Come to a talk about John Hamilton Hall (1799-1865) at Kelso on 29 March

Part of the research I did for Berwick 900 last year was about a Coldstream lad, John Hamilton Hall, born in 1799, whose father was not only a general physician but also a Freeman of the Berwick-upon-Tweed Guild. 

Seeing his name and occupation in the Guild records led me on an interesting and puzzling hunt for information about his family, his career as an officer in the East India Company’s Bombay Infantry. 

On Sunday, 29^th March, at the Abbey Row Community Centre, The Knowes, Kelso, TD5 7BJ, I’ll be talking about his life and career, however, just as importantly, I’ll be discussing how I researched him, some of the problems I found and the difficulties in reading and understanding the records.  Map.

The talk has been widely advertised, including in Berwick, due to local Berwick interest, so come early to get a good seat. 

I warmly invite you to attend the talk whether you are a member or not. Doors open at 2pm; the talk begins at 2.30pm. 

We'll have a range of family history publications available to buy, and there’ll be light refreshments (donation expected) available after the talk. If you have a problem with your family history, please discuss it with one of our volunteers.

East India Company At Home Project Podcasts

Some of the short presentations at the East India Company At Home Project conference held in Edinburgh a few weeks ago are on History Spot. The speakers are Helen Clifford, Ellen Filor, Margot Finn and Kate Smith.

That website has lots of other interesting history podcasts. 

Come to the East India Company at Home Study Day, Edinburgh

In January, I wrote about Warwick University's East India Company at Home project which will examine how luxury goods from Asia (mainly India) arrived in wealthy homes and their significance.

The project is holding a Study Day on Friday 7th September from 11.30am to 5pm at the University of Edinburgh Library.

The purpose of the event is to bring together academics, curators, heritage sector professionals, local and family historians who are interested in Scottish families, houses and objects with East India Company connections. The event is a follow-up to a study day they held at the British Library in London earlier this year although the focus is different.

The focus in Edinburgh will be on family history and literary sources (poems, stories, family letters and other manuscripts) and will also spend some time looking at the collection of manuscripts brought back by Company servants in order to consider how East India Company officials collected, read and exchanged books. It will also discuss the different ways in which East India Company officials and their families used ideas of family, home and the domestic space when navigating their imperial experiences.

The Study Day is free of charge and lunch will be provided. If you would like to go, email Ellen Filor (who is interested in East India Company family networks and identities in Roxburghshire between 1780 and 1857) at East.India.Company@warwick.ac.uk.

East India Company Bonds and Covenants

The huge and powerful British East India Company was originally formed to trade with the East Indies but at different times traded not only in India and Sri Lanka (Ceylon), but also in Hong Kong, Burma, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore. Its main trade was in cotton, dyes, opium, silk, tobacco, salt, saltpetre and tea but it also carried manufactured goods from Britain to sell.

Company employees, soldiers and sailors frequently took (against Company rules) small quantities of goods to trade as well. The Company eventually came to rule large areas of India and other places with its own private army and navy exercising military power and assuming administrative functions which lasted until 1858. It issued coinage in India and Malaysia.

Until 1833, people who wanted to visit India and the Company's other territories were required to observe their rules and to deposit a Bond guaranteeing their good behaviour. Traders had to sign a covenant agreeing not to undertake unapproved business. Bonds were usually to the value of £200 for a visitor and £500 or more for traders.  Each bond applicant had to be recommended by two 'Sureties'  (essentially referees). In the 18th and early 19th centuries, joining the East India Company was a likely route to wealth, if you survived.

The Families In British India Society have indexed the important information in some of the bonds and covenants in the British Library. There are over 3,000 bonds from 1607 to 1770 and 12,500 bonds and other documents from 1814 to 1865. It’s worth looking at this source, if there were members of your family who went to India in these periods. 

East India Company Family Networks and Identities in Roxburghshire

The East India Company at Home, 1757-1857 is a 3-year research project ending in August 2014 funded by the Leverhulme Trust, led by Professor Margot Finn of Warwick University.

The project will look at the routes by which Asian luxury goods (for example, ceramics, textiles, metal-ware, furniture and fine art) found their way into the homes of Britain’s governing elite in the Georgian and early Victorian periods, and examines
what these exotic objects meant in these domestic settings and in wider national and international contexts.

The project builds upon historical research produced by family and local historians, curators, academics and other researchers into a wider collaborative research project that illuminates Britain's global material culture from the eighteenth century
to the present.

Dr Helen Clifford will play a leading role in orchestrating the project’s engagement with local and family historians, working together with the project's full-time postdoctoral research fellow, Dr Kate Smith.

Ms Ellen Filor will be funded by the grant to complete a doctoral dissertation on East India Company family networks and identities in Roxburghshire (1780-1857) as an integral part of the larger research team.

Express your interest in the East India Company at Home project.