Colonial India & The North-West Frontier (1 Viewer)

[PolarBear]

Another publicity still from Wee Willie Winkie

BTW--This Shirley Temple film was directed by John Ford and he foreshadows his later US Cavalry versus Indians films with British Highlanders versus Afghan tribesmen. Both subjects are about conflict on frontiers

 

[PolarBear]

A publicity still from Gunga Din

 

[PolarBear]

Hollywood's North-West Frontier

This is a photo of the Alabama Hills near Lone Pine, California which served Hollywood filmmakers as a backdrop for countless Westerns but also stood in for the North-West Frontier in their 1930s India/NWF classics such as Wee Willie Winkie and Ginga Din.

 

[Louis Badolato]

Thanks for the shots! Brings back memories of watching Saturday afternoon movies on local TV (before cable). I will happily watch anything with Victor McLaglen, from Wee Willie Winkee and Gunga Din, to my second favorite movie of all time, the Quiet Man (in which he co-stars with John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara).

 

[REVWARBUFF]

Very cool stuff Randy!! As others have stated, this is an area I otherwise would not have considered but you have made it very interesting. Thanks for sharing and please add more.

Mark

 

[PolarBear]

In an earlier post I showed an illustration of an Anglo-Indian Tiger Hunt. Here is a related illustration showing a dead tiger being lifted on to the back of an elephants. The process was known as "tiger padding". The weight of the tiger is suggested by the number of men required to do the job and the need to have the elephant lay down on his legs. In the right background you can see the British hunters in red tunics and white tropical helmets riding in howdahs on the backs of elephants.

"Tiger Padding" Illustrated London News (hand colored) (1876)

 

[PolarBear]

Here is another illustration from the 1876 Illustrated London News, most likely showing the visit of the Prince of Wales to India in 1876. The two earlier hand colored illustrations of tiger hunts posted on this thread are related to that visit. What we see here are preparations just prior to the hunt. Tiger hunting was very popular among British military officers stationed in India in the 19th Century.

"A Tiger Hunting Party" (1876) Illustrated London News

 

[PolarBear]

A Badger Mask Sporran of the 93rd Highlanders, India c.1910

Animal 'masks' are frequently used to decorate the front of the sporran (purse or pouch) worn over the traditional Scottish kilt. The sporran substitutes for the lack of pockets on the kilt.

After finding this image I did some further image searching on the badger sporran and the 93rd (Argyll & Sutherland) Highlanders and my findings are in the subsequent posts.

 

[PolarBear]

The 93rd Highlanders have a long history in India. They are perhaps best known for their heroic actions during the Indian Mutiny (1857-58) and the Relief of Lucknow and the storming of the Secundra Bagh on November 16, 1857 for which they were awarded Victoria Crosses. Here is a 19th Century watercolor depicting this event.

 

[PolarBear]

Here is another Victorian watercolor, showing the 93rd being welcomed by the British residents of Lucknow. If you look carefully you will see that one of the members of the 93rd is wearing a sporran decorated with a badger mask.

 

[PolarBear]

Here is another illustration showing the 93rd and the Relief of Lucknow and the badger sporrans of the highlanders are clearly evident.

 

[PolarBear]

Further image research turned up a Tuck postcard from 1910 (the same year as the badger sporran in the first post on the topic) showing the 93rd Highlanders in India in the early decades of the 20th Century wearing the badger sporran.

 

[PolarBear]

For toy soldier collectors Wm. Britain has made 7 figures of the 93rd Highlanders for their Victoria Cross series on the Indian Mutiny. These figures. however, do not show the badger mask sporran. An example from the series is given below:

 

[trooper]

The badger head sporran was only worn by sergeants and officers. Other ranks wore the black hair sporran with six white tassels nicknamed the "swinging six".

 

[PolarBear]

The badger head sporran was only worn by sergeants and officers. Other ranks wore the black hair sporran with six white tassels nicknamed the "swinging six".

Trooper

Thank you for this clarification. It is much appreciated.

Randy

 

[PolarBear]

As Trooper mentioned only officers and sergeants wore the badger sporran. The WB Indian Mutiny set of 93rd Highlanders Colour Sgt. James Munro Rescuing Capt. Walsh shows this clearly below. The other five 93rd Highlanders in the Indian Mutiny series are Other Ranks and wear the 'swinging six" sporran.

 

[PolarBear]

Among the sources of pictorial culture for exploring Colonial India and the North-West Frontier are postcards. These images tell us what sites appealed to the public and especially Western tourists visiting the Asian subcontinent in the last half of the 19th Century and the early decades of the 20th. Among the dominant sources for these cards was the English firm of Raphael Tuck & Sons.

From time to time I will be posting examples of these cards relevant to the topic under consideration. Since Anglo-India is at the center of the thread, I will start with a card commemorating a visit to India by the Royal Family:


Commemoration of the Visit of Their Royal Highnesses the Prince (George) and Princess (Mary) of Wales to India, 1905-1906.

 

[PolarBear]

Sepoys of the Khyber Rifles 1910

Postcard by Raphael Tuck and Sons

Caption on reverse side of card:

"The native tribes of India have, since the first occupation of the country by the British, been trained to act as soldiers to guard their own districts. These Sepoys, as they are known, make excellent troops, especially when officered by Europeans*. The Khyber Rifles are recruited from various frontier tribes, such as the Afridis and are employed practically solely in the forts and roads of Khyber Province."

*A point of view typical of 19th C colonial attitudes towards the non-Western inhabitants of imperial possessions.

 

[PolarBear]

Christmas in India 1881

From The Graphic

An idealized view of a British family celebrating Christmas away from the British Isles. Notice the Bengal tiger rug on the floor and the little girl with a drum on her lap unwinding the pugree from a tropical helmet. The setting is under a canvas awning likely just outside (the verandah) the family bungalow (the typical Anglo-Indian home). The family is attended to by three typical Indian servants: a server bringing a tray of wine, a punkah wallah moving an overhead fan to keep the family cool, and an acyah or nanny taking care of the family's son in the left background.

 

[PolarBear]

Sketches of Indian Life (1890)

W.W. Lloyd


Introduction:

We have already looked at the work of William Lloyd, the soldier-artist who had served in the Zulu War of 1879 and published a book of his illustrations from that conflct called “On Active Service”. In our Indian thread we saw some of the work he did for the P & O Steamship line called P & O Pencillings which documented his voyage to India in 1890. Now I want to look at his other publication from that trip: Sketches of Indian Life published in 1890 by Chapman & Hall, London. The book consists of an illustrated cover and 17 other color illustrations of his impressions of his visit to India. The book records his selective views of the Indian and British inhabitants and their interaction during the late Victorian era. He highlights such standard subjects as British club life, hunting, vacationing in cool mountain retreats, the military, and the relationship between the native Indians and their British rulers and visitors. The book offers a cross-section of what Anglo-Indian life in the “Jewel in the Crown” was like during the Raj era of High Empire. The illustrations sometimes include examples of British condescension towards the indigenous population and a number of stereotypes typical of the period and its views about non-Western peoples. The British who went to India during this period found themselves in an environment of new sights, sounds, and smells. Some of that experience is captured for us in Lloyd’s book.

To put the book in context, here are selected events from the 1890s

1890:

Publication of Alfred Thayer Mahan’s The Influence of Seapower Upon History

Battle of Wounded Knee

Cecil Rhodes becomes Prime Minister of the Cape Colony

1892

Kipling publishes Barrack Room Ballads which includes the poem "Gunga Din"

1893 Wm. Britain established

1896 C.E. Callwell’s Small Wars* published.

*“Originally published in 1896, Small Wars is an ambitious attempt to analyze and draw lessons from Western experience in fighting campaigns of imperial conquest. The quality of C. E. Callwell’s analysis, the sweep of his knowledge, and his ability to integrate information from an impressive variety of experiences resulted in Small War’s reputation as a minor classic. r32;r32;For the historian, Small Wars remains a useful and vital analysis of irregular warfare experiences ranging from Hoche’s suppression of the Vendée revolt during the French Revolution, to the British wars against semi-organized armies of Marathas and Sikhs in mid-nineteenth-century India, to the Boer War of 1899–1902.”

1898 Spanish American War

1899 Boer War

1.Cover

The Colonel’s post orderly. Native…..*

Where the word is illegible or cut off I have left blanks in the labels throughout.