‘The European in India; from a collection of drawings by Charles D’Oyly, Esq. engraved by J.H. Clark and C. Dubourg; with a description by Captain Thomas Williamson; accompanied with a brief history of ancient and modern India…by F.W. Blagdon Esq.’ is a collection of English colour plates about colonial life in India, with plates after… Read more »
As the title suggests, this map is a plan of the siege of 1857 and was printed after the British recapture of Delhi, on 22nd September, 1857. This map shows Shahjahanabad prominently and precisely points to various battalions and batteries by their placement and their respective commands. The position of the British camp and the… Read more »
This map of India probably first appeared in The Illustrated London News in 1857. While some of the magazine’s illustrations were provided by artist-travellers or proprietors, others were contributed by men stationed abroad with specific designations, such as soldiers, naval officers and government officials on foreign stations. They became sources for visual information on India’s… Read more »
East India Company was a highly influential force in Britain by the end of the 18th century. It was fabulously wealthy, and the British leaders were among its stockholders. Naturally, then, there was curiosity among the ordinary Britons about the people in a faraway land whose politics and culture was suddenly part of the national… Read more »
“It was not the British government that began seizing great chunks of India in the mid-eighteenth century, but a dangerously unregulated private company headquartered in one small office….” In his 2019 book ‘The Anarchy’, this is how William Dalrymple describes the East India Company—the only trading company in the world to mint its own currency.… Read more »
The first Indian Uprising broke out in the East India Company’s army in May, 1857 and the campaign to suppress it lasted till April 1859. The course of the Uprising followed five distinct phases; first came the outbreak and the measures taken immediately; this was followed by the capture of Delhi and the two reliefs… Read more »
This is a print of the map showing the plan of the British attack on the city of Delhi, during the Uprising of 1857. Various clusters of directional lines with coordinates mark areas where the British troupes advanced. Landmarks such as the Landlow Castle and the ‘rampart’ hint that the advance is from the Ridge… Read more »
Plan of the military town of Bellary under the British government. It was an important town in British India, being parts of both the princely states of Madras and Hyderabad, before being transferred to Karnataka in 1956. The map is a monochrome engraving on paper, and points out important locations of the city such as… Read more »
This map shows the plan of operations to carry out the Siege of Lucknow in 1857. During the Uprising, Lucknow held out for much longer than the rest of the strongholds of northern India, and an operation had to be devised by the British troupes to evacuate trapped and imprisoned Europeans from the Residency building.… Read more »
This is a military map showing the various positions of the British Army, and the plan of their attack on the walled city of Shahjahanabad. Created during the Uprising of 1857, the map points out various important landmarks such as the Chandni Chowk and the Subzee Mandi as also the gates around the fort such… Read more »
During the Uprising of 1857, events in the city of Lucknow took a rather violent turn. As the news of the Uprising broke, the British officials and their families took shelter in the Residency, while the rebelling soldiers blocked every means of outside contact for them and continued their attacks for over 90 days. A… Read more »
Kanpur was the scene of a massacre after the city’s besieged occupants, including women and children, surrendered to the revlting natives on 27 June 1857. The recapture of the city then and the avenging of the massacre became a primary objective of the British officials. The city was retaken from the natives on 16 July… Read more »