# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Created in the late nineteenth century, when the British Empire was at its height, covered some ten million square miles and comprised around 400 million people, this painting, 'Going North', vividly portrays a section of society in Britain and the vitality of a busy station. The scene depicts passengers at Kings Cross station, London, awaiting the train to Scotland at the beginning of the shooting season. Within the painting, just to the right of the centre of the canvas, among the bustle of railway passengers, luggage and dogs, we see a golden-haired little girl in a reddish shawl, clinging to her Indian ayah.

This ayah, working to fix the clothes of the girl in her care, is a painted reminder of the frequently overlooked roles of people from the British colonies in India, Africa and the Caribbean in the era of Britain's rapid industrial growth. Her presence is also, and importantly, a reminder of an often forgotten group of women who laboured for British people both in India and the British Isles: the ayahs themselves.

(Source information: Going North (oil on canvas), Earl, George (fl.1856-83) / National Railway Museum, York, North Yorkshire, UK / Bridgeman Images)

The East India Company and Britons abroad

The founding of the East India Company in 1600 created employment for many English, Scottish and Irish people. The jobs the Company created were wide ranging - from clerks and traders to other administrators - and very desirable. Although Company jobs were not that well paid, because costs in India were generally low, employees could live very comfortable English-style lives while abroad.

One Indian visitor to Britain in the eighteenth century calculated that a servant in England cost eight times more than one in India. As a result, Company employees could afford very large teams of domestic staff. For instance, William Hickey, a lawyer who worked in Calcutta, had 63 servants. These large teams of employees included ayahs (nannies), and played an important part in creating the comfortable lives of Company staff. For many officials working in India as administrators, traders, lawyers or teachers, Indian servants and ayahs were more than just domestic help - they were also seen as marks of an opulent, successful lifestyle. Because of their sophistication, ayahs from Madras, so-called 'Madrassi ayahs', were most highly prized.

It was quite common for British families returning home to bring valued members of domestic staff with them to help with the journey or, when retiring, to permanently settle. The lawyer William Hickey brought his servant Munnoo back with him to Britain when he retired to Beaconsfield in 1808. Similarly, Warren Hastings and his wife imported four maids as well as two Indian servants when they returned to Britain. Charles Dickens even makes mention of women bringing their personal maids with them on their return trips in his novel David Copperfield (1850).

Travelling ayahs

Many trips back to Britain were temporary. British families often sought to escape the Indian summer heat, and visited their home country between March and October, taking the long sea voyage on ocean liners that would carry them from India. After 1869 with the advent of steam-powered ships and the opening of the Suez Canal, such journeys became more routine as the journey was significantly shortened by some 4,300 miles.

On their seasonal visits to Britain, these families often asked their ayahs to accompany them or engaged the services of an experienced travelling ayah to look after their children and take care of their baggage and the memsahib. By the 1850s, as travel became more regular, the number of ayahs brought to Britain increased. It is estimated that between 100 and 140 travelling ayahs visited Britain every year.

Why did the ayahs agree to come? One important reason was economic necessity. It allowed the ayah to work her passage in both directions, from India to Britain and on the return trip. Another reason would have been their devotion to the family and especially the children under their care. Some could have also been motivated by a sense of adventure or a desire to see Britain. One ayah, Mrs Antony Pareira, travelled 54 times.

Ayahs alone

Once in Britain, the duties of ayahs were over and they were discharged, often without arrangements for their return home. Many had to advertise their services for a return passage on a ship bound for India. A few eventually found employment in Britain as parish registers and census records reveal. For instance there is a record in St Marylebone, in 15 April 1787, of Mary Ann Flora, 'a native of the East Indies, aged 19'; in Woolwich, we have a record of the burial of Flora, 'an East Indian', on 26 May 1769. The 1871 Census for Ealing, Southall shows the name of Brinoo, a 'Calcutta-born 49-year-old widow', as a nurse and servant; and at Cheltenham, Christchurch, we find Ruth, 'an adult Native of Madras', an ayah in the employment of Colonel Rolandson. Interestingly, Ruth was baptised, the service performed in the Tamil language.

Many ayahs were dismissed without pay. They usually had no formal contract of employment and return passages agreed in India were not always honoured. While awaiting employment with a family going to India, the ayahs stayed in squalid lodging houses that charged high rent. An 1855 report drawing attention to their situation mentioned 50-60 ayahs living together in a disreputable lodging house on Ratcliffe Highway in the East End of London. Some ayahs were forced to beg in the streets for a passage back home.

The Ayahs' Home

Christian charities became concerned for the welfare of the abandoned ayahs, which led to the founding of the Ayahs' Home, which provided accommodation for both Indian ayahs and Chinese amahs (who did a similar job to ayahs). Established first in 1891 at 6 Jewry Street, Aldgate, East London, the Home was taken over by the London City Mission, who moved it to 26 Edward Road, Mare Street, in Hackney, East London in 1900. In 1921, the Home was relocated to bigger premises at 4 King Edward Road.

The Ayahs' Home had thirty rooms. Brought here by their white British family employers, every year, around 100 ayahs lodged at the Home for a few days, weeks or even months. The Home also provided refuge for ayahs who were abandoned or ill-treated by their indifferent employers. Such instances were by no means uncommon.

Mrs Dunn's evidence to the Parliamentary Committee on Distressed Colonial and Indian Subjects, 19 November 1909

This ayah was found in the streets in Hornsey [North London] by a lady on October 22nd last and brought here. The ayah says she and her boxes were turned out by her employer after being in their service for three years. The employer was seen by us, but refused to do anything further for the ayah.

The Home found placements for ayahs with families travelling out to India. The Home was run on the return ticket of the ayah, given to the Home by the family who had brought the ayah from India. It was then sold to a family needing the services of the ayah for their voyage to India. The money raised was used for the ayahs' board and lodgings. While awaiting reengagement the ayahs spent their time reading, doing embroidery or walking in the park. The Ayahs' Home was an important landmark. It was the only such institution in Britain with a named building.

How were the ayahs seen?

The British public considered the ayahs fascinating and tended to see them as picturesque. Ayahs were painted and photographed, as seen in the picture by George Earl (above). In contemporary literature, such as Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden, ayahs were often stereotyped as 'childlike'. Such perceptions were also present in events like the annual London City Mission Foreigners' Fete. During the 1904 Fete a group of Indian ayahs, very much like school children of the time, were conducted to sing the hymn, 'From Greenland's Icy Mountains', which they had been taught by the matron of their Home.

Indian ayahs, who mothered and cared for the children of British families both on land and on sea, contributed to life in India, aboard ships and in Britain. While only a few settled in the British Isles, they can be considered an important group of late nineteenth- and early-twentieth century migrants.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Our Migration Story: The Making of Britain

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A home for the ayahs: from India to Britain and back again

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Punch, or the London Charivari was a popular British weekly magazine established in 1841, which produced humorous cartoons reflecting current affairs.

Dadabhai Naoroji was the first MP of Indian ethnicity to be elected to Parliament. The cartoon of him as Othello, above, refers to Lord Salisbury's remarks in 1888 that England was not ready to elect a 'Blackman' to government after Naoroji's first failed campaign. The success of Naoroji's election in 1892 went on to prove that this was not the case. The cartoon makes light of this.

The cartoon refers to Shakespeare's Othello (Act 3, Scene 3) 'Haply, for I am black'. These are lines given to Othello, when he is talking to Iago and trying not to believe that Desdemona has been unfaithful to him. Othello was one of the most famous 'black' men in English literature.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, 'black' was often used to describe people from Asia as well as people of African descent (unlike today where the term is more regularly used to describe people of African descent only). However, Naoroji did have fair skin and many commentators at the time were keen to point this out.

Migrants as British MPs: Dadabhai Naoroji

Dadabhai Naoroji, of Bombay Parsi origin, was the first Indian to be elected to Parliament in Britain. Naoroji travelled to Britain in 1885 as a business partner of Cama and Company. A member of several businesses, he became Professor of Gujarati at University College, London (1856-65). He was one of the founders of the Indian National Congress in Bombay in 1885, which was the main nationalist party that campaigned for Indian independence from British rule. He was known as the 'Grand Old Man of India'.

Britain and India had strong business links in the nineteenth century so Naoroji was not the only Indian businessman to travel to Britain. As India was part of the British Empire, there were strong trading links between the two countries and a steady flow of ships that would take British people to India and Indian people to Britain. Many of the sailors who worked on these ships, known as lascars, settled in Britain (see: ' The lascars'). University students and political petitioners would also travel from the Indian subcontinent to Britain. It is very difficult to be certain about the number of men and women from the Indian subcontinent who lived in Britain at the end of the nineteenth century; estimates suggest there were up to 15,000 by 1947.

In 1886, Naoroji campaigned as Liberal Party candidate for the strongly Conservative seat of Holborn in London, but was unsuccessful. In 1888, referring to Naoroji's defeat, the Conservative Party Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, remarked that an English constituency was not ready to elect a 'Blackman'. This statement gave Naoroji more notoriety and was referred to in the above Punch cartoon. In 1892, Naoroji stood as Liberal Party candidate for the constituency of Central Finsbury in London. He was successfully elected with a majority of five, joining Gladstone's government. He lost his seat in the General Election of 1895, when the Conservatives won back power.

The Central Finsbury constituency was located in Central London in the Clerkenwell district (now part of the London Borough of Islington). Central Finsbury had a strongly working-class electorate and was a marginal seat. Women did not have the vote till 1918. The Conservative MP elected in 1886 for Central Finsbury had only won by five votes too.

As an MP Naoroji supported votes for women, pensions for the elderly, Irish Home Rule and the abolition of the House of Lords. Although he was elected by British men, Naoroji claimed to represent millions of Indians who had no democratic government of their own, and were ruled by the British parliament.

In 1906, Naoroji stood as a candidate for Lambeth North but was again unsuccessful. In 1907, Naoroji left England to retire in Bombay, where he died in 1917.

MPs Bhownaggree, Sombre and Saklatvala

In 1895, another Indian man was elected to Parliament. He was Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownaggree, also born in Bombay, and he was elected as Conservative MP for the London constituency of North-East Bethnal Green. One of the issues he campaigned on was anti-immigration (see flyer). Bhownaggree was successfully elected for a second time in the 1900 General Election, but was defeated in the 1906 General Election.

The first non-white MP in Britain was probably David Ochterlony Dyce Sombre, who was of mixed European and Indian descent. In 1841 he was elected as a Radical-Liberal to the seat of Sudbury, in Suffolk. In 1842, however, Parliament overturned the result citing 'gross, systematic, and extensive bribery' during the campaign, and he and the other Member for the Sudbury division, Frederick Villiers, lost their seats. It is possible that John Stewart, elected as MP for Lymington in 1832, was also from a mixed ethnic background.

After Naoroji and Bhownaggree, the next MP of migrant origin was Shapurji Saklatvala. Also born in Bombay (and of Parsi origin), Saklatvala won the seat of Battersea North in 1922 as Labour candidate, and was defeated in December 1923. He regained the seat in October 1924, when he stood as a Communist representative and held the seat until 1929. No other non-white MPs elected in Britain until 1987 when four MPs, Diane Abbott, Paul Boateng, Bernie Grant and Keith Vaz, were all elected for the Labour Party.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Our Migration Story: The Making of Britain

# data[].attributes.headline
Revolution, Industry and Empire : Britain 1558-1901

# data[].attributes.subject
Revolution, Industry and Empire : Britain 1558-1901

# data[].attributes.body
Covers British history during the Tudor, Stuart, Georgian and Victorian periods, including social and cultural history, the Civil War and Cromwell, the Restoration, the Industrial Revolution, public health, slave trade, and the rise of the British Empire.

Click here to reserve

# data[].attributes.body
A compelling portrait of a society in the grip of imperialism, A Passage to India depicts the fate of individuals caught in the great political and cultural conflicts of their age. It begins when Adela and her elderly companion Mrs Moore arrive in the Indian town of Chandrapore, and feel trapped by its insular and prejudiced British community. Determined to explore the 'real India', they seek the guidance of the charming and mercurial Dr Aziz. But a mysterious incident occurs while they are exploring the Marabar caves, and the well-respected doctor soon finds himself at the centre of a scandal.

Click here to reserve

# data[].attributes.body
The Coram man takes babies and money from desperate mothers, promising to deliver them safely to a Foundling Hospital in London. Instead, he murders them and buries them by the roadside, to the helpless horror of his son, Mish.

Mish saves one, Aaron, who grows up happily unaware of his history, proving himself a promising musician.  As Aaron's new life takes him closer to his real family, the watchful Mish makes a terrible mistake, delivering Aaron and his best friend Toby back into the hands of the Coram man.

Click here to reserve

# data[].attributes.headline
Oxford Illustrated Dictionary of 19th Century Language

# data[].attributes.subject
Oxford Illustrated Dictionary of 19th Century Language

# data[].attributes.body
A dictionary which explores the diversity of language used in the 19th century with additional historical facts about aspects of life in this period.

This dictionary unravels the intriguing, fascinating, and rich language of the most studied 19th century texts with clear explanations for unusual words, unfamiliar spellings, dialect, and expressions.

Click here to reserve

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
A beautifully illustrated book that gives a full history of India. 

# data[].attributes.body
Learn about the history of India through a treasure trove of visually vibrant timelines packed with information on famous people and key events.

Go to pages 88 - 114 for detail on India in the late 19th Century.

Click here to reserve

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
This is a large book - you may want to view it in the library.

# data[].attributes.body
From the beginning of human history, the one thing that has defined us is our talent for making things, from basic technology and everyday objects, such as bowls and hand axes, to high-tech inventions, such as supersonic aircraft, smart devices, and Mars rovers.

This book has pages (pp 298 - 302 devoted to The Raj in India and there is detail about Indian Culture and artifacts from the Victorian colonial era.

There is also some brilliant detail about the Industrial Revolution starting on p 272.

Click here to reserve

# data[].attributes.body
The History of Britain & Ireland traces the key events that have shaped the British Isles. From the Elizabethan age of Shakespeare to the Iraq and Afghan wars of the 21st century, this beautifully illustrated book offers a definitive visual chronicle of the most colourful and defining episodes in British history.

Go to pages 258 - 295 for lots of information about Victorian society. Pages 290 - 293 give a detailed history of Colonial India during the Victorian era.

Available to reserve