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Article written by Florian Stadtler. Published 28 October 2024.

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Article written by Florian Stadtler. Published 28 October 2024.

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Florian Stadtler explores key historical contexts for The Empress, including the presence of ayahs, lascars, Dadabhai Naoroji and Abdul Karim in 19th-century Britain.

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Tanika Gupta’s play, The Empress (2013/2023) narrates the story of Rani, an Indian ayah; Hari, an Indian seafarer (lascar); Abdul Karim, Queen Victoria’s munshi and secretary; and Dadabhai Naoroji, the first South Asian MP in Parliament. Covering the years from 1887, the Queen’s Golden Jubilee, to 1901, just after her death, the play engages with key moments in British history as well as bringing to the fore the experiences of early South Asian communities in Britain across a wide spectrum of class, religion, caste and race. This makes Gupta’s play panoramic in scope detailing the intimate relationship between Britain and India during the height of Britain’s imperial powers in the late 19th century. The play develops the tension between an exotic, orientalised vision of India as it reverberates in the British public imagination on one hand, and on the other the harsh lived experience of many of its protagonists as they encounter discrimination in their everyday lives.

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The Mirror of British Merchandise and Hindustani Pictorial News was published in India with a specific focus on news and stories complimentary to British rule in India. Its cover, in its representation of Britain’s colonial relationship with India, is reflective of the attitudes of the 1890s. In the foreground is the figure of Britannia, the female embodiment of the British nation. Shelfmark: 14119.f.37. Usage terms: Public Domain.

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Magazine cover with illustration depicting Britannia, a white female figure wearing a helmet, holding a British flag and shield, with a lion at her feet. To the right is a camel and an elephant laden with goods, on which is seated a man who appears to be of South Asian heritage. In the background is the Taj Mahal, ships and the sun setting on the water 

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Many of these experiences are documented in the archives, most expansively in the British Library’s India Office Records collection. They were brought to wider prominence by the research of schoolteacher and pioneering historian Rozina Visram in Ayahs, Lascars and Princes (1986; republished 2015) and Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (2002), which influenced Tanika Gupta.

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This photograph, shot in the mid-1890s, captures an unnamed Indian ayah (first left) and the British family (the Greenhills) who employed her. Shelfmark: MSS EUR F754/2/2. Usage terms: Public Domain.

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Black and white photograph of the Greenhill family. Mother and father sit on chairs in front of a large palm tree, with a baby in the mothers lap and a child standing between the parents. The ayah stands next to the mother, slightly behind the family

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Mss Eur F754_2_2 Photograph of ayah with Greenhill family, c1890-1910

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Rani and ayahs

Central to The Empress is Rani. She is hired by Mrs Matthews to accompany her on the long sea voyage to take care of the children, her baggage and to make necessary arrangements for her comfort during her return journey from India to Britain. Most British households in India employed nannies, known as ayahs, alongside servants. Like Rani, these women established a deep bond with the children. To help on the journey to Britain, families enlisted their family ayah (like Rani) or hired a travelling ayah. Their numbers increased when the Suez Canal opened in 1869, shortening the sea journey from Britain to India by some 4,500 miles.

Some British families used dubious employment practices, sometimes dismissing their ayah on arrival in Britain, which Rani experiences at the hands of Mrs Matthews:

RANI: But where will I go? Where will I find work? I am a complete stranger in this country.

SUSAN: That is not my problem. (Act 1, Scene 4)

Although Rani is paid and receives references, many would find themselves completely abandoned. Very few ayahs could rely on employment contracts and often these were not honoured. Stranded ayahs had few options. Some advertised in local newspapers for a passage home. With dwindling finances many were left destitute and resorted to begging. Often they had to wait in England for long periods of time. Abandoned, they were exploited by ruthless landlords, living in over-crowded unsanitary lodging houses and charged high rents. Others found further employment, as Rani does with the Oakham family.

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This rare document is an agreement that lays out the employment terms of Mina Ayah, who was contracted by Mrs G F Greenhill to travel to England with her family on the SS Bengal in mid-April 1896. Alongside the signature of two witnesses, Mina left her mark in the bottom right. Shelfmark: Mss Eur F754/2/1. Usage terms: We have been unable to locate the owner of the copyright in this material. Please contact copyright@bl.uk with any information you have regarding this item.

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A handwritten contract, with a blue border at the top

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Mss Eur F754_2_1 Mina Ayah's employment agreement, 1896

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Gupta also portrays Firoza, an ayah in her thirties who shares wisdom and advice with 16-year-old Rani. By portraying Firoza’s care and friendship, Gupta punctuates the mistreatment of Rani and foregrounds the women’s sense of self. This also provides hope within the drama, which is mirrored by the name Firoza gives to Rani’s baby: Asha (‘It means “Hope”’; Act 2, Scene 1).

The Ayahs’ Home

In Act 2, Scene 3, Rani, Asha and Firoza stay at the Ayahs’ Home. The existence of a lodging house for ayahs in London’s East End can be traced back to the mid-19th century, to an establishment run by Mrs Rogers near Aldgate.¹ During the 1890s, the Ayahs’ Home starts to build its reputation as a respectable place for ayahs to stay. The London City Mission, a Christian charitable organisation which already ran the Strangers’ Home for Asiatics, Africans, and South Sea Islanders, established in 1856 for lascars, took over the Ayahs’ Home in 1900 and moved it from Jewry Street to 26 King Edward Road, Hackney.

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Photograph of the exterior of the Ayahs' Home in Hackney, 1921. The Home relocated from 26 King Edward Road to a larger property at number 4 in 1921. Shelfmark: PP.1041.c. Usage terms: Public Domain.

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Sepia-toned photograph of the exterior of the Ayahs' Home in Hackney, with a group of men and women standing outside

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PP.1041.c Photograph of the exterior of the Ayahs' Home in Hackney

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The Home offered lodgings to ayahs and Chinese amahs waiting for a return passage. Ayahs who had been ill-treated, dismissed from service or simply abandoned also found shelter there. The Home, like an employment agency, connected ayahs with families seeking their services for their journey to India. The Home relied on two incomes. Firstly, a family handed over an ayah’s return ticket, which the matron then sold to another family wishing to employ the ayah’s services. Secondly, the Home was further supported by charitable donations. The raised income was used to pay for food and lodgings. Latterly run by Christian missionaries, the Home put on a daily church service, ayahs were taught hymns and taken to church when possible and there were, as the matron put it, ‘chats in the bedroom’.

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This advertisement from 1910 shows how the Ayahs’ Home worked like an employment agency, connecting ayahs with families. Shelfmark: IOR/L/PJ/6/1035. Usage terms: Public Domain.

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Printed advertisement for the Ayahs Home at 26 King Edwad Road, establshed 1825. It states that Hindustani is spoken and ayahs are lodged for 14 shillings per week

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Gupta was inspired to write the play after she came across a photograph of the Ayahs’ Home in Rozina Visram’s book:

The picture of a group of Asian women sat around a table sewing and reading, wearing saris and Victorian dress, intrigued me. What were these women all doing in East London at the turn of the last century?

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The photograph that inspired Tanika Gupta: women sit around a table at the Ayahs' Home in Hackney, 1904. Shelfmark: 10349.h.12. Usage terms: Public Domain.

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Black and white photograph of the interior of the Ayahs' Home, with women sat around a table sewing and reading

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In Act 2, Scene 3 of The Empress, Gupta animates this photograph. Firoza self-consciously ‘performs’ in the role of the ‘honourable ayah saved by charity and good works’. Then, when left alone, the ayahs show their intelligence, self-awareness and humour as they talk, joke, run, sing and dance together. In the same scene, Rani expresses her ambition to support Dadabhai Naoroji to become the first Indian Member of Parliament. In the archives, there are no known testimonies in ayahs’ own voices. Through this dramatisation, Gupta uses language, staging and characterisation to bring this tableau to life – empowering the ayahs and playfully subverting the historical source.

Hari, Indian seafarers and port cities

Indian seafarers, like Hari, known as lascars, were widely employed across the British Empire due to increasing trade between Britain and India and a demand for cheap labour. Lascar recruitment increased with the advent of steam shipping. In the 1890s, some 24,000 lascars were employed on British ships. By 1914, that number had risen to over 51,000. Working aboard ship they would be employed above and below deck, with some of the hardest work in the engine rooms as firemen, coal trimmers, greasers and donkeymen. They were commandeered by a serang (equivalent to a boatswain or petty officer). Indian seamen were hired on so-called ‘Lascar Articles’ stipulating their terms of employment. As reflected in the play, they were treated badly, discriminated against and their pay was much less than their European counterparts.

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Lascari-Bât (first published 1892) is a dictionary and phrasebook written by merchant seaman A L Valentini. It was intended as a practical tool for British officers commanding multinational crews at sea, but also highlights the discrimination faced by lascars. Threats of disciplinary measures, including pay cuts, are common. Shelfmark: 12906.k.2. Usage terms: Public Domain.

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Page 45 of a Lascari-Bat from 1896, with phrases in Lascari and English, for example 'sixteen rupees a month'

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Due to the difficult conditions, some lascars deserted their ship when they arrived at port cities such as London, Liverpool, Glasgow and Cardiff. As Rani and Hari enter London, they initially stay in an establishment run by ‘Lascar Sally’. In these scenes, the play delves into the world of London’s East End, around Poplar and Limehouse, where Indian lascars who had jumped ship became the earliest settled South Asian working-class communities in Britain. Here, people from different backgrounds and diverse countries intermingled with local populations. Some had relationships with English and Irish women, and the women’s choices were often harshly judged, encapsulated in nicknames such as ‘Lascar Sally’ or ‘Calcutta Louise’. As Hari experiences, there were few opportunities for lascars to make a living – they tried to sign on as sailors on European articles for better working conditions, worked as crossing sweepers, street musicians and entertainers, and pedlars, or set up lodging houses, cafés and curry houses for other sailors. Ayahs found themselves catapulted into this world.

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This collage, printed in a 1906 issue of the Illustrated London News, shows South Asian seafarers working aboard a ship and relaxing in the ‘Home for Asiatic Seamen’. Shelfmark: 11800967. Usage terms: © Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans Picture Library. Except as otherwise permitted by your national copyright laws this material may not be copied or distributed further. 

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Black and white photographic collage of South Asian seafarers, or lascars, at work on ships, above and below deck

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Politics and Dadabhai Naoroji

The play is deeply engaged with the politics of the 1890s. This period saw a number of personalities arrive in London including students who would later shape India’s independence movement. For example, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi studied law between 1888–91 at the Inner Temple and Muhammad Ali Jinnah was a law student at Lincoln’s Inn between 1893–96. In the play, Gupta imagines their encounters with Naoroji. Dadabhai Naoroji was a businessman, academic and politician who first arrived in London at the age of 30. Naoroji developed the ‘drain theory’ highlighting a direct link between high taxation and trade surpluses, which ‘drained’ India of between £30 to 40 million every year, and poverty in India. Naoroji became an important lobbyist for Indian self-rule before standing as an MP.

Naoroji was elected for the Liberal Party in the Central Finsbury constituency in 1892, and championed many causes including votes for women.² He overcame much prejudice and opposition, as expressed by Lord Salisbury when Naoroji was defeated in a previous election in 1886. He stated that ‘I doubt we have yet got to a point when a British constituency will take a black man to represent them’. Gupta dramatises these events in Act Two, Scene 7, opening the scene with Dadabhai, Gandhi and William ‘in high spirits’ after his ‘jubilant’ victory:

DADABHAI: (Laughing.) For goodness’ sake, put me down! I’m going to fall, you are all too intoxicated... Rani, do tell them to put me down.

WILLIAM: The new Member of Parliament for the constituency of Finsbury!

GANDHI: The British electorate have finally kicked Salisbury in the guts and elected “a black man”.

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This photograph of Dadabhai Naoroji dates from 1892 – the year that he was elected Liberal MP for Finsbury, London. Shelfmark: 14119.f.37. Usage terms: Public Domain.

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Photograph of Dadabhai Naoroji, printed on the page of a magazine

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Abdul Karim

Many of the scenes in the play depict the tender relationship between Queen Victoria and Abdul Karim and the prejudice he faced at court.

Abdul Karim was one of several Indian servants to arrive at the Royal Household to be ‘presented’ as a gift on the Queen's Golden Jubilee in 1887 (dramatised in Act 1, Scenes 3 and 4B). Ten years earlier, Parliament had given Victoria the title of Empress of India.

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Proclamation by the Queen to the People of India, 1 November 1858. In the aftermath of the Indian Rebellion (1857–58), the British Parliament passed the Government of India Act, transferring the rights and administrative authority of the East India Company to the British Crown. Shelfmark: MSS EUR D 620. Usage terms: Public Domain.

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First page of Queen Victoria's 1858 Proclamation, headed with the British royal coat of arms, followed by printed text and a handwritten note

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Abdul Karim stood out and received special favour from the Queen, raising much anxiety and resistance from courtiers. In 1889, she promoted him to munshi, teaching the Queen Hindustani, and they discussed Indian religions and culture together. He was further promoted to the title of hafiz and Secretary, aiding the Queen on petitions relating to India. His quick elevation caused much resentment at court, prompting several palace intrigues to discredit him (dramatised in Act 1, Scene 13, where a hostile Lady Sarah speaks with the Queen). After Queen Victoria’s death in 1901, his papers were burnt at Frogmore Cottage which was bestowed to him as a grace-and-favour house. He returned to India and died in his hometown of Agra in 1909.

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A depiction of Abdul Karim with Queen Victoria at her desk, from the Paris-based magazine, Illustration. This issued announced Victoria’s death in 1901. Shelfmark: LOU.F63. Usage terms: Public Domain.

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Magazine cover featuring Queen Victoria sat at a desk writing, and Abdul Karim standing next to the desk holding papers 

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This letter, written by Lord Ponsonby on 27 April 1897, reveals the prejudice Abdul Karim faced at court. Shelfmark: Mss Eur F84/126/a.

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Usage terms: Crown Copyright, Open Government Licence.

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First page of a typewritten letter from Lord Ponsonby about Abdul Karim, with a sentence saying 'the following is strictly confidential'

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Staging and design

As Gupta has emphasised, theatre is a ‘collaborative’ medium to make a play text come alive on stage. This includes acting, set design, lighting, music, direction, fight and movement choreography. One major device in The Empress is that parts of the action take place simultaneously in different locations, and scenes are intercut with each other. The play features three such split scenes – in Act 1, Scene 15 (Scene 17 in the 2023 version of the play), and in Act 2, Scenes 5 and 11. For example, in Act 2, Scene 11, Gupta intercuts Queen Victoria’s preparation for her Jubilee celebrations with a speech Naoroji gives on famine in India to contrast the lived reality of colonialism with the projected benevolent image of empire embodied by the Queen-Empress. It allows the audience to access quickly the different settings across the class divide and suggest simultaneity in the action taking place.

The Empress premiered at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Swan Theatre in 2013 in a production directed by Emma Rice. A decade later, in 2023, the play was revived in a new production at the RSC’s Swan Theatre and Lyric Hammersmith, this time directed by Pooja Ghai. For this new production Gupta returned to the script and made some significant adjustments to the text, tweaking some of the language, adding dialogue and characters, such as Muhammad Ali Jinnah, further texturing the historical narrative of the play and foregrounding Rani’s resilience.

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Rani and Hari in the 2013 production of The Empress. 2J66R9M © Donald Cooper / Alamy Stock Photo. Except as otherwise permitted by your national copyright laws this material may not be copied or distributed further.

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Photograph of actors playing Rani and Hari in The Empress, sat together on top of luggage trunks and looking upwards, smiling

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Footnotes

[1] To find out more about the evolution of the home, its owners and service provision, please see these articles by Victoria Haskins <https://ayahsandamahs.com/2022/04/21/the-ayahs-and-amahs-home-a-history/> and <https://ayahsandamahs.com/2022/04/28/the-ayahs-and-amahs-home-a-history-2/>

[2] Naoroji received many endorsements including from the famous nurse, Florence Nightingale and Labour politician, Keir Hardie. As an MP, Naoroji, while often described as ‘Member for India’, championed many causes, including local temperance societies, working men’s clubs and trade unions. He also supported the Irish Home Rule bill. How serious he took his responsibility is indicated by his voting record – in 1893/94 he voted 304 times out of a total of 310 parliamentary votes.

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Written by Dr Florian Stadtler

Dr Florian Stadtler is Senior Lecturer in Literature and Migration at the University of Bristol. He researches South Asian and British South Asian drama, film, history and literature. He is co-investigator on the AHRC-funded project, "Remaking Britain: South Asian Connections and Networks, 1830s to the present", a partnership between the University of Bristol the British Library and Queen Mary University of London. Among his publications are as editor Salman Rushdie in Context  (2023) and the special issue  ‘Britain and India: cross-cultural encounters’ (2012) for the magazine Wasafiri. With Susheila Nasta he has curated, Asian Britain: A Photographic History (2013).

The text in this article is available under the Creative Commons License.

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