Pictures from the Raj

This is an example of the means of description that existed for families and friends in the Victorian era, long before the days of Facebook and photo-sharing.  In a collection found on Sotheby's auction site in Australia.

An example of a Colonial Interior at the Lucknow Residence in India of my great-great grandfather.  This watercolour was painted by his first wife Cordelia Ellen Thomas in 1855.  Cordelia died of smallpox during the mutiny and siege in 1857, the baby on the left of the painting Caroline Home Thomas, survived and spent most of her life in  Australia.

Memorial to the artist (guess no copyright on painting)
 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en)

Captain L F C Thomas of The Madras Artillery was responsible for the ammunition and explosives at Lucknow.  As the siege became more intense he was ordered to destroy the defensive fort known as the Muchee Bhowun and to bring the troops out to defend the Europeans trapped in the Lucknow residency.  He must have been quite proud of his actions there, because on  his retirement to England he was to name his house in Deptford after that fort.  

Lancelot was the second generation of our family linked to the Honourable East India Company, his father spent much of his military service in Afghanistan in the Bengal Native Infantry.  Interestingly the enemy and the politics were little different from the present day, the enemy included mentally unstable Bin Laden style Wahhabi tribesmen and the British mission failed due to the use of a puppet Afghan leader.

As for the Indian "Mutiny",  the struggle for independence was very slow and confused by politics and propaganda, the history of modern India was truly both horrific and fascinating.  India is the one place and society in the world that I would love to have visited before I died.