received the unexpected news that his father had died
suddenly. He was granted compassionate leave and they departed Burma in
early February.85 Charlotte dreaded the prospect of expediting Major Cuffe’s
financial affairs at Woodlands but she hoped once matters were settled they
could visit England via Kilkenny. During their voyage to Britain they visited
Kandy in Ceylon which she described as a
pretty little place in a narrow wooded valley most of which is occupied by
an artificial lake, surrounded by houses and gardens with the native town
on one side of the famous ‘Temple of the Tooth’ supposed to contain the
tooth of the Buddha which is as big as horses and probably is one! … The
actual temple is nothing much to look at … compared to the Shwe Dagôn
in Rangoon which is really magnificent.86
During the stopover she visited the Peradenya botanical gardens, which were
“quite beautiful and most interesting”.87 Establishing face-­to-­face contact with
the personnel of the gardens would prove invaluable for sourcing and exchanging plants, particularly when she became responsible for the development of
the botanic garden in Maymyo in 1917. While she already had good contacts
with Irish and British botanical institutions, this visit in Ceylon was an important milestone in deepening her networks overseas.
While in Ireland, Otway settled the future financial affairs of Leyrath House.
Otway loaned Sir Charles £300 per annum until the Estate Commissioners
paid the purchase money of the estates. In return Sir Charles would leave Otway “everything – money, house, demesne, furniture, plates and all – as tenant
for life. With power to give me a jointure of £300 a year”.88 If Otway were to
predecease his uncle, the loan of £300 per year would continue until the purchase money was paid to Charlotte at 5% interest. The only way that the terms
of the agreement could be altered would be by Sir Charles repaying the loan in
full. The overall advantages of the agreement were that she and Otway would
become life tenants of Leyrath House and she would be financially secure if
she were to survive her husband. This seemed to be an outcome that suited
both parties, despite Charlotte’s earlier desire that they might retire to Firgrove.
Illness and recuperation
As well as taking on the burden of settling family estates during this period of
leave, Charlotte faced the challenge of illness once again. She visited Dr
85 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 24 January 1909, Yamethin.
86 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 26 February 1909, SS Cheshire.
87 Ibid.
88 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 4 April 1909, Hibernian Hotel, Dublin.
112 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
Katherine Maguire in Dublin,89 and was subsequently admitted to Elpis Private hospital under the supervision of consultant gynaecologist Sir William
Smily. He performed surgery to remove her fallopian tubes, ovaries, and two
cysts. The operation, she reported, lasted three hours and 20 minutes, but she
was making a good recovery.90 She had to postpone visits with family and
friends in Kilkenny or Waterford and her consultant advised her not return to
Burma with Otway in late July due to the heat and duration of the journey. She
would, in all likelihood, travel in October when the weather was cooler. By the
end of May she had been discharged from hospital and was recuperating
at Leyrath House, where she booked her passage on the SS Leicestershire for
1 October.91
Otway returned to Burma and Charlotte spent the remainder of the summer in Wimbledon with her family. Over the course of their marriage they had
very infrequently been apart, and this situation was new for both of them.
Otway promised his mother-­in-­law that when Charlotte returned to Meiktila
he would “take great care of her”.92 Friends in Burma sent him letters of goodwill and this had kept his “courage during these days of loneliness without my
Shadow”.93 When she finally arrived in Burma he remarked: “Well never was I
gladder to see anyone, and looking so bonny, jolly and fat!”.94 For colonial officials more generally, service in the empire could be a desolate experience, particularly for single men.95 In Otway’s case this episode gave him insight into
how life might be in colonial service without a companion. His personal relationship with his wife and her role assisting with his work duties were hugely
important to his career in Burma. While servants could deal with domestic
chores, it was their collective alliance as travelling companions and work partners that left him feeling isolated by her absence.
When she arrived in Rangoon they briefly visited friends before boarding
the train for Meiktila. As they passed each station in their district, local people
presented her with flowers, a gesture that greatly touched her. Moreover, she
was overjoyed to be reunited with her pets. She quickly inspected her home and
garden and was content with the condition of both despite her absence.96 After
this unexpected interlude in Britain, and still recovering from surgery, ­Charlotte
was re-­establishing her domestic arrangements in Burma but also looking forward to the prospect of once again being free to explore, plant hunt, and
paint.97 Bush suggests that for Edwardian women of empire “marriage and
89 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 1 April 1909, Salthill Hotel, Dublin.
90 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 15 April 1909, Elpis Private Hospital, Dublin.
91 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 1 May 1909, Elpis Private Hospital, Dublin.
92 Letter from OWC to Mrs Williams, 19 September 1909, Meiktila.
93 Letter from OWC to Mrs Williams, 26 September 1909, Meiktila.
94 Letter from OWC to Mrs Williams, 1 October 1909, Meiktila.
95 Ghosh, D. 2006. Sex and the Family in Colonial India: The Making of Empire, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
96 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 30 October 1909, Meiktila.
97 Ibid.
Networks of knowledge and exploring Upper Burma 113
home-­making had a higher symbolic value as the embodiment of virtues which
underlay British rule … familial and domestic metaphors were continuously
used to exalt the imperial enterprise”.98 Alesso has also documented how
­British settler colonies were regularly personified as female in popular graphic
art and propaganda. The very survival of the empire depended on the transportation of “suitable wives and mothers to the colonies in order to prevent
miscegenation and foreign occupation, as well as the preservation of British
civilisation and Christian religion”.99 Charlotte’s return to Burma marked a
symbolic restoration of the domestic harmony of the Wheeler-­Cuffe’s household. Nonetheless while her home and garden – emblems of domesticity – were
significant expressions of her femininity, the desire to travel with Otway had
not dissipated since her recent illness. Her approach to marriage may also have
been influenced by the changes taking place in Britain and Ireland as women’s
access to education, employment, suffrage, and their role in the family were
being actively debated in the public sphere.100 While these ideological questions
were of particular import to single women, it is conceivable that such thinking
indirectly inflected the way in which Wheeler-­Cuffe approached her life as a
colonial wife. There is no direct evidence that she engaged with these debates,
but the fact that she so readily went on expedition and disliked some of the
quotidian rituals of domestic life suggests, at the very least, that she was happy
to move beyond the ordinary boundaries of femininity practised by many colonial spouses. However, she was still convalescing from surgery and was unable to accompany Otway on expedition and this state of affairs left her feeling
“dull”.101 By Christmas she felt well enough to visit Mandalay for the Horse
Show and spent the New Year with their friends, the Clarks.102 This brought a
welcome close to a year punctuated by the unexpected death of Otway’s father,
an unscheduled trip home, an operation, and a long recuperation. It was one
of her least active years from the perspective of plant collecting and sketching.
Last year in Meiktila, 1910
The year 1910 marked the end of the Wheeler-­Cuffes’ residence in Meiktila
before they were transferred, once again, to Rangoon. As Charlotte’s health
improved, she slowly resumed painting and some travelling. In February
they took a short trip south to Yamethin and Pyinmana. Using an existing
survey Otway had to assess the feasibility of finding a suitable route for a
road along the foothills. The original surveyor, a native clerk, had outlined a
98 Bush, Edwardian Ladies, p. 159.
99 Alesso, D. 1997. “Domesticating ‘the Heart of the Wild’: female personification of the colonies, 1886–1940”, Women’s History Review, 6, p. 265.
100 Bush, Edwardian Ladies.
101 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 28 November 1909, Meiktila.
102 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 26 December 1909, Meiktila.
114 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
potential route for the road directly through the valley and its paddy fields,
but Charlotte claimed,
[T]he half-­educated Babu is a wonderful person and the utter impossibility of making him understand the reason behind the order was disheartening. If he is given an absolutely hard and fast line to survey he will do
it with absolute accuracy and plot out a most beautiful map with sections
and all the rest of it; but give him the smallest discretion and he is sure to
make a mess of it.103
His design, she claimed, was unworkable because it traversed the paddy fields
and would destroy the crops which the road was designed to transport. There
was a shortage of skilled personnel to carry out these types of surveys, and
Charlotte asserted that unqualified subordinates were often tasked with these
jobs. This, however, may point to the haphazard administration of Burma by
the colonial authorities rather than the ineptitude of native workers. They also
visited another road-­building project west of Yemathin, in the Indaing [Dipterocarp] jungle. These jungle areas comprised dry, deciduous, hardwood, and
scrub forests that grew on gravelly clay soil. She noted that there were “more
wild flowers on the ground and more orchids on the trees than in damper teak
forests”.104 She surmised that the deciduous nature of these forests allowed
more daylight to penetrate, and hence flowering plants survived better than
during the shorter period of leaflessness found in teak forests, or in tropical,
moist, broadleaf, coastal rainforests. Trees behaved differently both within the
tropics and between tropical and temperate zones, Charlotte explained.105
Apart from true evergreen trees, there were a huge number of deciduous trees
whose habit changed according to climate. Those in the dry zone shed their
leaves completely during hot weather, but in moister regions they grew their
new leaves as they dropped their old ones. Moreover, she noted,
[A]s they are all tropical forms which are not found in Europe they have
no English names (except for teak, tamarind and a few others), so that a
list of Burmese or Latin names (even if I knew them!) wouldn’t be very
instructive.106
Keen to learn more about species identification and nomenclature particularly
about the tropical zone, she joined the newly formed Burma Research Society.
The Society was founded, in March 1910, by Burmese scholars and colonial
public servants at a meeting held in the Bernard Free Library in Rangoon. The
attendees included J. S. Furnivall (colonial public servant, and historian);
103 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 12 February 1910, Yamethin.
104 Ibid.
105 Ibid.
106 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 3 April 1910, Meiktila.
Networks of knowledge and exploring Upper Burma 115
J. A. Stewart (colonial public servant and Professor of Burmese); G. H. Luce
(academic at the Government College, Rangoon); Pe Maung Tin (scholar of
Pali and Buddhism), and C. Duroiselle (historian and archaeologist). The aim
of the society was the “investigation and encouragement of Art, Science and
Literature in relation to Burma and the neighbouring countries”.107 It published the Journal of the Burma Research Society from 1911 to 1977.
Byingye excursion: a challenging mountain
In April 1910 Charlotte undertook her first major trip since her illness. It was
a vacation, to mark the Burmese New Year, to the Byingye Mountain, located
in the western Karen Hills. It was over 6,100 feet high and had once been considered as a location for a hill station.108 While women rarely went with the
Wheeler-­Cuffes on work trips, they occasionally had female company on holidays. Their engineer friend, Grant, and his daughter Lennie accompanied
them on this one. As well as their own riding ponies, they brought six pack
mules.109 Charlotte travelled by rail to Yamethin, where she met Lennie, and
together they continued their train journey to Shwemyo and were met by
­Otway and Grant. The two men had recruited a team of hired labour, ponies,
and mules in readiness for their trip the following day. Their entire party
­included the Wheeler-­Cuffes and Grants; 4 servants from their household, including a cook and syces; the Grants’ Burmese servant and 2 native syces; 7
transport mules (military) and 2 drivers; 12 native labourers to clear the jungle
route and carry lighter items; the headmen of 2 neighbouring villages that voluntarily decided to accompany them; and a couple of Karens. When they
reached the foot of the Karen Hills they were met a representative, Mr
­Shrewsbury, of the Bombay Trading Corporation. The Corporation had a
lease from the government to fell the trees of the nearby teak forest. The lumber was transported by elephant and buffalo to the river and ultimately hauled
by water to Rangoon. On their first night they camped about seven miles into
the valley, where they were surrounded by huge clumps of bamboo. Charlotte
and Otway occupied one tent, while Lennie and her father had a tent each. The
ponies, servants, and hired labour bivouacked around the campfires. The following day they made an early start towards Byingye. The terrain was steep
and treacherous and they embarked on a zig-­zag route upwards. One of their
mules unfortunately fell over the edge but was later retrieved. They camped at
the only suitable site to pitch tents as the “jungle was so thick that we could see
no more of the landscape than beetles crawling among corn stalks”.110
107 Journal of the Burma Research Society, IG Publishing, https://www.igpublish.com/jbrs/
Retrieved October 2022; “The Burma Research Society”, 1960, Nature, p. 579.
108 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 10 April 1910, Meiktila.
109 Ibid.
110 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 23 April 1910, Meiktila.
116 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
The terrain was challenging for the entire party and the following morning
Otway and Grant set out with the native help to clear an advance path. The
forest was so dense that it was necessary to clear three miles of thicket to an
area where they would be able to camp. They left their injured mule and surplus ponies at the first camp under the care of a syce and a servant. The remainder of the party travelled to the second camp. In the evening the
surrounding bamboo caught fire because a syce had left their campfire unattended, and it charred some bedding and scorched Charlotte’s bridle. Much to
her annoyance, in the morning the natives announced that their food supplies
were nearly exhausted, despite having been instructed to pack enough provisions for six days. As a result some of the labourers returned back down the
trail while the remaining party shared what was left of the supplies. They decided to tackle the mountain before breakfast and descend to the lower camp
in the afternoon. Otway, Grant, and the natives led the way and were followed
by Charlotte and Lennie. The two headmen, the syces, and their pony Bhamo
took up the rear. The terrain was too steep for riding, so they made their
way by foot
[u]p and up, through this horrible tangled bamboo, which had been
trampled and flattened into an inextricable labyrinth by browsing wild
elephants, till at last we got into clearer forest, with tall trees where grew
lovely orchids, and a less dense undergrowth in which there was a good
deal of wild tea.111
While the topography was difficult, Charlotte was rewarded by the picturesque
beauty and botanical bounty of the region.
After scrambling for some time they reached a level spot, from where they
had a panoramic view
South, down the Ye é valley, and a tangle of mountains and jungle; west,
over the outer range to the plains and distant hills the other side of the
railway …. to the East rose the rocky peak of Mekondaung, and Southeast the bald wind swept crown of Byingye itself.112
She produced a rough sketch map depicting the three peaks of Tinyudaung,
Mekondaung, and Byringye.113 They continued along the treacherous old mule
road which had been built when it had been proposed to develop a hill station
there and some remnants of bungalows erected for the development were still
visible. Otway and Grant reached the summit but as clouds were quickly enveloping the mountain the women abandoned any effort to scale the peak. This
was one of the first occasions that Charlotte failed to reach her ultimate
111 Ibid.
112 Ibid.
113 The sketch is reproduced in Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, p. 89.
Networks of knowledge and exploring Upper Burma 117
destination. Instead she turned back towards the camp, bringing with her
“bundles of lovely white orchids”.114 Torrential rain poured down and when
they reached camp they gratefully dined on a breakfast of “potted meat and
rice cutlets and pumpkin curry”.115 While they waited for the precipitation to
dissipate she occupied her time “fairly happily painting a new orchid which
Otway held for me”.116 As the inclement weather continued they decided to stay
overnight in the camp. By dawn the winds abated and the native help had already departed downwards. They assembled their bedraggled equipment and
began their descent “through the dripping jungle … We were wet up to our
knees in ten minutes so waded through streams without looking for stepping
stones; leeches got into our boots and crawled up our legs, but we plodded on
dismally”.117 The conditions seemed to be particularly taxing on this trip.
When they reached camp she found
those wretched coolies huddled under a rock by the fire, knowing that we
had no means of getting back without them, and no food because we had
given it to them, and there they were, not making the least effort to come
and help us! I was angry!118
This episode indicated their dependence on native labour to assist them through
some of Burma’s more challenging regions. It also brought to light, however,
the complicated power relations between the local and colonial population,
and highlighted how, to use Scott’s phrase, the “weapons of the weak” could be
mobilised to undermine imperial authority.119 Scott had identified how evasion, foot-­dragging, pilfering, and feigned ignorance could disrupt conventional power hierarchies in his study of Malaysian village life, and some of
these types of tactics could also be used by labourers in Burma’s upland regions.120 While Charlotte may have been impatient and annoyed with their actions, she had little power to control their behaviour in this context. The camp
was waterlogged and the ground was unstable, so they decided to press on with
their descent. The conditions under foot were so treacherous that one of their
mules had a serious fall, yet the mule men loyally scrambled down the slope to
retrieve their luggage and discovered that the animal was still alive. The resilience of these beasts in jungle conditions was impressive, and, like the skills of
servants and hired help, these animals were central to the success of excursions.
The next day was clear and warm and they continued marching downhill until
they reached Shrewsbury’s camp. After their arduous journey and fractious
114 Ibid.
115 Ibid.
116 Ibid.
117 Ibid.
118 Ibid.
119 Scott, Weapons of the Weak.
120 Ibid.
118 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
relations within the party, Shrewsbury played gramophone records of the opera singers Caruso and Nelly Melba, which delighted them. Despite her criticism of the indigenous helpers, Charlotte praised the efforts of her own
servants – Po Myit and Maung Thein – who had to carry very heavy loads
when their mule got injured. She declared that “there was never a grumble
about anything, though they had a most horrible time poor things – far worse
than we did”.121 The fact that they were in her long-­term employment meant
she could exert greater influence over them than the temporarily hired labour.
Yet the entire party relied on the expertise of the locals as their superior resilience and navigational knowledge of the terrain made them indispensable and
thus powerful. Notwithstanding the difficulties of the trip, the Wheeler-­Cuffes
arrived back safely to Meiktila and, although Charlotte had to abandon reaching the summit of Byingye, she was happy to have survived this strenuous
journey.122
She collected several new orchids during this excursion and had them safely
transported home. While there is no extant record of the painting she reported
undertaking in the tent during the rain, there is an outline pencil sketch of an
orchid dated 15 April 1910 and recorded at Mekondaung. Once home, she
completed several paintings, including an Eria pannea and Coelogyne lentiginosa growing together from the same tree branch (Figure 5.2).
The Coelogyne had greenish white flowers with yellow lips spotted with red,
and was larger than the Eria, which had tiny orangey flowers with burnt-­sienna
Figure 5.2 Eria pannea (centre) and Coelogyne lentiginosa (left), Byingye, April 1910.
(Courtesy of the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin).
121 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 23 April 1910, Meiktila.
122 Ibid.
Networks of knowledge and exploring Upper Burma 119
lips. Her inclination to produce botanical images in their natural setting continued. She painted a pair of unidentified orchids collected in the region which
she labelled No 77 (with spikes of small white flowers) and No 78 (with insignificant greenish flowers in pairs) in her plant list, and a Pholidota she had also
found at Byingye mountain (No 82). In her field notes she recorded that she
had found a Dendrobium chrysanthum and Dendrobium dixanthum species she
had collected and painted on earlier expeditions.123 Clearly, after her long period of illness where she sketched little, she began to reinvigorate her portfolio
through this trip to Byingye and made a list of her orchid paintings that she
wanted to send home to England.124
By late October the Wheeler-­Cuffes received two pieces of unsettling news.
Mrs Williams was to vacate her long-­time residence in Wimbledon and Otway
was to be immediately transferred to the Construction Division in Rangoon.125
Having just regained her strength and restored some normal routines, this news
created some turmoil for Charlotte. She found a man to manage the garden
until there was a permanent replacement for Otway. She sold or gifted to
friends her pot plants and on the whole found the prospect of moving “rather
depressing”.126 While moving was always disruptive, the fact that it was to the
capital Rangoon – a place that least interested her – made it a double blow. As
part of the Construction Division Otway would be responsible for the development of a new, large hospital, the maintenance of other civil service buildings,
and Government House. This would represent a significant departure from the
type of work and daily routine that he had enjoyed in Meiktila. For Charlotte
it represented a disagreeable change of focus because there would be fewer opportunities to undertake any official jungle work and thus her botanising activity. On a brighter note the Gazette of India announced that Otway had been
promoted to Major and was to be Honorary Aide de Camp to the Viceroy. This
provided some solace to allay the disappointment of the move to Rangoon.127
Otway found a house in the district of Kokine in Rangoon. It was next door
to the house they had occupied when they were posted to the city in 1899–1900.
Charlotte admitted that the property was “much larger and nicer – four good
bedrooms, 3 sitting rooms, garden, well, tennis court etc. and is on the top of
Kokine hill and many degrees cooler and airier than Rangoon itself ”.128
­Kokine was located in a small range of hills north of the city and although the
prospect of exploring the countryside was much reduced, Charlotte expected
that they would “have a good many ‘globe trotters’ in Rangoon”.129 The likelihood of having to entertain more guests and become involved in the social
123 Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, pp. 92–93.
124 CWC – ‘List of orchids to send home’ May 1910 [no day date].
125 Telegraph CWC to Mrs. Williams, 11 October 1910, Parkside, London.
126 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 15 October 1910, Meiktila.
127 Ibid.
128 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 22 October 1910, Meiktila.
129 Ibid.
120 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
codes associated with domestic life in the big city did not appeal to her. She
spent her final days before departure in Maymyo visiting friends, where she
sketched and collected “wild flowers of which the woods are full now”.130
She gifted plants that she thought would not do well in Rangoon to friends in
the hill station, including an agapanthus which was “the envy and admiration
of all”.131 At the same time her mother was vacating her home in Wimbledon,
and Charlotte’s sister was sending plants from the London property to ­Leyrath,
where they might survive until she retired.
Conclusion
The six years from 1904 to 1910 had been a difficult period in the lives of the
Wheeler-­Cuffes. Family bereavement, coupled with ill health, and financial
concerns had all impacted on them, but particularly on Charlotte. Her capacity to undertake expeditions and maintain the level of mobility she had previously enjoyed was impeded. Nonetheless she did enjoy some success in
expanding her portfolio of art and increasing the depth and circulation of her
botanical knowledge. Firstly, she began to exhibit her work at exhibitions in
Rangoon, for instance, while she was on furlough in Ireland in 1905, and she
won a second prize for some of her sketches in a competition held in the city in
1907. Secondly, the new posting to Meiktila afforded Charlotte the opportunity to undertake a number of expeditions to the Shan States, a region that was
relatively new to her. In two of these trips she encountered the Taungthu ethnic
group with whom she was unfamiliar and she collected several species of orchid. On the second trip she also scaled the Sindaung Mountain, over 6,000
feet, and produced several paintings of orchids she had collected. This trip was
to aid in her bereavement of her father’s death, and she found the descent from
the mountain difficult. Thirdly, with the visit of Major Cuffe in 1907–1908,
Charlotte availed of the opportunity to take him to some well-­known Burmese
historical and archaeological sites. Moreover, she introduced Major Cuffe to
the social networks of the colonial world, and the culmination of this was their
invitation to the official visit by the Viceroy to Mandalay in 1907. While Charlotte avoided many of the social gatherings associated with the domestic life of
colonial families, she clearly valued the display of imperial ritual witnessed
during the Vice-­Regal visit. This very public manifestation of British rule in
Burma won her approval.
Fourthly, the unexpected death of Major Cuffe in 1909 precipitated an unscheduled visit home. The sea voyage provided her with the occasion to visit
the botanic garden at Perideniya in Ceylon and establish some contacts that
might be useful for future plant exchange. Her surgery while in Ireland and
a long period of recuperation constrained her capacity to accompany her
­husband on trips. Finally, by April 1910 she had recovered sufficiently to
130 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 12 November 1910, Maymyo.
131 Ibid.
Networks of knowledge and exploring Upper Burma 121
undertake her first major trip to the Byingye Mountain in the Karen hills. The
trip was worthwhile as she found and painted several new plants, but the strain
of the effort was also in evidence. The behaviour of the labourers demonstrated
the limits of white authority under such circumstances, and the power of the
locals to subvert it. The move to Rangoon in late 1910 was not welcomed;
nonetheless, in the spirit of accommodation and general adaptability, she accepted the challenge. And, as the next chapter will demonstrate, one of the
most important expeditions of her entire life in Burma happened while she was
living in Rangoon.
6
Deepening connections
Rangoon, Mount Victoria, and
the Andaman Islands, 1911–1912
Introduction
While Charlotte received the news of the new posting to Rangoon with some
ambivalence, this period of her life proved highly productive. Two trips she
undertook to Mount Victoria in 1911 and 1912 yielded important botanical
finds, for which she received official recognition from Kew Gardens. This put
her reputation as a plant collector on a firmer footing and augmented her
standing in the eyes of professional botanists at home. Moreover, these expeditions were conducted in the company of another colonial wife, and while men
did accompany them as they ascended the summit of Mount Victoria, the trips
were organised and executed by the two women. Secondly, her commission to
produce illustrations for The Burma Alphabet afforded her the chance to display her artistic skills beyond botanical subjects. She produced a series of impressive paintings depicting the architecture, landscape, fauna, and ethnic
groups of Burma. These pictorial vignettes of Burmese life not only exhibited
her considerable artistic skill, but also brought her work to expanded audiences as the publication was distributed and sold in Burma and Britain. Furthermore the sale of her paintings was also heightened, especially among the
colonial elites of Rangoon. Finally, a visit to the penal colony on the Andaman
Islands, and her response to it, makes explicit her support of British policy
towards the maintenance of law and order in an imperial context. Her interpretation of the prison complex as a representation of a penal paradise and a
site for the reforming benefits of incarceration highlights her commitment to
the imperial project in Burma, and her faith in the eminence of British expressions of authority and governance in the colony.
Settling into Rangoon
The Wheeler-Cuffes worried that living in the city would prove more expensive
than in Upper Burma, despite the extra allowance Otway received for the
posting.1 Charlotte was also apprehensive that she would be lonely as Otway’s
1 Letter from CWC to Mrs. Williams, 20 November 1910, Kokine, Rangoon.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003157595-8
Deepening connections 123
office was far away from their home and thus he could not, as had been the
pattern elsewhere, return for tea during the day. This departure from the routines of domestic life to which she had become accustomed caused her some
concern about her role in the household. However, one of the immediate advantages of the move was that her paintings were attracting more sustained
attention among the colonial population. She happily reported that she had
sold several more drawings … and have orders for another £15 worth; in
fact the only difficulty I see at present is time to keep up with the orders.
There are several lovely things here to paint when I have the time and you
can look at my sketch of the Shwe Dagôn pagoda and fancy me paddling
about on the lake and painting it in different lights and aspects.2
The commercial value of her work was being realised. The boat they had transported from Meiktila, she claimed, provided the ideal vehicle from which to
paint, because it was mobile, private, and prevented the intrusion of people
looking over her shoulder, which was “always a difficulty in public space”.3 The
social networks and customs of conviviality practised in Rangoon differed also
from elsewhere. There was an expectation that any newcomer would pay courtesy calls with more established residents and there were at least 50 people she
was obliged to meet, a prospect that she did not altogether relish. To that end
she had the tennis court on their property restored as, she thought, this would
be a good means for entertaining a number of people simultaneously, and
would reduce the need for individual invitations. She confessed that she did
“funk dinner parties”,4 wherever possible as she found late nights carousing
with other families increasing wearisome.
Making new friends, however, did have positive aspects and she and Otway
had a very enjoyable river trip with their neighbours, the Buchanans, using the
Port Trust’s launch. Buchanan, as Port Engineer, brought them to the site of the
junction of the Pegu and Rangoon Rivers. He had been responsible for greatly
improving the confluence of the two waterways through extensive dredging.
These improvements, she posited, were a consequence of Rangoon being “the
3rd port of the Indian Empire, and bids fair to outstrip Bombay and take its
place as 2nd”.5 The area was awash with activity, as she witnessed fleets of
launches, sampans, steamers, dinghies, Indian marine ships, ships from China,
Irrawaddy steamers, and a range of other small vessels with “picturesque sails
of strange shapes of colours”.6 From the river they could view the tall domes
and spires of the city, including the Catholic Cathedral and the great pagoda
which “throned in quiet glory on its hill overlooking the bustling modern port
2 Letter from CWC to Mrs. Williams, 28 November 1910, Kokine, Rangoon.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 11 December 1910, Kokine, Rangoon.
6 Ibid.
124 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
and town and seeming strangely aloof from it all”.7 In contrast to other places
they had lived in, she noted that Rangoon was very cosmopolitan “where you
may hear every language under heaven spoken, and it is not until you reach the
pagoda that you touch the hem of the real country, and find anything to distinguish the vast difference between Burma and India”.8 Indeed by the early twentieth century Rangoon was a hugely multicultural place, reflecting its status as
an important port city. It had mushroomed in size, almost doubling in population from 134,176 in 1881 to 341,962 in 1921. While some of this expansion
was a consequence of rural to urban migration, most of it was a result of immigration. The 1901 Census indicated that fewer than half the 234,881 residents in Rangoon were born in Burma, and 125,652 were born either in China
or India. Most migrants were male, arriving in the city for work, with fewer
than 12% being women. This uneven pattern of migration with respect to gender resulted in the female population of the city being overwhelmingly native
and almost 80% of them were under 40 years old. Consequently there was a
high incidence of mixed relationships and marriages between Burmese women
and migrant men, including, at times, colonial officials.9
Charlotte rapidly became immersed in the social life of the colonial community. She attended her first horse show and went to an arts and crafts exhibition
where she sold two drawings and got third prize for another, making £10 overall, and received orders for several more.10 As a result of the increasing commercial success of her art, she sent her mother a £10 gift from the £30 she had
recently earned on sales. Her reputation as a gifted botanical and landscape
artist was growing and the additional income was an added bonus.11 While she
was adjusting to life in Rangoon, an unexpected invitation arrived. Winifred
MacNabb, wife of the Deputy Commissioner in Magwe, and an old friend of
the Wheeler-Cuffes, asked if she might like to accompany her in March on a
trip to Mount Victoria in the Chin Hills. Charlotte, she claimed, was the only
woman in Burma to whom she would make such a proposition. MacNabb had
been offered a house, one of only two in the village of Kampetlet on the foothills of Mt Victoria, for a few weeks during the hot season. Her husband was
unable to accompany her, and as there were only three white men in the settlement, she determined that she could not stay there alone. She imagined they
would both enjoy the place and it would provide them with the opportunity to
sketch and plant hunt. She claimed that “the only thing that in this country me
does not get tired of is the jungle”,12 and clearly thought that Charlotte shared
this enthusiasm. These two women had an appetite for adventure and a thirst
for exploring the less-travelled parts of the country. Although the gender
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 Ikeya, Refiguring Women, pp. 21–22.
10 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 19 December 1910, Kokine, Rangoon.
11 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 26 December 1910, Kokine, Rangoon.
12 Letter from Winifred MacNabb to CWC, 27 December 1910, Magwe.
Deepening connections 125
context of the period made it almost impossible for MacNabb to travel to
Mount Victoria alone, the company of another white female solved that predicament. This attractive invitation to visit the Chin Hills proved hugely appealing to Charlotte, although she ruminated on the decision for some time.
Mount Victoria expedition, 1911
Charlotte informed her mother about the invite “to spend part of the hot
weather up on Mt Victoria, the highest mountain in Burma … I’d sooner go
there than to a ‘civilized’ place”.13 She was, of course, referring to the high
­altitude hill stations, which were the most popular destinations for colonial
officials during the hot season, and while she liked Maymyo – the summer
capital – the prospect of going somewhere more remote was enticing.14 Mount
Victoria in the Chin Hills is not actually the highest peak in Burma (it is the
highest in the Chin Hills), but at over 3,000 metres it was considered at the time
to be amongst the highest in the land. The area had been originally surveyed
and mapped around 1885 as part of the Survey of India, but Europeans rarely
visited thereafter. In 1901–1902 Lieutenant H. Wood examined its bird population,15 and in 1904 Colonel G Rippon collected a large number of avian specimens, now held at the Museum of Natural History in Tring.16 Nelson claims
that Wheeler-Cuffe was “undoubtedly the first person with botanical interests
to visit the region, and she and Winifred MacNabb may also have been the first
to record the place pictorially”.17 Yet she remained undecided if she wanted to
leave Otway for an extended period of time. In the meantime she visited the
brickfields adjacent to the city. They were covered with great quantities of
ferns, which she brought back “to plant in the garden”.18
Otway too was settling into his new role. The operating room of the hospital, for which he was responsible, was finished and handed over to the medical
authorities. This was the type of urban-based engineering work he now undertook, rather than the road, bridge, and railway surveys and inspections that he
had carried out elsewhere. Consequently the occasions for Charlotte to go ‘jungling’ were greatly reduced, and this made the prospect of visiting the Chin
Hills more appealing. She continued to paint and began to provide drawing
lessons for the girls at a local Burmese school. Privileged Victorian and
­Edwardian women, with artistic talent, who did not enjoy many employment
13 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 9 January 1911, Kokine, Rangoon.
14 Kenny, “Climate, race and imperial authority”; Bhattacharya, N. 2012. Contagion and Enclaves:
Tropical Medicine in Colonial India, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
15 Wood, H. and Finn, F. 1902. “On a collection of birds from upper Burma”, Journal of the
Asiatic Society of Bengal, 71, pp. 121–131.
16 Robinson, C. R., Buck, H., Farrow, D. S., Fisher, T. and King, B. F. 1998. “A birdwatching
visit to the Chin Hills, West Burma, (Myanmar), with notes from nearby areas”, Forktail, 13,
pp. 109–120.
17 Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, p. 111.
18 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, Kokine, 9 January 1911, Kokine, Rangoon.
126 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
opportunities in Britain, often provided classes in botanical drawing on a voluntary basis.19 Charlotte reproduced this pattern in Rangoon as her own paintings continued to gain popularity and from which she had made £40 from their
sale over the previous year.20 In tandem with these activities she was establishing a garden in her new home and she also began receiving visitors. Their friend
Burrows visited, and shared with them his colour photos of Japan and Burma.
He was anxious to take a photo of a group of Burmese locals and enlisted
Charlotte’s help. She assembled a group from the ranks of the PWD which she
described as a “delightful type of Burman of the educated ‘gentlefolk’ class”.21
Burrows was pleased with the group photos, and he would subsequently make
them into lantern slides which he hoped to use to deliver a lecture about his
travels at the RGS.22 Edith Holman Hunt, widow of the pre-Raphaelite painter
William Holman Hunt, also visited the Wheeler-Cuffes. She was in Rangoon
to visit her son, who was also working in a PWD division in the city. Being located in the capital meant that they were hosts to more a diverse range of
guests, as the city was the principal entrepôt through which white travellers and
officials entered Burma. Charlotte could foster a wider network of social
­contacts as travellers, artists, scientists, and plant hunters, all passed through
the city.
The exchange of plant material between Burma and Britain continued
apace. In January Charlotte sent a box of bulbs to her mother and asked her to
divide them and send them to a list of people she provided.23 At this time a lot
of their friends were either returning home permanently or preparing for their
departure to the hill stations as the hot season beckoned and she feared the city
would soon be very empty of colonial staff. Moreover, Otway was busy completing estimates for the annual budgets and she claimed that Burma, “being
an underdeveloped province, requires more in proportion than the older provinces whose roads and buildings are already made and only require maintenance”.24 She thought that the colony had been stingily treated by the
government despite the fact that its revenues were greater than most of the
other provinces of British India, based on its export of rice, teak, oil, and gemstones. The precarious financial position of Burma in comparison to India was
a general preoccupation with local officials and Charlotte reflected these anxieties. From working with Otway she had some first-hand knowledge of the financial resources at the disposal of different departments and divisions in
Burma. Finally, as friends and acquaintances made preparations for moving
out of the city, Charlotte decided to accept MacNabb’s offer to visit Mount
19 Kramer, Women of Flowers; Payne, M. 2016. Marianne North: A Very Intrepid Painter, London:
Kew Publishing.
20 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 31 January 1911, Kokine, Rangoon.
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid.
24 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 13 February 1911, Kokine, Rangoon.
Deepening connections 127
Victoria in April.25 In the meantime the Wheeler-Cuffes were actively integrating into this new social world. They attended a garden party at the Government House, which acted as a mini-Durbar. Charlotte attended a meeting
about the new hospital, where a discussion took place about the use of the
Dufferin Fund for women who, for religious reasons, could not be examined by
a male doctor. She went to a party at the Bishop’s Court, where she met Bishop
Montgomery, who was undertaking a world tour advising on missionary matters on behalf of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. She attended
meetings of the recently established Burmese Research Society.26 Thus life in
Rangoon was proving busy and varied even if it rarely involved trips into the
countryside.
Having accepted the invitation to Mount Victoria, Charlotte began to plan
the trip.27 The MacNabbs would be at Kampetlet, the military outpost in the
Chin Hills, by the end of March. Fell, the District Commissioner, and Captain
Dawson of the Military Police, would be going up to inspect the district the
first week of April and would accompany her there.28 Although she would have
an escort, the prospect of completing the journey without white colonial officials did not bother her:
So I shall be well looked after! Not that there is the smallest danger travelling in Burma. I would sooner travel alone here than in any country
I know, especially in the jungle … there are thieves here as elsewhere,
[but] an Englishwoman is about the least person they would attack knowing what a fuss would be made over it. One is as safe – or safer – on
Mount Victoria as on Wimbledon Common.29
Her social status as the wife of a white, colonial official, at least in her mind,
insulated her from any dangers that might be present. Despite this perception,
though, Burma was not officially considered a very safe corner of Britain’s
empire.30 After 1896, Chief Commissioner Charles Croswaithe introduced the
Indian system of local administration to Burma through the Village Act. This
broke up the non-territorial ties of the indigenous social unit, the myo, and
replaced them with the Indian territorially based administrative unit of the
village. This transformation of Burmese social structures to control the colony
made it more dangerous,31 and paved the way towards a long-term pattern of
25 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 20 February 1911, Kokine, Rangoon.
26 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 26 February 1911, Kokine, Rangoon.
27 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 6 February 1911, Kokine, Rangoon.
28 Wheeler-Cuffe spelled the military outpost Kampetlet although it is conventionally spelled
Kanpetlet. In this book I will deploy her usage apart from Figure 6.1.
29 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 26 February 1911, Kokine, Rangoon.
30 Bryant, R. L. 2013. “Branding natural resources: science, violence and marketing in the making of teak”, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 38, pp. 517–530.
31 Cady, A History of Modern Burma; Furnivall, J. S. 1956. Colonial Policy and Practice: A
Comparative Study of Burma and Netherlands India, New York: New York University Press.
128 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
“lawlessness and disorder”.32 By the turn of the century Burma was considered
the most dangerous place in the empire, and Rangoon had the highest murder
rate of any colonial city.33 To manage disorder the Deputy Commissioner of
each district was assigned a District Superintendent of Police, half of whom
were British or Indian, while the other half were Anglo-Burmese or Karens
from Lower Burma. While the colonial administration of Burma was, as Callahan pointed out, pretty threadbare and operating on a shoestring, when
there were any challenges to it a coercive military response prevailed.34 For
these reasons, and because Wheeler-Cuffe was to be accompanied by a military
policeman, she may have felt secure. British scholar-officials regularly depicted
native Burmese women as freer and more independent than their Indian counterparts and characterised Burmese men as ‘henpecked’. This depiction of
Burmese society as matriarchal and feminised served to “naturalise the rule of
the masculine British”.35 The caricature of native gender identities by colonial
officials, may have insulated Wheeler-Cuffe, in theory at any rate, from any acts
of violence against her, and instil in her confidence about her status as a white,
woman in this society.
While the weather continued to be “wonderfully cool” in Rangoon,36 she
eagerly planned her itinerary to Kampetlet. She would leave Rangoon by train
on 31 March to arrive at the town of Prome; from there she would take a mail
steamer to Minbu. The Commissioner’s launch would take her onwards to
Seikpyu and Dawson would meet her with an American buggy and ponies to
make the 70-mile trek to Kampetlet (Figure 6.1).
Colonel and Mrs. MacNabb would already be at the outpost and the Colonel would return to Seikpyu, leaving the two women with the Deputy Commissioner for the region and the commander of the local police station. As it
turned out her trip was delayed a week. Unexpectedly, Colonel MacNabb met
her at Minbu as he had hurried down from Kampetlet because “the high altitude upset him so”.37 While the thinner air of the Chin Hills challenged the
Colonel, it had no such adverse effect on Wheeler-Cuffe. Captain Dawson accompanied her on the steamer to Seikpyu and from there they began trekking
to Kampetlet with pack mules. Wheeler-Cuffe also took two Burmans from
Rangoon to assist her, her cook, Ko Pyaw, whom she claimed was “an unknown quantity in the jungle”,38 and her syce Maung Thet. Unlike the
plant-hunting expeditions of Hooker, Forrest or Kingdon-Ward, her team of
helpers was relatively modest. While they made the journey from the Irrawaddy
(approximately 84 miles) under police escort, loaded initially with pack ponies,
32 Callahan, “State formation in the shadow of the Raj”, p. 516.
33 Harvey, G. E. 1946. British rule in Burma 1824–1942, London: Faber and Faber.
34 Callahan, “State formation in the shadow of the Raj”, p. 522.
35 Saha, “The male state”, p. 354.
36 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 5 March 1911, Kokine, Rangoon.
37 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 13 April 1911, SS Bandit, Irrawaddy River.
38 Ibid.
Deepening connections 129
Figure 6.1 Map of Route to Mount Victoria.
(Source: Libby Mulqueeny).
as the gradient got steeper they switched to mule packs.39 Her letters were peppered with detailed descriptions of their trek, noting the geological terrain and
plant life of the territory. Of the journey upward, for example, she wrote:
The mule path was far harder going than the cart road and we faced up
the hill in great style … Here and there a huge pine or rhododendron
loomed out of the mist. Kampetlet stands on a great spur of the main
39 Letter from CWC to Mrs. Williams, 20 April 1911, Kampetlet.
130 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
mountain, which stretches down like a huge buttress, 5000 feet into the
valley … Behind us rises Mount Victoria itself, but we cannot see the top
as we are too much under it.40
On arrival at Kampetlet, and despite the jungle environment, she happily discovered two emblems of imperial rule – a telegraph and a post-office – each of
which enabled her to maintain during her journey her web of connections between the Chin Hills, Rangoon, London, and Kilkenny.41 She commented that
MacNabb “[is a] most kind and an interesting and well read woman, so that we
have much to talk about, besides painting together”.42 They stayed in the house
of an old friend, Nepean, who was currently the Superintendent of the
Pokokku Hill tracts and he had agreed to escort them on their journey to the
top of the mountain, which she noted “could not very well have been done
alone”.43 While both women were content to travel without their spouses, the
presence of some white male companion was deemed necessary for their ascent. She immediately began botanising and delighted in the many plants they
had discovered:
the chief find is a sweet scented snow white rhododendron which grows
like an orchid on other trees, never on the ground. I have got a lot of
plants of it and will try to send some home. It does not seem to grow
naturally below 7000 ft, so should be practically hardy. I found a quantity
on the branches of pine trees high up, and exposed to all the winds of
heaven; and the higher I went the more plentiful it became. I think it
should grow in moss and a little peat but no real earth. I don’t think it is
the same as any I have seen at home. Anyway it is very beautiful.44
She sprinkled her account with reference to the potential hardiness of these
species for growing in Britain.45 In addition she maintained a small sketchbook
in which she produced a series of watercolours of the trip. In Popa from Kampetlet 1911 (Figure 6.2) for instance, she depicted a small timber house in the
foreground, with the mountainous landscape and the sacred site of Mount
Popa, at over 4,000 feet occupying the middle distance.
Taking a panoramic view, she deployed the picturesque aesthetic beloved of
British landscape painters and used a colour palette dominated by mauves and
lilacs to evoke the watery atmosphere experienced at higher altitudes.46 While a
panoramic perspective has often been interpreted as a masculinist way of
40 Ibid.
41 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 27 April 1911, Kampetlet.
42 Ibid.
43 Ibid.
44 Ibid.
45 Ibid.
46 Andrews, M. 1989. The Search for the Picturesque, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Deepening connections 131
Figure 6.2 Popa from Kampetlet, 1911. (Courtesy of the National Botanic Gardens,
Glasnevin).
viewing, clearly for women artists too the appeal of a wide-angle vista is evident. Wheeler-Cuffe, however, did not just offer a single viewing position. In
another watercolour from Kampetlet (Figure 6.3) she illustrated the route – a
winding, narrow pathway, following the contours of the ridge – that led up to
the summit of Mount Victoria in the distance. Tall pines, as well as smaller
shrubs and other evergreen trees, conveyed ­altitude and contrasted with the
more luxuriant portrayals of tropical nature in the other sketches she produced of lowland Burma. Loosely composed, and quickly executed, these
landscape images lack the studied qualities of compositions produced by
132 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
Figure 6.3 Path to Mount Victoria, Kampetlet, 1911. (Courtesy of the National
­Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin).
professional artist-travellers who accompanied official expeditions. Professional artists painted with a keen eye on the commercial value of their work,
as well as the scientific objectives associated with their employment.47 WheelerCuffe was not operating under those constraints and thus her images were
often more intimate in scale and freer in style, composed on site and reflective
of her immediate reaction to a scene. However, while she was not a professional artist employed to depict scenes for financial exchange, it is clear from
47 Bonehill, J. 2014. “‘New scenes drawn by the pencil of truth’: Joseph Banks’ northern voyage”,
Journal of Historical Geography, 43, pp. 9–27.
Deepening connections 133
the sales of her work over the previous few years that her reputation as an
artist was spreading, especially among the colonial officialdom in Burma.
She also provided commentary on the Chin tribes who were native to the
region, in a manner comparable to the practice of female travel writers to West
Africa who regularly commented on the habits and customs of the local
­people.48 She described the Chins as
the queerest little sturdy folk; very wild and uncivilized in some ways, but
good humoured and nice in others, and friendly and cheery. The men
wear little or no clothing except a strip of something around their heads
with a feather stuck in it and the most minute loin cloth.49
By contrast the women “are bundled up in shapeless garments down to their
knees and have their broad good humoured faces tattooed”.50 Unlike her encounters with the natives of Lower Burma, the peoples of the Chin Hills were
characterised through the vocabulary of the exotic and she positioned them
along an axis from tradition to modernity.51 Such an organising principle enabled her to make distinctions between the peoples occupying frontier regions,
whose lives were much more remote from central colonial administration, and
those living in parts of Burma more directly affected by such structures. She
noted admiringly that some of the Chin men had enlisted in the local police
force and looked smart in their khaki uniforms, while the military police were
Gurkhas recruited from outside the region.52 By contrasting the hill people to
the Burmese she interacted with in Rangoon, she was providing a representation of regional differences within Burma and not treating the colony as a homogenous entity, undifferentiated in time or space. Even though the unexplored
Chin-Lushai hills were, for colonial rulers and Christian missionaries, the
“connecting link between their stations in Burma and India”,53 for WheelerCuffe the region’s geopolitical significance was of less import than its biogeography and ecology. Observing, collecting, and illustrating were all part of her
botanising endeavours and she also described herself as being deeply moved by
the beauty of the physical landscape: “The cloud effects of light and shade
rolling across the flanks of these great massive mountains are so wonderfully
beautiful that I feel inclined to do nothing but sit and watch them all day”.54
48 Blunt, A. and Rose, G. (eds.) 1994. Writing Women and Space: Colonial and Postcolonial
Geographies, London: Guilford Press.
49 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 27 April 1911, Kampetlet.
50 Ibid.
51 Johnson, N. C. 2014. “Botanical travel, climate and David Moore’s moral geographies of
Europe”, Journal of Historical Geography, 44, pp. 122–132.
52 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 27 April 1911, Kampetlet.
53 Pau, P. K. and Bharati, V. 2012. “Rethinking religious conversion: missionary endeavor
and indigenous response among the Zo (Chin) of the India-Burma borderland”, Journal of
Religion and Society, 14, p. 14
54 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 27 April 1911, Kampetlet.
134 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
The physical geography of the region was more alluring than its cultural contours and in a letter she included a sketch map, though she claimed that it was
“only a guess as I have no map which gives it here”.55 Like the highlands of
Ceylon, which were admired for their sublime qualities by British travellers,
Charlotte appears enchanted by the vistas she experienced in the Chin hills.56
Ascending Mount Victoria
If Mary Kingsley ascended Mount Cameroon in West Africa with some reluctance about the merits of the trip,57 Wheeler-Cuffe fully embraced the scientific
and aesthetic appeal of climbing Mount Victoria. After a week botanising
around Kampetlet, the party began their ascent. The entourage was an admixture of peoples, transport animals, food supplies, equipment, and bedding. It
included three pack ponies and about a dozen Chin labourers carrying their
luggage. She described the hired help as “the weirdest, wildest looking folk you
ever beheld”58 but recognised that enrolling their manpower was central to
their success. Using the local indigenous population to assist in plant-hunting
expeditions was common in Southeast Asia, but the scale of operations was
often different.59 For instance, expeditions led by Hooker or Kingdon-Ward
could employ upwards of 50 locals and this reflected their longer duration and
their more lofty ambitions. The Wheeler-Cuffe group zigzagged across the spur
on which Kampetlet was located until they reached the first crest (about 8,000
feet) of the long ridge that terminated with Mount Victoria. They were travelling through
evergreen forest … with patches of pine here and there. The ground
clothed with wild strawberries in bloom and thickets of wild yellow raspberries and glades of bracken fern – Oak and Ilex, wild cherry and crimson tree rhododendron. In fact it is very like Woodstock on a very
large scale.60
Comparing new landscapes with home was a common familiarising strategy
and, as Arnold observed, “the travelling gaze was to render the novel and exotic more familiar by attaching it to the cultural norms and epistemological
systems of Western Europe while simultaneously emphasizing what was alien
about India’s Oriental or tropical landscape”.61 In Burma Wheeler-Cuffe periodically used the same organising categories in her descriptions, emphasising
55 Ibid.
56 Duncan, “Dis-orientation”
57 McEwan, C. 2000. Gender, Geography and Empire: Victorian Women Travellers in Africa,
London: Ashgate.
58 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 5 May 1911, Kampetlet.
59 Fan, British Naturalists in Qing.
60 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 5 May 1911, Kampetlet.
61 Arnold, The Tropics, p. 31.
Deepening connections 135
both the new and the familiar while at the same time providing descriptions of
the flora as best she could so that they might be useful later as aides-mémoire
when sent to metropolitan centres of calculation.
Paths developed by the local peoples were used by Europeans to ascend
what were to them alien and often unmapped territories,62 revealing again the
ways in which indigenous knowledge systems and practices were harnessed by
Western colonial settlers and travellers. In this expedition the following morning the two women rode their hired police ponies until the main path ended
and they proceeded along foot tracks established by the Chins. For the final
ascent to the summit the superintendent “rigged up a chair on poles for us,
carried by four coolies, in case we could not take the ponies the whole way”.63
While the superintendent may have regarded this gesture of transporting the
women on improvised sedan chairs appropriate, both had extensive experience
of trekking and had the requisite fitness and constitution for the final climb.
They discarded their chairs after a few hundred yards, preferring to ascend on
foot. Detailed descriptions of the physical geography of the region and its
plant life characterised her depiction of the ascent. For example:
The first mile was up an open hill side, covered with bracken fern, primulas and blue gentian, with big pine trees here and there – then up a very
steep, scrambly goat path with scrub jungle and thickets of tiny (and very
prickly!) Scotch roses … Then along a scratch of a path a few inches
wide, around a strip pine clad shoulder, rising on our right and across a
saddle covered in more fern and gnarled tree rhododendrons.64
The terrain did not deter them and at 9,000 feet some of the red blossoms “still
shone like great rubies against the sunshine”.65 Wheeler-Cuffe recorded that
the white flowering rhododendrons stopped at 8,000 feet:
They continued through dense forest until they reached an open area
dotted with the same red rhododendrons, here gnarled and twisted and
stunted by the wind, and the most exquisite primrose yellow rhododendron, a low bush covered with great tresses of slightly sweet scented flowers which only seem to grow above 9,000 feet.66
They crossed another saddle where they encountered a “witches pool like one
imagines in a fairy tale”,67 overhung with old twisted ilex trees, before
62 Hansen, “Partners: guides and Sherpas”; Endersby, Imperial Nature; Martins, L. 2012.
“Geographical exploration and the elusive mapping of the Amazon”, Geographical Review,
102, pp. 225–244.
63 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 5 May 1911, Kampetlet.
64 Ibid.
65 Ibid.
66 Ibid.
67 Ibid.
136 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
proceeding upwards through undergrowth that was “of daphne, just in blossom and deliciously scented, with patches of another kind of raspberry in
flower and a deep pink primula with fluffy leaves”.68 Such descriptions provided a record that would be later useful for species identification. She resisted
the temptation to interpret the area solely through the romantic lens of the
travel writer, noting features such as altitude, temperatures, and air conditions:
“The air was thin and cool and clear – we were just 10,000 ft now and when the
wind blew it was distinctly cold; (it freezes hard here in winter)”.69
On arriving at the summit she observed a rounded knoll “with one gnarled
rhododendron on the side of it”.70 It was the red-flowering species she had
mentioned regularly during the ascent (Figure 6.4). In her watercolour the tree
formed the focal point of the image, and was the culmination of her expedition. At the summit, and perhaps not unexpectedly, the party gazed over miles
of jumbled mountains in what she described as ‘unadministered territory’
where the wild Chin tribes still raided one another. The term ‘Chin people’,
however, was a category employed officially by the British; the Chins
Figure 6.4 Summit of Mount Victoria, May 1911. (Courtesy of the National Botanic
Gardens, Glasnevin).
68 Ibid.
69 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 9 May 1911, Kampetlet.
70 Ibid.
Deepening connections 137
themselves did not use this name. After the fall of Upper Burma in 1885–1886
the British began to see the geopolitical importance of the Chin Hills “as
something which lay between two British territories: Bengal and Burma”.71
Efforts to control the region by military expeditions were launched against the
Chins from 1888, but were met with resistance. Using a policy of disarmament,
British authorities found that it was equally important for the Chins to save
their guns and resist such policy tooth and nail not only because it was an attempt to disarm and weaken their power of resistance, but it would also degrade one’s status in the society.72 The secret re-arming by Chins after colonial
gun licensing had been enacted was a stark reminder of the limits of British
rule in this frontier district. Thus while it was nominally under the control of
the authorities, there were periodic outbreaks of rebellion and resistance.
However, displaying her typical colonial perspective, Charlotte claimed that
these people were beginning to accede that they would be better off under the
‘Pax Britannica’.73 Such a judgment reflected the imperial milieu she inhabited
and the social networks she maintained with Commissioners and other senior
personnel in the colony. She did not seem to doubt, in any significant way, the
superiority of British administration over local styles of governance, and even
though the Chin Hills were under British jurisdiction, she was well-aware of
how fragile that authority was in this frontier region. Thus while she learned
Burmese and had an appreciation of the diversity of landscapes, peoples, and
cultures across the entire territory, overall she retained the belief that all Burma’s ethnic groups benefitted positively from colonial governance. The trip to
the summit of Mount Victoria symbolically confirmed, in her mind, that
conviction.
However, natural history rather than explicit reference to the colonial relationship was the principal subject of her correspondence. When the party returned to their camp she commented that they were “weary but triumphant,
and laden with spoils”.74 The vocabulary of achievement, reminiscent of sentiments expressed on expeditions conducted by men, is perhaps indicative of the
sense of triumph expressed by Europeans, male and female, who undertook
these types of journeys. She had collected seeds of primulas, ranunculus, gentian, and plants specimens of orchids and rhododendrons. She intended to gift
them to friends at Maymyo and Rangoon, and to send the remainder to
­London and Kilkenny.75 On their descent she noted that the headmen of each
village came out to escort them, so by the time they reached Seikpyu they numbered 25 people.76 This ritual reinforced, to her, their status as important
71 Pau, P. K. 2017. “Disarmament and resistance in Colonial Burma: a case study of the Chin
Hills”, Journal of Burma Studies, 21, p. 242.
72 Ibid., p. 258.
73 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 9 May 1911, Kampetlet.
74 Ibid.
75 Ibid.
76 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 22 May 1911, Kokine, Rangoon.
138 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
visitors to the territory and bestowed upon them the honour of an escort from
village chiefs. It also, of course, cemented the unequal power relations between
native and colonial. And these inequalities transcended any gender difference.
Once back in Rangoon she used her web of connections to dispatch samples of
plants to friends and family in England and Ireland, including “very large
flowered white scented Rhododendron[s], which grow on other trees like an
orchid; [they] would do in pots with lots of drainage and moss and a little leaf
mould or peat, and quite tiny plants bloom”.77 She also sent some orchids, including the “flame coloured”78 Dendrobium anachinides, and she reminded her
mother to dispatch some of the rhododendron plants, including the white-flowered one, to Leyrath. Exhilarated by her memory of the place where she found
them, she addressed her mother thus: “How I wish you could see them in their
wild state; I have never seen anything so lovely”.79 Wheeler-Cuffe was careful
about the logistics of transporting plants across the ocean and she was knowledgeable and efficient about their transit. In a note the following day she
warned her mother that there was a little cardboard box “of tiny precious orchids”80 in the consignment.
Mount Victoria – afterlife
Whilst the expedition itself was thrilling, its afterlife would also prove productive for the two women involved. Charlotte sent some of her most significant
finds to Aunt Pauline in Leyrath and she arranged delivery of some of them to
the Royal Botanic Gardens in Dublin, which became the conduit through
which these species were propagated and distributed to other botanical institutions and gardens. Nelson claims that some of these species collected by Wheeler-Cuffe “represent the earliest collection from Kew as far as can be
determined”.81 She also sent pressed and dried specimens directly to Kew with
detailed descriptions of the habitat in which she collected them based on what
she had recorded en route. She was well aware of the advantages of providing
illustrations, live specimens, seeds, and descriptions for accurate scientific identification. While this first visit did not yield any published reports, it laid the
foundation for a second trip the following year. In the interim she met the plant
hunter Forrest in Rangoon and showed him some of the plants collected in
1911, and he assured her that, from his experience, the yellow-flowering rhododendron was a new species. Her networks in Burma were now important in
facilitating her work and, after the 1912 trip, she sent plants to Sir Frederick
Moore. She included more examples of the yellow- and white-flowering
­­rhododendrons and a drawing of the latter which “grows epiphytically on
77 Ibid.
78 Ibid.
79 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 28 May 1911, Kokine, Rangoon.
80 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 29 May 1911, Kokine, Rangoon.
81 Nelson, Shadow of Splendours, p. 111.
Deepening connections 139
other trees of any sort”.82 She also included seedlings of the red tree rhododendron but observed that “the plants have got rather mixed, as I had only one
afternoon to collect them, & one Chin Cooly who only spoke very little Burmese, to carry them”.83 Keeping order on her collection in the field was more
difficult when there was limited labour and a language barrier. In a characteristic self-deprecating turn – one often repeated by female explorers – she underestimated her knowledge and yielded to the superior wisdom of the professional
male plant hunter. She claimed that she was “unfortunately very ignorant
about botany, though I love plants; but Mr Forrest tells me that the Chin Hills
have never been worked out botanically, & therefore any specimens from there
would be of interest”.84 This reinforces Blunt’s claim that the tone of professionalism and scientific accuracy of male explorers contrasted “with the more
self-conscious tone of many women travel writers in the perceived need to
vouch for scientific accuracy”.85 While Wheeler-Cuffe adopted a deferential
posture in her correspondence it was, I suggest, a strategic move to secure
co-operation from professionals at home rather than indicative of any deeply
held belief. Wheeler-Cuffe was careful to typically position herself in the role
of amateur, in the knowledge that this might yield more positive responses
from experts. Moore, a great orchid enthusiast, warmly received the specimens
and commended her paintings as “very beautiful and very accurate”.86 Securing his imprimatur was important for her long-term links with the Dublin Botanic Garden, and from his perspective, cultivating contact with her was
important as a future source of unusual and rare species that would enhance
the reputation of his institution. Frederick Moore built on the work of his father David, who was credited as the first to have raised flowering orchids from
seed at the botanic garden. Dublin became one of three international centres
of excellence for orchids during Moore’s directorship and he was knighted in
1911 for his services to horticulture.87 He sourced many of the orchids for the
garden from Frederick Sander, the plant importer and royal orchid grower to
Queen Victoria. At its peak his firm employed 23 hunters, seeking out new
species at home and abroad.88 In this context for Wheeler-Cuffe to attract the
attention of the Director of the Dublin gardens was something of an
achievement.
The plants were treated with great care in Glasnevin and in 1914 Moore sent
some to Kew for identification and naming. While collecting and nurturing
could take place in the colonies and in regional botanic gardens, Kew had, by
the end of the nineteenth century, deepened its “importance as a scientific
82 Letter from CWC to Sir Frederick Moore, 8 June 1912, Kokine, Rangoon.
83 Ibid.
84 Nelson, “The Lady of the rhododendrons”, p. 35.
85 Blunt, Travel, gender and imperialism, p. 36.
86 Letter from Sir Frederick Moore to CWC, 12 August 1912, Royal Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin,
Dublin.
87 Johnson, Nature Displaced, Nature Displayed.
88 Swinson, A. 1970. Frederick Sander: The Orchid King, London: Hodder and Stoughton.
140 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
institution, in particular as a centre for herbarium taxonomy”.89 Its scheme to
develop Colonial Floras and the expansion of new collections gathered from
across the world, especially from Britain’s colonies meant it was “an unparalleled facility for comparative work”.90 Moore informed Wheeler-Cuffe that two
new species of rhododendron, from her collection, had been identified. The
R. cuffeanum was named and attributed to her, and her painting of this plant
reflected the style and skill of illustration she had developed over years in the
field (Figure 6.5).
Figure 6.5 Rhododendron cuffeanum, April 1911. (Courtesy of the National Botanic
Gardens, Glasnevin).
89 Drayton, R. 2000. Nature’s Government: Science, Imperial Britain, and the ‘Improvement’ of the
World, New Haven: Yale University Press, p. 263.
90 Drayton, Nature’s Government, p. 264.
Deepening connections 141
Rather than using a technique which meticulously detailed individual leaves,
flowers, stamens, and fruit – a style popular with professional illustrators – she
favoured a more naturalistic approach that reflected the plant’s appearance in
its natural habitat.91 In this instance the white-flowering epiphytic rhododendron is attached to the bark of the host pine. She captured the habit of the
flowers by using a loose style of composition, but she did also expose the flower’s stages of development from bud to opened bloom. While conveying an
aesthetic allure this technique also provided important information for species
identification that could work in conjunction with the examination of live
specimens. The Director of Kew, Sir David Prain, wrote to Moore confirming
that the plant was new and it would appear in Curtis’s Botanical Magazine in
August 1917. The plant’s epiphytic habit, delineated clearly by Wheeler-Cuffe
in her painting, was not mentioned and the locality in which it was found was
incorrectly attributed. The yellow species, also provided by her, was named
Rhododendron burmanicum (Figure 6.6) and was described in the Kew bulletin
in 1914.
Ironically, however, this species did not become widely known until it was
later collected by Kingdon-Ward in 1956 and when it became the parent for
many scented yellow hybrids developed thereafter. Kew’s botanist Rolfe identified a small orchid also collected on Mount Victoria as the species Ione
flavescens [today it is known as Sunipia flavescens] and the blue ‘buttercup’,
which Wheeler-Cuffe described as growing prolifically, was identified as an
Anemone named Anemone obstusiloba f. patula, where it was illustrated by
Matilda Smith in Curtis’s Botanical Magazine in 1915. Together, the relatively short and small expedition to Mount Victoria yielded some significant finds.
Back in Rangoon
After her month away Otway and the pets welcomed her return and her garden
was progressing well and with the wetter weather the vegetation was “wonderful and very bountiful”.92 She dried some specimens and sent them to the Royal
Botanic Gardens at Kew. She provided some details in her letter about the trip:
The crimson tree rhododendron & Pinus Khassia begin about 4000ft; the
pines cease and are replaced by a species of ilex about 9000 ft; the rhododendrons continuing to the top …. Gentians of several kinds abound …
Near the summit were several trees of Japanese maple, and everywhere
sheets of blue ranuculus …. The white scented rhododentron seems to
me rather different that the one I have seen in greenhouses at home –
larger and looser in growth, and the leaves folding down the stem
91 Blunt, W. and Stearn, W. T. 1993. The Art of Botanical Illustration, London: Collins Antique
Collectors Club.
92 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 28 May 1911, Kokine, Rangoon.
142 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
Figure 6.6 Rhododendron burmanicum, May 1911. (Courtesy of the National Botanic
Gardens, Glasnevin).
– I made life sized drawings of them in water-colour which I hope to
bring home next year. We never found one growing on the ground, always on trees.93
There was an expedition to the region led by R Edgar Cooper in 1924, but
there is little extant evidence of the results of that trip. After that Professor R
Unwin visited Mount Victoria and two plants were named after him, while
93 Archives of Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew: Director’s Correspondence, vol 161 (Indian Letters
1901–1914): ff 201–202.
Deepening connections 143
Kingdon-Ward and his wife Jean travelled there in 1956 with Burmese botanists U Chit Ko Ko and U Maung Gale.94
In July she sent her mother £30 and declared all this money had been
earned through selling her paintings over the previous year and she still had
money left for framing others. She acknowledged that she was receiving a lot
of orders even though she had not tried to generate business. She also had a
houseful of guests, including her Mount Victoria companions MacNabb and
Nepean, and she received a number of visitors who wanted to see her sketches.95 Her reputation as a botanical artist was developing strongly among the
colonial community. Later in July she travelled 15 miles north of Rangoon to
the new country sports club and golf links. It was located on low downs with
small patches of jungle surrounding it. Otway was to assess the possibility of
building a new section of road through the scrubby downs to the Prome road.
Charlotte accompanied him wearing her “oldest and shortest skirt and
scrambled about after plants”.96 On her return she packed her sketches to
send to an exhibition taking place at Simla. Of matters in Ireland, she commented, “I am glad the Royal visit to Dublin went off so well. The welcome
they got was a good snub to the Mayor and Corporation”.97 The Irish Home
Rule movement and its supporters did not win any favour with Wheeler-Cuffe.
She commented that there were rumours flying around that the King would
not come to Delhi, but she doubted their veracity. She claimed that he could
not disappoint the whole Indian Empire where the “King’s personality means
so much more than it does at home. To the Eastern mind Parliament and the
India Office mean nothing but the King Emperor means a very great deal”.98
The basis for such claims remained ambiguous but clearly, as a royalist, she
projected those same sentiments on the native populations. Her Unionist political leanings where the ‘Irish question’ was concerned also periodically surfaced. On learning of the passing of the Parliament Bill she wondered what
next for “we whose fate lies in the South of Ireland…I hope the North won’t
make a bad job worse by rioting”.99 Thinking about their future retirement to
Leyrath, the political position of Ireland within the Union was clearly a
source of interest.
The Burma Alphabet
In August of that year an interesting artistic project was mooted. A female
friend, Mathews, had asked her to illustrate a Burma alphabet, a project she
described as “rather fun”.100 This would become Charlotte’s only major
94 Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, p. 111.
95 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 2 July 1911, Kokine, Rangoon.
96 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 16 July 1911, Kokine, Rangoon.
97 Ibid.
98 Ibid.
99 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 14 August 1911, Kokine, Rangoon.
100 Ibid.
144 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
publication during her time in Burma. Using a large format the book would be
entitled The Burma Alphabet (in English and Burmese). Each page would have
an illustration of a letter of the Roman alphabet A-Z. It would be illustrated
with a sketch of a Burmese scene and each pair of letters would be matched
with a rhyming couplet. On the opposite page would be the same couplet translated into Burmese and printed using Burmese script. Each illustration would
be from an original watercolour painted by Charlotte, including landscape
scenes, Burmese sacred sites, and fauna. The couplets, for example, would be as
follows:
I Irrawaddy, our great waterway
J for the Jungle, where wild creatures play
By late August she had completed the first seven letters of the alphabet. In
September she visited the Rangoon Zoo to sketch a sambhar, a native species
of deer in the region. She commented that she had done “10 of the Alphabet
pictures: the Sambhar and Tiger are quite a success!”101 (Figure 6.7).
As well as drawing from life, she used photographs and illustrations from
books in their library when she did not have direct access to the object she
wished to depict. Work on the alphabet continued through October, while she
also transplanted flowers and shrubs as her garden took shape. Some of her
plants failed to flower and she blamed her native helpers for planting them incorrectly. She commented that it was always “a difficulty to prevent a native
burying things instead of planting them”.102 It may not have been an absence
of native knowledge that resulted in such mishaps, however, but garden helpers’ unfamiliarity with planting non-native species. Important visitors continued to arrive at their house in Rangoon. The anthropologist Leslie Milne,
author of The Shans at Home,103 stayed for a week and the two women occupied their time sketching. As well as illustrating the alphabet, Charlotte had
assisted in the design of a silver casket which would contain the address from
Rangoon to the King and Emperor during his visit to India. She described it
“as really beautiful … It is typically Burmese which is what pleases me”.104 She
also aided Morris in drawing a colossal Lion and Peacock – the emblems of
Britain and Burma – for the dome of the new hospital. It would be surrounded
by the Imperial crown and cross.105 The lion was 10 feet high and 20 feet long.
They were completed as transparencies and, once installed in the dome, would
be illuminated with electric lights. When they were unveiled to mark the coronation, Morris and the Wheeler-Cuffes hired a car to look at all the illuminations around Rangoon and noted that “my lions and peacocks really looked
101 Quoted in Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, p. 115.
102 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 8 October 1911, Kokine, Rangoon.
103 Milne, L. 1910. The Shans at Home, London: John Murray.
104 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 26 November 1911, Kokine, Rangoon.
105 Ibid.
Deepening connections 145
Figure 6.7 S for Sambhar and T for Tiger, The Burma Alphabet, 1913. (Courtesy of the
National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin).
magnificent and quite unlike anything else”.106 Her integration into the social
and artistic life of Rangoon was clearly deepening.
The Wheeler-Cuffes celebrated Durbar week in Rangoon as only a very
limited number of colonial officials had been invited to Delhi. Over the
Christmas holidays they were to visit Port Blair, the epicentre of the penal
colony on the Andaman Islands, and they greatly anticipated the break from
106 Quoted in Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, p. 113.
146 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
the busy work of Rangoon.107 However, before their visit, the Alphabet had to
be completed and included an alluring cover depicting the Shwedagon pagoda (Figure 6.8). The book was dedicated to Queen Alexandra, and published two years later. It sold for 5 rupees, and the proceeds went towards a
new children’s hospital – the Queen Alexandra’s Children’s hospital – in
Mandalay. Copies began to be distributed in November 1913 and Charlotte
sent several home to friends and relatives. She received numerous compliments for the work in Britain and Burma. For instance, Kathleen Patch, of
the Winchester Mission in Mandalay, who was establishing the hospital,
wrote that she was “delighted with the very beautiful Burma Alphabet”.108
Charlotte’s mother was thrilled with her daughter’s achievement and copies
of the book could be bought in London for six shillings and eight pence, a
price that Charlotte thought was excessively high, although the main market
for the book was Burma itself. The original drawings, produced by her, were
bought by the cricketer Ranjit Singh for £30.109
Andaman Islands: Christmas 1911
The British government decided to establish a penal colony on the Andamans,
an island archipelago located in the Bay of Bengal, in 1857. Henry Man, Executive Engineer and Superintendent of convicts in the Burmese penal settlement of Moulmein, spent two months on Chatham Island, where he, along
with 12 Eurasian men, raised the Union flag, under the pretence that the Islands were nobody’s land or terra nullius.110 Between 1858 and 1939 the Islands
would serve as the largest penal colony in the entire British Empire, with over
83,000 Indian and Burmese convicts transported there. Prior to that the East
India Company had sent Eurasian and other convicts from India to penal institutions along the Burmese coast. This new site of incarceration, Anderson
contends, “reconfigured imprisonment and transportation in mainland India
into new modes of carcerality and coerced migration, in which relocation to
the imperial peripheries underpinned attempts at political dominance”.111 The
British shipped dozens of Eurasian convicts to the colony from its establishment in 1858, and they also employed free Eurasians to assist in running the
colony in the twentieth century. From the outset the British attitude to the indigenous Andamanese population wavered between a policy of containing and
assimilating to destroying the native groups. Moreover, in contrast to the rest
107 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 3 December 1911, Kokine, Rangoon.
108 Quoted in Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, p. 116.
109 Quoted in Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, p. 116.
110 Anderson, C., Mazumdar, M. and Pandit, V. 2016. New Histories of the Andaman Islands:
Landscape, Place and Identity in the Bay of Bengal, 1790–2012, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press; Sen, S. 2000. Disciplining Punishment: Colonialism and Convict Society in
the Andaman Islands, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
111 Anderson, C. 2018. “The Andaman Islands penal colony: race, class, criminality, and the
British Empire”, International Review of Social History, 63, p. 26.
Deepening connections 147
Figure 6.8 Cover of The Burma Alphabet, 1913. (Courtesy of the National Botanic
­Gardens, Glasnevin).
of the sub-continent, the British had responsibility for almost every area of
social and cultural life on the islands. Because of the Indian Mutiny of 1857
the government avoided employing free Indians in the penal colony for fear
they would stimulate anti-colonial sentiment. Eurasians, therefore, played an
important role in running the place and Eurasian prisoners were treated differently to Indians, often travelling in different compartments on transport ships,
given different rations and clothing and employed as servants or clerks rather
148 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
than doing hard labour. Their linguistic skills, mixed heritage, and numeracy
made them valuable assets in the exercise of punishment by the British penal
establishment and they were regularly deployed as convict overseers.112
As Anderson observed, “In this extraordinary penal context, the British
administrative classes viewed Anglo-Indians [Eurasians] as their allies, not just
running the penal colony, but in its security”.113 As well as Indian, Burmese,
and Eurasian convicts, the Islands also had small numbers of European,
American and African prisoners. In the first few years after the establishment
of the colony Indian prisoners were grouped into broad penal classes: the first
were clerks and overseers of other convicts; the second were permitted to become self-supporting tradesmen (e.g. tailors, bakers) and the third class worked
as ordinary labourers. European prisoners in India were offered the chance of
release on condition of taking service on the islands. Given the grim conditions
of many Indian gaols, Europeans were keen to take the opportunity to move to
the Andamans and act as overseers of native prisoners. By 1867 there were
over 6,900 Indian convicts on the islands and the majority of non-Indian (or
Burmese) prisoners acted as overseers in agriculture or public works. The first
census taken on the islands in 1871 indicated that there were 233 British-born
men and women on the islands, although in fact 69 were born in India, and 64
were Eurasians. The convict population was 8,643 and there were 2,847 indigenous Andamanese. The European, Eurasian, and American in-mates mixed
freely together until the 1870s irrespective of whether they were transportation
convicts or prisoners transferred on licence. Their quarters were segregated
from Indian prisoners and they enjoyed relative luxury living together. However after a brawl resulting in murder among this group, the mainland government expressed disquiet as to why prisoners of differing status (i.e. convicts
and licenced prisoners) shared the same accommodation and enjoyed the same
privileges, and insisted on tighter discipline and more differentiation based on
penal status. By 1901 there were 71 Eurasians and 280 Europeans on the islands, from a total population of over 16,000, of which almost 12,000 were
convicts and 1,500 free residents (including ex-convicts and their descendants).
While by the second decade of the twentieth century the number of Eurasians
had declined, it was larger than in other penal settings and reflected how ­British
authorities were relying on them for running the colony. European men commonly married the female relatives of Eurasians here, and this created tight
family and community networks that straddled hierarchies of race. As a
bounded set of islands this state of affairs differentiated the Andamans from
the conditions that pertained on the mainland.
In 1906, the cellular jail – a large radial structure – reminiscent of Foucault’s
characterisation of panopticism as a form of modern surveillance, was
112 Anderson, C. 2012. Subaltern Lives: Biographies of Colonialism in the Indian Ocean World,
1790–1920, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
113 Anderson, “The Andaman Islands”.
Deepening connections 149
opened.114 Initially it was to receive all transport convicts for a period of hard
discipline, an exercise in biopower, before release into work gangs.115 However,
it quickly changed function and incarcerated revolutionary nationalists who
were transported from the mainland. They were never sent to do outdoor labour. Eurasian jailers and overseers monitored all aspects of the prison population, both ordinary convicts and political prisoners. Anglo-Indian government
servants, the Governor, and other British senior officials in the colony were
segregated in the administration’s headquarters at Port Blair. The British enjoyed a lavish and very comfortable lifestyle and lived in bungalows on Ross
Island, while Anglo-Indians lived in more modest, residentially segregated
quarters. They also had separate social clubs in which to fraternise. Nonetheless, as Anderson points these demarcations were fluid and the British considered the Anglo-Indians their allies in administering and maintaining security
in the colony.116
When the Wheeler-Cuffes arrived at Christmas, 1911, there were about
15,000 prisoners, all convicted of serious crimes. Charlotte described the place
as astonishing, and the fact that reformation rather than punishment was the
typical practice, she claimed was “a perfect revelation”.117 They had been, according to Charlotte, “converted into useful, healthy and apparently happy
workers at every sort of trade”.118 She described how the regime worked. Initially prisoners were kept in a cellular jail but as their behaviour improved they
were drafted into different trades and occupations, including forestry, tea
planting, gardening, domestic service, and so on. But as Anderson noted the
function of the cellular jail was also used to incarcerate revolutionary nationalists who had been sent from the mainland and who would never be released
to outdoor labour during their sentences.119 Wheeler-Cuffe perceived the convicts with whom she interacted as pleasant and skilled, but noted that there
were some incorrigibles who were kept permanently in the cellular jail. Although she does not mention that these prisoners were largely anti-colonial
political prisoners, it is highly likely that she knew this was the case but was
unwilling to acknowledge the presence of opponents to imperialism. She
claimed that discipline was strict but that the men were probably as well off as
in their own homes as they were away from the temptation to commit crime.
Convicts made all sorts of goods, from parts for steam ships to dolls houses.
Such activities, of course, aided the imperial government’s funding of this site
114 Foucault, M. 1977. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, New York: Random
House; Kaplan, M. 1995. “Panopticon in Poona: an essay on Foucault and colonialism”,
Cultural Anthropology, 10, pp. 85–98.
115 Redfield, P. 2005. “Foucault in the tropics: displacing the panopticon”, in J. X. Inda (ed.)
Anthropologies of Modernity: Foucault, Governmentality, and Life Politics, Oxford: Blackwell,
pp. 50–79.
116 Anderson, “The Andaman Islands”.
117 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 22 December 1911, Port Blair, Andaman Islands.
118 Ibid.
119 Anderson, “The Andaman Islands”.
150 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
of incarceration, as the cost of the colony was a regular preoccupation of the
colonial administration.120 She and Otway inspected the boat workshops at
Phoenix Bay, where the convicts wore wooden lockets labelled 302. This indicated that they had been convicted under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code
and stood for culpable homicide. Such visible badges of criminality were part
and parcel of the panoply of devices used, as Foucault has argued, to discipline and punish.121 In the Andaman Islands, like elsewhere, these symbols of
criminality conveyed powerful political messages. Everyone on the island was
categorised as prisoner, policeman, official, or soldier. The cellular jail comprised 698 cells designed for solitary confinement. When the Wheeler-Cuffes
visited there were around 1,500 officials in the garrison – a ratio of 10:1 convicts to officials. But, as Anderson has claimed, there were pronounced demarcations among the prison population organised around indices of class and
race, where Eurasians and white Europeans in general enjoyed privileges that
mirrored their privileged position within the wider imperial society.122 The Superintendent, she noted, was a ‘jolly Irishman’, and the Government House
where Colonel Browning, the Chief Commissioner, lived had a barracks, a
church, and a range of social clubs. The comfort in which those in authority
lived seemed to impress her but she acknowledged that Browning had autocratic power over the whole archipelago.123
On her return from the Andaman Islands she provided a more detailed account of the place.124 The visit confirmed in her mind the reformatory role of
penitential confinement. As most in-mates had been convicted of murder, she
claimed they would have been hanged if convicted in England. The system
deployed in the colony, she described as follows: each convict served 6 months
in jail with hard labour on arrival. If they behaved well they were drafted onto
other extramural gangs working under promoted convict overseers in the forests, gardens, and brick fields, PWD roads and so on. After a number of years
of good behaviour, they were promoted to whatever job suited them best e.g.
servants or boatmen. She claimed that “only two days’ rations are allowed out
to the different stations; so that if there ever were a rising of the convicts, they
could be starved into submission very promptly”.125 Military personnel were
heavily armed to enforce discipline and access to the colony was tightly controlled. No ships were allowed into its surrounding waters apart from those
with government contracts, thus reducing the possibility of the importation of
arms for staging any kind of convict revolt. Despite her admiration and complimentary overview of the management of the colony, her regular reference to
the possibility of rebellion may indicate that she recognised the potential for
120 Sen, Disciplining Punishment.
121 Foucault, Discipline and Punish.
122 Anderson, “The Andaman Islands”.
123 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 22 December 1911, Port Blair, Andaman Islands.
124 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 1 January 1912, Kokine, Rangoon.
125 Ibid.
Deepening connections 151
resistance among nationalist prison activists, without ever directly mentioning it.
In keeping with the strong colonial networks the Wheeler-Cuffes had in
Burma, the Chief Commissioner on the Andamans was an old friend of
­Otway’s. He ensured that their visit was very pleasant, and combined viewing
the prison arrangements with other extra-mural activities. Charlotte admired
his beautiful garden on Ross Island which was maintained by a small army of
convict gardeners. There were, she claimed, splendid views in every direction
from his house. She waxed lyrical about the beauty of the sea and described the
place as a “penal paradise”.126 This phrase had entered the general official lexicon about the Andaman Islands, as it was contrasted with conditions in most
Indian prisons.127 Wheeler-Cuffe reproduced this phrasing in her description of
the colony. She also encountered some of the indigenous Andamanese who
lived on one of the islands. This population had baffled ethnologists, but were
generally believed to be the last surviving example of the ethnic group, protected over time due to their island isolation and originating from inhabitants
of the Malay and Arakan peninsulas. She described the population as
“‘negroid’, with small, quite black woolly hair, and bright, cheery childish
ways. In fact it is difficult to believe they are grown up, and I believe as a people
they are just that – children in ideas and never likely to be anything else”.128 The
trope of infantilisation of indigenous populations by colonial settlers, as evidenced by her attitude towards the Andamanese, resonates with white ­European
encounters with the Aboriginal and Māori peoples of Australia and New
­Zealand.129 And although she claimed they were quite friendly, she qualified
this by asserting that one tribe was more violent, and attacked and killed both
settlers and members of other tribal groups. Thus, on the one hand, they were
126 Ibid.
127 Sherman, T. C. 2009. “From hell to paradise? Voluntary transfer of convicts to the Andaman
Islands, 1921–1940”, Modern Asian Studies, 43, 2, pp. 367–388.
128 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 1 January 1912, Kokine, Rangoon.
129 There is a large literature on the Australian and New Zealand context including: Brock, P. and
Gara, T. (eds.) 2017. Colonialism and its Aftermath: A History of Aboriginal South Australia,
Adelaide: Wakefield; Cannon, M. 1993. Black Land, White Land, Melbourne: Minerva; Drik
Moses, A. (ed.) 2004. Genocide and the Settler Society: Frontier Violence and Stolen Indigenous
Children in Australian History, New York: Berghahn Books; Jalata, A. 2013. “The impacts of
English colonial terrorism and genocide on indigenous/black Australians”, SAGE Open, 3,
pp. 1–12; Cowlishaw, G. 2009, “Studying aborigines: changing canons in anthropology and
history”, Journal of Australian Studies, 35, pp. 20–31; Morris, B. 2009. “Frontier colonialism
as a culture of terror”, Journal of Australian Studies, 35, pp. 72–87; Salmond, A. 1991. Two
Worlds: First Meetings between Maori and Europeans 1642–1772, Auckland: Viking; Bell, A.,
Elizabeth, V., McIntosh, T. and Wynyard, M. (eds.) 2017. A Land of Milk and Honey: Making
Sense of Aotearoa New Zealand, Auckland: Auckland University Press; Belich, J. 1986. The
New Zealand Wars and the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict, Auckland: Auckland
University Press; Hokowhitu, B. 2004. “Tackling Mā ori masculinity: a colonial genealogy of
savagery and sport”, The Contemporary Pacific, 16, pp. 259–284.
152 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
regarded as child-like, while on the other they were simultaneously regarded as
potentially homicidal and dangerous.
Charlotte’s plant-hunting instincts never deserted her and she asked some
convicts to climb trees to collect orchids. Otway visited the male jail as no women
were allowed, but Charlotte declined an offer to visit the women’s jail, opting
instead to spend the time sketching.130 She noted that convicts who behaved well
over the years were allowed to marry equally well-behaved prisoners, and thus
children lived in the colony.131 Some prisoners were permitted to be ‘self supporters’ earning a living at some occupation, and as a result, she claimed, often
remained on the Islands after their release date. While the Wheeler-Cuffes left
with a positive impression of the colony, in their review of 1919–1920, the Indian Jails Committee proposed the abolition of penal transportation, and its
substitution with rigorous local imprisonment. Indeed Anderson points out
that it was believed “that ‘unnatural vice’ was widespread in the Andamans, and
that convicts lacked ‘reformatory influences’”.132 By the 1920s, this costly experiment in penal policy was reviewed but not abandoned. The belief that there was
widespread homosexuality practised prompted the government to encourage
female migration and a ‘volunteer’ scheme for mainland prisoners to move to
the islands with their families. Eventually the colony was disbanded as a penal
institution in 1945. Charlotte, it seems, viewed the Andamans through the lens
of colonial officials who administered this site of incarceration. Firstly, she was
uncritical about the effectiveness of what she perceived as a reformatory policy
in the management of the islands and the transformation of its prisoners. Secondly, she never directly addressed anything related to the treatment of anti-colonial activists, imprisoned here for opposing British rule in India and Burma.
Thirdly, while European, Eurasian, and white convicts enjoyed preferential privileges, she did not recognise or acknowledge the social and racial boundary distinctions maintained among the prison population. Finally, she seemed to award
no recognition to the property rights of the native, Andamanese population.
Overall Charlotte and Otway returned to Rangoon with lots of treasures and
good memories from their trip, and seemed fairly indifferent to the fact that they
had visited the largest penal colony in the British empire.
A new year in Rangoon
In 1912 the government was considering a large-scale, new infrastructure
scheme and a document Charlotte wrote entitled ‘Notes on roads and Communications’ was being printed and used as a basis for the discussion.133
Her long experience of assisting Otway with surveying had clearly provided
130 Sen, S. 2002. “The female jails of colonial India”, The Indian Economic and Social History
Review, 39, pp. 417–438.
131 Sen, S. 1999. “Rationing sex: female convicts in the Andamans”, South Asia, 30, pp. 29–59.
132 Anderson, “The Andaman Islands”, p. 38.
133 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 29 January 1912, Kokine, Rangoon.
Deepening connections 153
her with plenty of insights and knowledge about infrastructural arrangements.
She continued painting and at an arts and crafts exhibition she would be judging the needlework category.134 Her garden vines were flourishing and she
hoped to send some cuttings to Nepean in Kampetlet if they struck well.135 At
an art exhibition in February one of her paintings won a prize of 40 rupees, she
sold two other works for 75 rupees, and got orders for four more paintings,
earning £22 in total.136 She was also completing several small paintings for
various diocesan schools and for charity fund-raising events being held at the
Government House. Her painting was serving both commercial and philanthropic purposes as she became more fully integrated into Rangoon society.
She also had become engaged in various voluntary organisations. She was
made Vice-President of the Ladies Missionary Association and one of the
Lady Visitors of the Dufferin Hospital. Her standing within the community
was being elevated, though she remarked, “Why they put me on these sorts of
jobs I can’t imagine, for they don’t suit me a bit. The only reason I can think of
is that being rather unconventional I sometimes break down the ‘goody goody’
atmosphere of the committee meeting!!”137 Otway had been transferred to a
new administrative unit, the Maritime Circle, and the appointment meant inspecting the coasts and lighthouses, a task which would take him out of the city.
In his new role he was temporarily promoted from Executive Engineer to the
administrative post of Superintendent Engineer, overseeing the other Executive
Engineers. If he proved successful in the role, the post would become permanent once a vacancy occurred. Otway was now responsible for 1,000 miles of
coast and the land behind it, along the borders of Siam. Otway had formally
given over the reins of the Construction Division to his successor, and having
taken over the Maritime Circle, they undertook their first inspection on board
the Mayo travelling to various lighthouses before returning in mid-March.138
In September, after a trip to Maymyo she arrived home “laden with
plants”.139 There was the prospect of Otway attending a major Engineering
Conference in Simla in September 1913, and if this coincided with their leave
it might mean stopping off in India on their return journey at the government’s
expense.140 In October Otway was re-assigned to the post of Executive Engineer in the newly formed Lighthouse Division. Although he had been acting
Superintending Engineer for the Maritime Circle, when the permanent post
came up Clark was appointed. Such disappointments were part of colonial
service and Charlotte lamented the loss of income of 250 rupees a month.
They booked their passage home on the SS Oxfordshire for March141 and they
134 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 4 February 1912, Kokine, Rangoon.
135 Ibid.
136 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 12 February 1912, Kokine, Rangoon.
137 Ibid.
138 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 7 March 1912, Kokine, Rangoon.
139 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 16 September 1912, Kokine, Rangoon.
140 Ibid.
141 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 14 October 1912, Kokine, Rangoon.
154 Mobility, knowledge networks, and exploration
hoped to return via Simla where they would attend the Engineering Conference in September.142
Conclusion
These years spent in Rangoon proved to be some of the most successful in
Wheeler-Cuffe’s plant hunting life. Despite her reservations about being stationed in a large urban area and having fewer opportunities to go on excursions with Otway, these circumstances encouraged her to undertake activities
independent of him. Firstly, her expeditions to Mount Victoria had yielded
some important new plants, for which she got official recognition by Kew. Having two species attributed to her by this institution, at a time when its own scientific status had been elevated through its expanding network of contacts
with botanical organisations and individuals located across Britain’s empire,
was an honour. Secondly, in tandem with her success in finding new species of
plants, she continued to produce a large of number of paintings and botanical
sketches which were proving to be an ever increasing commercial success, and
were receiving awards at art exhibitions held in Rangoon. Most of her work
was sold to the colonial population and was yielding enough surplus income
for her to send money to her mother in London. Her integration into life in
Rangoon, although initially daunting to her, was in fact successful. The zenith
of her recognition as a talented artist in Rangoon came about when she was
the invited to produce the illustrations for The Burma Alphabet. Her artwork
for this publication not only demonstrated her considerable skill in capturing
the landscape, architecture, and flora and fauna of Burma, but it underscored
the diversity of subjects which she could competently execute. Moreover the
Alphabet was sold both in Burma and Britain and proved a commercial success, the proceeds of which were donated for the construction of a new hospital
in Mandalay.
Thirdly, while her botanical and artistic work was progressing apace, during
this period we also gain some insight into her wider views about imperial authority in Burma especially after her visit to the Andaman Islands. This space
of incarceration had been established in the mid-nineteenth century, and its
location at the periphery of British India was designed to move large numbers
of convicts from mainland India and Burma to these remote islands. It became
the largest, single penal institution of the entire British Empire. The physical
layout of the colony, its cellular central prison, and the differential treatment
of prisoners on the basis of their ethnic background or offence made it a fascinating exemplar of British penal policy in the colonies. Charlotte’s reaction to
this space of punishment was positive, even, at times, enthusiastic, and she
elided in her commentary any real sense of this place being a centre for the
rigid dispensation of discipline and punishment. Although she regularly depicted Burma as a safe and peaceful place in her correspondence about
142 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 17 November 1912, Kokine, Rangoon.
Deepening connections 155
travelling, the high crime rates and the presence of an enormous penal colony,
incarcerating large numbers of Indian and Burmese convicts did not appear to
challenge this belief. She regarded the Andamans as an impressive example of
the reformatory potential of managed incarceration, and she continually
praised the place as a ‘penal paradise’. She never acknowledged that the Andaman Islands were used to imprison anti-colonial political dissidents, from India and Burma, who opposed British authority on the subcontinent, and that
such political prisoners did not enjoy the same privileges as others. She viewed
the penal colony through the lens of the officials tasked with running it. That
government reviews which were highly critical of the place, and ultimately led
to reforms in the early 1920s, did not appear to have impacted on Charlotte’s
impression of the place.
Part III
In the frontier regions
7
Hill stations, plant hunting, and
the Irrawaddy-Salween Divide,
1913–1914
Rangoon and furlough
Otway’s new settled role within the Lighthouse Division did not last long as he
was soon notified of his transfer to Maymyo.1 The next couple of years would
be marked by two major work-related trips. First, they visited Simla to attend
an Engineering Conference where Charlotte could observe and evaluate life in
this Indian hill station as well as getting a glimpse of some other parts of India.
She had consistently considered Burma to be demonstrably different, and indeed superior to India, and this trip seemed to confirm her views. Second, after
they moved from Rangoon to Maymyo in late 1913, she and Otway undertook
a major excursion to the Irrawaddy-Salween Divide in Upper Burma and this
was the first occasion she travelled to this remote frontier region, where she
produced a number of landscape paintings of the territory and images of its
flora. The physical and botanical characteristics of the area impressed her and
she would visit it again over the coming years. By 1914 the colony witnessed the
initial effects of the outbreak of the First World War in Europe, and we see the
beginning of Charlotte’s philanthropic and volunteer work to support the war
effort, which she would continue until the war’s end.
While the opportunities for Charlotte to travel with Otway in his new job in
the Lighthouse Division were limited, she occupied her time with educational
and social engagements in the capital. As an Anglican she attended the opening of a new Normal Girls School, a mission school established by the Society
for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG). Religious teaching in the schools, she
claimed, was purely voluntary and the Church of England did not baptise children, unless their parents were Christian, until they were old enough to consent
and understand the commitment.2 The relationship between missionary activity and empire was a complex and contradictory one. The East India Company, for instance, stubbornly resisted missionaries seeking to establish a
foothold in lands under imperial control, and many British missionaries
1 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 3 January 1913, Maulmain [Mawlamyine].
2 Ibid.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003157595-10
160 In the frontier regions
worked outside the official empire.3 But by the time the Wheeler-Cuffes arrived
in Burma there were several American Baptist, Catholic, British Methodist,
and SPG missions around the colony. Etherington has pointed out that within
the formal empire evangelising was least successful in areas where there were
already long-established, universal creeds and sacred texts. Resistance was stiff
among Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims and where “such competing religions
were deeply rooted among large populations, as in Burma … imperial authority did little to advance the cause of Christian missions”.4 Some missions were
successful in the more peripheral areas of a colony where “people marginalized
by social class and geography proved to be exceptionally susceptible to the
power of the new religion”.5 This was the case, for instance, in the ‘unadministered’ Chin Hills area where American Baptists had a foothold. The establishment of a SPG mission school in Rangoon, to educate native girls, was an
effort to expand the influence of Christian missions in the capital.
In February 1913 Charlotte contracted malaria, but fortunately she quickly
recovered from the worst of the fever.6 Despite the illness she succeeded in
submitting four paintings to an arts and crafts exhibition and, ironically, obtained the first prize for the painting she did of the Mandalay Moat where she
had probably contracted the disease. By mid-February the weather was becoming very hot in Rangoon as she made preparations for their departure in March
on six month’s leave home.7 They spent their time travelling around Britain and
Ireland, including visiting friends in Bournemouth,8 and spending time in
Leyrath, where the weather was warm and where she was enjoying her new
pony, Mercury.9 They also spent time in Dublin where she visited the botanic
gardens at Glasnevin. She brought some of her drawings to show Moore. Gilbert Rogers, the Chief Conservator of Forests in Burma, and Dr Henry, a
Chinese explorer, were also visiting the gardens at that time. Moore “waxed
quite enthusiastic over my Mount Victoria things and [said] that I must go
there again and collect more”.10 He promised that she could have plants from
the Glasnevin garden as a gift exchange for the species she had provided from
Burma, an offer which pleased her greatly: “It is very encouraging to think that
my poor little efforts at collecting really have some value in the eyes of scientific
people”.11 Among a white male scientific elite, she presented herself as an amateur among experts. This contrasted with her general opinion of the knowledge of the indigenous male population of Burma who regularly collected
plants for her, but whom she considered more amateur than herself. Gender
3 Etherington, N. (ed.) 2005. Missionaries and Empire, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
4 Etherington Missionaries and Empire, p. 8.
5 Ibid.
6 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 2 February 1913, Kokine, Rangoon.
7 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 17 February 1913, Kokine, Rangoon.
8 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 3 April 1913, Canford Cliffs Hotel, Bournemouth.
9 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 21 April 1913, Leyrath, Kilkenny.
10 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 22 May 1913, Longford Lodge, Kingstown.
11 Ibid.
Hill stations, plant hunting, and the Irrawaddy-Salween Divide 161
and race were calibrated in different ways in different social spaces; she situated herself in an intermediate position between white, male professionals and
darker-skinned, native men when in Dublin.
She visited the Bensleys, who now resided in Ireland, and although the marriage of her cousin to a Eurasian had caused much anxiety some years previously, the union proved successful. Nonetheless the issue of racial genealogy
continued to play on Charlotte’s mind. She was godmother to their daughter,
Phyllis, whom she described “as a dear little thing, but has quite taken after her
father in looks, I fear”.12 This reference to her godchild’s physical appearance
underscores the continued significance of racialised categories that had accompanied her initial reaction to the marriage. In August she departed with Otway
for Burma once again on the SS Oxfordshire where, unusually, there were only
six women on board, two each destined for Egypt, Ceylon, and Burma.13 They
were to attend the Engineering Conference in Simla, but when they arrived at
Colombo they received a wire instructing them to return to Rangoon before
travelling to the conference.14
Simla and the Engineering Conference
The Engineering Conference was an important episode in Otway’s work calendar, and provided Charlotte with the opportunity to spend some time in India
and experience the country first-hand. They sailed on the SS Aronda to Calcutta, and travelled onwards by train to Simla. While en route to the conference rumours circulated that they were to be transferred to Maymyo, something
which Charlotte would welcome. They arrived in Calcutta, and spent an afternoon exploring the city before undertaking the three-day train journey to
Simla. They travelled via Patna, Allahabad, Delhi, Kalka, and from there
boarded the narrow-gauge rail line to the hill station.15 Hill stations in India
have typically been depicted as islands of European settlement, providing a
welcome retreat from the heat, disease, and dust of the plains.16 For British
imperial planners they were intended as English enclaves, and this image of hill
stations as oases of Englishness was reinforced in the written texts produced by
colonial officials, settlers, and travellers alike. Usually located in thickly wooded
hillsides, often with mists descending upon them, these settlements allowed
colonists to build a microcosm of English life far away from home. As Kenwar
12 Ibid.
13 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 4 August 1913, SS Oxfordshire.
14 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 17 August 1913, Colombo, Ceylon.
15 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 26 August 1913, SS Aronda.
16 Edwardes, M. 1969. Bound to Exile: The Victorians in India, London: Sidgwick and Jackson;
Barr, P. and Desmond, R. 1978. Simla: A Hill Station in British India, Delhi: Scribner. Spencer, J.
E. and Thomas, W. L. 1948. “The hill stations and summer resorts of the Orient”, Geographical
Review, 38, pp. 637–661; King, A. D. 1976. “Culture, social power and environment: the hill
station in colonial urban development”, Social Action, 26, pp. 195–213; King, A. D. 2010.
Colonial Urban Development: Culture, Social Power and Environment, London: Routledge.
162 In the frontier regions
has suggested the “presence of English women in the hills in large numbers
enhanced the holiday and social image of Simla”.17 Regular picnics, balls, garden parties, theatre productions, and other forms of white, colonial entertainment, managed and organised by women, reinforced this picture. Moreover,
the letters, diaries, memoirs, and novels written by British women living in
these places reproduced a kind of imaginary geography of the hill station as a
space of white culture and English landscape taste, and this became the dominant allusion for these highland settlements for well over a century.18 This imaginative space of imperial privilege was further bolstered by the work of
popular male writers, who characterised these landscapes as inhabited by eccentric and larger-than-life British characters dwelling harmoniously in the
hills.19 Morphologically, hill stations tended to replicate the more organic layout of English villages rather than imitate the grid pattern designs used at military and civil settlements in the Indian plains. As Kennedy has put it, the
British “embraced the sinuous contours of the rugged landscape and constructed their cottages along the crests of ridges … They hedged the stations’
meandering avenues and footpaths with trees and flowers indigenous to their
homeland”.20 And in so doing they created a type of idealised landscape that
drew its inspiration from a romanticised image of the English sublime.
As a consequence, many new visitors to Indian stations arrived with a set of
pre-conceived ideas about the picturesque nature of these spaces. In reality,
however, hill stations were entrepôt markets where the Indian population, typically, greatly outnumbered the European one (for instance, from a population
of 33,174 living in Simla in 1898, 29,048 were Indian). This was especially true
when hill stations became more than just holiday retreats or resorts, and functioned as the summer headquarters for the administration of the overall colonial state, and for the governance of the local district in which they were
located.21 As such, Kennedy claims they served both as “sites of refuge and
sites of surveillance”.22 Not only were they leisure spaces for colonial officials
and their families escaping the heat of the plains, they were important epicentres for the exercise of imperial control. In Simla, for instance, property ownership, residential segregation, and the management of commercial transactions
was highly regulated by the colonial government. In 1882 the town was divided
17 Kanwar, P. 1990. Imperial Simla: The Political Culture of the Raj, Delhi: Oxford University
Press, p. 10.
18 Eden, E. 1866. Up the Country, Letter Written to her Sister from the Upper Provinces of India,
London: Richard Bentley. Written as two volumes and originally published in 1866, the collection was republished numerous times; Lady Dufferin and Ava. 1890. Our Viceregal Life in
India, My Journal 1884–1888, London: John Murray. This volume also was republished several
times. Fleming, J. 1897. A Pinchbeck Goddess, New York: D Appleton and Co. She was sister
to Rudyard Kipling.
19 Kipling, R. 1888. Plain Tales from the Hills, Calcutta: Thacker, Spink and Co.
20 Kennedy, The Magic Mountains, p. 3.
21 Kenwar, Imperial Simla.
22 Kennedy, The Magic Mountains, p. 1.
Hill stations, plant hunting, and the Irrawaddy-Salween Divide 163
into two wards for municipal elections: the Station Ward where Europeans
lived and the Bazar Ward occupied mainly by Indians. It was the Station Ward
that adopted the most English character reflecting the values of its colonial
residents. It was also the area where rents were high, making it a very profitable
prospect for property investment.23 While the Wheeler-Cuffes had frequently
visited the hill station at Maymyo, this was their first experience of an Indian
hill station and the most significant one politically and culturally in British India.
Charlotte recorded their journey to Simla and provided her first impressions
of India. In Calcutta she visited the zoological gardens, which she regarded as
a “really delightful place where the animals have any amount of room and look
so happy and well looked after”.24 They travelled by rail from Calcutta and
enjoyed comfortable quarters with bathrooms that contained real baths, an
arrangement she considered ideal for the two and half days they spent on the
vehicle. Despite the salubrious accommodation, the landscape of the Ganges
valley left her underwhelmed. Looking out at the terrain from the train, she
described it as
absolute dead level country mile after mile till the monotony became absolutely painful … a great deal too poor … The dreariness of it and the
hopeless ugliness! – little squalid mud walled villages, thin weary cattle,
poverty stricken people in dirty dun coloured garments. No wonder the
Indian is so melancholy!25
Her first impressions of the countryside were negative and she praised their
good fortune to be stationed in “dear beautiful laughing Burma and not in the
utter dreariness of the Indian plains!”26 Her characterisation of Burma as a
tropical paradise in comparison to the seemingly endless dullness of the Indian
lowlands reflected her broader belief that Burma was infinitely more attractive
physically and culturally than India. The fact that Burma was often regarded
officially as India’s poor ‘cousin’ had wrangled Wheeler-Cuffe since her arrival
in the colony, and may therefore have shaped her first views of India. The tediousness of their journey was partly interrupted when they passed the sandstone hills between Mirzapore and Allahabad. She complimented the fine
bridge crossing the Jumna River, and acknowledged the picturesque walls surrounding Allahabad. However, she declared that “these were mere spots in a
very ocean of desolate ugliness … What a horror of desolation it must be in the
hot weather! No wonder people fly to the hills”.27 Indeed, by the end of the
23 Kenwar, P. 1984. “The changing profile of the summer capital of British India: Simla 1864–
1947”, Modern Asian Studies, 2, pp. 215–236.
24 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 31 August 1913, Simla.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid.
164 In the frontier regions
nineteenth century, viceroys and their councils typically spent twice as many
months in Simla than in the historic capital of Calcutta.28
When they reached Ambala the following day she reported that there were
“more trees and a general air of alertness to the people and animals”.29 Things
improved further along the route as the Ganges “flowed from a range of rugged peaks to the North, and from that on, there was much more that was interesting and beautiful”.30 However, despite this more appealing landscape,
Wheeler-Cuffe continued to adopt an uncomplimentary tone in describing her
initial experience of the sub-continent. They changed to a single-gauge track
at Kalka onto what she described as a “ridiculous little toy train”.31 Located
on the southwestern ranges of the Himalayas and at over 7,000 feet above sea
level, Simla, like Darjeeling hill station, represented a rapid transition from
tropical to temperate India. The Kalka-Simla railway line opened in 1903,
over two decades after the inaugural journey of the Darjeeling Himalayan
Railway in 1881.32 As Baker has argued in relation to the Darjeeling line it
spanned a “crucial biological, climatic and discursive frontier: that between
the tropics and the temperate zone”.33 Visitors on the Darjeeling line regularly
used the epithet ‘toy train’ to describe the diminutive, open carriages and Lilliputian scale of this railway infrastructure.34 For many passengers using the
Darjeeling train, it was a positive and whimsical experience that was admired.
For Wheeler-Cuffe, travelling on a narrow-gauge vehicular mode of transport
to Simla seemed less charming or adventurous. She noted that there were two
first-class compartments of which they occupied one, but it was “no bigger
than an inside car, and much the same shape”.35 The railway line wriggled
“about in a way that makes one perfectly dizzy … I don’t believe there are 500
yds on the straight the whole way!”.36 Kalka itself consisted of flat-roofed mud
houses, a sloping green park and a camping ground for the hundreds of mules
and pack animals used to transport the vast amount of goods and personnel
destined for the hill station. As they ascended the mountain, they “wiggle waggled in and out of valleys and through tunnels and round and about in a most
bewildering way, the cart road sometimes below and sometimes above us”.37
When the station had been originally developed, as a medicinal sanctuary on
the sunny southern slopes of Simla, the Cart Road was the only vehicular
28 Kennedy, The Magic Mountains.
29 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 31 August 1913, Simla.
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid.
32 Martin, T. 2000. Halfway to Heaven: Darjeeling and Its Remarkable Railway, London: Rail
Romances.
33 Baker, J. C. T. 2014. “Mobility, tropicality and landscape: the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway,
1881–1939”, Journal of Historical Geography, 44, p. 133.
34 Ibid., pp. 135–136.
35 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 31 August 1913, Simla.
36 Ibid.
37 Ibid.
Hill stations, plant hunting, and the Irrawaddy-Salween Divide 165
artery connecting Simla and Kalka.38 The natural landscape disappointed her
too as she observed just a few scraggy firs and ilex that were “so lopped and
tortured up for fire wood that they are mere scrags”.39 The terraced hills designed for maize and rice cultivation created, in her view, “the oddest stupid
effect – rather ugly”.40 A couple of hours later they reached the crest of a
horseshoe of hills and she got her first sight of Simla. Having had an overall
negative disposition towards the parts of India she had seen by train, would
she be more well-disposed towards its most famous hill station and centre of
colonial administration?
Her relative, Dick Langrishe, met them at the station with hired help to
carry their luggage to ‘Abergeldie’, the boarding house where they would stay
until the end of September. Otway’s task at the conference was to record and
prepare for publication all the reports from the meeting and Charlotte would
assist him. Otway’s office was adjacent to Langrishe’s and they travelled together each morning to work. Their friends, the Clarks, arrived the following
day and stayed at the Carlton Hotel which looked in close proximity to their
boarding house, but in fact took a quarter of an hour to reach “zigzagging
down the path”.41 The general topography of the settlement, built on the steep
slopes of the hillside, did not appeal to Charlotte. She proclaimed that she
would “very soon get tired of Simla itself. Too many people for me altogether
nowadays! It must have been beautiful before it was so built over”.42 By the
end of the nineteenth century, the population of Simla had increased so much
that there was official concern about over-crowding and the density of housing development. Given her passion for the outdoor life, her response to the
busy hill station is, perhaps, unsurprising yet seemed at odds with her favourable disposition towards Burma’s summer capital at Maymyo.43 Moreover,
unlike many colonial wives who valued the sociability and leisure activities
associated with hill stations, Charlotte was an unenthusiastic participant in
these tightly organised events which Simla seemed to embody. Despite her
disappointment with the place, she found “several things to paint and have
three or four on hand, but it is difficult to get away from ugly houses which
spoil what would otherwise be lovely views”.44 Many Indian hill stations were
designed to mimic European architectural taste with “gabled Gothic villas,
half-timbered Tudor cottages, gingerbread-ornamented Swiss chalets”.45
While British colonials often cherished these features, they held little aesthetic
charm for Charlotte. Her preference for less-tamed jungle environments and
38 Kenwar, Imperial Simla.
39 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 31 August 1913, Simla.
40 Ibid.
41 Ibid.
42 Ibid.
43 Ibid.
44 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 11 September 1913, Simla.
45 Kennedy, The Magic Mountains, p. 3.
166 In the frontier regions
sparsely populated places outweighed all the emblems of civility and conviviality that Simla represented.
The conference took place over two days and there were a host of social
engagements that they had to attend. Charlotte happily reported on a garden
party in a house that was not overlooked, a feature that was exceptional as
most houses were “either looking down other chimneys or have someone looking down theirs, and the conditions are anything but sanitary and sore throats
are very prevalent”.46 Despite its reputation as a recuperative retreat from the
plains, in Charlotte’s view the pollen from the young deodar trees, as well as
other odours, induced throat complaints.47 While the town itself seemed to
hold little charm, the views of the Himalayas attracted her attention, drawing
her to their “glory away to the north”.48 When the conference ended they busily
corrected the reports and proofs of proceedings and hoped to take a trip, with
the Langrishes, along the Thibet Road outside of Simla. She welcomed the
prospect as she confessed that
life here is not the sort that suits any of us, and I find it difficult to take
Simla seriously – there is such a lot of make believe. The houses are gim
crack, and there is an amusing effort to appear fashionable and English.
I remarked to someone yesterday that Simla struck me as a colossal joke,
and he said, ‘Oh I assure you Simla takes itself very seriously’, which
I replied ‘is exactly the point of the joke!’.49
Despite her reservations about the settlement, she recognised its political significance and she attended a party at the Vice-Regal Lodge in a ballroom that
was “very pretty, but much too small for its purpose and not half the size of the
one at Rangoon”.50 There was little of architectural merit overall, however, to
recommend the place in her view. It seemed artificial, temporary, and superficial. Verandahs, with stone arches, were, in her opinion, “so thin and flimsy
that they have to be braced with iron tie rod”.51 The architectural detail comprised “silly senseless pinnacles and ornaments quite out of keeping with the
massive stonework”.52 The conference building itself was, she claimed, “built
mainly of iron drain pipes and corrugated iron sheets, tied together with telegraph wire! and filled in with brick noggin”.53 She longed to escape to the Thibet Road which, she believed, was a splendid 40–50 mile route. Charlotte also
disliked the local transport arrangements because she
46 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 11 September 1913, Simla.
47 Ibid.
48 Ibid.
49 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 18 September 1913, Simla.
50 Ibid.
51 Ibid.
52 Ibid.
53 Ibid.
Hill stations, plant hunting, and the Irrawaddy-Salween Divide 167
hated being pushed uphill in rickshaws by four coolies, like a baby in a
pram, but console myself by the idea that the coolies probably mind it
much less than I do, and most likely find it easier to push me up, than
I should find it to walk.54
Given her hiking experience in Burma’s mountainous regions, it is surprising
she thought that she should find ascending and descending the steep streets of
the town demanding.55
The drudgery of preparing the conference publications made her “too tired
to paint, when I get the chance, after pouring all day over type written sheets,
or correcting printers’ proofs”.56 To escape from their daily routine, they made
a short six-mile excursion by rickshaw northeast of Simla to Mashobra. This
village was more thickly forested than the hill station, and provided an interlude from Simla’s congestion and pollution. Owning or tenanting a house in
Mashobra was considered a status symbol, redolent of having a country retreat in England.57 Charlotte thought it a pretty village, nestled in “lovely
woods of deodar, pine, spruce, ilex and walnut; the steep slopes clothed with
maidenhair and other ferns, deep valleys below, and beyond the nearer range,
peeps of the snow peaks the far side of the Sutlej”.58 Away from the bustle she
produced an evocative painting of a deodar tree (Figure 7.1) framed by the
mountainous landscape of the Himalayas in the background and devoid of
any signs of human settlement.
While in Simla, they received the welcome confirmation that they were to
re-locate to Maymyo upon their return and would inhabit a house named Bamboo Lodge. She was familiar with the house and its garden and was looking
forward to getting her “teeth into it!”.59 Although they were busy editing the
conference proceedings, Charlotte was clearly distracting herself by mentally
planning her garden in their new home.60 But before their return they were to
undertake their escape from Simla along the Thibet Road. They hired government transport mules and a rickshaw for May Langrishe’s use during the trip.
They left Simla on 2 October with May in a rickshaw, Dick walking and Charlotte and Otway riding transport mules. Their luggage was carried on five other
mules and one spare animal. Their route wound up to Jakko hill (8,050 feet)
located 1,000 feet higher than Simla (7,000 feet) from where they travelled
north and east along a ridge that formed the principal continental divide of
India. They encountered richer botanical life here with forests of deodar and
rhododendron; pinus and ilex; yew and walnut; and terraced slopes planted
54 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 25 September 1913, Simla.
55 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 18 September 1913, Simla.
56 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 1 October 1913, Simla.
57 Kanwar, Imperial Simla.
58 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 1 October 1913, Simla.
59 Ibid.
60 Ibid.
168 In the frontier regions
Figure 7.1 Simla, a deodar, 1913. (Courtesy of the National Botanic Gardens,
Glasnevin).
with potatoes and maize.61 Government bungalows were provided with a
Khansama who provided “excellent meals, and the travelling is very much easier in consequence than in Burma, where one has to carry about everything
with one”.62 They progressed to Narkanda where Charlotte discovered an
61 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 8 October 1913, Phagu, Hindustan Thibet Road.
62 Ibid.
Hill stations, plant hunting, and the Irrawaddy-Salween Divide 169
“enchanting little blue pea with leaves like a shamrock [Parochetus communis]”.63 She collected its seeds and a few other plants and although the surrounding landscape was very beautiful Narkanda itself, she claimed, was
“horribly civilised – there is a post and telegraph office and a local Rajah and
a small hotel”.64 They wandered along the northern slopes of the Hattu peak,
about eight miles from Narkanda, through dense evergreen forest with very tall
conifers and yew, and onwards to the village of Bhagu where they stayed overnight. The following day, with the aid of a guide, they ascended the Hattu
Mountain. The mules could not climb to the summit (11,000 feet) and the
party scrambled the final section. They had wonderful vistas of uplands in all
directions and she described the rich botanical life found there with “the open
parts covered with … beautiful Michaelmas daisy and crimson potentilla and
masses of white immortelles and a thousand other charming plants”.65 They
returned “tired but triumphant”.66 Clearly this trip provided a welcome reprieve from the bustle of Simla.
The excursion re-energised the Wheeler-Cuffes to complete the conference
reports. A meeting with English (Head of the Co-operative Credit Society in
Burma) also inspired Charlotte as he was “as cracked as I am about plants
and wanted to see my seeds and things”.67 Nonetheless, they gladly departed
Simla and would tour briefly in Delhi and Agra. They stayed at Metcalfe
House in Delhi, the old Residency in pre-military days, located in the north of
the city about two miles from Kashmir Gate, “which still stands, a pathetic
and heroic memorial, untouched and unrestored, to those who died in the
dreadful days of 1857”.68 Outside of the gate, in a beautiful garden, was a
statue to John Nicholson,69 the Irish officer who played a significant role in the
suppression of the Indian Mutiny in 1857, and was buried in the cemetery
across the road.70
They went sightseeing to the New Imperial City. The present city, she observed, would become the northeastern corner of the new one, connected by
broad, tree-lined avenues. She approved of the plans for the redevelopment of
the city and anticipated that the majestic domed Government House and public offices would dominate the skyline if built sufficiently large. They visited
Shah Jahan’s Palace in Old Delhi, which she admired, but thought “almost
63 Ibid.
64 Ibid.
65 Ibid.
66 Ibid.
67 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 16 October 1913, Simla.
68 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 27 October 1913, Grand Hotel, Calcutta.
69 John Nicholson (1822–1857) was an officer in the British Army in India. Born in Dublin he
rose to prominence in India particularly during the First Anglo-Afghan War and the First and
Second Anglo-Sikh War. A controversial figure, he also played a crucial role in suppressing
the Indian Rebellion of 1857, a conflict in which he died. See Flinders, S. 2019. “‘Lion of the
Punjab’ or ‘great imperial psychopath’”, History Ireland, 27, pp. 24–27.
70 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 27 October 1913, Grand Hotel, Calcutta.
170 In the frontier regions
wearisome in its excess of inlay and ornament”.71 Within this complex she was
impressed by the small Pearl Mosque made of pure white, undecorated marble.
They visited the Queen’s gardens and the Mutiny Memorial which she described as “a dreadful example of carpenters’ Gothic in stone”.72 As it was
erected very shortly after the mutiny, she admitted that it would be uncouth to
replace it. Their host and guide, Kuling [Chief Engineer], showed them the
government plans for the redevelopment of the city and took them to the site
where the foundations were being laid for the new Government House. She
found the idea of creating a new Imperial City intriguing and was amazed at
the scale of operations required to build it. There were at least 2,000 workmen
employed; 8 Executive Engineers and their subordinates; several Superintending Engineers; and Kuling as Chief Engineer. The Imperial Delhi Committee
supervised the overall planning programme, and its membership included Edwin Lutyens and other British architects and town planners.73 After visiting
Delhi they travelled by train to Agra and she declared that the Taj Mahal was
just as beautiful as can be imagined, and no photograph gives an adequate idea of it. It is all so spotless and beautifully kept … and so exquisitely proportioned and the decoration, though elaborate in detail, so
subordinate to the general design, that one feels it is really as near perfection as anything human can be, and one longed to linger.74
They toured some other sites in the region before returning by night train to
Calcutta.
Although the trip to India, and Simla in particular, proved informative to
the Wheeler-Cuffes, it was clear that Charlotte had reservations about the nature of colonial life at the centre of the British Raj. Firstly, the architecture and
congestion of Simla did not win her admiration, as she constantly complained
about the building styles and overcrowding of the settlement. Famed for its
English-inspired design, she found the effect superficial and perfunctory. Secondly, the social superstructure gluing colonial life at the hill station held limited appeal. The seemingly endless round of garden parties, soirees, and
afternoon tea rituals, so valued by the colonial residents, were irksome to
Charlotte. Despite sharing the same class background as many of the residents, she was uninspired by the gendered social milieu of leisure and entertainment. Exploring the Thibet Road area proved to be the most enjoyable part
of the whole experience. Thirdly, while the medicinal virtues of the climate of
the hill station had underpinned the whole development of Simla, she found
that the cooler temperatures did not compensate for the crowdedness and absence of picturesque views. Finally, she interpreted Simla, and India more
71 Ibid.
72 Ibid.
73 Ibid.
74 Ibid.
Hill stations, plant hunting, and the Irrawaddy-Salween Divide 171
generally, through the prism of her life in Burma, and she consistently regarded
the Burmese province, including Maymyo, as qualitatively and culturally superior to India. Unlike the women who enjoyed life at the hill station and its
replication of the rituals of femininity practised at home, she found it a constraining space that enclosed her geographically and socially.
Move to Maymyo: domesticating the new abode
Once they returned to Rangoon she prepared for the transfer to Maymyo but
acknowledged that it was “sad leaving my pretty garden and one’s old friends
here”.75 She sent her plants by steamer to Mandalay for collection,76 and renamed her new house ‘Upperfold’ because “the name has many pleasant memories for Otway and me, and the surrounding country is rather like that part of
the world”.77 In contrast to her criticism of some of the faux practices she
found in Simla, she nonetheless named her new house in Maymyo after her
family’s country home in England. She was pleased with the attractiveness of
the house:
and the garden can be made charming in time, though at present it gives
the idea of having had plants dumped into it anyhow, every border and
every path is crooked, but I can’t afford to lay it all out at once and must
just do it by degrees.78
Their furniture arrived but looked more “fit for a jumble sale than furnishing a
house – but a Chinaman with some varnish and paint will do wonders”.79 Unfortunately, a Wardian case of plants that had been shipped from England had
spent too much time in the dark while they were in Simla and most of its contents had died. The weather was perfect, “warm enough for a cotton frock all
day, and cool enough for a fire in the evenings”.80 They called at the Government House and were greeted by Lady Adamson. While Charlotte was becoming accustomed to their new home, it was accompanied by a melancholy tone:
“A move is a depressing affair – all one’s things get so destroyed”.81
By the end of November her mood had improved and she was convinced
that they belonged “to upper Burma. Every second man we meet is an old
friend, be he brown or white, and it is just delightful to be back”.82 Clearly,
the intensely urban life of Rangoon, while tolerably good, did not surpass her
desire to be located in the more remote region of Upper Burma, where
75 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 1 November 1913, Kokine, Rangoon.
76 Ibid.
77 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 9 November 1913, Maymyo.
78 Ibid.
79 Ibid.
80 Ibid.
81 Ibid.
82 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 23 November 1913, Mandalay.
172 In the frontier regions
Otway’s job would entail regular excursions to the jungle and frontier districts. She claimed there was no civil engineer in Burma who knew the
­Mandalay Circle better than Otway, with more than 23 years’ service. The
prospect of exploring Upper Burma once again filled them both with excitement, especially since the Chinese frontier was botanically interesting and
geopolitically important. She claimed, “The Chinese are being driven out of
Tibet, and are trying to push down into Burma, and unless we administer the
intervening hill country, they will grab it; which would be disastrous. So a
new division north of Myitkyina is to be established”.83 The new division
would include 180 miles of road and a new civil station at Putao, the capital
of the Khamti Lông state. She thought that the Irrawaddy-Salween divide
should be the natural frontier between China and Burma but feared that the
Chinese wished to breach it into the Namai Kha Valley (the eastern branch
of the Irrawaddy River). British military posts were being established along
the frontier and hill country but she acknowledged that it was difficult country in which to establish roads. The Namai Valley, for instance, was full of
gorges and snow-capped mountains but she “believed the rhododendrons up
there are the most beautiful in the world – I wonder if I will ever see them!”.84
As it turned out she was able to visit the frontier regions although she was not
permitted to visit Putao.
In his new post Otway was responsible for maintaining the infrastructure of
five districts in the region: (1) Lashio in the northern Shan States; (2) Mandalay, including Maymyo; (3) Shwebo as far as the west bank of the Irrawaddy
and the Ruby Mines district on the east bank; (4) Bhamo division, which ran
to the Chinese frontier in the NE; and (5) Myitkyina division, which ran northwards to Tibet. He would be busy building roads to accommodate the new
forts and stations that were being constructed along the frontier as British influence was extended northwards. The Burma Alphabet was “selling like hot
cakes and the originals have been most beautifully bound in an album and are
to be sold by auction and some extraordinary price is anticipated”.85 A friend
from Rangoon appreciated the publication commenting that it was a “delightful production … and [displayed] the versatility of your talent”.86 Kathleen
Patch, from the Winchester Mission in Mandalay, declared that she was “delighted with the very beautiful Burma alphabet … thank you for such a beautiful contribution towards our Children’s Hospital. It is not only we who profit
but the General Public too”.87 Charlotte noted, with some surprise, that The
Burma Alphabet seemed to be also selling well in England, and could be sourced
from a firm based in London. It cost 6 shillings and pence sterling or 5 rupees,
83 Quoted in Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, p. 136.
84 Quoted in Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, p. 136.
85 Letter from OWC to Loo, 8 December 1913, Maymyo.
86 Letter to CWC from unnamed friend, 22 November 1913, Bishop’s Court, Rangoon.
87 Letter to CWC from Kathleen Patch, 31 December 1913, Winchester Mission, Mandalay.
Hill stations, plant hunting, and the Irrawaddy-Salween Divide 173
which she thought was rather expensive, but the price was not curtailing sales.88
Clearly it was proving commercially popular and her skill at painting non-­
botanical subjects was testament to her wider gifts as an artist. The travel
writer and novelist May Crommelin asked Charlotte to provide some artwork
for a publication. Crommelin, from Carrowdore Castle, Co Down, was of
French Huguenot descent and she had travelled widely, earning her living from
publishing travel books and novels based on her adventures.89 Crommelin obtained some sketches from Charlotte which might suit her needs. Wheeler-Cuffe
found her to be a very agreeable woman and “was letting her have the drawing
as a matter of business”.90 Crommelin returned to England the following
month, and arranged to visit Mrs Williams where she could view some of
Charlotte’s other drawings. Their life in Upper Burma had got off to a good
start and they would remain in Maymyo until they retired in 1921.
To the frontier: the Irrawaddy-Salween Divide expedition April 1914
In March Charlotte and Otway planned their first major excursion to the
­Salween-Irrawaddy Divide which promised to be “a glorious trip from all we
hear … The places we are going to are not on any published map but are in the
region between the upper waters of the Irrawaddy and Salween”.91 Escaping to
the lesser-travelled parts of the colony reinvigorated her appetite for adventure.
This part of northern Burma was almost unexplored from a botanical perspective. In 1897 Captain Pottinger had travelled along the ‘Nmai Hka River to
Laking Hka and made the first valuable collection of plants from the region,
but he had to abandon some of his horde when he got into conflict with the
Maru people. In 1916 Dr Handel-Mazetti from Vienna crossed the Irrawaddy-Salween Divide, and he too collected numerous flora on his journey. The
plant hunter Forrest undertook numerous expeditions to Yunnan between
1904 and 1931 and he occasionally sent native collectors to the Burma side of
the Salween-Irrawaddy Divide. Kingdon-Ward also botanised in the region a
few months after Wheeler-Cuffe’s visit.92 Thus, while there were some expeditions to the general area by professional botanists or plant hunters, the region
in general was relatively uncharted by Western travellers when Charlotte visited
the area in 1914. The Wheeler-Cuffes departed from Myitkyina on 18 March,
crossed the river by steam launch and rode eastwards for ten miles to Wasaung
[Washaung], a place Otway had visited in 1893. They rode to Seinghku,
which was a military police post and here they encountered the eastern branch
of the ‘Nmaikha [‘Nmai Hka] River. It was quite un-navigable “being
88 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 1 February 1914, Maymyo.
89 Hackett, H. 1999. ‘Crommelin, May (Maria Henrietta de la Cherois) 1950–1930’, in Sage, L.
(ed.) The Cambridge Guide to Women’s Writing in English, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, p. 158.
90 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 1 February 1914, Maymyo.
91 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 18 March 1914, Myitkina.
92 Kingdon-Ward, F. 1939. “The Irrawaddy plateau”, The Geographical Journal, 94, pp. 293–308.
174 In the frontier regions
one series of roaring rapids and polished granite rocks”.93 She noted that all its
tributaries were also raging torrents descending from the wooded, snow-clad
peaks of the Irrawaddy-Salween Divide. The banks of the ‘Nmaikha were covered with masses “of gorgeous rosey scarlet azaleas, and, where sandy, with
white briar roses. The forest is full of great bauhinia trees … all now in full
bloom, and almost overpoweringly sweet scented”.94
They rode to Shingaw Zup and travelled through dense jungle along a mule
road. At Shingaw she sketched from beneath a suspension bridge and the following day the Assistant Commissioner for the district arranged for a pair of
armed Kachin policemen to escort them to Tamu Hka. They met Lowis (who
was overseeing road work in the area) at Chipwi [Chiphwei] and Charlotte
spent her time painting.95 The travelled to Htawgaw which lay 7,000 feet above
sea level, and 130 miles northeast of Myitkyina. It did not appear on any map
as it was, until very recently, part of the ‘unadministered territory’ along the
frontier. The geopolitical significance of the region, in Charlotte’s view, was
underpinned by wider British interests in the area. She claimed:
When the last Chinese Frontier delimitation commission finished their
work a few years ago, it was tentatively agreed that north of the head
waters of the Shweli and Taping (both tributaries of the Irrawaddy), the
main Salween-Irrawaddy watershed should be the international frontier,
and we wouldn’t cross it if they didn’t. We did not want to be bothered
administering an immense mountain tract at the back of beyond, so long
as the hill tribes behaved and the Chinese let them alone. However, a
couple of years ago, the Chinese began to send soldiers and surveyors
over the passes, so we couldn’t afford to allow that, and as the most effectual way of putting an end to any claim on their part, established a Military Post here, and another at Hpimaw, just our side of the Hpimaw pass
over the great divide, about 30 miles ENE of this.96
A few days later they started climbing the great Wumaw Range which bounded
the Chipwi Valley to the north until they reached a small fort manned by a
“handful of cheery Gurkha military police”.97 Visiting the Wumaw Range, the
most challenging part of their journey, was rewarded by her nearly going crazy
over the flowers:
Imagine a dense forest growing on a very steep granite mountain side;
wet dripping hollows full of giant tree ferns, purple gloxinias and masses
of pink begonias; drier spurs with groves of immense rhododendrons;
93 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 25 March 1914, Laukhaung.
94 Ibid.
95 Ibid.
96 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 1 April 1914, Htawgaw.
97 Ibid.
Hill stations, plant hunting, and the Irrawaddy-Salween Divide 175
then a sheer rock face along which the road has been blasted and built
up – then an easier bit, with more pink begonias and ferns and a thousand and one lovely things whose names I don’t know.98
Eventually they reached their optimal viewing point where “stretched out before us like a great white wall 50 miles away was the snow covered range of the
great Irrawaddy-Salween Divide, the lowest point of which is about 11,000ft,
and the peaks 13,000ft, and over”.99 The scene filled her with joy and they
stayed overnight at Pyèpat where she found rhododendrons that she painted.
Her sketching amused local villagers who were “puzzled by my sitting on a
stump and dabbing colour on a piece of white paper!”.100 The entire region
intrigued her and was in marked contrast to her experience of the Indian highlands. She enthused that it was:
an amazing place, in many ways, in an amazing country!, and the most
amazing thing in it, is the little man who has built this astonishing fort
and roads in the wilds practically single handed: Frank Lowis. He has
made nearly 200 miles of road through the most difficult country imaginable, built a granite ashlar fort and officers quarters on the top of a
7,000ft hill beyond an 8,000ft pass, built about a dozen large suspension
bridges, put up boundary pillars on passes, explored the mountains for
another couple of hundred miles north where no white man has ever
been before – all in three years and a half! Besides doing most of the
work with local labour at rates half those in Myitkyina! But the comical
part of all this: all these works are to prevent Chinese aggression: yet all
the masonry and skilled work is done by Chinese workmen, and all the
materials carried up by Chinese mules and Chinese mule drivers! We
British are an astonishing race!! and I really think Frank Lowis is a peculiarly astonishing specimen of it.101
She produced a number of paintings of the landscape and its flora from this
trip. She depicted a red rhododendron, painted in situ, and although it is less
detailed than some of her other botanical drawings it does capture the flower
and leaf formations of the species (Figure 7.2). She also painted the landscape
of the ‘Nmai Hka Valley from Shingaw Zup with the forests framing the high
mountain ranges beyond (Figure 7.3). Using a muted palette of mauves,
browns, and greens, she included in the foreground of the composition two
figures bathing their feet in the river. They may have been her travel companions. She also produced a painting of the Hpimaw Road (Figure 7.4) and this
scene she tackled from the perspective of a narrow path hugging the deep gorge
98 Ibid.
99 Ibid.
100 Ibid.
101 Ibid.
176 In the frontier regions
Figure 7.2 Rhododendron, Htawgaw, April 1914. (Courtesy of the National Botanic
Gardens, Glasnevin).
below, with high peaks emerging on the opposite side of the river. Outcrops of
trees and grasses, clinging to bare rock along the pathway, framed the scene.
These two landscape paintings offer an unusual, and rarely documented, pictorial image of this frontier territory. While Lowis was providing the infrastructure for the region, she was busy providing visual images of the territory. These
paintings are demonstrative of her skill at capturing a scene on site, despite
enduring strenuous travelling conditions. Her capacity to paint en plein air, and
Hill stations, plant hunting, and the Irrawaddy-Salween Divide 177
Figure 7.3 Shingaw Zup, ‘Nmai Hka Valley, March 1914. (Courtesy of the National
Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin).
Figure 7.4 Hpimaw Road between Black Rock and Hpimlaw Hka, March 1914. (Courtesy of the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin).
178 In the frontier regions
often under rushed circumstances, speaks to her maturity as a botanical and
landscape artist.
They stayed overnight at a fort where a dinner party was hosted in her honour “as the first lady in these parts – (no other has been beyond Seniku so
far)”.102 Charlotte was pleased to be the first known white, Western woman to
reach this remote area and it underscored her status as something of a pioneer
woman traveller and artist exploring a distant region of Burma’s frontier with
China. They rode to Hpimaw without mules or servants and passed through a
wide, open valley of rice fields with “little villages perched up on the alps above
among peach and pear and apricot trees, and fields of buckwheat fenced with
hedges of pyrus japonica”.103 She commented on the beauty of the place: “No
wonder the Chinese want the Hpimaw valley! – Such a lovely spot – Of course
I promptly started a sketch”.104 They arrived at a small fort in Hpimaw where
she found a huge white and mauve rhododendron and magnolia,105 Lowis shot
a takin (also called a cattle chamois or gnu goat, Budorcas taxicolor) in the
mountains a few weeks earlier, and Charlotte took some its skins back to send
to the Natural History Museum in London.
A few months after their trip, the explorer Kingdon-Ward visited the same
region, arriving in Hpimaw on 18 May 1914. While his expedition was longer
(about six months) and he made many useful observations about the district
and its botanical treasures; he claimed that his trip to the Irrawaddy-Salween
Divide prompted all the plant collectors in Asia to come “buzzing round the
Htawgaw hills like flies after jam [and Hpimaw was] probably the most collected spot”.106 That Wheeler-Cuffe had visited the area two months earlier
than him reflects the highly gendered milieu in which she travelled and the absence of any recognition by him of her efforts. She remarked that KingdonWard had been “up there after we were there, and has been wandering about
the headwaters of the Irrawaddy every since”.107 Some of the plants that he had
collected on his trip, she claimed, were already growing in her garden in Maymyo. However, without the formal, professional imprimatur that he enjoyed as
a plant hunter, she did not receive the respect she perhaps deserved for her expedition from the fraternity of male collectors. Nonetheless, she arrived back
to Maymyo in mid-April after a “delightful trip to the frontier”.108 This expedition marks the most northerly and remote region she visited since she arrived
in Burma. Although the ascent of Mount Victoria marked a highlight in her
career from the point of view of official acknowledgement of plants she
collected, this excursion to the Chinese frontier represents another high
­
102 Ibid.
103 Ibid.
104 Ibid.
105 Ibid.
106 Quoted in Coats, A. 1969. The Quest for Plants: A History of the Horticultural Explorers,
London: Studio Vista, p. 174.
107 Quoted in Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, p. 149.
108 Telegram from CWC to Mrs Williams, 14 April 1914, Laukhaung.
Hill stations, plant hunting, and the Irrawaddy-Salween Divide 179
watermark in her Burmese days, as one of the first known Western women to
have visited the region.
Darker horizons: outbreak of the First World War
After this trip life in Maymyo took a more domestic turn. Charlotte noted that
she had a lot of orders for paintings but was struggling to find the time to do
them.109 In May they entertained Dick Langrishe, with whom they had spent
time in Simla. She sent rhododendron seeds to her sister to distribute at the
Rhododendron Show in London. She also sent seeds to Glasnevin from an
enormous 30–40 feet high tree with 14-inch leaves which she had collected on
the Chinese frontier.110 She continued to welcome house guests through the
summer but discovered that she had mislaid the list of orchids that she had
painted and asked her mother to get someone to transcribe the list again from
the paintings she had deposited in London. The name of each plant was
marked in pencil on the drawings and without such a list she would struggle to
keep her records straight. The weather continued to be very agreeable at the hill
station and her orchid Thunia alba bloomed. There was, she noted, a plentiful
supply of species of dendrobium cheaply available at the local bazaar.111 As
this was the first time Charlotte was in Maymyo during June–July, the flowers
appearing in the jungle were new to her. The plants she had collected from the
Chinese frontier region were growing well and included three kinds of rhododendron, a scarlet azalea, pink begonias, an iris as well as several orchids and
ferns. Moore had written to acknowledge that the five distinct species she had
sent to Glasnevin from her Mount Victoria trip were thriving.112
While life seemed to be continuing gaily through the summer months for
the Wheeler-Cuffes, the tone of Charlotte’s correspondence became more
sombre as news of the outbreak of the First World War in Europe reached the
colony. She speculated that “Germany’s provocative attitude was encouraged
by the belief that we were on the verge of civil war in Ireland and rebellion in
India”.113 The origins of the Great War are complex, but Charlotte saw them
through her own personal and local lens.114 She believed that the outbreak of
109 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 26 April 1914, Maymyo.
110 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 3 May 1914, Maymyo.
111 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 24 May 1914, Maymyo.
112 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 28 June 1914, Maymyo.
113 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 9 August 1914, Maymyo.
114 For an overview on the origins of the First World War, especially from a British perspective
see Clark, C. 2013. The Sleepwalkers: How Europe went to War in 1914, London: Penguin;
Eksteins, M. 1989. Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age, New
York: Bantham Books; Fussell, P. 1975. The Great War and Modern Memory, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press; Gregory, A. 2008. The Last Great War: British Society and the
First World War, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Hynes, S. 1991. A War Imagined:
The Great War and English Literature, London: Bodley Head; Strachan, H. 2003. The First
World War, Volume One: to Arms, Oxford: Oxford University Press; Stevenson, D. 2012.
1914–1918: The History of the First World War, London: Penguin.
180 In the frontier regions
conflict had “galvanized the latent patriotism in the empire into life once
more. But what a price to pay”.115 While daily life continued quietly in Maymyo, unaffected directly by the conflict, the native population, she claimed,
were interested, if not excited, by the war. While British residents were relatively unaffected, Germans living in Rangoon were being transferred to Thayetmyo as prisoners of war on parole.116 She supported the official British line
about “our obligation to defend the neutrality of Belgium”.117 Charlotte’s
knowledge about the war was obtained primarily through reading the British
press and official policy, and thus she reproduced the views she read there.118
The women of Maymyo were mobilised to help with the war effort by working for the Red Cross Society and Wheeler-Cuffe used her sewing skills to aid
the PWD Forest and Volunteer Women. Several officers had left Burma for
Europe and Indian reserve officers had been called up for service. As Otway
was over 45 years old he was excluded from any active service. Although the
colony was not directly impacted by the violence of the conflict in Europe,
they were indirectly supporting the effort through various volunteer and philanthropic activities as “people of all races and creeds are coming forward
nobly with subscriptions and offers of pastoral service”.119 She reported, for
instance, that a Chinese contractor had donated Rs 1000 to the War Fund
and a Burmese silk dealer had also donated a bag full of Rupees and made a
speech declaring that Burma “had prospered exceedingly under British rule
and wanted to make this offering as a proof of her gratitude”.120 These comments were deployed by Wheeler-Cuffe to demonstrate the support for the
war among Britain’s imperial subjects.121 School children, mainly of Eurasian
stock, were donating half their pocket money to the Red Cross relief funds.
Charlotte was busy cutting out patterns for pyjamas, shirts, and so on for the
PWD. She worked as part of a group at the Club in the evenings as the women
took the view that this would nurture a collective, patriotic sentiment rather
than working alone.
115 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 9 August 1914, Maymyo.
116 Ibid.
117 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 23 August 1914, Maymyo.
118 For a general discussion of war propaganda see Haste, C. 1977. Keep the Home Fires Burning:
Propaganda in the First World War, London: Allen Lane; Messinger, G. S. 1992. British
Propaganda and the State in the First World War, Manchester: Manchester University Press;
Rickards, M. 1968. Posters of the First World War, London: Evelyn, Adams and MacKay.
119 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 29 August 1914, Maymyo.
120 Ibid.
121 For a discussion of the contribution of Britain’s empire to the war effort see: Das, S. 2018.
India, Empire, and First World War Culture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press;
Jackson, A. (ed.) 2015. The British Empire and the First World War, Abringdon: Routledge;
Walsh, J. K. and Varnava, A. (eds.) 2017. The Great War and the British Empire: Culture and
Society, Abingdon: Routledge.
Hill stations, plant hunting, and the Irrawaddy-Salween Divide 181
By September the Burmese were, she claimed,
still very interested in the war, some of the half educated ones who have
had dealings with German traders have been persuaded that Germany is
going to win and are a bit nervous and stupid … the jungly ones are quite
different.122
Charlotte insisted that despite what foreign traders were saying, the bulk of the
people knew “when they are well off and are absolutely loyal”.123 Dick Langrishe had been called up for service and a small draft of the 10th Gurkhas, a
rifle regiment of the British Indian Army, had left Maymyo to support another
regiment. In her personal effort she had completed 560 items of clothing. The
conflict, she recognised, was having some economic impact on the colony, in
particular the ruby mine district of Mogôk, where the value of the stones had
been severely impacted. Food prices had remained stable but the reduction in
income from mining gemstones meant that there was increased local poverty.
She hoped that a proposed road project for the area would alleviate some of the
hardship.124 Saying farewell to friends called up for service was becoming a regular occurrence for the couple and represented the most conspicuous direct impact of the war on the life of the colonial community. However, the war would
cast a shadow, albeit obliquely, over all their activities for the next four years.
Conclusion
This period marked the final time that the Wheeler-Cuffes would be stationed
in Rangoon before moving to the hill station at Maymyo where they would
remain until their retirement. Two significant trips were undertaken which induced contrasting responses by Charlotte. Firstly, their trip to the Engineering
Conference in Simla in September 1913 provided the Wheeler-Cuffes with the
occasion to see some parts of India and to visit the most important hill station
in the colonial governance of the sub-continent. The conference was an important gathering of the engineering personnel administering the colony and Otway’s role was to record, edit, and publish the conference proceedings.
Charlotte’s first-hand impression of the Indian landscape, based on their journey from Calcutta to Simla, was generally negative. She regarded the countryside as barren, poor, and lacking interest botanically. However these impressions
were based on fleeting glimpses of the place from their train journey. Simla
proved to be no more appealing as she even disliked the single-gauge rail journey from Kalka to the hill station. Charlotte found the place too congested, its
architecture a poor reproduction of European styles, and its hectic social engagements tiresome. Overall the hill station seemed to represent the antithesis
122 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 13 September 1914, Mandalay.
123 Ibid.
124 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 9 October 1914, Mogôk.
182 In the frontier regions
of the features that she most valued in colonial life and it reinforced her belief
that Burma was a superior place to India.
By contrast, the new posting to Maymyo provided Charlotte with the chance
to explore the frontier regions along the Sino-Burmese border. Her excursion
to the Irrawaddy-Salween Divide proved scintillating from a plant-collecting
viewpoint, as she found several species with which she was unfamiliar. The
landscape too had a profound impact on her and she delighted in the fact that
she was the first, or one of the first, white women to visit the area. She used the
trip to complete several watercolour paintings of the region and its flora. The
low population density, the remoteness of the region, and its abundance of
botanical treasures, all appealed to her scientific and aesthetic sensibilities, and
she relished the prospect of future trips to the territory. The outbreak of the
First World War in 1914 cast something of a shadow over the lives of all colonial personnel and Charlotte enthusiastically engaged in volunteer work and
also began to raise funds for the war effort through the sale of her art. The
Wheeler-Cuffes remained in Upper Burma until they left colony and it is during these final years that Charlotte would leave a more permanent legacy on
the landscape through her role in developing a botanic garden.
8
Maymyo botanic garden and
the final Burmese days,
1915–1921
Introduction
As their final years in Burma approached, the Wheeler-Cuffes contentedly
carved out their existence in Maymyo until Otway’s retirement in 1921. They
spent one final period of leave at home and much of the remainder of Charlotte’s time was occupied with the hugely important task of establishing a
botanic garden at the hill station, as well as going on expeditions and carrying out philanthropic war work. The botanic garden would be her most tangible, material legacy imprinted on the landscape of Burma, and while her
paintings captured the place and its natural history on paper, the botanic
garden was a lasting living expression of her accumulated botanical knowledge of the colony amassed over the previous 15 years. While there are no
extant orchid paintings in Wheeler-Cuffe’s archive after 1914, there are numerous plant illustrations and landscape compositions among her sketchbooks and note pads. During this period she sold many of her paintings to
raise funds in support of the war, and when she was appointed in 1917 to
oversee the development of a botanic garden, much of her time was devoted
to this major endeavour. Charlotte also experienced bereavement once again
when her mother died in 1916 and her correspondence home was greatly
­reduced as a consequence.
Over these years she continued to accompany Otway on various expeditions, particularly to the Chinese border region of northeastern Burma. The
frontier assumed greater significance during the war, as military outposts, such
as those at Hsipaw and Hpimaw, which she visited in 1914, were reinforced as
defensive structures. Otway continued to be responsible for ensuring that roads
were constructed and maintained to link these peripheral regions with other
parts of the colony. This chapter will consider some of the trips Charlotte undertook from Maymyo; the ever-deepening network of contact she maintained
between herself and Moore in Glasnevin; and her role in the planning, design,
and development of the new botanic garden.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003157595-11
184 In the frontier regions
Upper Burma 1915
In early 1915 Otway attended a conference in Rangoon while Charlotte remained in Maymyo with their friend and houseguest Mary Griffin, a missionary based in Simla. During times when Otway was absent, she increasingly
undertook local expeditions often in the company of other women. They visited, for instance, the Gokteik gorge, which she described as never so beautiful
with “immense trees and tiny ferns and mosses – the thousand and one little
flower and birds and insects”.1 In the meantime Otway’s uncle, Sir Charles
Wheeler-Cuffe, had passed away and Aunt Pauline was managing Leyrath, until Otway and Charlotte arrived home permanently to take over the estate.2
Upon his death Otway inherited the baronetcy and from now on the couple
could be addressed as Sir and Lady Wheeler-Cuffe. They were unable to return
to Ireland to commemorate his uncle’s death, because it was, according to
Charlotte, Otway’s duty to stick to his job even though it may be neither an
exciting nor a glorious one: “The Empire must be kept going by other things as
well as fighting and I feel that Otway’s job of road making on the outskirts of
the Empire may mean more in the way of keeping the peace on our borders
than one sees at present”.3 There had been recent tension between the Sana
Kachins and the colonial government in the disputed territory of the Kachin
Hills. The region had been almost continually unstable since the British occupied Bhamo in 1885, with periodic local uprisings, culminating in a Kachin
attack of Myitkyina in 1892. Such conflict led Charlotte to believe that “the
Sana Kachins will have to be taught manners. All the other Kachins are quite
peaceable and there are plenty of troops up there and more available if needed”.4 Once the fear of revolt was quelled she believed that further roads would
be built to connect the region more directly with the rest of Burma as she had
“great faith in the civilising power of roads”.5 The capacity for infrastructure
to secure colonial control of the region was a persistent belief among both
administrators and colonial residents, and was a strategy that was adopted
when finance permitted, although ultimately it is questionable that it was ever
fully incorporated into the colonial state structure.
During this period Wheeler-Cuffe kept abreast with the activities of plant
hunters and naturalists in the region. The Rangoon Gazette, for instance, published a regular column entitled ‘A Wandering Naturalist’, penned by
Kingdon-Ward. In one issue he included a description of the expedition he had
undertaken to the Salween-Irrawaddy Divide. This replicated the trip she had
undertaken in 1914.6 While she did not enjoy the same status as male plant
hunters, she was well acquainted with their activities, and had quietly collected
1 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 15 January 1915, Maymyo.
2 Ibid.
3 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 23 January 1915, Mandalay.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 18 February 1915, SS Taping, Irrawaddy.
Maymyo botanic garden and the final Burmese days 185
many species that these men made popular through their collecting practices
and published texts. In early February Otway and Charlotte conducted a road
inspection to the Shan States about 27 miles south of Hpimaw. During the trip
they met the Head of the Railway Survey, Richards, who was tasked with developing a route for a train line between India and Burma. He requested from
Charlotte some of the old sketches she had produced of the region around
Thayetmyo when she lived there, because he was considering bringing the railway line through that district.7 He clearly valued her surveying and sketching
skills and recognised the merit of using her work to inform his decisions.8 During this ten-day trek she collected ground orchids, begonias, hyrdrangeas,
irises, a native species of rose Rosa gigantea, blue gentians, and St John’s wort.
They visited the prosperous village of Nam hKan, where they encountered a
crowded bazaar of “Shans, Kachins, Chinamen, Palaungs and all sorts of
queer folk, buying and selling queer commodities, amongst quaint Chinese
looking houses with up curving gable ends”.9 The Nam hKan Shan women
were, she observed, remarkably good looking and wore “such pretty dresses”.10
She also visited the American Baptist Mission Station where she met an old
acquaintance, Kirkpatrick, before travelling to Katha to catch the steamer to
Mandalay, and on to Maymyo.11 While her mother worried about her travelling
to remote regions in Upper Burma she claimed, “Anything more profoundly
peaceful than the Chinese frontier it would be difficult to imagine and the
Kachin disturbance has really cleared the air and I have now no doubt that
things will settle down there”.12 Charlotte had consistently reassured her
mother over the years about her safety in Burma. Despite its high crime rates,
she remained steadfast in her belief that she was never in any danger.
On her return she continued developing her garden, which gave her “an
enormous amount of joy”.13 While she used plenty of native species she also
included plants more typically found in English country gardens. Tropical
ferns and orchids were interspersed with plants redolent of the picturesque
aesthetic beloved of British residents elsewhere in the empire. As Kennedy observed of India,
Domesticating the environs of hill stations required not merely a change
in terminology but an intervention in the physical world itself. It began
appropriately with the garden … The British were delighted to discover
that many of the flowers, fruits, and vegetables popular in Britain flourished in the cool mountain climate.14
7 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 3 February 1915, N. Shan States.
8 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 23 February 1915, Lwejè.
9 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 2 March 1915, Bhamo.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 20 March 1915, Maymyo.
13 Ibid.
14 Kennedy, The Magic Mountains, p. 47.
186 In the frontier regions
Wheeler-Cuffe, to some degree, shared this pleasure of adopting planting
schemes and species that were characteristic of garden design at home. As the
hot weather of June approached, her garden flourished and everything grew
“like mad”.15 Her roses were thriving, and all her borders and arches were
awash with colour and luxuriant growth. She hired an additional labourer to
help with weeding and digging.16 And while life continued peacefully she felt
“almost ashamed of being so comfortable and safe … The work of Empire has
to be carried out in peace and war – and though road making and building
houses may not be particularly glorious, it is certainly necessary!”17 Her art
continued to sell and she had made about £40 in support of the war effort during the previous months.18 New commissions were now a regular feature of her
artistic life. Her neighbour, Smales, for instance, asked her to paint a blue
vanda which was growing in his garden, and he “pitched up a tent for me,
alongside, to work in, as it rains most of the time off and on, and though I
don’t mind riding or gardening in the rain, I can’t paint!”.19 She was happy to
undertake such work and be making a visible financial contribution to the war
chest.20 In a letter to Aunt Pauline Otway noted that his wife was making “pots
of money for the war funds by her paintings, she has sold nearly Rs 1,000
worth”.21 Kingdon-Ward visited in October, and she thought he was
a curious boy – but I get on with him, having much of interests in c­ ommon
on subjects of plants and the NE frontier. He got into the bad graces of
the Chinese authorities who turned him out – which was a pity and s­ tupid
and tactless of him.22
While he may have enjoyed greater status than her as an acknowledged plant
hunter, she considered superior her own long experience of conducting expeditions and exercising diplomacy with native peoples.
The system of plant exchange she had nurtured between herself and the
Dublin botanic garden had now matured. She regularly received and sent
plants to the institution.23 Moore wrote to her and included a copy of an illustrative plate that appeared in the Botanical Magazine of a blue buttercup she
had sent him. He noted that the plant had developed some peculiarities under
cultivation at the botanic garden and he would value obtaining Charlotte’s
drawing of it, so that he could compare the illustration with the living species.24
15 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 5 June 1915, Maymyo.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid.
18 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 22 May 1915, Maymyo.
19 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 8 August 1915, Maymyo.
20 Ibid.
21 Letter from OWC to Pauline Prochazka, 27 June 1915, Maymyo.
22 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 3 October 1915, Maymyo.
23 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 24 October 1915, Maymyo.
24 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 26 December 1915, Maymyo.
Maymyo botanic garden and the final Burmese days 187
He also happily reported that he now had thriving specimens of the two
­rhododendrons she had discovered in Mount Victoria (R. burmanicum and
R. ­cuffeanum). The anemone she had found, which had been classified by Prain
as A. obtusiloba var. patula, had also been painted professionally and would
appear in Curtis’s Botanical Magazine. He would send her a copy of the illustration once it was published. In return she dispatched to him a small wooden
box of bulbs and seeds she had obtained in the Shan plateau and provided a
series of reference notes outlining the precise location and growing conditions
where she collected each species.25
This exchange of information and physical specimens continued through
the following year. A third species of rhododendron, propagated from the original ones she had gathered in Mount Victoria, had flowered in Dublin. She sent
him orchids, and he was especially enthusiastic about obtaining a good, wellmarked Vanda coerulea.26 Prain expressed to Moore his desire to see the painting that Charlotte had completed of the Anemone,27 and it was arranged that
her sister would send the painting, which was stored in Wimbledon, to Kew.28
In December Charlotte dispatched seeds of a lily she had found in the Shan
States that grew at 5,000 feet and tolerated moderate shade. She also included
seeds from a bamboo growing in damp forest at 8,000 feet, and which she
thought would be hardy in Ireland.29 Since the Mount Victoria trip, in particular, the pattern of gift exchange between Moore and Wheeler-Cuffe had cemented and a clear system of trust between the two parties had now well
evolved.
Grief and family affairs
In January 1916, Charlotte wrote her final letter to her mother in which she
extolled the virtues of Maymyo where she had “lots of work, a delightful house
and garden, and lovely climate”.30 Richards, who was carrying out the survey
for the development of an Indo-Burma railway line, was visiting as their
houseguest. He was considering developing a route through the Arakan Yoma
mountain range and asked if Charlotte would produce, for his report, a series
of little sketches of the area and for which she would be paid Rs 100.31 This
was in addition to his earlier request to obtain older sketches she made of the
Thayetmyo District, and is indicative of his confidence in her skills. She was
also receiving a good number of commissions for paintings, which, a­ lthough
time-consuming, were rewarding in terms of funding the war.32 In February
25 Letter from CWC to Frederick Moore, 26 December 1915, Maymyo.
26 Letter from Frederick Moore to CWC, 9 February, 1916, Royal Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin.
27 Letter from Sir David Prain to Frederick Moore, 14 February, 1916, Kew.
28 Letter from Monie Watson to Frederick Moore, 21 February 1916, Parkside Wimbledon.
29 Letter from CWC to Frederick Moore, 27 December 1916, Maymyo.
30 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 1 January 2016, Maymyo.
31 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 8 January 2016, Sagaing District.
32 Letter from CWC to Mrs Williams, 30 January 2016, Maymyo.
188 In the frontier regions
Charlotte received the sad news that her mother had died peacefully. She felt
the loss very deeply, having maintained an almost weekly correspondence with
her since she moved to Burma in 1897. The fate of Parkside House in Wimbledon lay with Charlie Williams, Charlotte’s half-brother, and because of the
war they hoped that Charlie or Monie could live there.33 After an exhausting
few months of work for Otway combined with Charlotte’s bereavement they
took a month’s leave to restore their energies. Moreover, to aid with the grieving process, Monie visited them in Burma and took to the place “like a duck
takes to water”.34 She quickly made friends and helped Charlotte with any of
entertaining duties.35 Most of the remainder of 1916 was devoted to managing
family affairs in Leyrath and Wimbledon that resulted from the deaths of Sir
Charles Wheeler-Cuffe and Mrs Williams. Charlotte inherited £2,500 from her
mother’s estate and all her paintings, plants as well as furniture, and other
items she was bequeathed in her mother’s will were transported to Leyrath.36
Plant connections: Maymyo and Dublin
As 1917 approached, and after a challenging previous 12 months, the Wheeler-Cuffes looked forward to a more positive new year. Correspondence from
Glasnevin provided a welcome distraction for Charlotte. In preparation for the
publication of R. cuffeanum in Curtis’s Botanical Magazine Prain asked Moore
for a summary of the history of R. cuffeanum’s introduction.37 In turn Moore
requested from Charlotte the precise locations in which she found the two new
rhododendrons. He wanted to ensure accuracy of information and noted that
R. cuffeanum is a delightful thing. I have just sent fresh flowers of it again
to Kew, and to Professor Bayley Balfour at Edinburgh, he is also charmed
with it, and in the new list of rhododendron he is preparing it will be
mentioned.38
Balfour had written to Moore observing that, with a little coaxing, the two new
species of rhododendron had begun
to open a bud and to give me vision of what their beauties are … That
yellow orange blotch on CUFFEANUM must be most effective in contrast with the snow-white of the rest of the corolla. It was most thoughtful of you to enclose separately the bracts.39
33 Letter from OWC to Pauline Prochazka, 6 February 1916, Myitkyina.
34 Letter from OWC to Pauline Prochazka, 31 December 1916, Maymyo.
35 Ibid.
36 Letter from Charles Williams to CWC, 17 September 1916, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London.
Included in the Executor’s final report is a list of furniture and sundries to be delivered to
Leyrath.
37 Letter from David Prain to Frederick Moore, 15 April 1917, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
38 Letter from Frederick Moore to CWC, 4 May 1917, Royal Botanic Gardens, Dublin.
39 Letter from Bayely Balfour to Frederick Moore, 7 May 1917, Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh.
Maymyo botanic garden and the final Burmese days 189
Wheeler-Cuffe’s new plant discoveries were attracting attention across a range
of botanical institutions in Britain and Ireland.
Unfortunately, although Charlotte sent Moore the details of the history of
the new species she had collected in Mount Victoria in June, the letter went
astray.40 Consequently, the article was published in Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, before receipt of her second letter, and wrongly attributed the location
where the plant was found to Sindaung “a great outlying mass, whose summit
is 6,000 feet above sea-level, on the edge of the Shan plateau in Upper Burma”.41 It had of course been found in the Chin Hills. The pictorial representation of the species, executed by Matilda Smith, appeared in the August edition
of the magazine (Figure 8.1).
Moore claimed it represented “a permanent and established record of your
good botanical work, and also perpetuates your name with this plant”.42 He
noted, however, that while the illustration was very good
the flowers are so foreshortened that one does not get an accurate idea of
the length, but the photo shows the peculiar swollen base, and the figure
2 [calyx and pistil] shows the characters which distinguish it in the calyx
very well.43
The illustration was based on a photograph that Moore had provided to Kew,
rather than on a dried or live specimen. And while Smith was an accomplished illustrator, whose work has been, until recently, under-recognised,44
she rarely painted in the field.45 In contrast to Wheeler-Cuffe’s original painting of the species at Mount Victoria (see Figure 6.5), Smith’s representation
of the plant falls within the category of more orthodox professional illustration. Wheeler-Cuffe’s image demonstrated the epiphytic nature of the plant,
and its different stages of flowering, framed in a more naturalistic setting.
Smith’s, on the other hand, focused more directly on the details of the flower
itself, included enlarged sections of its fruit, and details of its seed, stamens,
and pistils in the marginalia. This representation had the more detached
character of an image drawn in a professional studio, valued for its accuracy
in terms of plant identification and taxonomy. While Charlotte acknowledged receipt of Curtis’s Botanical Magazine she made no comment on
Smith’s illustration.
40 Letter from CWC to Frederick Moore, 5 August 1917, Maymyo.
41 Botanical Magazine, “Tab 8721 Rhododendron cuffeanum”, Vol. 143 (Series 4, vol. 13), August
1917.
42 Letter from Frederick Moore to CWC, 9 October 1917. Royal Botanic Gardens, Dublin.
43 Letter from Frederick Moore to CWC, 12 October 1917, Royal Botanic Gardens, Dublin.
44 Ogilvie, M. and Harvey, J. 2003. The Biographical Dictionary of Women of Science: Pioneering
Lives from Ancient Times to the Mid-20th Century, London: Routledge; Kramer, Women of
Flowers.
45 Blunt, The Art of Botanical Illustration.
190 In the frontier regions
Figure 8.1 R. cuffeanum, plate 8721, Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, 1917, by Matilda Smith.
(Source: Biodiversity Heritage Library, original image from Missouri Botanical Garden).
Charlotte was enthusiastic about informing Moore of an exciting new challenge she was about to undertake. By way of background, she claimed that the
Burma Forestry Department had wanted, for a long time, to establish a botanical garden of indigenous plants of the colony, and to develop a complete
Burma flora. Alexander Rodger, the Forest Research Officer, had been tasked
to lay out the garden at Maymyo, but as he had been re-assigned to the post of
Maymyo botanic garden and the final Burmese days 191
military export officer, Charlotte had been approached to undertake the task.
The area, she said, comprised of 30–40 acres of
wide open valley with marsh at the bottom and a patch of primeval forest, a little lake and a quantity of interesting plants in their natural habitat … Eventually it is hoped to get out a trained botanist and
horticulturalist from home but meanwhile I am to be turned loose with a
gang of labourers to work my wicked will.46
She was excited and flattered by the invitation and the prospect of developing
all sorts of “delectable plans and schemes”.47
While Charlotte looked forward to beginning work on the garden Otway
was undertaking a trip to Putao, the northern most town in the Kachin state.
Charlotte was anxious to accompany him but she was denied permission by
the authorities. This was the first recorded occasion where she was officially
prevented from travelling. The region was considered dangerous and volatile,
with British officials being possibly subject to Kachin attacks. Otway believed
it was “a great deal safer to travel in than Ireland”.48 Ultimately, however, he
had to travel alone and when he arrived in Putao he claimed to be “just about
as far away at the ends of the British Empire as one can get”.49 The very remoteness of the region may have partly guided the Lieutenant Governor’s refusal to sanction Charlotte’s wish to travel, as well as the fact it seemed to be a
place where “no white woman has ever been”.50 She was permitted, however, to
rendezvous with Otway in ‘Nsop on his return journey.
Cultivating nature: Maymyo Botanic Garden
The proposal to develop a botanic garden at Maymyo provided Wheeler-Cuffe
with an unanticipated and gratifying opportunity to leave a permanent physical imprint on the landscape of Burma. Cultivating nature through gardens
has had a long genealogy in the history of humanity and the search for an
original, Edenic garden had regularly been inspired by the precepts of Christian theology. Moreover, gardens exercised an intense spiritual appeal in many
religious traditions from Buddhism to Islam.51 Botanical gardening, centred on
the medicinal and scientific cultivation of nature, dated approximately to the
late Middle Ages and evolved into a specific form with its own set of taxonomic, aesthetic, and design principles.52 Early botanic gardens were first
46 Letter from CWC to Frederick Moore, 22 November 1917, Maymyo.
47 Ibid.
48 Letter from OWC to Pauline Prochazka, 14 October 1917, Maymyo.
49 Letter from OWC to Pauline Prochazka, 26 November 1917, Putao.
50 quoted in Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, p. 151.
51 Prest, The Garden of Eden.
52 Harvey, J. 1981 Medieval Gardens, London: Batsford; Comito, T. 1978. The Idea of the Garden
in the Renaissance, New Brunswick: Princeton University Press.
192 In the frontier regions
established as physic gardens, often attached to the medical faculties of universities. Their principal aim was to enhance the knowledge of, and education
about, plants of medicinal value to medical students, to enable practitioners to
prepare and prescribe drugs for patients. The first of these physic gardens developed in Padua in 1545 and reflected the interest in materia medica at the
university in Venice. Overseas exploration also meant the introduction of many
new species to European gardens that had medicinal properties. Padua was
rapidly followed by the development of physic gardens in Rome, 1566, Bologna, 1567, Leiden, 1575, Paris, 1640, University of Oxford, 1621, and Chelsea 1673.53
By the eighteenth century the intellectual and social functions of botanic
gardens began to shift as the older physic gardens attached to universities were
complimented by a raft of new gardens established across Europe to represent
a wider scientific study of plants, and often subsidised or funded by the state.
In the context of Britain the gardens at Edinburgh (1670), Kew (1759), and
Dublin (1795) were the most important publicly funded gardens and Kew
gradually became the nucleus of Britain’s plant exchange network and the central node in the scientific practice of economic botany.54 Kew developed as the
keystone institution in a discourse surrounding agricultural improvement and
played a central role in the identification and naming of new plant species. As
Britain’s empire expanded, and working within an enlightenment framework,
Kew served as the centre for the generation and dissemination of scientific
knowledge about global botany and the potential exploitation of useful plants
from the colonies. A general chronicle of improvement – political, economic,
social, intellectual – underpinned the development of botanic gardens with
Kew serving as an epicentre.55 As Spary has claimed, “[P]lants were moving,
changing, politically and chemically potent beings”.56 From an imperial perspective botanic gardens can be seen as ‘contact zones’ or hybrid spaces where
links between European plant science and science in the colonies were formalised and where the leitmotif of centre–periphery relationships between the two
were periodically challenged.57
53 Rhodes, D. E. 1984. “The botanical garden of Padua: the first hundred years”, Journal of
Garden History, 4, 327–331; McCracken, Gardens of Empire.
54 Desmond, R. 1995. The History of the Royal Botanic Gardens, London: The Harvill Press;
Drayton, Nature’s Governance; Cornish, C. et al. 2020. “Between metropole and province:
Kew gardens, botany and regional museums in the United Kingdom, 1870–1940”, Archives of
Natural History, 47, pp. 327–340.
55 Brockway, Science and Colonial Expansion.
56 Spary, E. C. 2000. Utopia’s Garden: French Natural History from Old Regime to Revolution,
Chicago: Chicago University Press, p. 198.
57 Fan, Naturalists in Qing China; Griffiths, D. A. and Lau, S. P. 1986. “The Hong Kong botanical gardens: a historical overview”, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic
Society, 26, pp. 55–77; Endersby, “A Garden Enclosed”; Endersby, Imperial Nature; Casid,
Sowing Empire; Ginn, F. 2009. “Colonial transformations: nature, progress and science in the
Christchurch Botanic Gardens”, New Zealand Geographer, 65, pp. 35–47.
Maymyo botanic garden and the final Burmese days 193
While botanical gardens had been developing in Europe since the Renaissance, it was from the late eighteenth century onwards that there was a notable
expansion of gardens both at home and across the empire. There were over 20
gardens in Britain and Ireland by 1900, and botanic gardens and stations
mushroomed in Britain’s overseas empire from St Vincent in the Caribbean to
Calcutta in India and Christchurch in New Zealand. At the zenith of Britain’s
imperial expansion there were over 130 botanical gardens and stations across
its globalised empire. This pattern reflected an increasing demand for theoretical and empirical knowledge about the earth’s flora in the service of both scientific botany and economic exploitation that was “shaping activity at the
empire’s periphery as well as at its centre”.58 Moreover, these botanical gardens, at home and abroad, were expressions of aesthetic sensibilities surrounding the representation of nature in enclosed spaces, and consequently questions
of beauty, layout, and design were often in dialogue with the motivation to
project taxonomic accuracy, botanical order, and rigorous agricultural experimentation of plants with economic potential.59
Nowhere was this tension between science and aesthetics more visibly expressed than in the development of botanical institutions at hill stations in
colonial contexts. These upland settlements, developed initially as sanitaria
and sites of seasonal migration, also became sites for horticultural experimentation through the development of botanical institutions. Colonists discovered
that vegetables, fruit, and flowers popular at home could be successfully cultivated in hill stations. The cooler upland climates could sustain roses, lilies, geraniums, sweet peas, and other species popular in British gardens. Consequently,
these plants were grown in the gardens of dwellings in hill stations and often
spread into the surrounding countryside. Lady Lawrence, the Irish-born writer
and traveller, like Wheeler-Cuffe, accompanied her husband on many expeditions during their life in India, and wrote from Simla in 1839 that “Violets,
buttercups, wild strawberries and raspberries, and many other old friends
abound”.60 Similarly, a visitor to Darjeeling hill station in 1857 enthused that
“[m]any common English wild flowers bring back to memory the hills and
dales and shady nooks and lanes of the fatherland”.61
Government-sponsored botanical institutions and nurseries were developed
at hill stations where experiments on the viability of cash crops could be tested,
and where seeds and plants were cultivated for colonial residents to use in their
private gardens. The Calcutta Botanical Garden, founded in 1786–1787, became the template for the development of botanical gardens at hill stations in
British India. Darjeeling and Ootacamund were particularly good exemplars
of the emergence of large and important botanical institutions in the Indian
highlands. At Darjeeling the 14-acre Lloyd Botanical Garden was named after
58 Drayton, Nature’s Government, p. 113.
59 Johnson, Nature Displaced, Nature Displayed.
60 Quoted in Kennedy, The Magic Mountains p. 47.
61 Darjeeling, pamphlet reprinted from the Calcutta Review, 55, 1857, p. 14
194 In the frontier regions
the official who negotiated the ceding of Darjeeling to the British, while in
1848 a 54-acre Government Botanical Garden was established in Ootacamund.62 As well as supplying a wealth of plants for gardeners and opening up
pleasure spaces for the colonial residents, these gardens were also significant in
calculating the commercial potential of cash crops such as cinchona, coffee,
and tea. While these two botanic gardens were particularly noteworthy, others
developed in the hill stations at Mussoorie, Simla, and Coonoor. In Ceylon the
Royal Botanical Garden at Peradeniya, established in 1843, was important
both as a centre for experimenting with coffee cultivation and nurturing aesthetically valued tropical species such as palm trees.63 Kennedy suggests that
one of the central aims of botanical gardens was “to make the landscape less
alien, to give it a more recognisable and pleasing appearance to those for whom
it became a sanctuary”.64 That appeal towards aesthetic, as well as scientific, in
planning the design of these spaces replicated debates and practices that attended the development of botanic gardens at home. If, in Britain and Ireland,
a desire to create the exotic environments of the tropics was achieved through
the construction of elaborate glass houses, hot houses, and palm houses to
represent tropical nature, in the hill stations of the colonial world efforts to
create the familiar landscape of the temperate climate of home was equally
appealing.65 It was within this broader context that Wheeler-Cuffe was invited
to assist in the development of the first botanic garden in colonial Burma
at Maymyo.
While other hill stations had developed in the upland zones of Burma, for
instance, Thandaung Gyi (Karen Hills), Kalaw (Shan State), and Loimwe
(Shan State), Maymyo was the most important one in the colony. Located just
42 miles north-east of Mandalay in the Shan Hills, and at an elevation of 3,500
feet above sea level, the small indigenous settlement in the forest, known as
Pyin Oo Lwin, was first visited by an exploratory military mission of the 5th
Bengal Infantry Regiment in 1885. It was re-named Maymyo after the regiment’s Colonel James May and a permanent British settlement was soon established there. Herbert Thirkell White, a young British administrator, wrote in
1886 that Maymyo had a “winter climate [that was] perfect. We rode through
forest paths and fairly glades, wild roses clustering in the hedges”.66 White became Lieutenant-Governor of the colony (1905–1910) and claimed that Maymyo was “a place of great charm and quiet beauty, with no palm-trees and few
pagodas, conspicuously un-Oriental, more like a corner of Surrey than of
62 Kenny, “Climate, Race, and Imperial Authority”.
63 Duncan, In the Shadows of the Tropics.
64 Kennedy, The Magic Mountains, p. 48.
65 Johnson, N. C. 2006. “Cultivating science and planting beauty: the spaces of display in
Cambridge’s Botanic Gardens”, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 13, pp. 42–57. Johnson, N.
C. 2007. “Grand design(er)s: David Moore, natural theology and the Royal Botanic Gardens
in Glasnevin, Dublin, 1838–1879”, Cultural Geographies, 14, pp. 29–55.
66 Thirkell White, H. 1913. A Civil Servant in Burma, London: Edward Arnold, p. 178.
Maymyo botanic garden and the final Burmese days 195
Burma”.67 The plant hunter Reginald Farrer concurred claiming that it did not
resemble “a hill station at all … the suggestion of a Surrey landscape is unescapable. If only Surrey rejoiced in such a climate”.68 It rapidly developed as a
hill settlement where the Lieutenant-Governor and the Heads of various departments of the colonial government spent the hot season, away from the
high temperatures of lowland Burma. Unlike India or Ceylon, however, even
by the end of the nineteenth century Burma had no botanical garden devoted
to plant science. It was only when the vast timber resources of Upper Burma
began to be exploited that a more scientific approach to Burma’s botanical resources began to be mooted. The Forestry Department of the Indian Civil
Service was responsible for the management of trees in the colony and Alexander Rodger, Head of the Indian Forestry Institute, recognised the potential for
the exploitation of Burma’s natural resources, and was one of the first advocates to propose the establishment of a garden at Maymyo.69
Gilbert Rogers, the Chief Conservator of Forests in Burma, had a staff of
61 European forestry officials and hundreds of junior, Burmese staff under his
supervision. He came from a keen gardening family in Cornwall and was friend
of Kew’s Director, Prain. He appointed Alexander Rodger to the newly created
post of Forest Research Officer based in Maymyo in 1914. Rodger had undertaken a long tour of Burma’s regions with the aim of improving its sylviculture. He had helped establish an economic botany museum in Rangoon, and
had overseen the development of the herbarium collection of the Forestry Department. He had begun revising and updating the Burmese Flora originally
published by John Lace in 1913.70 Rodger successfully proposed, with the support of Rogers, the acquisition of 30 acres of land in Maymyo to establish a
botanical garden. The initial plot of land contained “a large number of the
species found near Maymyo and work has begun to improve it and convert it
into a garden for the display of indigenous species”.71 The foundations of the
botanic garden had thus begun in 1914, but as the First World War broke out
Rodger was made Deputy Controller of Munitions and this additional responsibility meant that he did not have the time to devote to developing the garden.
The Wheeler-Cuffes were well-known and respected residents in Maymyo.
As a result of their long continuous service in Burma they had developed close
connections with senior government officials. Consequently, in 1917 Charlotte
67 Ibid., p. 178.
68 Farrer, R. 1921. “Mr Reginald Farrer’s second exploration in Asia, No. 25: Maymyo”,
Gardeners’ Chronicle, 29 January, p. 54.
69 Marsh, D. 2015. “‘An amateurish effort’?: the foundation of the National Botanic Gardens of
Burma, 1914–22”. Garden History, 43, pp. 182–198.
70 Lace, J. H. 1913. List of Trees, Shrubs and Principal Climbers, etc. Recorded from Burma with
Vernacular Names, Rangoon, Superintendent: Government Printing. The revised second edition was published in 1922 as J.H. Lace and A. Rodger List of Trees, Shrubs and Principal
Climbers, etc. Recorded from Burma with Vernacular Names, 2nd revised and enlarged edition.
Rangoon, Superintendent: Government Printing.
71 Report on Forest Administration in Burma 1914–15, Rangoon: Forest Department, p. 34.
196 In the frontier regions
was officially requested by Rogers and William Keith (the government’s Chief
Revenue Officer) to take over the supervision, management, and development
of the new botanic garden. Charlotte enthused to Aunt Pauline, “Can you
imagine a more charming piece of work?”72 Moreover, the responsibility would
provide her with the opportunity to leave a more permanent signature of her
accumulated botanical knowledge on Burma’s land. She exclaimed that her own
treasures will be of permanent interest whereas, hitherto, much as I love
this [Upperfold] garden I always felt that when I go, no one would know
or care for all the precious things I have brought in and they would be let
die; but now, if Govt eventually get a trained curator and botanist from
Kew, which is the idea (‘after the war’) every treasure I have collected will
be valued and cared for and be of scientific interest – and when I go, all
the treasures of this garden can be moved over there.73
Moore was exuberant about her appointment: “I envy you getting to work in
such conditions, and I can quite understand your enthusiasm about it … We
may now hope to get some systematic collecting done, and seeds of the better
things sent home”.74 Clearly, Moore had great faith in the competence of
Wheeler-Cuffe to deliver some useful species and knowledge to botanic gardens in Ireland. Much of the plant material Charlotte had acquired over the
years was aided and facilitated by the knowledge provided by the indigenous
population who collected for her, and occasionally provided information on
species’ local names and growing habits. This knowledge, however, was mediated through her and often this native contribution was overlooked as it moved
from Burma to the imperial centre. This habit of marginalising the contribution of local sources of information in developing botanical wisdom mirrored
a broader pattern of colonial administrators’ tendencies to underestimate indigenous expertise.75 While Charlotte was delighted with the invitation, she
regarded her tenure as “merely a stop gap, until such time as a ‘European Gardener’ is sent out from England by the Indian Government”.76 Like the hierarchical relationships between the colonial population and the indigenous one,
the gendered context of botanical work led her to repeatedly undervalue her
own capabilities compared to white male, professional gardeners and plant collectors. This lack of confidence in her talents reflected a wider absence of much
official recognition of the contributions of female botanical gardeners, plant
illustrators, and botanists at home or abroad. She claimed she knew “nothing
72 Quoted in Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, p. 152.
73 Ibid., p. 152.
74 Letter from Frederick Moore to CWC, 14 January 1918, Royal Botanic Gardens, Dublin.
75 Driver, F. 2017. “Exploration as knowledge transfer: exhibiting hidden histories”, in H. Jöns,
P. Meusberger and M. Heffernan (eds.) Mobilities of Knowledge, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag,
pp. 85–104; Driver, “Hidden Histories Made Visible”.
76 CIWC ms “Notes written in October 1920 and edited by Mr Furnivall I.C.S” and reproduced
in Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, pp. 211–212.
Maymyo botanic garden and the final Burmese days 197
about Botany. But they insisted, and I had to admit, that I had collected plants
all over Burma, knew many of them by their Burmese names in the native habitats, and that I was interested in Gardens”.77 In reality her long residence in
Burma and her years of experience of plant collecting perhaps equipped her
better than almost anybody else in the colony to develop a botanic garden despite her absence of a formal botanical education.
The site for the garden was located at the upper level of the valley, which
terminated at Lake Maymyo. Initially it was proposed that it would be a relatively small site with a motor road developed to transport people around the
lake. Those interested in botany, however, favoured a larger site and with the
Lord Lieutenant’s support 150 acres of land was eventually secured. The area
included a section of primeval forest, a piece of jungle scrub (taungya in Burmese), a small rivulet, a marsh, a pond, and at the top of the valley a few
“boggy and unproductive paddy fields”,78 cultivated by a native farmer, Maung
Tun. He would be allocated an alternative piece of land to farm and he proved
a helpful resource as he “knew and loved all the wild flowers and creatures …
After two years his new farm claimed him but he still often comes to see me,
bringing beautiful wild plants, and does odd jobs carting”.79
Rodger remained officially in charge of the project, and he marked out the
botanical plots so that Charlotte could have them planted in their taxonomic
families. The valley was laid out with paths, a carriage drive, shelters, and the
plant area was divided by Rodger into compartments “representing the various
Natural Orders”.80 He traversed the whole garden with Charlotte, noting the
existing plants and trees in each location, and allocating sections according to
the natural order that best represented what was already present. The rose garden (Rosaceae), for instance, was designated to an area where crab apples trees,
cherries, raspberries, and potentilla were already growing. Similarly, the Leguminosae plot was chosen where there were two Mezali trees (Senna siamea) and
plenty of other leguminous plants. Initially the garden was to only contain
plants indigenous to the Maymyo area but Charlotte decided as she “was constantly travelling all over Burma and bringing back plants … it seemed a pity
not to include them”.81 The scheme therefore expanded, in principle, to include
species indigenous to Burma. In practice this proved tricky as some of the
plants found in Myitkyina and Bhamo, for instance, had only been officially
recorded in China. Therefore it was decided to include any plants that would
grow successfully in the garden.
A 70-acre lake was created in the middle of the garden, with a substantial
dam and several sluice gates added to control the flow of water. This was a
huge undertaking requiring a large labour force. Several thousand Turkish
77 Ibid.
78 Ibid.
79 Ibid.
80 Ibid.
81 Ibid.
198 In the frontier regions
prisoners of war had been transported from Iraq to camps in Thayetmyo and
Shwebo, and it is possible that their labour was employed to build the lake.82
There is also evidence that prison convicts were used to carry out the work.
Otway claimed that the Lieutenant Governor had ordered the use of 500 convict labourers once “accommodation for them has been built. Meanwhile the
lake (dam bund) is rapidly being built by free labour ie by contract and of
course is costing a great deal”.83 Lakes were an important feature in the landscape of many Indian hill stations and replicated the popularity of artificial
lakes in English country estates. Major hydraulic engineering work was carried
out, for instance, at Ootacamund, Kodaikanal, Mahabaleshwar, Matheran,
Shillong, and Yercaud. A visitor to Ootacamund in 1832 claimed that the lake
afforded “one of the most scenic, healthful, and agreeable drives of which India, or perhaps any part of the world, can boast”.84 Moreover the introduction
of lakes at hill stations was part of a wider effort “to domesticate the disorderly, to familiarize the unfamiliar, to model these highland spaces in the likeness of favored landscapes at home”.85 The aesthetic appeal of lakes travelled
to these colonial landscapes, and often formed a central part of the design of a
botanical garden. In Britain and Ireland artificial lakes were usually integral to
the layout of botanical sites including the serpentine lake constructed at the
gardens in Glasnevin, Dublin.86 Thus, it is not surprising that a large lake was
part of the overall aesthetic vision for the Maymyo garden.
Wheeler-Cuffe was permitted to recruit a crew of local labourers who were
primarily Burmese and Shans, the largest ethnic minority group in Burma, and
whom she readily acknowledged could easily distinguish plants from weeds
(Figure 8.2). The garden was located about two miles from her house and she
rode there daily at 7 am. She initially supervised the various gangs of labourers
who were tasked with clearing the scrub and jungle and laying out the basic
framework for the planting scheme. Given the size of the site she rode around
the garden to inspect each group of workers’ progress and issued their daily
instructions. At 10 o’clock each day her breakfast arrived from Upperfold,
which she consumed in a tent placed under an oak tree. Her servants brought
her a change of clothing and any plants she requested from her own private
garden. After breakfast, when the workmen were taking their break, she would
examine the new plants and plan how they would be arranged. In the afternoon she would continue to supervise the most important jobs before finishing
her day at 4 pm. She proved a stringent taskmaster and would insist on shoddy
work being re-done.
82 Marsh, “An amateurish effort’?”
83 Letter from OWC to Pauline Prochazka, 5 March 1917, Steamer ‘Bhamo’.
84 Harkness, H. 1832. A Description of a Singular Aboriginal Race Inhabiting the Summit of the
Neilgherry Hills, London: Smith, Elder.
85 Kennedy, The Magic Mountains, p. 51.
86 Johnson, Nature Displaced: Nature Displayed.
Maymyo botanic garden and the final Burmese days 199
Figure 8.2 Some of the staff in the palm garden, Maymyo Botanic Garden, July 1919.
(Courtesy of the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin).
In early 1918 a party of military engineers (sappers) were enlisted to help
with the heavier construction work, including building a bridge and various
carpentry jobs. She carefully planned the layout of paths, irrigation channels,
and drains with a view to creating impressive vistas that would display the
plants to their best effect. As well as the hired male labourers and sappers
working in the garden, Charlotte employed local women to carry out weeding,87 and she engaged Maung Khin as Upper Subordinate, to help with the
supervision of labour. He was well suited to the role as he was “not only very
keen on gardening but also knows a great deal about botany, and can survey,
level and build and carpenter and understands machines”.88 He was offered a
better paying job as a railway surveyor, and Charlotte believed that he ought to
be given a raise as he only obtained Rs 40 per month for doing “all the Botanical specimens in the Forest Research Office (his real job) plus working from 8
to 4 every day in the garden”.89
By 1918 some work had been carried out on all of the 150 acres of garden.
She developed the Rosaceae plot, arranging a pergola along a curving terrace
87 Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, pp. 152–153.
88 CIWC ms “Notes written in Oct. 1920 and edited by Mr Furnivall I.C.S” and reproduced in
Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, pp. 211–212.
89 Quoted in Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, p. 153
200 In the frontier regions
of pyramid pear trees and climbing roses. On the bank below varieties of raspberries, strawberries, and potentilla were sown. An arch of roses over steps
leading to a perpetual flowing spring was erected. She had built a Burmese
well-head over the spring, with a stand for water pots, and two masonry seats,
guarded by a pair of stone Burmese leogryphs, were constructed. She was attempting to create a pleasing space as well as one representative of plant families. Behind the well, peaches, plums, and wild cherries were planted. While
wild duck, woodcock, and snipe were present in the space she prohibited
shooting in any part of the garden (apart from leopard and boar who were
considered dangerous) in order to encourage wildfowl to nest. The rock garden
was located at the opposite end of the valley to the rose garden, with a promontory in between where she planted thousands of bulbs, grouped in masses
according to their colours. She commented that it was “like painting a picture
with lovely live things instead of with paper and paint”.90 A picturesque imagination informed many of her design decisions, and she allowed her experience
of painting landscapes on paper to inform her planting schemes in the garden.
The seedlings she planted were often sourced from her own hybridising experiments. While she was making rapid progress she acknowledged that the garden was not “yet sufficiently in shape to pass on to anyone else who would not
know what I have been aiming at”.91
In January 1919 Moore was impressed with her progress, claiming that it
was “ideal to make a garden on your lines and the semi-tropical climate gives
opportunities for wonderful effects and developments”.92 He also requested
that she write a short article for Irish Gardening about her role in developing
the garden and she responded that she was “afraid writing about the garden is
not much in my line – but I will try and please don’t publish if it isn’t worth
it”.93 In April 1919 she travelled to the Panwa Pass with Otway which she believed was a “botanist’s paradise. (I only wish I were a botanist, instead of an
ignorant though enthusiastic amateur)”.94 This persistent underestimation of
her knowledge base and lack of professional credentials clearly was a source of
anxiety from time to time. The Anemone patula she had provided Moore was in
flower at Glasnevin and quite a few new plants of the R. burmanicum and
R. cuffeanum grown from seed had thrived in his Dublin garden. He welcomed
the prospect of her producing a piece for Irish Gardening as “[t]here has been
no information about foreign gardens, or work abroad, for years, and I know
many people are interested in work elsewhere”.95
The focus on growing indigenous plants and shrubs in the garden ensured
that Charlotte continued to collect plants on her various excursions with
90 Letter from CWC to Frederick Moore, 5 November 1918, Maymyo.
91 Ibid.
92 Letter from Frederick Moore to CWC, 9 January 1919, Royal Botanic Gardens, Dublin.
93 Letter from CWC to Frederick Moore, 16 February 1919, Maymyo.
94 Ibid.
95 Letter from Frederick Moore to CWC, 8 March 1919, Royal Botanic Gardens, Dublin.
Maymyo botanic garden and the final Burmese days 201
Otway. She also collected locally, riding into the countryside around Maymyo
with a pannier on her saddle. She used her contacts throughout Burma to provide her with additional species. For instance, her friend English had “helped
tremendously about the garden and I shall miss his advice and friendly interest”.96 Rodway Swinhoe, a Mandalay-based lawyer, friend, and orchid specialist, also provided valuable help as his daughter Violet acknowledged, “He was
great friends with the Cuffes and she and Daddy designed [the garden] and
worked it all out”.97 Employees of the PWD, police, army, and other friends
all supplied her with additional material. This pattern of plant exchange that
she had developed during her time in Burma long before the botanic garden
project proved invaluable once she was responsible for developing the
­botanic garden.
Native people, who collected for her on her trips, also collected independently. For instance, seedlings of the Juniper recruva, known locally as the
coffin juniper, were given to her by a Lashi native who gathered them north of
the town of Sadon on the Chinese border.98 She also enthusiastically developed
plant exchanges with other botanic gardens in the colonies, especially Peradeniya, which she visited on her way home on leave in 1919. In early 1920 she
claimed, “The garden is getting on well and we are now busy over road metalling and water supply. I hope to be able to make the stream do the pumping to
the top of the hill”.99 By May 1920 she reported that she was trying to rig up a
water supply using a water wheel in the little stream. She had made a new little
pond out of a piece of bog “with some picturesque willow trees in it, below a
bank thickly planted with pink agapanthus, crimson lilies and oleanders, which
look well reflected in the water”.100 She began developing a rock garden using
material from the lakebed further down the valley. Within two years she had
made considerable progress in the garden. A large-scale plan of the botanic
garden was prepared in 1920 at 32-inches-to-the mile and Charlotte annotated
her copy with detailed notes. She marked the vistas she wished to develop
through clumps of shrubs and trees, translating on paper the aesthetic effects
she wished to create, while she also marked the places where individual plant
families were located, adding taxonomic precision to the arrangement and thus
making it a scientific garden as well as a pleasure one (Figure 8.3).101
Charlotte and Otway went home on furlough in 1919 and she visited the
botanic gardens at Peradeniya, Kew, and Dublin to solidify plant exchanges
and to develop new contacts with botanic gardens in India and Malaya. Her
denigrating attitude towards her position was repeated when she introduced
96 Letter from CWC to Pauline Prochazka, 4 January 1919, Maymyo.
97 Quoted in Marsh, “‘An amateurish effort’?” p. 190.
98 Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, p. 154.
99 Letter from CWC to Frederick Moore, 11 February 1920, Maymyo.
100 Letter from CWC to Frederick Moore, 9 May 1920, Maymyo.
101 Maymyo Government Botanical Garden and Lake scale 32 inches to a mile. Dehra Dun: published at the request of the Conservator of Forests. National Botanic Gardens Glasnevin
Archive.
202 In the frontier regions
Figure 8.3 Map of the Botanic Garden, 1920. (Courtesy of the National Botanic
­Gardens, Glasnevin).
herself to those in authority in these gardens as “an ignorant amateur”.102 She
sought advice from curators on how to achieve scientific precision and attractive planting schemes. She learned that sometimes these objectives were in conflict and that compromises had to be made. In Kew, for instance, they had
removed some valuable and important plants from a taxonomic perspective in
order to achieve impressive views. Thus, even at the centres of accumulation
102 CIWC ms “Notes written in October 1920 and edited by Mr Furnivall I.C.S” and reproduced
in Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, pp. 211–212.
Maymyo botanic garden and the final Burmese days 203
and calculation run by professionals, the search for beauty in the design sometimes was more important than the achievement of taxonomic precision. She
used the following methodology:
Having discovered points commanding good views, they were marked by
a white washed post in the fence, a seat, etc., and when holes are being
dug for planting, some one is stationed at each view point to see if the
proposed planting will spoil the view or not. A couple of yards one way
or the other may make all the difference.103
In order to avoid creating empty spaces, unwanted plants would only be removed when a replacement was ready to be sown. Every compartment was labelled with the name of the order it represented and the individual species were
gradually labelled by Rodger
with both their Botanical and Burmese names, so that anyone quite ignorant of Botany can use the place with profit, or if he is disposed to be
interested in the subject can begin, with the help of a small manual, to
study it here.104
Using native as well as Latin names to label plants replicated the practice in
Britain where English common names regularly accompanied the Latin designation on labels. She surmised that when a qualified European gardener would
be appointed
[H]e will learn Burmese and work with the local coolies who have served
me so well, and who know the indigenous plants and wild flowers as no
Indian mali ever could. The coolies constantly bring me plants from the
jungle, tell me their local names and properties.105
She was appealing to the continuation of the use of native knowledge once her
tenure at the garden expired, although she rarely refers to these locals by name.
She acknowledged that, like all botanical institutions, it had not been possible “to keep all plants strictly to their botanical places, owing to their habits”.106 In the case of the Bog Garden, Rock Garden, Natsin Clumps, Kadettaw
Wood, and Willow Brook, the species were “arranged not botanically but according to the situation that suits them most – and things that seem to grow
naturally in company are left to do so”.107 The artificiality of botanical arrangements was therefore, at times, replaced by opting for more naturalistic
103 Ibid.
104 Ibid.
105 Ibid.
106 Ibid.
107 Ibid.
204 In the frontier regions
planting schemes. The progress she was making in the garden prompted the
plant hunter Farrer to suggest that “Maymyo will have a botanic garden that
will rank with Buitzenzorg and Perideniya as an object of pilgrimage”.108 The
project had, up to now, cost Rs 20,820 from the budget of the Agriculture Department. The design and planting continued apace and the Rock Garden was
developed near an old irrigation channel, using stone from the top end of the
main lake. Paths had been laid to replace the tracks she and the workers had
made as they completed planting sections of the plot, and seats were installed
to provide suitable vistas for the visiting public. The old paddy fields were
transformed into palm gardens. A fernery was established, and an ornamental
well was built in the Rose Garden. Pathways were gravelled with soft stones
taken from the lakebed and overall a considerable amount had been achieved.
She did have reservations about the plant labels commenting that the Burmese
names were “only written in English characters and I feel strongly that a Botanic Garden in Burma should be made as interesting and useful as possible to
the Burmans unacquainted with English characters by writing the Burmese
names in Burmese characters”.109 This underscores her commitment to indigenous languages and scripts and the utility of the garden to the native as well as
the colonial population.
Days working on the garden, she declared, had been “the happiest of my
life”,110 and she hoped that when she left permanently for home the following
year that the garden would prove to be one of the most valued beauty spots in
the world. The plant hunter, Farrer, surmised that, in time, the garden:
may be even lovelier, not only because it will accommodate a less exclusively stove-house population, but also, because a particularly beautiful
piece of ground has been chosen …. all these natural advantages are being made the very best of by Lady Cuffe and Mr. Rodger, who, bit by bit,
are laying out the garden with a special eye to aesthetic, as well as cultural, effects. At present, of course, all is still young and small; labels are
sometimes more conspicuous objects than their owners, but in a very few
years of this wonderful climate I have no doubt that the Maymyo Botanical Garden will be a paradise.111
After the war ended professional plant hunters began to return to Burma and
Charlotte observed that Forrest, Kingdon-Ward, and Farrer were “so jealous
of each other”.112 While Farrer had praised her efforts at the botanic garden,
not all visitors were so generous in their assessment. Euan Cox, a Scotsman,
who was travelling with Farrer declared:
108 Farrer, “Mr. Reginald Farrer’s”, p. 54.
109 CIWC ms “Notes written in October 1920 and edited by Mr Furnivall I.C.S” and reproduced
in Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, pp. 211–212.
110 Ibid.
111 Farrer, “Mr. Reginald Farrer’s”, p. 54.
112 Letter from CWC to Monie, 9 September 1919, Maymyo.
Maymyo botanic garden and the final Burmese days 205
From its size and climate it is doubtful if the Maymyo Garden could
ever equal, say, the Perideniya Gardens in its value for showing plants of
economic importance to Burma. On the other hand, it is strange that,
with the exception of orchids, only an occasional native of Burma
is grown.113
His criticism continued: “Why is Burma in the unenviable position of being
the only large member of the British Empire that has no representative collection of its own flora?”.114 Kingdon-Ward, who visited the garden in 1921, was
also unflattering in his account: “There is an ‘alpine’ garden here, in which it
is hoped to grow specimens of all the plants in the province! Rather an ambitious undertaking this! and, of course, something under 4,000 feet is not very
­alpine – at least not in Burma”.115 These criticisms, of course, may reflect the
wider absence of financial investment in Burma by the Government of India.
Wheeler-Cuffe had to rely heavily on plant donations and species she collected
herself to stock the garden, and her absence from the garden while on leave in
1919 did not help matters. Rodger had been moved from Maymyo after the
war and left Burma entirely shortly afterwards. In early 1920 Rogers retired,
and was replaced by Hopwood. This rapid change in personnel and the more
general understaffing of the garden contributed, perhaps, to the absence of
sufficient numbers of native species. As she prepared to leave Burma in 1921,
she transferred some of her prized plants from Upperfold to the botanic garden. Her efforts were officially acknowledged: “Although hers has been a labour of love the work has been very arduous and is solely due to her untiring
zeal that so much has been accomplished which it is impossible to exaggerate”.116 Moreover, it is worth noting that Charlotte was not paid for her work
on the garden, and while she readily acknowledged her own lack of formal
botanical training, it is doubtful that the progress made in the garden would
have been achieved at all without her voluntary labour. Roland Edgar Cooper,
who had trained in Calcutta and Darjeeling botanic gardens, and had served
as a plant hunter in Bhutan for A.K. Bulley of Ness Gardens, was appointed
as the Superintendent in 1921,117 but he remained in the role for less than one
year. Thus, although Wheeler-Cuffe, Rodger, and Rogers were instrumental in
laying the foundations of the garden and establishing the basics of a botanical
institution in Burma, lack of finance and rapid changes in personnel meant
the garden faced some serious difficulties after the Wheeler-Cuffes’ return to
Ireland in 1921.
113 Cox, E. undated. “Note on the botanic garden at Maymyo”, and quoted in A Note on the
Government Botanic Garden, Maymyo 1928. Rangoon, 1928.
114 Ibid.
115 Kingdon-Ward, F. 1921. “Mr. Kingdon Ward’s sixth expedition in Asia. I Lashio”, The
Gardeners’ Chronicle, 69, May 4, pp. 234–235.
116 Report on Forest Administration in Burma for the Period 1st July 1920 to 31st March 1921.
Rangoon: Forest Department 1922, p. 86.
117 Marsh, “‘An amateurish effort’?”.
206 In the frontier regions
Final years in the colony
As well as running the botanic garden during her final years in Burma, Charlotte continued to go on excursions with Otway. Their financial worries about
Leyrath were allayed when Otway’s solicitor had been granted permission to
sell a portion of land to pay the estate’s debts and generate £200 a year more
income. In May 1919 they were granted six months’ leave to return home. This
would be their final furlough before Otway retired.118 Prior to going on leave
they undertook a trip to the Panwa Pass which crossed the Irrawaddy-Salween
Divide. Charlotte had not visited the pass before although she had caught sight
of it when they visited Hpimaw in the spring of 1914. Their friend, Lowis, who
had been to the pass, extolled its aesthetic virtues: “it is just like a little bit of
England planted down among the hills here”.119 They spent Easter at Hparé
along the frontier, but she commented that she had not found “any special
botanical treasures so far, but have marked down some things to get on the way
back”.120 The purpose of their visit was to find alternative routes to the perilous paths they had traversed. She claimed it was
all wonderfully beautiful and the plants and trees are a pure delight –
I have never seen anything like the rhododendrons and azaleas, scarlet,
pink, mauve, white crimson and a monstrous cream coloured one …
I have got young plants of them but whether I shall get them home
­remains to be seen.121
Other species she encountered included white clematis, primulas, berberis, wild
pear, iris “and a hundred other lovely things whose names I have no idea of ”.122
She thought the area would be ideal as a health resort, if it were not so inaccessible, as it possessed a mineral spring and a favourable climate.123
The whole region filled her with wonderment. At Panwa Pass she got a
splendid view of China from the boundary pillar and spent the whole day plant
collecting. During another rest day she collected even more plants, including
an unusual euphorbia which she hoped to be able to bring to Ireland. Trekking
over the steep, high slopes was arduous and, on occasion, she did not feel well.
At one point the Kachin hired helpers had to rig up a deck chair on bamboo
and transport her some of the way, but where there were steep precipices with
sheer drops she walked. As the temperatures increased she became increasingly
unwell and collapsed altogether lying “like a log for 26 hours”.124 She was
118 Letter from CWC to Monie, 28 March 1919, Maymyo.
119 Quoted in Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, p. 170.
120 Ibid.
121 Letter from CWC to Pauline Prochazka, 22 April 1919, Panwa Pass, Burma-China Frontier.
122 Ibid.
123 Ibid.
124 Letter from CWC to Monie, 19 May 1919, Myitkyina.
Maymyo botanic garden and the final Burmese days 207
carried by a sling attached to bamboo to Chipwi “feeling more dead than
alive”.125 In her early fifties the challenges of strenuous travelling conditions
were beginning to take a toll. She rested for two days and recuperated while
Otway and the other engineers discussed in detail the prospect of road improvements in the region. During the next leg of the journey she was still not
fit enough to ride and had to be carried by the labourers. This was one of the
few occasions in all her years of going on expedition that the toughness of the
terrain seriously affected her health. It was perhaps the first time that her age
was beginning to affect her fitness levels to undertake such strenuous excursions. Overall, however, she declared that “[i]t was a most interesting trip and
the scenery and plants were worth more than a little discomfort. There are a lot
of botanical collectors on the frontier this year”.126 Kingdon-Ward and Forrest
were among them.127 From her perspective the trip was a success as she got
“fine, big basketfuls of things for the Botanical garden and I hope to get some
home with luck”.128
They spent the summer of 1919 in Britain and Ireland, mainly at Leyrath.
She attended the Dublin Horse Show and spent a day in Glasnevin discussing
and obtaining advice about the botanic garden. Moore was away but his Secretary, Miller, accompanied Charlotte around the garden and showed her their
new acquisitions and their rhododendrons.129 Moore had a case of plants prepared for her to take back to the colony, including Eremuri, Lillium henryi, and
Dalhia, as well as fruiting plants.130 She also visited Kew and spent a day in
Peradenyia garden on their return journey. The Wardian case of plants Moore
had given her arrived safely and most of the species were growing well. In exchange she sent him a box of Shan lily bulbs and informed him that her cousin,
Mrs Bensley, had successfully grown them in Rathmines. She also requested
that he might send some of the bulbs to Leyrath.131 In April Moore acknowledged receipt of the box of Lilium sulpureum and had distributed some of them
as instructed. These were effectively the last plant exchanges to take place between Ireland and Burma before she departed the colony.
Conclusion: preparing for departure
The Wheeler-Cuffes spent the early months of 1921 preparing for their retirement. Moore regretted her imminent departure, commenting, “[Y]ou certainly
succeeded in making a name for yourself in the botanical and plant world”.132
She was also forlorn about leaving but, as Otway had reached his official
125 Ibid.
126 Ibid.
127 Ibid.
128 Ibid.
129 Letter from Frederick Moore to CWC, 21 August 1919, Royal Botanic Gardens, Dublin.
130 Letter from Frederick Moore to CWC, 15 October 1919, Royal Botanic Gardens, Dublin.
131 Letter from CWC to Frederick Moore, 11 February 1920, Maymo.
132 Letter from Frederick Moore to CWC, 23 February 1921, Royal Botanic Gardens, Dublin.
208 In the frontier regions
retirement age, they had no other option. They decided to take a circuitous
route home, visiting Singapore, China, Japan, and Canada, which she thought
would be a “last fling before we try to settle down to what I fear is not likely to
be a very peaceful old age in Leyrath”.133 Cooper, the new Superintendent of
the Maymyo garden, had arrived and was delighted with her progress “which
is flattering and comforting to my amateurish efforts!”.134 He promised to send
anything interesting he might find to Glasnevin and maintain the plant exchange she had established. After their arrival home in November 1921 she
remarked that Cooper had few funds and only about 20 staff, including her old
ladies for weeding.135 She feared for the future prospects of the garden she had
been instrumental in developing.
Before leaving Burma Charlotte dismantled her own garden at Upperfold
and distributed some of its treasures. The move was greeted with mixed emotions: “the big wrench of leaving Maymyo is over and I suppose one will begin
life afresh after a bit”.136 The Wheeler-Cuffes were given a huge farewell dinner
at the local club, where they received many thanks and salutations from members and friends. Even their polo ponies were acknowledged for their contribution to life in the colonies. They also attended a number of private dinners with
friends and she found it heart-breaking parting with their old servants and pets
as they set off for the capital.137 On 5 May they left Rangoon railway station on
board the overnight train to Maulmain, where they received a final farewell
from the PWD employees.138 They boarded a steamer headed for Thailand and
Penang, as they made their final, circuitous journey from Burma to Ireland.
These final years had proved to be both rewarding and demanding. Being
located in Maymyo afforded her the chance to visit the more remote regions of
Upper Burma, and it is clear from her reports that this landscape and its botanical wealth were a huge source of pleasure and education. However, the
most time-consuming and prestigious part of her final years was the task of
overseeing the development of the botanic garden. For an amateur naturalist,
with no formal training and no official appointment in Burma, to be asked to
undertake this job was a mark of the esteem in which she was held by colonial
officialdom. She enthusiastically engaged with the task, and without receiving
any remuneration, she strove to make the garden as visually pleasing and taxonomically accurate as possible with the resources at her disposal.
133 Letter from CWC to Frederick Moore, 7 April 1921, Maymyo.
134 Ibid.
135 Letter from CWC to Frederick Moore, 23 November 1921, Leyrath.
136 Letter from CWC to Monie, 1 May 1921, Mandalay.
137 Ibid.
138 Letter from CWC to Monie, 6 May 1921, Maulmain.
9
Conclusion
[T]he first thing I met was my very own blue buttercup from Mt Victoria
looking perfectly lovely & quite at home! Some seedlings were distributed
from Glasnevin to various places.1
Visiting Lissadell House, Co Sligo in 1922 – the ancestral home of the Irish
revolutionary Constance Gore-Booth and her suffragist sister Eve GoreBooth – Charlotte was delighted to see a plant she had collected in Mount
Victoria growing in their garden. The plant networks she had established during her life in the colony were finding material expression in the gardens of
Ireland, as she discovered upon her return. Wheeler-Cuffe achieved much during her quarter century in Burma. Her long residency there proved to be an
important factor in her efforts to gain expertise in natural history generally
and, in particular, in the botany of this part of Britain’s overseas empire. Plant
hunting, seed collecting, and botanical illustration were the key areas of scientific knowledge-making upon which she focused, and in which she became an
important distribution node within a larger network of collectors in South and
Southeast Asia. The pattern of her residency in the colony, and the frequent
transfer to different locations, enabled her to gain competency over a wide
range of districts and habitats in Upper and Lower Burma. For her, the tropics
did not represent a pathological space to be bravely endured. On the contrary,
Wheeler-Cuffe relished the humidity and heat of her environment and adjusted
quickly to its conventions and routines. Unlike plant hunters who travelled to
this region to collect for commercial ends, her activities were not guided by
such narrowly defined objectives. The tropical landscape, with its abundance of
botanical riches, was instantly a source of inspiration for her art and collecting
practices. She explored relatively uncharted territories, mainly with her husband but also in the company of other colonial wives. She developed strong
links with the botanic gardens in Dublin, supplying them with seeds, new plant
species, dried specimens, and pictorial illustrations of what she observed. She
initiated and became central to the circulation of plant knowledge about
1 Quoted in Nelson, Shadow among Splendours, p. 178.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003157595-12
210 Conclusion
Burma in a period when its biogeography was not well known and she used her
artistic skills to translate that knowledge. With no formal training in either
botany or art, she acquired her knowledge in the field and used the expertise of
others when available and when necessary. Her position as the wife of a senior
official in the Public Works Department allowed her access to a range of places
otherwise relatively inaccessible to a white, European woman.
Historical geographers have paid little attention to the role of botanical illustration and plant hunting in the accumulation and dissemination of scientific knowledge. While there has been an explosion of studies investigating the
role of publishing regimes, speech spaces, written texts, and professional societies and institutional structures, in the production of geographical and natural
history learning, there has been rather less focus placed on the visual reproduction of plant species and the personal collecting practices that enabled new
species to circulate around the globe.2 A study of the expeditions of Charlotte
Wheeler-Cuffe allows us to address those lacunae in our understanding of how
botanical knowledge was accumulated and mobilised across a range of geographical spaces. Burma represents a particular type of colony, not fully integrated into British India and internally socially and ethnically diverse, as well
as quite distinctive from India. Moreover, although feminist scholars have
highlighted the significance of gender in our thinking about the construction
of empire, with a few notable exceptions, there are comparatively few studies in
historical geography that have engaged significantly with the contribution of
women to science. Most analyses focus either on women travellers whose interests were more cultural and religious than scientific or on the domestic and
home experiences of imperial wives in the colonies. This is partly a result of the
absences and silences in the archival record, especially in official colonial collections which primarily document the policies and activities of male colonial
administrators. The scholarly focus on the published materials of natural historians, whether in books and pamphlets or newspaper reports of public talks
and lectures, also needs to be acknowledged and critiqued. In the late nineteenth century women may have attended many such public events where permitted, or had in their libraries copies of the major published floras or natural
histories of regions, but they themselves were often excluded from being the
attributed producers of such work.3
Botanical drawing and plant collecting, however, were often domains in
which women did play significant roles, and Wheeler-Cuffe, although not carrying the professional credentials of many of her male counterparts, was one
such contributor. Not only did she actively paint in the field and record the
species she observed in Burma, but she also became a supply line for plants to
2 Naylor, Regionalizing Science; Finnegan, Natural History Societies; Withers and Keighren,
“Travels into print”; Livingstone, Putting Science; Ogborn and Withers, Geographies of the Book.
3 Livingstone and Withers, Geographies of Nineteenth-Century Science; Finnegan, D. A. 2021.
The Voice of Science: British Scientists on the Lecture Circuit in Gilded Age America, Pittsburgh:
University of Pittsburgh Press.
Conclusion 211
be transported from the colonies to the metropole. Her long residency enabled
her to build up a significant network of contacts but also to develop some personal local prestige as an expert on the colony’s plant geographies. Wheeler-Cuffe’s plant hunting and ethnological expeditions in Burma required the
mobilisation of a web of connections that included colonial officials and inhabitants of the colony as well as native agents.4 The indigenous populations
provided the infrastructure to enable her to travel to remoter regions; their
knowledge was drawn upon in the process of route-finding and plant collecting. Her relationship with the local people was a complex one because, despite
her position as the wife of a colonial engineer and her aristocratic background,
she depended on the support, co-operation, and collaboration of the native
population. Although she remained a loyal servant of empire throughout her
residency, her knowledge of native cultures developed over a long period, at
times modulating her attitudes towards the virtues of imperialism and its practices in this corner of South Asia. Ultimately, the accumulation and circulation
of knowledge was as much a product of Wheeler-Cuffe’s networks within
Lower and Upper Burma as it was of any of her connections with home. She
was neither a professional plant hunter nor a colonial botanist sent from the
imperial centre to seek out new flora. Yet her capacity to produce botanical
work outside these normal channels underscores the significance of the locally
produced grid of social and spatial relationships she had cultivated in Burma.
These relationships formed the bedrock from which she could transmit bio-­
geographical knowledge about the colony across the globe.
Being mobile was a central feature of Wheeler-Cuffe’s engagement with
Burma. Although the wife of a colonial official, she did not confine herself to
the conventional gendered divisions of labour, and she did not remain solely
within the domestic sphere of the residential compound. While she undertook
her orthodox duties as a wife, overseeing the management of the household,
she also liberated herself from a life of domesticity by participating in regular
and sustained travel across Burma. Colonial science differed from the practice
of science at the imperial centre as it provided opportunities that freed
­Wheeler-Cuffe from the strict gender constraints of late Victorian Britain. She
regularly accompanied her husband in his work as a civil engineer in the PWD
responsible for the development of the transport network within the colony,
and especially its roads. She actively assisted him in surveying projects and
map-making. Had they remained at home, the prospect of her accompanying
him on work expeditions would have been unlikely. While the railway and waterway networks provided the broad infrastructure of mobility for the WheelerCuffes, it was their animals (mules, ponies, and occasionally elephants) that
enabled them to penetrate the more remote regions of the colony and facilitated their treks over major mountain ranges and river systems. The colonies
enabled her to behave in ways that would not have found favour in Britain and
it was through persistent fieldwork that she amassed much of her knowledge.
4 Driver, “Hidden histories made visible”; Sivasundaram, “Introduction”.
212 Conclusion
Their movement, however, was also reliant upon an entourage of native
servants, cooks, and hired labour, as well as camping and surveying equipment
that were integral to these expeditions. The local knowledge and labour provided by the indigenous population was inextricably bound up with her capacity to travel. Moreover, the knowledge she acquired about the natural history
of the region was recorded in the materials she collected (e.g. plants, seeds, and
cuttings) in the field and that were transported by her native workers, as well as
through the materials she brought with her on expedition to record and represent the botanical life she encountered. Her sketchbooks, pencils, and painting
materials, as well as her writing equipment, all moved with her as she strove to
accurately record and represent the physical features of the landscape and
plants she observed in the field. Together these provided her with the architecture of authenticity that was necessary to make her eye-witnessed accounts
legitimate and trustworthy, especially at the imperial centre. The knowledge
she transferred back to Britain and Ireland was facilitated by her relatives,
acting as re-distribution centres for plants she collected, and paintings she produced. Regular shipments of seeds, plants, and botanical illustrations home
allowed her work to circulate between the colony and the imperial centre, while
at the same time the reciprocal movement of art equipment, clothing, and people from Britain to Burma provided her with the necessary means to pursue
her commitment to producing scientific knowledge about the colony. The colonial space provided her and other women, including some of the wives of other
administrators, with the potential for disrupting the gender norms prevailing
in Britain. Being at some distance removed from the political and social centre
emancipated her, to some degree, from the more rigid regulatory regimes of
gendered conformity practised and policed at home. Her enduring legacy on
Burma’s landscape – Maymyo botanic garden – where she was the pivotal actor in its design and development is a testament to this.
Her close ancestral ties with Ireland also complicated her position as a loyal
servant of empire, and the networks and routes through which the knowledge
she acquired travelled were inflected by this complex set of cultural and social
relationships. The botanic gardens in Dublin proved a more important node in
her botanical network than Kew, and ultimately her archive of paintings and
correspondence was donated to it. As Protestants, with unionist political leanings, the Wheeler-Cuffes might have departed from their estate in Kilkenny and
moved back to London after Irish independence, yet they decided to settle in
Leyrath where Charlotte remained until her death in the 1960s. Ultimately
Burma and Ireland, rather than her place of birth at the epicentre of Britain’s
empire – were the places in which she settled and in which her work had a longterm impact.
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Index
Note: Pages in italics refer to figures.
Acriopsis javanica 74, 75
acclimatising to Burma 40–44
Act of Union 25, 26
‘Age of European Exploration’ 8
Agri-Horticultural Society 68
Andaman Islands 146–152
Anderson, C. 148
Anglo-Burmese Wars 46–47
anti-colonial resistance 46, 64
‘anti-tropicalism’ 13
art exhibitions 120, 154
Baillargeon, D. 94
Ballantyne, T. 36
Barnes, Sir Hugh 92
Beaufort, Harriet: Dialogues of Botany 3
Bengal Infantry Regiment 194
Bensley, Charles Norman 84, 161
Bird, George W.: Wanderings in Burma 31
Blunt, A. 9, 15, 64
biogeography 23, 87, 133, 210
botanic gardens, history 192–194
botanical culture 4
botanical artists 6–10
botanical drawing 11, 128, 210
botanical illustration 7, 25, 69, 92,
209, 210
Bourguet, M.-N. 51
British Association for the Advancement
of Science 4
Bulbophyllum picturatum 107
Burma acclimatising to 40, 44; a passage
to 29–32; colonial historiography 2–4;
comparisons with India 79, 124, 133;
economy 2; geopolitics 46–47;
infrastructure 28, 83, 95; ruby mine
industry 86; skinny’ state 3; travelling
supplies 52
The Burma Alphabet 19, 122, 143–146,
147, 154, 172
Burma Delta 50
Burmese language 45
Burmese Research Society 127
Burton, A. 36
Bush, J. 11, 112
Byingye excursion 115–120
Byingye Mountain 121
Calcutta Botanical Garden 193
Calderon, William Frank 26, 27
Callahan, M. P. 2, 3, 128
Catholic Relief Bill 26
centres of accumulation and calculation
37, 68, 202
Chakrabarti, P. 68
Chin tribes 133, 136
Chin Hills 109, 124, 133–134, 137–139
Ciolkowski, L. E. 15
climatic determinism 40
Coelogyne lentiginosa 118
colonial civil service 83
colonial community 84, 98, 143
Cooper, R Edgar 142
Cory, Mrs 42, 49, 57
Crommelin, May 173
Cromptons 62
Croswaithe, Charles 127
Cuffe, Major visits to Burma 109–110
Curtis’s Botanical Magazine 6, 11,
141, 187–189
Curzon, Mary 78
Cymbidium aloifolium 88
Cymbidium longiflorium 98
Del Mar, Walter: The Romantic East 95
Dendrobium anachinides 138
Index 229
Dendrobium aureum 76, 77
Dendrobium chrysanthum 119
Dendrobium crepidatum 88
Dendrobium dixanthum 119
Dendrobium fembriatum 88
Dendrobium fimbriatum 88, 89
Dendrobium findlayanum 109
Dendrobrium crepidatum 88
Dialogues of Botany (Beaufort) 3
domestic chores 56–61
domestic space 36, 38, 57–58, 63, 70, 81,
85, 96, 100–101
Dowling, R. 64
Dublin 188–191
Dublin Botanic Garden, Glasnevin 11,
139, 160, 179, 183, 188, 198,
200, 207–208
Duncan, J.S. 40, 91
Dunstan, Wyndham 78
East India Company 2, 52, 82, 142, 159
Edgar Cooper, Roland 205
Eria pannea 118
Eurasian community 55, 82–85, 147–150
family background 25–29
Farrer, Reginald 195, 204
female constitution 44
femininity 5, 9, 11, 36, 38, 45, 60–61, 63,
95, 113, 171
First World War 159, 179–180, 182, 195
Fitch, Walter Hood 6
Fleetwood, Lachlan 14
Forrest, George 128, 138–139, 174,
204, 207
Franklin, John 11
From the Flood Gauge 32
Furnivall, J. S. 114
Gabbett, Edward 30, 62
Gatty, Margaret 5
Gazette of India 119
geographies of science 13, 14, 67
gender and botany 3–12
gender divisions of labour 4, 15, 211
Genera of Shells (Lamarck) 6
Gifford, Isabella 8
Gokteik gorge 94–95, 184
Hart, Alice: Picturesque Burma: Past and
Present 61
Hemiliea vastatrix 71
Henslow, J.S. 6
hill stations 69, 74, 88, 125, 161–165
Hints to Travellers 92
historical geographies of
knowledge 12–17
Hooker, William 6, 8, 11
illness and recuperation 111–113
Imperial Delhi Committee 170
Indian Jails Committee 152
Indian Mutiny 57, 83, 147, 169
Indian Penal Code 150
indigenous knowledge 14, 54, 81, 135
intellectual curiosity 10
Ione flavescens 141
Irish Free State 84
Irish Gardening 200
Irish Home Rule movement 143
Irish Privy Council 26
Irrawaddy Delta 46, 47, 55
Irrawaddy-Salween Divide
expedition 173–179
Kennedy, D. 162, 185, 194
Kenwar, P. 161
Kew Gardens 6, 9, 18, 122
Kingdon-Ward, F. 141, 143, 173, 178,
184, 186, 204, 205, 207
Kingsley, Mary 9, 15, 134
Konbaung dynasty 46
Lace, John 195
Lamarck: Genera of Shells 6
Langrishe, Cha 18, 26–28, 34, 84–100
Langrishe, Richard 31
Langrishe, Rosie 83–85
Langrishe, Sir Hercules Richard 25, 26
Latour, Bruno 68
law and order 2–3, 122, 128
Lilium sulpureum 207
Lindley, John 4
Linnean Society 4
Livingstone, David 12, 67
Lloyd Botanical Garden 193
Lord Dufferin 47
Lowis, Cecil 80, 174–176
Luce, G. H. 115
Maddrell, A. 15, 25
Mandalay 85–86
maps 18, 31, 49, 50
masculine 3, 13, 15, 35, 40, 44, 60, 128
May, James 194
Maymyo 80, 88–91, 171–173, 188–191
230 Index
Maymyo botanic garden 191–205, 212
MacNabb, Winifred 124–134
McCormack, C. 49
Meiktila 19, 100–103
Merriman, P. 68
Milne, Leslie: The Shans at Home 144
missionaries 35, 72–73, 133, 159
mobility and cultures of expedition
Gokteik Gorge 94–95; Mandalay
85–86; Maymyo 88–91; Mogôk 86–88,
98–99, 190, 181; movement and
knowledge transfer 67–70; Thayetmyo
and Toungoo 70–78; Upper Burma
1903 86–88
Moore, Sir Frederick 18, 76, 138, 139,
196, 200
Mount Victoria afterlife 138–141;
ascending 134–138;
expedition 125–138
movement and knowledge transfer 67–70
native population, attitudes towards
54–56; knowledge 144, 203; labour 11,
37, 95, 115, 118
Naylor, Todd 100
Nelson, E. C. 104, 125, 138
New Charter of 1833 83
Nicotiana affinis 50
North, Marianne 5
O’Connor, Scott V.C. 78, 79
O’Connor, Thomas Abbitt 79
Ormerod, Eleanor Anne 5
paintings, sale of 19, 92, 100, 122, 124,
126, 133, 173, 182
Parables of Nature 5
Patch, Kathleen 146
‘Pax Britannica’ 137
Peachey, Emma 7
Pe Maung Tin 115
penal paradise 122, 151, 155
Peridenya botanic garden 69
pets 30, 61, 112, 141
Picturesque Burma: Past and Present
(Hart) 61
plant exchange 120, 186, 192,
210, 207–208
plant hunting 25, 107, 152, 210, 211;
expeditions 18, 128, 134; gardening 45
polite botany, gender, and
boundaries 3–12
polo 43, 53–54, 59, 85, 89, 91
potential conjugal arrangements 85
Prain, Sir David 68, 141
Pratt, M. L. 64
Protestantism 83
Public Works Department of India
(PWD) 2, 28, 56, 64
Pyin Oo Lwin 194
race and gender 82–85
Rangoon 19, 141–146; and furlough
159–161; new year in 152–154; settling
into 122–125
R. cuffeanum 140, 190
regional botanic gardens 139
Rhododendron burmanicum 141, 142
Rhododendron cuffeanum 140
Rippon, Colonel G 125
Robert, Mary: Wonders of the Vegetable
Kingdom Displayed 3
Rodger, Alexander 195
Rogers, Gilbert 160, 195
The Romantic East (Del Mar) 95
Royal Geographical Society (RGS)
4, 11, 25
Royal Guide to Wax Flower Modelling 7
Royal Museum of Ethnology 12
Royal Society of Tasmania 11
Saha, J. 2, 3, 17, 47, 50, 128
Salween-Irrawaddy Divide 173–174, 184
Sander, Frederick 139
scientific knowledge production 1
Scott, Emma Lavinia 79, 94, 97
Scott, James 17, 94, 97, 107, 117
The Shans at Home (Milne) 144
servants in household 16, 33–38, 56–58;
on expedition 49, 72–74, 108, 115–118
Shan States 105–109
Shapin, S. 3, 13
Sheffield, Le-May 5, 10
Shore, Emily 5
Shteir, A. B. 3, 4, 6, 8, 11
Silken East 79
Simla and the Engineering
Conference 161–171
Sindaung Mountain 120
Smith, Matilda 6, 7, 141, 189
spatial turn 13, 14
Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel (SPG) 159
Somerville, Mary 4
Spary, E. C. 192
Stepan, N. 13
Index 231
Stewart, J. A. 115
Stoler, A. 17
Stoler, A. L. 57
Swinhoe, Rodway 201
Taw Sein Ko 103
Telfair, Annabella 11
Thandaung expedition 74–78
Thayetmyo 19, 45, 51, 53, 55, 59, 70–78;
community 44
Thiselton-Dyer, Harriet Anne 6
Toungoo 70–78
tropics, discursive field 16, 31–32, 41, 75,
91, 164, 194
Turner, Dawson 6
Upper Burma 86–88, 98–99, 159,
171–173, 184–188, 195, 208
urban-based engineering work 125
Viceroy visit 110, 120
Village Act 127
von Humboldt 16
Walker, Colonel 11
Wallace, Alfred Russel 13, 49
Wanderings in Burma (Bird) 31
Warren, Elizabeth 8
Waters, T. 94
Western scientific knowledge 37
Wheeler-Cuffe, Charlotte 1–3, 6, 9, 11,
12, 15–19, 25, 30–38, 40, 42–46, 53,
54, 57, 60, 62–64, 67, 68, 70, 71, 73,
74, 78–80, 83, 85, 87–89, 91, 95, 97,
102, 103, 113, 115, 118, 119, 122, 127,
131, 132, 134, 135, 146, 149, 151, 159,
164, 173, 180, 183, 189, 195, 198, 205,
208, 211
Wheeler-Cuffe, Otway 28, 47, 48
Wheeler-Cuffe, Sir Charles 28, 29, 184
White, Herbert Thirkell 194
Williams, Charlotte 25, 28
Williams, Monie 18, 19, 87, 188
Williams, William 25, 26
Wohlers, D. C. 94
women, wealth, wives, and
workers 9–12
Wonders of the Vegetable Kingdom
Displayed (Robert) 3
Woollacott, A. 35, 40
Yado expedition 71–74