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The Indian Tapestry : Marjorie Sykes : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

The Indian Tapestryby Marjorie Sykes

Publication date 1997-10-02Usage Public Domain Mark 1.0

Topics History of Quakers, India, Pakistan, Marjorie Sykes

Collection ArvindGupta; JaiGyanLanguage English

History of Quakers in India and Pakistan

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Full text of "The Indian Tapestry"

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QUAKER THREADS 

IN THE HISTORY 

OF INDIA 

IST^N & 

JGLADESH 

FROM THE 

SEVENTEENTH 

CENTURY TO 

INDEPENDENCE 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY : QUAKHR TI I READS IN THE 

HISTORY OF INDIA, PAKISTAN & BANGLADESH 

THE WOODEN 'QUAKER' GUNS 

The front cover depicts the Three-Master Bengal, commissioned for the India 

trade in 1814 by Quaker-owners Cropper & Rathbone, complete with 

nine-aside, wooden 'Quaker Guns' pointing threateningly outwards. Painted 

at Greenock in 1815 by Robert Salmon. 

Courtesy of James A. Cropper 

HIMALAYAN PILGRIMAGE 

Tho Quakers, tefi and right Geoffrey Maw and Khmltilah 

with ihi'ir p&fflr fit i/w wriirc. Now fhe isim :msses: ra Chapter Kill 

An Indian Tapestry 

QUAKER THREADS IN THE HISTORY 

OF INDIA, PAKISTAN & BANGLADESH 

From the Seventeenth Century to Independence 

by 

Completed and lidited by 

Geoffrey Carnall 

r I] 

Sessions Book Trust 

York, England 

O 1997 

The Literary Executors of Marjorie Sykes (Ch. I to XXII) 

C 1997 

Geoffrey Carnall (Ch. XXIII) 

ISBN 1 85072 135 1 

Printed in 10 on 11 point Plantin Typeface 

by William Sessions Limited 

The Ebor Press 

York, England 

Contents 

Chapter Pu^c 

Foreword by Martha Dart vii 

Acknowledgements ix 

Editor's Note by Geoffrey Carnall x 

I The Beginnings : 1657 to 1661 1 

II A Servant of 'John Company' : 1749 to 1751 8 

III Slavery, Sugar and Shipping : 1752 to 1838 17 

IV Sowers of Seeds : 1838 to 1860 28 

V Calcutta : Invitation and Response : 1861 to 1864 ... 39 

VI Quaker Households in India : 1865 to 1881 50 

VII Quaker Missionaries 76 

VIII The Invisible Stream 90 

IX The Changing Nineties 97 

X The Famine Years - and After 112 

XI Families and Friends- 1883 ' 131 

XII The 'Defeated Causes' 146 

XIII Vision Renewed 157 

XIV Sadhus and Pilgrims 173 

XV Kotgarh and Nagpur : 1920 to 1927 186 

XVI 'Embassies of the City of God' : 1919 to 1927 197 

XVII Cross Purposes : 1919 to 1935 213 

XVIII Learning from India : 1920 to 1934 231 

XIX Indian Politics : 1931 to 1935 245 

XX A Vision to Pursue : 1934 to 1937 252 

XXI The Vision Fades : 1937 to 1941 267 

XXII India at War: Flood, Famine, Fire : 1942 to 1945 ... 281 

XXIII Partition and After, by Geoffrey Carnall 293 

Index ^ 309 

Marjorie Sykes 327 

v 

Illustrations 

Page 

Himalayan Pilgrimage 

frontispiece 

Thomas Lidbetter and family, Bombay 1886 

52 

Frances Knox, nee Reynolds 

56 

Rachel Metcalfe, aged 38 

56 

Samuel Baker 

77 

Rachel Metcalfe and Anna Baker, with orphans 

81 

Bal Mukand with his wife Ruth 

87 

Ernest and Sarah Munnings, with William aged 1 year 

104 

Frederick Sessions 

104 

Jack Hoyland with sons John and Denys 

161 

Frank Squire 

198 

Frederic Gravely 

198 

Marjorie Sykes and Mary Barr in 1968 

247 

Hilda Cashmore 

253 

C. F. Andrews and Ranjit Chetsingh 

263 

Dr Mary Mammen 

279 

The FAU in Calcutta, 1942 

284 

Stephen Lee and Sujata Davies with other FAU members . 

285 

Preparing for the Cabinet Mission, 1946 

300 

Jibon Banerjee and Swarn Sarin, 1946 

303 

Maps 

Between pages 

Northern and Central India c.1875 to illustrate 

Chapters I- VI 17 & 18 

Hoshangabad and its surroundings to illustrate 

Chapter VII et seq 75 & 76 

India and Pakistan in 1947, locating some of the 

places mentioned by Marjorie Sykes 293 & 294 

vi 

Foreword 

by Martha Dart 

A member of Glaremont Friends Meeting, California, USA 

Author of Marjorie Sykes : Quaker Gandhian (1993) and 

Compiler and Editor of 

Transcending Tradition : Excerpts from the Writings and Talks 

of Marjorie Sykes (1995) 

Aijl of us who had any connection with Marjorie Sykes during the last 

years of her life (before her death at 90 in August 1995), were caught up 

in the excitement of her detective work as she pursued clues for her 

masterpiece, An Indian Tapestry. Her personal letters of these years reflect 

this: £ I don't believe in leaving a single stone unturned', wrote Marjorie. 

And she didn't! 'Fascinating new things, keep turning up. I have discov- 

ered a young sensitive Quaker who died in a village near Dharwad 

(Karnatica) in 1825! Bits of his own "journal" have survived, and I hope 

to pursue other clues in the India Office Library. Yesterday two addresses 

were put into my hands of people I had given up all hope of finding' - 

and so on. 

'One very pleasant engagement is with a woman who was born in 

Madras about the time I first reached there and who tells me she has some 

of her father's very e arly letters (first World War days). I am going over to 

spend the night in her home and read them. Contemporary letters are so 

precious.' Much of her work resembled a cross-word puzzle. 'The detec- 

tive work is still turning up some curious little treasures, without anv 

special effort on my part, and it is fun fitting them into where they belong.' 

It is clear that Marjorie enjoyed her work and got a lot of fun out of 

it. 'A letter came from dear Ted Milligan [ex-librarian Friends House] . I 

had actually got ahead of him in discovering the English roots of some of 

my dramatis per sonae, so he couldn't resist trying to get ahead of me again 

and the result is wonderful!' 

vii 

Absorbed though she was in her work during those years, other con- 

cerns harking back to her 60 years in India also demanded her attention. 

In July 1990, she wrote: 'I am temporarily diverted from my main job to 

something closely connected which I felt a strong "leading" should be 

done now. This is to edit Geoffrey Maw's incomplete but fascinating 

description of life on the Narmada river in the days when he lived in 

Hoshangabad. I discovered these papers in the Selly Oak Library and 

spent a good deal of my time at Wbodbrooke studying and making notes, 

and by the end of term began to feel that they should be put into read- 

able form and published as a little contribution to save the Narmada from 

the awful threat of 30 dams from source to mouth which would com- 

pletely ruin the river, the forests, the people, the traditions, for the sake 

of very problematic benefit. There is strong and mounting opposition not 

only in India but world wide, I think there is hope.' This was published 

as Narmada: The Life of a River. 

Coinciding with the publication of this book a related concern 

demanded her attention. Fifty years earlier, she had been working with 

Tagore during the last years of his life, having been invited by hirn to be 

the 'Representative of English Culture' at Santiniketan. She had become 

fluent in Bengali and had translated many of his works into English. In 

1992 Marjorie wrote to me: 'A sudden revived interest in my English 

translation of one of Tagore 's plays, Muktadhara (made at his request but 

not completed during his lifetime), because in it the damming of a river 

is a symbol of arrogant interference with nature and other men's lives. 

This is related to strong feeling about the Narmada and also the Tehri 

dam in the region of the Himalayan earthquake last October. So I need 

to see what can be done about that .' 

During this period also Marjorie was involved in translating the 

memoirs of Vinoba Bhave from a Hindi text prepared by Kalindi. She 

could often be found working on such translations as she travelled about 

England on the train! This translation was published in 1994 as Moved 

by Love - The Memoirs of Vinoba Bhave. 

Marjorie was often in demand during these years to lecture on Tagore 

or Gandhi at gatherings throughout England. Her years of working with 

Gandhi during his lifetime and then as Principal of his Basic Education 

Program at Sevagram, later extending this programme to her own home 

in the Nilgiri Hills, made her one of the few people still alive who could 

share these experiences with the rest of us. 

Through it all she continued to work steadily and quietly on An Indian 

Tapestry. In 1 993, she wrote : 'This book has to grow naturally from chapter 

to chapter.' And again: 'I've had some amazing finds lately. They remind 

me of that saying by the great Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple : 

viii 

"When I pray coincidences happen." I suppose I do use a kind ni pr;i\vi .' 

She clearly did because that habit showed up in all of the other areas <>t 

her life as well. 

Marjorie had a distinguished career but she will be remembered mosi 

of all for her gift of friendship and the transforming power of her spirit. 

This has been best expressed by Barbara Bowman, an English Quaker 

and a close friend for many years: 'I think of Marjorie as a woman of 

absolute integrity who lived in accordance with high principles, especially 

of truth and simplicity. Unencumbered by material possessions, she was 

able to live fully under the guidance of the Spirit and to respond with love 

and understanding to the needs of others.' 

This book shows that alongside that living witness was much know- 

ledge and wonderful delving into the history of Quakers in India of which 

she herself was such a significant part in this century. It is very good to 

have this last gift from her. 

Acknowledgements 

Appreciation is expressed to the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust 

for their generous assistance to the publishers, Sessions Book Trust, 

towards the financing of this book. 

Lawrence Lidbetter kindly supplied the photograph of Thomas 

Lidbetter on p. 52, Rachel Gilliatt the photograph of Jack Hoyland on 

p. 1 6 1 , and Richard Symonds the FAU group photograph on p. 284. Other 

illustrations were brought to the publishers by Marjorie Sykes herself. 

Most are courtesy of Friends House Library, London, and others she 

obtained from equally appreciated personal sources. The publishers are 

grateful to all concerned. 

The publishers are similarly grateful to Martha Dart of California for 

her Foreword; to Malcolm Thomas for the Literary Executors and to 

Chris Lawson of Woodbrooke for their encouragement and wise advice; 

and specially to Geoffrey Carnall for editing and completing this last great 

work of the indefatigable Marjorie Sykes. 

ix 

Editor's Note 

The present book is a completely rewritten and considerably 

expanded version of Marjorie Sykes' Quakers in India: a Forgotten Century^ 

published in 1980 by Allen and Unwin. It was Marjorie's intention to 

carry the story from the seventeenth century to the late 1980s, but the 

last chapter she actually wrote was the one on India during the Second 

World War. Her literary executors asked me to write a concluding chapter 

that would deal with events leading up to India's independence and its 

immediate aftermath. This I have done, making use of the excellent doc- 

umentation Marjorie had gathered for the task. Her materials will be of 

great value to future inquirers into the activities of Quakers in India in 

the post-independence period, and will in due course be sorted and 

deposited in Friends' House Library in London. 

Marjorie 's handwriting is beautifully legible, and her manuscript pre- 

sents few problems to the editor. The same cannot, alas, be said of all her 

notes and references, which are often clues for the diligent inquirer rather 

than a ready guide to her sources. Thus she quotes from Charles Darwin's 

Autobiography a passage only to be found in Nora Barlow's scholarly 

edition, published in 1958. A reader of the far more widely accessible 

edition in the Thinker's Library might well be puzzled, and Marjorie 's 

own note simply mentions the years to which the passage refers, and not 

to any specific edition. I have done my best to clarify references in the 

manuscript in a way that will be useful to readers who want to follow up 

the lines of inquiry suggested by Marjorie's own research, and am grateful 

i < > Sylvia Carlyle, Josef Keith and Malcolm Thomas for helping me in this 

task. Hut I am conscious that perhaps more might have been done, and I 

hopi* readers will be forgiving. 

It has certainly been an inspiriting experience to follow in Marjorie's 

IttniMcps through books and periodicals, some long-forgotten until she dis- 

turbed the dust on their covers, and see how cheerfully she manages to 

answer that of God in every one. 

Geoffrey Carnal! 

x 

CHAPTER I 

The Beginnings : 1657 to 1661 

'The lamps are different but the light is the same; 

it comes from Beyond? 

JALAL UD-DIN RUMI 

The History of Quaker encounters with Southern Asia goes right 

back to the year 1657, when the Quaker movement itself was barely 10 

years old. In order to understand how it began one mus; look both at 

England's connections with the Indian sub-continent, and at the nature 

of the Quaker movement itself. 

During the turmoil of the Civil War and the years which followed, 

many people in all ranks of life 'felt instinctively that religion was running 

to dogma' 1 because of the sectarian disputes which then poisoned the life 

of English churches. These men and women found in public worship no 

spiritual nourishment; as the poet Milton wrote in compassionate indig- 

nation, 'the hungry sheep look up, and are not fed'. Many such 'hungry 

sheep' had begun to meet together in barns and farmhouses, to seek and 

pray for some real spiritual food. 

It was from among these 'Seekers' that the first Quakers came. In 1 647 

a young man named George Fox began travelling among them, telling 

them that he had found what they were looking for. He had been, he said, 

in the blackest depth of despair; then a Voice had reached him: 'There is 

one, even Christ Jesus, who can speak to thy condition.' Christ had become 

for him a living, present Reality, an inward Teacher, a Light in the soul. 

The experience had transformed his life, he told them, and could trans- 

form theirs. Many listened, found the same experiences, and were drawn 

together in a joyful fearless fellowship. They called themselves Friends, 

remembering Jesus' words to his disciples: C I have called you friends.' 

Their enemies in mockery called them 'Quakers' for they were physically 

shaken at times by the experience of the 'Light' in their lives. 

1 

2 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Fox's message was not essentially new, though for him it was a revolu- 

tionary personal discovery. During his boyhood the saintly Benjamin 

Whichcote 2 was teaching that * Christ should be inwardly felt as a principle 

of divine life within us.' The gentle, retiring Whichcote however was little 

known. But in 1 642-3, when Fox as a youth of 1 8 was wrestling with doubt 

and despair, came a famous, widely-read book. This was Religio Medici, 

by Thomas Browne, who was then a young man of 30. 'I am sure,' wrote 

Browne, 'that there is a common spirit that plays within us, and that is the 

Spirit of God. Whoever feels not the warm gale and gentle ventilation of 

that Spirit, I dare not say he lives; for truly without it there is no heat under 

the tropics, nor any light, though I dwelt in the body of the sun.' 

A few years later George Fox was saying very much the same thing: 

'The Lord opened to me by his invisible power how that everyone was 

enlightened by the divine light of Christ, and I saw it shine through all.' 

Everyone, said Fox, and he meant it. The light was for all humanity - for 

the slaves of the West Indies equally with their masters, for the 'heathen, 

Turk and Jew' of eastern lands equally with the Christians of Europe. Men 

and women, of every class, race and creed, might partake of the one life 

and be guided by the one light 'that shines beyond darkness in the hearts 

of all.' 

That last phrase comes not from Christian insight, but from the ancient 

scriptures of India, a country in which English people were taking an 

increasing interest. In 1583 some English adventurers had travelled to 

Aleppo by the famous ship The Tyger^ and then by the river Euphrates, 

the Persian Gulf, and the great port of Hormuz, to India - a direct if haz- 

ardous route. One of them settled among the Portuguese in Goa, another 

at the court of the Mogul Emperor Akbar; a third, Ralph Fitch, travelled 

from the imperial city of Agra by the Jumna and Ganges to Patna, and 

saw the brisk traffic in merchandise along the great rivers. When he 

reached home again in 1591 he recounted his experiences. Might not 

English merchants enter that profitable trade? 

By the end of the century that question had acquired practical urgency. 

Pepper and condiments from the 'spice islands' of the East Indies were 

an attractive addition to the bland, monotonous English diet. This trade 

was in the hands of the Dutch, and in 1 599 they almost tripled their prices. 

In answer to this challenge, and in consultation with Ralph Fitch, the 

English launched 'the worshipful company of London merchants trading 

to the East Indies 5 . The merchants soon discovered that the inhabitants 

of the spice islands had no use for English woollens (!) but that they would 

gladly exchange their peppers for muslins and calicoes from India. The 

East India Company therefore sought and obtained the consent of Akbar's 

successor, the Mogul Emperor Shah Jehan, for trading stations in India. 4 

THE BEGINNINGS : 1657 TO 1661 

3 

The Dutch naturally did not welcome competitors in the spice islands, 

and they were the stronger party. In 1 624 - the year of Fox's birth - they 

drove the English out by the ruthless 'massacre of Amboyna' . The English 

were very angry but could get no redress. The East India Company, finding 

that pepper could be had in India itself, concentrated on India, where the 

Emperor Shah Jehan gave the merchants protection, and invited England v 

to send an ambassador to his court. Under his rule, and that of the Sultan 

of Bijapur in the peninsula, India was prosperous and at peace, and during 

the next decades Indian spices, Indian textiles, even occasionally a well- 

built Indian ship, found their way to the Port of London. 5 

In 1654 the expanding Quaker movement came into contact with the 

Indian trade. Up to then the Friends had drawn their largest numbers of 

recruits from the farming communities and little market towns of the 

north of England, but in that year they carried their message to the key 

cities of the south. 'Ploughmen from the north' arrived in the two great 

sea-ports, London and Bristol, where they soon had a strong foothold. In 

Bristol thousands joined them, from every walk of life and all ranks of 

society. 

In the same year Cromwell's war with the Dutch ended in victory, and 

in some redress for the outrages at Amboyna 30 years earlier. Cromwell 

also reached an agreement with the Portuguese, by which the Anglo- 

Portuguese trade-war in. Indian waters was brought to an end. These 

events were of special interest in Bristol, for Bristol men had long been 

involved in Indian affairs. A Bristol sea-farer, Martin Pring, had been a 

close friend of Sir Thomas Roe, the first ambassador to the Mogul court; 

Pring himself had helped to establish the first trading stations, at Surat 

on the west coast of India and Masulipatam on the east. Another Bristol 

sea-captain, Giles Penn, was familiar with the 'Moorish' (Arab) trade 

routes to India; his son William Penn, Admiral of the Fleet, was a national 

hero of the Dutch war. 

During that war English merchant shipping had been armed against 

its Dutch rivals. Some of these 'privateers' were Bristol ships, and a 

number of them were owned, or part-owned, by families who in 1654-5 

became Friends. Most of these Bristol merchants traded westward across 

the Atlantic, but one of the ships proclaimed her destination in her very 

name: The Bengal Merchant, She was Quaker-owned; the names of her 

owners, Abraham Lloyd and others, appear in contemporary Quaker 

records. She may not have been the only Bristol ship to travel east, for 

there were always plenty of 'interlopers' in the East India Company's pro- 

fitable trade. In general its Directors regarded them with disfavour, but 

The Bengal Merchant was cleanly in good standing; she is listed as carrying 

cargo for the Company to Balasore in the Bay of Bengal. 6 

4 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

From the great English ports Friends at once began to carry their 

message overseas. In 1655 men and women began to travel to Rhode 

Island and Barbados, and to the continent of Europe, in obedience to 'the 

call of the Lord'. Practical questions soon arose. Francis Howgill and 

Edward Burrough, who had led the 1654 'ploughmen' to the port cities, 

realised that Friends in London were carrying an unfairly large share of 

the financial burden of the enterprise. In consultation with Margaret Fell 

(later to become George Fox's second wife), who maintained a kind of 

Quaker headquarters at her home in Cumbria, they and others sent out 

an appeal to every Quaker group, large or small, throughout the country, 

asking for funds towards the cost of overseas service. 

The appeal met with a good response, and in 1657 it was followed by 

a general meeting of Friends, whose central theme was that 'the ever- 

lasting Gospel must be preached to all nations'. There was great enthu- 

siasm; for three days the Bedfordshire country house where the meeting 

took place, and every village inn around, were filled to over-flowing, and 

many Friends offered themselves for service. Some were 'moved of the 

Lord' to go to the 'East Indies', but passages proved 'hard to get and dear', 

and so far as is known only one Friend reached his goal. He returned in 

the summer of 1661 and reported to George Fox in London; Fox in his 

turn included him in the newsletter which he circulated among Friends 

in August: 'Here is a Friend who hath been three years out in the East 

Indies, who hath done much servis, and brings a good report of many 

that received his testimony.' 

Fox tells us no more, not even the traveller's name, but it is tempting 

to speculate a little. Was it The Bengal Merchant, equipped (as she was) 

to carry 'landsmen' as well sailors, which provided the passage - or some 

other Quaker-owned ship? The question is probably unanswerable. 

More may be said, however, about the 'many' who 'received his testi- 

mony' and gave the traveller a friendly hearing. The ancient Indian vision, 

quoted earlier, of the light that 'shines beyond darkness in the hearts of 

all', had lived on in the poetry and song of every regional language. Just 

as Quaker experience echoed that of Benjamin Whichcote and Thomas 

Browne in England, so in south India it echoed that of the Tamil saint 

Appar, who travelled from village to village humbly cleaning the little 

shrines, and singing of 'the Teacher who enters the heart' and 'the jew- 

elled lamp that shines in the soul'. Appar's fellow-countrymen, if they met 

that Quaker traveller, might well have recognised that though his 'lamp' 

was different, its light was the same. 

Such poet-devotees were to be found in every part of India, and like 

the Quakers they were drawn from every social class and from both sexes. 

THE BEGINNINGS : 1657 TO 1661 

5 

Like the Quakers they proclaimed that earthly rank means nothing before 

God: 

It is but folly to ask what the caste of a saint may be. 

The banker has sought God, the washerman and the carpenter. 7 

Hindu and Muslim alike have reached that goal 

Where remains no mark of distinction. 

The author of those lines was a Muslim weaver named Kabir, who lived 

in the 14th century, and who was familiar also with that inward battle 

which Friends sometimes called 'the Lamb's war'. 

Behold, the battle is joined, the the attack is fierce. 

Anger, passion and pride, ambition, lust and desire 

Are the foes who charge against us. 

The warrior's sword is the Holy Name. In this war 

No place is there for cowards. 8 

There were others, like the Baul singers of Bengal, who spoke as bluntly 

as George Fox did about the way in which the external trappings of reli- 

gion may block the path to the reality: 

Thy path, O Lord, is hidden by mosque and temple. 

Thy Voice I hear - but priest and guru bar the way! 

Some of these poets were contemporaries of George^ Fox himself. One 

such was Tuka Ram, a village grain-seller in western India, whose imagery 

is that of daily village life: 

A humble earthenware pot is given honour; 

It is set on the head, and carried high, 

Because of the life-giving water within. 

Show reverence to humanity; God dwells within humanity. 9 

Another of Fox's contemporaries was a Muslim pit (saint) who founded 

a brotherhood called the Sauds. 10 Its members lived very simply, earned 

their bread by their own labour, and served the needy Hindu and Muslim 

alike. They also, like their Quaker contemporaries, refused to take an oath. 

Many of the poet-devotees were known only within the regions whose 

language they spoke. But every region also possessed its own version of 

the great epic stories which were and are familiar all over Ir dia, retold by 

poets in every local language. One of these is the Ramayana, which cele- 

brates the divine-human hero Rama. At the climax of this story the 

unarmed Rama is told that the demon-king Ravan is approaching in his 

war-chariot to give battle. Rama replies: 

The chariot of victory is of another kind. Courage and fortitude 

are its wheels, truthfulness and upright conduct its banner and its 

6 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

standard. The horses are self-control and goodwill, harnessed with 

cords of forgiveness and compassion. 

There, in Indian imagery, is 'the whole armour of God', and what George 

Fox called 'the patience which gets the victory'. 

The image of the war-chariot appears again in the epic Mahabharata, 

in the famous section called Bhagavad Gita (the song of the Lord) in which 

the divine-human Krishna acts as charioteer to the hero Arjuna, and 

strengthens him for the coming battle. The ideal which Krishna sets before 

Arjuna has lived on through the centuries: nishkama Karma, 'action 

without desire'. In other words, do what you see to be your duty, do not 

trouble whether you 'succeed' or 'fail'. As Admiral William Penn was to 

say to his Quaker son and namesake, 'never wrong your conscience'. 

It was from insights such as these that many of those with whom Friends 

have worked in India derived their spiritual strength. The same insights 

may have enabled their ancestors to 'receive the testimony' of the name- 

less Friend who was 'moved of the Lord' to visit India during the years 

between 1657 and 1661. 

Notes to Chapter I 

Books mentioned were published in London unless otherwise indicated. 

[Comments by the editor are enclosed within square brackets], 

1 This phrase is used by Ronald Knox in his book Enthusiasm, Oxford 1950, 

p. 145. 

2 Benjamin Whichcote (1609-83) was Provost of King's College Cambridge. A 

distinguished preacher, he also cared for the poor, taught their children to read, 

and acted as peacemaker in quarrels. 

3 Shakespeare's original audience would have had no difficulty with the refer- 

ence in Macbeth'. 'Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tyger' (I iii 7). 

4 Historical details are derived from The Rise and Fulfilment of British Rule in 

India, by G.T.Garratt and EJ.Thompson, 1934, who quote original sources. 

5 Some of Fox's Puritan contemporaries strongly disapproved of this luxury 

trade, designed in their opinion to 'show the pride of our hearts in decking our 

proud carcases, and feeding our greedy guts with superfluous unnecessary curiosi- 

ties' (Tyranipocrit Discovered, 1649, in Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside 

Down, 1972, p.272.) 

THE BEGINNINGS : 1657 TO 1661 

7 

6 Details of ships and ship-owners are given in J.W.Damer Powell, Bristol 

Privateers and Ships of War, Bristol 1930. For the listing of The Bengal Merchant 

in East India Company records I am indebted to Professor K.N.Choudhury, 

School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. 

7 The occupations named all ranked low in the traditional social hierarchy. 

8 The first of these translations is by Rabindranath Tagore, the great Indian 

poet of the twentieth century, in One Hundred Poems of Kabir, 1914; The second 

by Tagore's friend Mahatma Gandhi, in Songs from Prison, New York 1934. 

9 See John S.Hoyland, Village Songs of Western India, 1 934, p.69. [The Hoyland 

translation differs from tiiat quoted in the text.] 

10 The name Saud is derived from an Arabic root denoting bliss: 'the blessed 

company'. The first Sauds were Meos, tribal people who had become Muslim 

under the influence of the great pir Khwajah Mu'in al din Chisti of Ajmer. For an 

account of their history, see S.Khuda Baksh, Essays Indian and Islamic, 1912 

Professor Vahiduddin of Tughlaqabad, Delhi, kindly summarised for me the infor- 

mation on the Sauds in an Urdu History of the Meos by Abdus Shukoor. 

CHAPTER II 

A Servant of 'John Company' : 

1749 to 1751 

c Some there are who have left a name behind them . . . There 

are some who are unremembered! 

The Wisdom of Joshua ben Sira 

(ecclesiasticus) ch. 44 

After 1661 there is no record of any further Quaker contact with India 

for nearly 90 years. During those years the situation had greatly changed, 

both in India and in the Society of Friends. 

The Emperor Akbar, contemporary with Queen Elizabeth I in 

England, had governed India as a Secular state', and chosen his civil and 

military officers on merit, from Muslim and Hindu Rajput families alike. 

His successor Shah Jehan maintained this principle. Aurangzeb, whose 

reign began in 1 659, was of a different stamp. He carved his way to power 

by destroying the Bijapur sultanate and murdering his own elder brother 

Dara Shikoh. His religious bigotry soon alienated the Rajputs on the one 

hand and the Marathas of western India on the other. There were rebel- 

lions, and when his long reign ended in 1707 his empire was falling apart. 

Regional governors became independent princes; Persians and Afghans 

in turn made themselves masters of Delhi; Maratha armies spread terror. 

In the general insecurity the East India Company could no longer 

'avoid garrisons and warfare', as Sir Thomas Roe had wisely advised in 

happier days. They garrisoned first Fort St George (Madras), then 

Bombay, 1 and then in 1690 Fort William (Calcutta) and Fort St David 

(Cuddalore). Bombay began to grow rapidly, for western India was so 

chad tic that many Indian families sought refuge there. 

8 

A SERVANT OF 'JOHN COMPANY' : 1749 TO 1751 <> 

The English traders were threatened also by their traditional rivals the 

French, who had trading stations at Pondicherry in the south, on the Hugh 

river near Calcutta and on the west coast near Surat. In 174o a French 

force captured and destroyed Fort St George. The news of the disaster 

shook the Directors, who had regarded their business as 'trade, not war'. 

They realised that all their stations were weakly defended, and when peace 

was signed in 1748 and the ruined Fort handed back to the Company, 

they sought for and appointed an engineer to plan and carry out the work 

needed for the greater security of all their stations. The engineer chosen 

was a Friend. 

Friends had suffered much in England after 1 66 L When the monarchy 

was restored steps were taken to guard against sedition, one of which 

required 'conformity' to the established church. An older law had 

empowered magistrates to administer an oath of loyalty to anyone whose 

conduct aroused suspicion, and they used their power against Friends. 

Friends declared that they would gladly obey 'all just and good laws', but 

that they would neither take an oath nor give up their meetings for worship, 

which they held openly and publicly. As a result thousands were heavily 

fined and thousands more imprisoned in the filthy insanitary jails. Many 

died there, many more were broken in health. Persecution continued inter- 

mittently for the next 25 years, and drove large numbers of Friends to 

seek in the American colonies the freedom denied to them at home. 

At last in 1 689 the Toleration Act brought relief, but by then the leaders 

of the first Quaker generation had almost all died exhausted, and Fox 

himself followed them in 1691. A younger generation carried the work 

forward, and their message brought conviction to many hearts. But the 

first ardour had cooled, and Friends tended to share the general distaste 

for the fervours and fanaticisms amidst which the Society had been born; 

any religious ardour, any 'enthusiasm', was commonly regarded as unde- 

sirable, even dangerous. For second and third generation Friends, religion 

no longer meant an adventurous openness to new light, it meant loyalty 

to tradition. This loyalty moreover was expressed in 'rules and forms to 

walk by' of a kind which the first Quakers had rejected, 2 and against which 

Margaret Fell Fox, in old age, raised her voice in vain. Why, she demanded, 

should beauty of colour and music be rejected? - That was 'a poor silly 

Gospel' indeed! The 'rules and forms' repelled many who might other- 

wise have joined Friends, 

The tradition itself was by no means all negative, and it fostered a 

healthy independence of judgment. From the beginning, following the 

example of Fox himself, Friends encouraged 'all useful knowledge' and 

steadily ignored the law which forbade them to establish schools. Their 

schools survived, in spite of periods of persecution, and the best of them 

10 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

enabled gifted children to develop their intellectual curiosity. The Royal 

Society, whose pioneers were George Fox's contemporaries, had a number 

of Quaker Fellows. William Penn himself was one of them; as he explained 

to his fellow-members, Friends disliked accepting things 'on authority, 

without having a finger in the pie themselves' ! Another Fellow in the next 

generation, was the cultured and learned London apothecary Silvanus 

Bevan, whose wife was the daughter of Daniel Quare, Quaker clock-maker 

to the royal court. Bevan himself was well known in courtly circles, and 

he took an interest in gifted children; he had helped a poor intelligent 

country boy, William Cookworthy, to get a start in life. 

The East India Company's future engineer was another such poor 

intelligent country boy. His name was Benjamin Robins (his surname, 

like others, was spelt variously - Robbins, Robeins - even in the same 

document) and he was the only son of a poor tailor in the neighbourhood 

of Bath. Local Quaker records for the period are so fragmentary that only 

circumstantial evidence is available for his early years. 

It is clear however that Benjamin's father John Robins, poor as he was, 

was a respected Friend, for he was appointed regularly to the monthly 

and quarterly business meetings in the Somerset area. In 1699-1700 this 

Quarterly Meeting decided it must have a school, and arranged with a 

Quaker teacher, William Jenkins, to start one at Sidcot. 3 It was to be his 

private school, but the Somerset Friends guaranteed any support it needed 

during the first two years, and Jenkins kept a few free places for poor 

Quaker boys who could not pay the regular fee. He was an able teacher, 

the school flourished, and Jenkins became a regular attender at Monthly 

Meetings, where he met John Robins. It seems virtually certain that little 

Benjamin, born in 1706-7, would become one of his free pupils, and that 

as the boy grew Jenkins recognised the quality of his mind. 

One of the members of the Quarterly Meeting was a Thomas 'Beaven' 

who regularly attended Yearly Meeting in London. Did Jenkins, in 1721 

or 1722, send a letter by his hands to Silvanus Bevan, telling him about 

his promising pupil, and asking whether Silvanus could find pupils for 

Robins among his aristocratic acquaintances, so that the boy could 

support himself while he carried on his own studies? Something of the 

sort must have happened, for Silvanus received some specimens of Robins' 

mathematical work and showed them to a doctor friend of his, Henry 

Pemberton. 4 

From that point onwards circumstantial evidence gives place to 

Pemberton's own account. He had mathematical interests, and was both 

shrewd and generous in helping able young people. He was impressed by 

Robins' work and sent him a few more mathematical conundrums; 

Robins' solutions satisfied him, and he invited the boy to London. 

A SERVANT OF 'JOHN COMPANY' : 1749 TO 1751 11 

In Pemberton's household Benjamin. Robins found congenial com- 

panions with whom he quickly made friends. Thanks to Bevan and 

Pemberton he soon had pupils. He must have been a gifted teacher; his 

own surviving manuscripts with their strong clear handwriting and their 

vividly simple style suggest as much. 5 He taught his pupils individually, 

and always referred them to the primary authorities which he himself 

was studying, Euclid and Apollonius. It was Pemberton who suggested 

Apollonius, of whose work good English translations were then becoming 

available. 6 

Meanwhile Pemberton himself, who was a friend of Isaac Newton, 

was helping Newton to prepare the third edition of his Principia, which 

was published in 1726. His enthusiasm influenced Robins, who admired 

Newton greatly, and took Newton's part vigorously in the scientific dis- 

putes of the time. Young as he was, his contributions earned him serious 

notice, and in November 1727, on Silvanus Bevan 's nomination, he was 

elected Fellow of the Royal Society. He was barely 21 years old. 

Robins' success did not turn his head; he remained a merry, high- 

spirited young man 'with no ostentation and no pedantry'. By that time 

he had ceased to wear the 'Quaker garb 5 in which he had first reached 

London, and about which his new London friends had surely teased him 

a great deal. He had also with Pemberton's encouragement learned to 

enjoy music and literature, things which (not being considered 'useful 

knowledge') had formed no part of his Quaker schooling. In essentials 

however he kept his Quaker links intact, 7 and remained on. affectionate 

terms with is father, who as he grew older was sometimes in real need. 8 

As soon as Benjamin could afford it he purchased an annuity which freed 

John Robins from financial anxiety for the rest of his life. 

That Benjamin Robins was in fact generally known to be a Friend is 

shown by a piece of scientific invective (rivalling in vigour the sectarian 

invective of the previous century) which was sent to the Royal Society in 

1736. The writer announced his intention to publish 'a short treatise 

(occasioned by Benjamin Robins' late hypocritical, ungeometrical, 

pseudo-grammatical discourse) to be entitled ROBINS DISROBED, 

wherein the outer darkness of Friend Benjamin Robins' Notions is dis- 

covered and made manifest by the Inward Light of Truth, Reason and 

Geometry, by a true and faithful servant of Geometry'. There is no evi- 

dence that this 'servant of Geometry' (that God of the age) ever published 

his treatise, but his satirical use of Quaker phrases, underlined in the orig- 

inal, is unmistakable. 9 

Robins developed a keen interest in problems of velocity; he also had 

a strong practical bent and tested his theories by experimental investiga- 

tion. The effect of the resistance of the air on the velocity of projectiles 

I 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

h;ul i lr;u practical applications in the science of gunnery, and led him 

mm ih.u field ol study. His book, New Principles of Gunnery, published in 

r/l.'^iuickly became the standard text bookall over Europe and remained 

miIoi morcihanoO years. Meanwhile Robins himselfhad turned his atten- 

tion !<> problems of civil engineering such as building bridges, draining 

swamps and constructing harbours; he was one of the Fellows of the Royal 

Soneiv whose advice was sought by the City of London for a new bridge 

over ihe Thames. It is not surprising therefore that the East India 

( AMiipany's Directors should have decided that he was the man they 

needed. In 174 ( ) they invited him to become their Engineer-General on 

a four-year contract. 

Robins' acceptance was by no means a foregone conclusion. He had 

been deeply interested in the voyage round the world undertaken by George 

Anson in 1744, and it was said that Anson's Journal of the voyage, pub- 

lished in 1748, owed much to Robins' skilful editing. That may have been 

so. The book was a 'best-seller', and Robins certainly helped to prepare 

the second edition which was immediately called for; he was in corre- 

spondence with Anson about other work. However, he decided on the 

Indian adventure, and in December 1 749 was picked up off Walmer Castle 

(Deal) by the Company's ship Grantham and given a salute of 13 guns. 

'Unlucky 13'? There were many troubles ahead. The ship came 'near 

to being cast away' in a stubbornly persistent attempt to help another 

Company ship, The Duke of Cumberland, wrecked near Cape Verde. 

Robins' first service to the Directors was to send them a description of 

ihe exact position in which the wreck lay, so that possible salvage opera- 

tions might be easier. When The Grantham at last dropped anchor off Fort 

St David in July 1750 it had been seven months at sea (not unusual in 

those days). After the destruction of Fort St George, Fort St David had 

become headquarters. 

Robins reported to the Governor and plunged at once into his work. 

Fort St David was the least of his problems, and he soon moved on to the 

mined Fort St George. No wonder it had fallen so easily, he thought as he 

read the report submitted by a previous engineer in 1743: 'The wall is no 

fortification at all, and would fall down if the houses built against it did 

not hold it up . . . the river is continually forded at less than two feet deep. 

My the end of September Robins had prepared and despatched his pro- 

posals tor both Forts, and his recommendation that Fort St George, when 

K-built, should once more become and remain the seat of the Governor. 

His actual plans for Madras cannot now be traced, but he probably 

meludcd in the protected area, along with the Fort, the adjacent Indian 

villages now called Georgetown, and proposed the diversion of the slug- 

gish river. 

A SERVANT OF 'JOHN COMPANY' : 1749 TO 1751 1 S 

'We approve of the amendments and alterations you are making at Fori 

St David,' replied the Directors, 'the more so as the expense appears very 

moderate.' (!) They also approved of the restoration of Fort St George, 

which, wrote Robins, he would 'compleat without waiting for further 

orders'. He could not however begin the task at once. He had worked 

hard in the humid heat of the worst season of the year, and suffered a bout 

of fever - possibly the exhausting dengue fever so common on the coast. 

When he recovered there were other matters to attend to. The Directors 

had appointed six young assistants, and instructed him with their help to 

compile reliable information, which would be useful for their trade, about 

local geography and commerce, and navigation in local waters. He planned 

to make an accurate survey of the countryside and the coastline, and 

became very fond of the 'young people' who worked with him. The work 

was not as straightforward as it sounds, for in spite of the official 'peace', 

roving bands of French soldiers could hinder progress. 

In March 1751 Robins travelled by sea to Fort William, Calcutta, spent 

1 0 or 1 2 days there and returned to Cuddalore by the same ship. He recog- 

nised at once the importance of Calcutta, and urged the Directors to pay 

special attention to the security of Fort William. The mud flats of Bengal 

however were even more unhealthy than the pestilent Madras river; 

whether or not Robins contracted some infection there is not known, but 

by May, back in Cuddalore, he 'fell into a languishing condition'. He con- 

tinued to work doggedly on for another two months, but by the time the 

Directors had received and expressed approval of his preliminary report 

on Calcutta, their Engineer-General had gone prematurely to his grave. 

Robins died on July 29th, 'with his pen in his hand'. James Brohier, 

the ablest of his assistants, had been with him to the end, and it was he 

who went to the Governor, then sitting in Council, to tell him the news. 

Robins had realised a few days earlier that he was dying, and had written 

a last message to the Directors : 'Gentlemen, I must aver to you that I have 

served you with the most Disinterested Zeal. I am now upon my Death 

Bed, but cannot help giving you these few lines in relation to your affairs.' 

He went on to say that he had been working on a full report about Calcutta, 

'but because of many Accidents and my Sicknesse it is of no use, being 

intelligible only to myself.' He recommended James Brohier as his suc- 

cessor in Madras: 'He is certainly the properest person for the work, and 

has behaved hitherto with great integrity.' 

Robins wrote also to the Governor, repeating his recommendation of 

Brohier, and putting forward the name of another of his 'young people', 

John Call, as one who would be 'very usefulF as Brohier's assistant. 10 He 

mentioned 'extraordinary expenses' in connection with the visit to 

Calcutta, 'but as to the Justness of Accounts, my Head will at present but 

14 

AN INDIAN TAPKSTRY 

little answer for it'. He directed that his 'faithful servant George Reynolds' 

should have a small legacy, that Brohier and Call should share his books 

on engineering, and that Brohier should have 'his choice of my Swords'. 

Finally came a Quakerly request that 'my Burial may be the plainest, 

simplest and least expensive possible'. 

Brohier delivered the letter to the Governor, who read it, and ordered 

that the burial 'be suitable to the Status he has borne, and be done at the 

Company's expense'. Probably therefore it may not have been as plain 

and simple as Robins desired. No stone was ever erected - when the time 

came for that, war with France had broken out again. Yet, as a later his- 

torian wrote, 'no more shining example of single-hearted devotion to duty 

in the face of exhausting illness can be found in the whole range of Anglo- 

Indian history'. 11 

Robins in India in his mid 40s was the same cheery, unpretentious 

person he had been as a young man; he enjoyed his 'young people', he 

enjoyed the society of his fellow-officers. The Governor's despatch to the 

Directors spoke of their sense of 'inexpressible loss', and specially men- 

tioned Rooms' 'agreeable conduct in private life'. Even those two busi- 

ness letters of a dying man are shot through with gleams of a delightful 

humour, which must surely have raised many a good laugh during the 

earlier months. 

Benjamin Robins was the first of many Friends who came to India not 

to 'publish Truth' but to do some useful professional job. Fox himself had 

urged all such Friends, no matter what their calling, to iet their lives 

preach', and there seems no doubt that Robins' life 'preached' of sterling 

honesty, cheerful courage and warm human friendliness, as well as of what 

he himself called 'disinterested zeal' in the performance of his duty. 

Modern Friends might query those 'Swords' which he possessed and 

bequeathed; but once Robins had discarded the 'peculiar' Quaker dress 

it was natural that he should conform to the practice of his time, when a 

sword was a regular part of a gentleman's outfit. More seriously, the 

modern Friend would question Robins' contributions to gunnery and 

semi-military engineering. But as a modern Quaker scientist has pointed 

out, Robins stood at a turning point in the history of science. 12 It was a 

time when society was in a state of euphoria over the achievements of 

scientific discovery. 

Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night 

God said Let Neivton be! and all was light. 

Alexander Pope, the author of that well-known couplet, had also put into 

words the conclusion to which this euphoria led: 

A SERVANT OF 'JOHN COMPANY' : 1749 TO 1751 

15 

All partial evil, universal good; 

All discord, harmony not understood. 

For Robins' contemporaries, any growth in human understanding of how 

the world works, even of the 'partial evil' of the science of gunnery, must 

in the end be conducive to good. If Robins failed to see another side of 

the matter he was by no means the only Quaker scientist to share the 

limitations of his own time. 

Perhaps the best word to use of Benjamin Robins is his own term of 

praise: integrity. It is fitting that he should not go 'unremembered'. 

Notes to Chapter II 

General sources: Records in the India Office Library, London, and Quaker doc- 

uments in the County Record Office, Trowbridge, Wilts. 

1 Bombay came into British hands as a royal wedding present iri 1660. 

2 Cf. the famous minute of the Elders at Balby, 1660: 'These things we do not 

lay upon you as a rule or form to walk by.' 

3 The comment has been made that' the confused language of the minute shows 

how greatly a school was needed. 

4 Pemberton studied medicine at Leyden; he may have been debarred as a 'dis- 

senter 1 from study at an English university. It is possible that he was a kinsman of 

Silvanus Bevan; James Wilson's memoir of Pemberton states that while attending 

St Thomas's Hospital he lodged 'with a relation, an apothecary'. See Henry 

Pemberton, A Course of Chemistry, 1771, p.x. 

5 Manuscripts in the library of the Royal Society. 

6 W.Johnson/Benjamin Robins, F.R.S. (1707-1751). New Details of his Life', 

Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, vol.46 no.2, July 1992, pp.235- 

252. 

7 The Dictionary of National Biography states that Robins 'ceased to be a Quaker' 

soon after settling in London. The statement appears to be based on James 

Wilson's Memoir prefaced to Robins' Mathematical Tracts, 1761, vol.1 pp.vii-viii. 

Wilson's statement is not borne out by other evidence. 

8 He received financial assistance from the Monthly Meeting on at least three 

occasions recorded in the minutes. 

9 Quoted by permission of the Royal Society from their archives Roy.Soc.Cl. 

P.xvii70. 

I f, AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

10 Mis employers took his advice. In 1770John Call retired honourably to 

Inland after thirteen years as Chief Engineer in succession to Brohier. 

1 1 M.Davison Love, Vestiges of Old Madras, 1913, vol2p.414 (India Office, Indian 

Records Series). 

1 2 O.T.Benfey, The Scientist's Conscience', in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 

May 1956, p. 178. 

CHAPTER III 

Slavery^ Sugar and Shipping : 

1752 to 1838 

'The principles of true politics are those of morality enlarged.' 

Edmund Burke 

Benjamin Robins was hardly in his grave before hostilities between the 

English traders and their French rivals broke out again. The struggles of 

the next few years were decisive, and their hero was Robert Clive, whom 

Benjamin Robins must have known. Clive had entered Company service 

in 1743 as a reckless, headstrong youth of 18; he was in Madras when the 

Fort was captured in 1746. He escaped by night in disguise, and reached 

Fort S.t David at Cuddalore safely. Ther-e he soon rose to notice for his 

military genius; his natural recklessness was turned to good account in 

the brilliant and daring strategies which marked the victorious South 

Indian campaign of 1751-52. After that there was a wedding in the old 

Fort Church in Madras, and Clive took his bride to England. He returned 

to conduct a second campaign in Bengal, where in 1757 the battle of 

Plassey set Britain on the road to future empire in India. In 1765 the 

Mogul Emperor formally recognised the position, and delegated govern- 

mental powers to the Company in the territories it controlled. 

By then Clive was no longer in India. In 1760 he had returned to 

England, still a young man but a fabulously wealthy one. This was the 

seamy side of his career; he was the first of the so-called 'Nabobs' who 

grew rich during those years of unscrupulous extortion. The very word 

Nabob is a corrupt form of the Indian title Nawab (Ruler); their methods 

were equally corrupt. 'The people under their dominions,' wrote an Indian 

observer, 'groan everywhere, and are reduced to poverty and distress.' 1 

In 1764 a young civilian named Warren Hastings, who had spent 14 

years in rural Bengal and seen with his own eyes the change which had 

Northern and Central India c. 1875 to illustrate Chapters I-VI, 

IS 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

taken place, went to the Directors to pretest about the shameful conduct 

nf i lie Company's 'servants'. The following year, in exercise of its new 

governmental powers, the Company appointed a Resident in the textile 

(own of Murshidabad. 'This fine country/ he reported in 1769, 'which 

nourished under the most despotic and arbitrary Government, is verging 

towards its ruin.' 2 He was right in his assessment. In spite of political con- 

fusion India was prosperous, with a great tradition of skilled craftsman- 

ship of many kinds. He was also right about the imminent 'ruin'; disaster 

struck the following year, in the terrible Bengal famine of 1770. 

The Directors were shocked; they admitted that Vast fortunes have 

been made by the most tyrannous and oppressive conduct ever known'; 

they sent Warren. Hastings back to Bengal as Governor-General to do 

what he could to put things right. He struggled on till 1785, but could do 

little, for he was thwarted at every turn by the corruptions of the govern- 

ment system itself, Even while he struggled, some of the 'vast fortunes' 

extorted from Bengal were being used to finance the inventions of the 

English Industrial Revolution, whose impact on India, during the early 

decades of the next century, was to be no less disastrous than the 1770 

famine. 

Why did Friends in England not speak out about the 'tyrannous and 

oppressive conduct' of their fellow-countrymen in India, as Friends of a 

century earlier had denounced the 'covetous cruel oppressors' of that 

time? 'True godliness,' said William Penn, ought to 'excite endeavours to 

mend' the faults of society. But in 1770 many Friends took an opposite 

view; the Society of Friends, they said, was not 'the proper instrument for 

setting right things which may appear out of order'; Friends should be 

very cautious how they 'intermeddle in politics or government'. 3 It was 

inadvisable, they were warned, to take part in 'the petitions and protests 

carrying on in various places for different purposes'. 4 

Such warnings however themselves show that there were other views, 

England was being stirred by Methodist 'enthusiasts' who proclaimed a 

religion of inward experience, as George Fox had done before them. When 

fear of 'enthusiasm' closed the churches against them they preached in 

the open air and like George Fox attracted men and women of every social 

class. And they did not hesitate to denounce 'covetous cruel oppressors', 

among them those who traded in African slaves. 

In Liverpool about 1755 the Methodist leader George Whitefield met 

t he captain of a slave ship. He was a young man named John Newton who 

from boyhood had led a wild and reckless life at sea. The meeting changed 

his course; after long patient study he became in his turn a popular 

preacher. He also recorded his own experience in the slave trade in a book 

called Authentic Narrative, which was published in 1764 and was widely 

SLAVERY, SUGAR AND SHIPPING : 1752 TO 1838 1<> 

read. Not long afterwards a little boy named William Wilbcrforce sat lis 

tening enthralled to his stories in the home of a friend. 

Theh orrors of the slave trade were also beginning to disturb the minds 

of British Friends, who were urged to take action by their fellow-Quakers 

in the Unites States, where slavery was so glaringly visible. John Woolman 

himself visited England, and exposed the fact that even some Quaker ship- 

owners were involved in the traffic. The climate of opinion changed 

rapidly; the warnings of 1770 about intermeddling in politics' were cast 

aside, and in 1783 an opportunity for united public action arrived. A Bill 

came before Parliament for the 'regulation' of African trade. Every man 

present at the Quaker Yearly Meeting 5 signed a petition to Parliament, 

asking that 'all persons whomsoever ' should be forbidden to export slaves 

from Africa. 

Two years later William Wilberforce, now a young M.P., consulted his 

old friend John Newton about whether it was right for him, as a Christian, 

to continue his political career. 'Do not leave politics,' said Newton. 'Serve 

Christ in politics' Wilberforce obeyed; from then on he served Christ in 

the cause of the slaves. Outside Parliament he was supported by a strong 

group of London Quaker merchants, and also by former student friends 

from Cambridge, Thomas Babington, Babington's brother-in-law 

Zachary Macaulay, and the young scholar Thomas Clarkson, who became 

the 'fact-finder' of the group. Wilberforce's cousins the Thorntons had a 

home at Clapham (then still a country village) which became the head- 

quarters of the whole campaign, and it was not long before this group of 

Christian enthusiasts was dubbed the- 'Clapham sect'. Opponents in 

Parliament were apt to dismiss their arguments as 'mere enthusiasm', and 

once provoked the rather worldly Charles James Fox to a memorable out- 

burst. 'Enthusiasm, Sir?' he cried, turning to the Speaker. 'Why, there 

was never any good done in the world without enthusiasm!' It took 20 

years, but John Newton lived to see the enthusiasts victorious; in 1807 

traffic in slaves became illegal. 

No more could be done so long as the Napoleonic wars and their after- 

math absorbed the energies of England, but by 1822 Wilberforce, 

Clarkson and their friends felt able to launch a new Anti-Slavery Society. 

Once more Friends submitted a petition to Parliament, and Wilberforce 

himself presented it; but his own health was failing, and Thomas Fowell 

Buxton took his place as the chief spokesman for the slaves in the House. 

Buxton was not himself a Friend, but he had a Quaker mother and a 

Quaker wife, and the support of a new generation of Friends, including 

his wife's kinsman Joseph John Gurney. As a little boy Gurney had been 

captivated by Newton's Authentic Narrative; in the 1820's, as a mature 

Friend, his anti-slavery zeal was as strong as ever. 

20 

AN INDIAN TAPHSTRY 

In 1833 the Slave Emancipation Act became law. Zachary Macaulay's 

son, Thomas Babington Macaulay, was a member of the parliament that 

passed it. He hurried from the House to tell the ailing Wilberforce the 

good news, and they rejoiced together. Three days later Wilberforce died, 

knowing that his 50 years of labour had been brought to a successful con- 

clusion. 

India had seen many changes during those 50 years. In the wake of 

the 1770 famine the East India Company had been compelled to ask 

Parliament for a loan. This was granted, but at the same time a 

Parliamentary Board of Control was set up, and the Company's affairs 

were subjected to scrutiny in a Parliamentary debate every 20 years. Pitt's 

India Act of 1784 laid down the principle that the Company's adminis- 

tration was responsible for the welfare of the people whom it governed, 

and after Warren Hastings retired in 1785 those who succeeded him as 

Governors-General were men chosen by the Board of Control from 

outside the ranks of the Company's own employees. 

During the next 30 years these men cleaned up the worst abuses of 

the corrupt administration; they also greatly extended the areas under 

British control, so that by 1818 these included the whole of south and 

central India and the great Gangetic plains. Large territories within these 

regions were still ruled by Indian princes, but in each one was a British 

Residency and political agent. Much of the Maratha country was absorbed 

into the Bombay Presidency; the central regions where Pindari war-lords 

had terrorised the villages were brought under direct British rule. 

Many of the officials who administered these vast territories took seri- 

ously their responsibility for the welfare of the people they governed, but 

among them there were wide differences of opinion about the policies 

which would best ensure that welfare. These differences must be under- 

stood, for they form the context of thought in which Friends worked in 

India throughout the 19th century. There were two main groups, one of 

which believed (as an opponent put it) that 'no country can be saved 

without English institutions'; the other school of thought argued that 

India's traditional organs of public life were well suited to her needs, and 

should be respected and maintained. 

Among these who thus hoped for a continuity of Indian tradition were 

men who, like Warren Hastings, had a long and intimate knowledge of 

SILVERY, SUGAR AND SHIPPING : 1752 TO 1838 21 

the country. Mountstuart Elphinstone, John Malcolm, Charles Metcalfe, 

Thomas Munro - to name only a few - were among the ablest and most 

humane officials ever to be found in Company service. They feared lest 

Pitt's well-intentioned India Act should undermine national self-respect, 

because in practice it gave Indians no share in the government of their 

own country. 'People may be greatly injured,' reported Munro, 'by what 

we mean for their good . . . our present system excludes all natives from 

power and trust.' 6 Elphinstone supported him, saying that 'it is better that 

we should resign our power into the hands of the people for whose benefit 

it is entrusted [to us] V They had before their eyes an outstanding example 

of good Indian government; in the closing decades of the 18th century 

Queen Ahalyabai had ruled a prosperous kingdom with justice and com- 

passion, with respect for her people's traditional rights, and with full use 

of organs of government such as the panchayats (councils of five) which 

managed the affairs of each village. John Malcolm admired Ahalyabai 

greatly, 8 and both he and Charles Metcalfe deplored any interference with 

the panchayats, whose intimate local knowledge made for wise decisions 

and simple, speedy justice. 'Change, to be safe or beneficial,' wrote 

Malcolm, 'must be the work of the society itself.' 9 Henry Lawrence in the 

next generation took the same position. 'Indians are happier under their 

own systems than under ours,' he declared; he respected those systems 

and so was able to get abuses rectified through Indian channels without 

giving offence. 

That there were corruptions and abuses to be set right all thoughtful 

men, Indian and British, agreed. But those officials and others who 

belonged to the other, 'westernising' school of thought did. not believe 

that this was possible within the traditional framework. Many British offi- 

cials shared the conviction of the British middle class that the world only 

needed to be made like themselves, and therefore desired to see in India 

'the establishment of our own principles and opinions; of our own laws, 

institutions, and manners; above all, ... of our religion, and consequently 

of our morals'. 10 This project would be carried forward by means of 

English legal and educational systems, the use of the English language, 

the work of the Christian missionary. They believed that these things 

would make for India's true welfare, and they put their point, during the 

crucial Parliamentary debate of 1 8 1 3, with no thought of personal advan- 

tage. 11 

The resulting India Act ended the East India Company's monopoly 

of trade, and opened its territories both to British commerce and to 

Christian preaching. These measures were carried through, however, with 

the support of people who were by no means indifferent to personal advan- 

tage, especially those who represented the new manufacturing classes 

created by the Industrial Revolution. Immediately, in 1814, a tract 

22 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

appeared in Calcutta setting out 'the advantages of Christianity in 

promoting the establishment and prosperity of the British Empire'; while 

other enthusiasts declared that 'every triumph of Christianity is the 

opening of a wider market for British manufacturers.' 12 

Naturally these westernisers differed from the traditionalists not only 

in their assessment of India's political institutions but also in their atti- 

tude to her culture and religion. Warren Hastings had encouraged Indian 

scholarship, both Arabic and Sanskrit, and had welcomed Charles 

Wilkins' first English version of the Bhagavad Gita. 13 In 1793 William 

Carey arrived in Bengal as an independent entrepreneur, but inwardly 

committed to 'attempt great things for God'. For 41 years, until his death 

in 1 834, he singlemindedly served his adopted country. A lifelong interest 

in natural history made him one of the founders of the Calcutta Botanical 

Gardens. He started a printing press, published his own Bengali transla- 

tions of the Ramayana and Mahabharata, encouraged English translations 

of Sanskrit poetry and drama, and later launched a newspaper, The Friend 

of India. At the same time in Bombay the Governor Jonathan Duncan 

similarly identified himself with India, and the scholarly Justice Erskine 

was doing much to awaken pride in India's cultural heritage. Thomas 

Munro spoke for them all: e If civilisation is to become an article of trade 

between the two countries, I am convinced that this country [England] 

will gain by the import cargo. 14 

Nevertheless the missionaries poured in; many of them were wise and 

sensitive Christians like Carey, but others gave offence by their ignorant 

contempt for Indian ways and their crude preaching. Moreover ordinary 

people in India thought of all westerners #s 'Christians', including rowdy 

drunken sailors and greedy tyrannical indigo planters, so that the 'advan- 

tages' of Christianity were not apparent to them. About 1 830 a missionary 

reached Lahore, in the independent kingdom of Punjab. The king, Ranjit 

Singh, summoned him. 'You say, you travel about for the sake of religion,' 

he said. 'Why, then, do you not preach to the English in Hindustan, who 

have no religion at all?' When the missionary later told Lord Bentinck, the 

Governor-General, what the King had said, Bentinck replied that 'This 

is, alas! the opinion of all the natives all over India!' 15 

This was the context in which the first 19th-century Friends began to 

take an interest in India. Their interest was closely linked with their anti- 

slavery work, and to begin with only a few Friends were involved. One of 

limn was William Allen, who was working with Zachary Macaulay to 

establish a colony for freed slaves in West Africa. Some of Macaulay's 

Babingt on kinsmen were in Bombay, and possibly at their suggestion Allen 

fnt in touch with the Calcutta Botanical Gardens, and arranged for the 

SILVERY, SUGAR AND SHIPPING : 1752 TO 1838 2 } 

supply of suitable commercial plants for trial in the new colony. 'The 

results,' he said, 'have justified my most sanguine expectations.' 16 

Two or three years later a Quaker merchant ana ship-owner in 

Liverpool, James Cropper, persuaded his Quaker friends to take advan- 

tage of the new opening for trade by the ending of the East India Company 

monopoly A ship was specially built for the purpose, and named The 

Bengal. 17 In the autumn of 1815, at the end of her long maiden voyage, 

she entered the final reach of the Hugli river and dropped anchor off 

Calcutta. Those who watched from the shore as the beautiful vessel came 

up-stream saw that she carried guns, as was usual for British merchant 

shipping then, when the final struggle against Napoleon was in progress. 

But when they boarded her they found that her 'guns' were dummies, 

made of wood. 'Yes,' explained the crew. 'Them's Quaker guns. They look 

all right, they frighten the pirates away - and they cost much less than the 

real thing!' 18 

As a merchant, James Cropper dealt in sugar, among other things. As 

a Quaker humanitarian he was a strong opponent of slavery in all its forms. 

A few years' experience of the Indian trade convinced him that the quickest 

way to end slavery was to make it unprofitable, by exposing it to fair com- 

petition from free labour. When the new Anti-Slavery Society began its 

work in 1822, he urged it to work for the abolition of the import duties 

on sugar, which in practice favoured the slave plantations. If there were 

no such discrimination, he said, Indian sugar could be sold in London 

more cheaply than that from the slave plantations. He did not succeed at 

once; in view of his own part in the Indian trade it was too easy to dismiss 

his arguments as designed for his own profit. But they were not forgotten, 

and others revived them later. 

Meanwhile in 1818, three years after The Bengal's first voyage, another 

ship dropped anchor at Calcutta with a cargo of Arab horses from Basra. 

The ship was Arab-owned, but its captain was a British 'free-mariner' 

named James Silk Buckingham whose mother, Thomasina Hambly, came 

of a Cornish Quaker family. Buckingham, though not formally a Quaker, 

had imbibed her Quakerly standards of integrity and humanity, and when 

he took command of his first ship he treated his crew with a humane and 

sensible discipline which was then almost unknown. The same Quakerly 

standards also got him into trouble; when his ship ran aground on a sand- 

bank, although she was practically undamaged, the owners prepared an 

exorbitant claim for damages. Buckingham refused to cooperate in 

cheating and lost his job; he moved on to work for Arab ship-owners, and 

learned to value Arab culture. 

Arab trade routes criss-crossed the Indian Ocean, and Buckingham 

soon became familiar with Bombay, where after the Company's monopoly 

24 

AN INDIAN TAPHSTRY 

was ended, he paid two extended visits. He was greatly attracted to Justice 

Erskine, and he also met the Babingtons and a public-spirited merchant 

named Luke Ashburner who like himself came of Quaker stock. Calcutta 

however was new to him. When he reported to the owner's agent there 

he was instructed to take his ship next to Zanzibar, and pick up a cargo 

of slaves. Slaves? Buckingham refused, once more lost his job and was 

stranded in a strange port. 

Buckingham's stand attracted favourable notice, both from the 

Governor-General Lord Hastings, and from the greatly-respected mer- 

chant John Palmer, 'the friend of the poor'. Finding that Buckingham was 

not only an experienced sailor, but also a man of culture and wide inter- 

ests, Palmer proposed that with his own backing Buckingham should 

provide Calcutta with an independent, serious English newspaper. 

Hastings was sympathetic; he believed that 'public scrutiny of public 

affairs' was the citizens' right, and he had recently abolished the press 

censorship imposed by one of his predecessors. Buckingham agreed to 

the proposal, and turned for advice to a distinguished Indian who was 

already conducting a serious newspaper in the local Bengali language and 

another in Persian, the cultural lingua franca of the Mogul Empire. This 

was the great Rammohun Roy, 'Father of modern India'. At their first 

meeting Buckingham greeted him courteously in Arabic, in Indian style, 

while Roy responded with equal courtesy in English. The two men worked 

well together. 

Buckingham's Calcutta Journal was launched in October 1818 and was 

an immediate success. He used the paper to deal with matters of topical 

and ethical importance, both in India and in England, with which country 

of course many of his readers had close links. Like James Cropper he crit- 

icised the unfair tariffs on Indian sugar; he discussed the forms of slavery 

prevalent in southern India, and the slave trade between there and 

Mauritius. He dealt also with the English Corn Laws and the suffering 

they caused for the poor. He described with equal appreciation 

Rammohun Roy's advocacy of humanitarian social reform in India, and 

the London Quaker Joseph SouthalFs dignified stand for integrity in local 

government in England. 

The Calcutta Journal soon began to make witty, pointed comments on 

some of the shadier practices of the bureaucracy and Hastings gave 

Buckingham a friendly warning that the senior officials who composed 

his Council resented this 'public scrutiny'. 'Don't set the Ganges on fire,' 

he said. 'My Council won't stand for it.' But Buckingham enjoyed setting 

the Ganges on fire, and when Hastings' term of office came to an end he 

paid the penalty. The Council used its temporary authority to re-impose 

press restrictions and send the outspoken editor back to England. As the 

SLAVERY, SUGAR AND SHIPPING : 1752 TO 1838 

wise Munro commented, 'a free press and the dominion of strangers are 

things quite incompatible with one another.' 

The Press Ordinance affected Rammohun Roy's newspapers also, and 

he and his friend Dwarkanath Tagore, an eminent and wealthy Calcutta 

citizen, decided to challenge its legality before the Privy Council in 

London. The whole matter attracted the sympathy of Friends, for they 

had stood for the freedom of the press since, the earliest days of the Society. 

Jonathan Backhouse and others befriended the deported editor, and 

Charles Forbes, an 'Anglo-Indian' 19 who like Buckingham himself was of 

Quaker stock, took up his case in Parliament. 

Charles Forbes' ancestors had joined the Society 7 of Friends in its earliest 

days. They were friends and neighbours in Scotland of the Barclays of Ury, 

and the two families intermarried but not all their descendants continued 

as Friends. Charles Forbes' uncle had started a business in Bombay, and 

Charles, as a boy of 16, joined him there in 1790. For 22 years Bombay 

was his home ; then in 1 8 1 2 he returned to Britain, entered Parliament and 

took part in the India debate of 1813. There he said what Elphinstone 

(whom he probably knew) was saying in Bombay: 'Indians should be 

admitted to fair participation in serving the State. The more they are 

known, the more they will be respected.' By 1824, when Buckingham's 

case came up, Forbes had long been known as 'the member for India.' 

Meanwhile Forbes, along with the Quakers William Allen and 

Jonathan Backhouse, helped Buckingham to start a new paper, The 

Oriental News, to keep the British public informed, about India. In this his 

assistant was a young man, Frederick Denison Maurice, who was also 

close to- Friends. Then Buckingham himself entered the 'Reform 

Parliament' of 1832, in which for the first time the growing industrial 

cities were represented, as member for Sheffield,' the home of the 'Corn 

Law poet' Ebenezer Elliott. 20 

In 1833 this Parliament passed the Slave Emancipation Act, and then 

turned its attention to India, whose affairs were once more due for review. 

Rammohun Roy had come to England to give evidence, and with both 

Buckingham and Forbes in the House the new India Act embodied the 

principle of Indian participation in Government. As for the slave traffic 

between India and Mauritius, it was expected that the Slave Emancipation 

Act would put an end to that. 

The sugar planters of Mauritius had already foreseen, this threat to 

their labour supply, and began to replace their slaves by Indian labourers 

recruited on a three- or five-year contract called 'indenture'. In practice 

this was worse than lifelong slavery; the planter did not trouble to keep 

his temporary workforce healthy - it 'paid' to work them to death. Within 

a few years, more than 25,000 Indian workers had been 'recruited', by 

AN INDIAN TAPES' PRY 

Irani! or by outright kidnapping, and reports began to reach Calcutta of 

ihc appalling conditions on the plantations. 

A public-spirited Indian citizen, Thomas Boaz, 21 travelled to Mauritius, 

invest igated conditions on the spot, and returned to Calcutta to report what 

he had found. There was great public indignation. On the Governor's 

( Council in Calcutta was a younger cousin of Wilberforce himself, William 

Wilberforce Bird. He at once took action, suspended all indentured' emi- 

gration, and set up a strong, knowledgeable committee of inquiry. The com- 

mittee recommended that indentured labour should be ended by applying 

James Cropper's principles and making it too expensive to be profitable. By 

that time (1835) Thomas Babington Macaulay was a member of the Law 

Commission in Calcutta; he drew up a code of regulations by which this 

policy might be carried out. But it was not carried out - why? 

During the same years another evil substitute for slavery, the so-called 

'apprenticeship' system, had been introduced in the West Indies, which 

had been a field of Quaker interest from the earliest days. James Cropper's 

son-in-law Joseph Sturge did what Boaz had done in Mauritius, and 

carried out an investigation on the spot. In 1838 Friends crowded the 

Strangers' Gallery at Westminster as Parliament heard Sturge's report and 

voted to forbid apprenticeship. When the result was announced they 

cheered so lustily that they were turned out for 'riotous behaviour'! But 

the West Indian planters were not much disturbed; they turned to the 

alternative which was still open - indentured labour from India. Friends 

in general knew and cared nodiing about that. 

Parliament then proposed to 'regulate' this traffic, as in 1783 it had 

sought to regulate the African slave trade. Charles Forbes opposed the 

Bill with all his strength. 'What about that Calcutta inquiry?' he 

demanded. 'Indenture is just a form of slavery; it should not be 

"regulated", it should be stopped? The planters' lobby was too strong for 

him; he failed, and Indian indentured labour was soon to be found in 

every sugar-planting area in the world. The findings of the responsible 

Calcutta committee were ignored. It was a bitter comment on the promise 

of the 1 833 Act to associate Indians more closely with the administration. 

Notes to Chapter III 

1 Siyar Mutakharin, quoted by Reginald Reynolds, White Sahibs in India, 1937, 

p.32. 

2 R.Palme Outt, India Today, 1940, p.l 15. 

Sl-AVHRY, SUGAR AND SHIPPING : 1752 TO 1838 27 

3 Isaac Wilson, 1769, quoted in A.X.Bravshaw, The Quakers, 3rd cd. l l M<>, 

p. 179. 

4 Advice of Meeting for Sufferings^ 1770. 

5 At that time women Friends held their own separate Yearly Meeting. 

6 Evidence submitted 1813. [Not found in Parliamentary Papers.] 

7 Memo. 1824, quoted in T.E.Colebrook, Life of Elphinstone, 1884, vol.2 p. 160. 

8 John Malcolm, Memoir of Central India, 1823, vol.1 pp.160 et seq. 'She com- 

bined talent, virtue, and energy, which made her, while she lived, a blessing to 

the country over which she ruled.' 

9 John Malcolm, Political History of India, 1826, vol.2 p. 185. 

10 William Wilberforce, speech in the India debate, 1st July 1813, col. 1069. 

1 1 So long as the Company was purely a trading concern it had no objection to 

missionaries; the Lutheran pioneer Dr Fabricius officiated at Clive's wedding in 

Madras. When it became a territorial ruler its attitude changed (see Eyre 

Chatterton, A History of the Church of England in India, 1924, pp.102-7). 

12 Anonymous Open Letter to James Cropper by 'a minister and a layman'. [Not 

seen.] 

1 3 For this and other Indian classics, see chapter 1, above. 

14 Testimony, House of Commons, 12th April 1813, quoted in B. Stein, Thomas 

Munro, Delhi 1989, p. 162. 

15 Joseph Wolff, Travels and Adventures, 1 861, vol.2 p. 7 1 . 

16 Quoted in J.Sherman, Memoir of William Allen, ER.S., 1851, p. 69. 

1 7 A painting of The Bengal, newly launched at Greenock, is in the possession of 

James Cropper's descendants at Eller Green, Kendal. See front cover illustration, 

18 The Oxford English Dictionary cites Washington Irving, 1809, to illustrate the 

term 'Quaker guns'. Many Quakers disapproved of them because they were a 

form of deceit, and Cropper and his partner Benson had other ships sailing the 

Atlantic unarmed. But the route to India was more hazardous, and the crew were 

not all Quakers. (See Henry J.Cadbury, Friendly Heritage: Letters from the Quaker 

Past, Norwalk, Conn., 1972, pp. 18-20.) 

19 'Anglo-Indian' then meant a resident of India of British birth. The use of the 

term as equivalent to 'Eurasian' is modern. 

20 It was characteristic of Buckingham that he should use his position in 

Parliament not only to oppose the Corn Laws, but also to press, with all the 

authority of his own experience at sea, for measures to protect common sailors 

from the brutalities they so often suffered. 

21 The name Boaz indicates that he was a 'Luso-Indian' of mixed Indian and 

Portuguese blood. 

C: H A P T E R IV 

Sowers of Seeds : 1838 to 1860 

'Mercy and Truth arc met together, 

Justice and Peace join hands! 

Psaijvl 85 : 10 

Till: Y ha R 1838 saw a great improvement in the speed of communica- 

tion between India and Britain. In that year a steamship service began to 

operate; a route was opened via Alexandria in place of the long hazardous 

voyage round the Cape of Good Hope. The Suez Canal was not opened 

till 1 869 ; travellers went overland from Alexandria to a Red Sea port where 

they re-embarked for Bombay or Calcutta. News travelled more quickly 

in this way, and a cosmopolitan group of British and Indian business men 

in Bombay, finding the time to be propitious, launched a newspaper. The 

Bombay Times. 

Twenty-five years had elapsed since the East India Company's 

monopoly of Indian trade had been ended in 1813. For large numbers of 

people in India they had been years of increasing penury. The powerful 

British manufacturing interests had at once got a high tariff imposed on 

Indian textiles entering Britain, while British goods had free entry into 

India. During the 20 years following 1814 the import of Lancashire cotton 

cloth increased from 1,000,000 to 31,000,000 yards, while the export of 

Indian textiles fell to one 13th of what it had been. Charles Forbes saw 

what was happening; again and again he raised his voice in Parliament to 

condemn the discrimination against Indian sugar, Indian textiles, Indian 

shipping. 'If India were governed by an independent ruler,' he told the 

House in 1822, 'she would not submit to this.' For centuries the spinning 

and weaving of cotton cloth had been a cottage industry, in which villagers 

were engaged in supplying their own local needs during the season when 

agricultural work was at a stand-still. The flood of 'cheap' Lancashire 

28 

SOWERS OF SHEDS : 1838 to 1-860 

29 

cloth brought disaster. By 1834, as Lord Bentinck wrote, 'the bones of 

the cotton weavers [were] bleaching the plains of India.' 

Forbes pointed to other burdens which British rule had imposed - the 

Government monopoly of the manufacture of a basic necessity, salt; the 

oppressive land tax, which in many areas far exceeded the Indian ruler's 

traditional share of the yield of his subject's fields. Forbes was not the only 

one to protest; knowledgeable officials in India reported that 'the people 

are taxed to the utmost pitch of extortion . . . villages are deserted, their 

riches mercilessly drained away.' 1 

Small wonder that from the mid-20s onwards there were famines. In 

1838 famine was severe and widespread, and thanks to the steamship 

service news of it reached England in a comparatively short time. Chil- 

dren, it was reported, Were being sold into slavery by desperate parents 

who could find no other way to save their lives, and who themselves were 

being forced into the slavery of indentured labour. Conditions recalled 

those of the 1770 famine, when Sir William Jones had seen cargoes of 

children brought down-river and openly sold as domestic slaves in 

Calcutta. 

Fowell Buxton and his Quaker friend Thomas Hodgkin set to work, 

along with another Friend named William Howitt. Howitt publicised 

these calamities, and the conditions which had led to them, in a book 

called Colonisation and Christianity. 'Colonisation' was a pejorative term. 

A colony, according to contemporary wits was an unhappy place 'made 

expressly to be plundered', 2 and Howitt's title was meant to draw atten- 

tion to the contrast between England's profession -of Christianity and her 

practice of plunder. 

Howitt's book was read by Jonathan Backhouse's cousin Joseph Pease. 

Pease was a Quaker business man in Darlington, whose .motto was said 

to be: Love all men and fear none. Like many other Friends he was doing 

all he could to secure the abolition of the Corn Laws in England and of 

slavery in Britain's overseas dominions. Along with Colonisation and 

Christianity he also read a Government White Paper, Slavery in India. He 

was already over 60 years of age, but the two books moved him so strongly 

that he decided to give up his business and do whatever he could to alle- 

viate the sufferings of the Indian poor. His first act was to go to London 

to ask the advice of the two most knowledgeable men available, Charles 

Forbes and Charles Metcalfe, who had by then retired after many years 

of Company service in India. 

The next step, taken with their support, was to find a way of placing 

xhc facts of the situation before the British public. 'There is no argument 

like matter of fact,' Pease wquld say. He organiseda Society: 'The British 

Society for bettering the conditions of our fellow-subjects the natives of 

AN INDIAN TAPKSTRY 

l'»ntish India.' The name well describes its purpose, but was too cumbrous 

10 he practical, and was soon shortened to 'British India Society'. It 

attracted friends old and new. Thomas Clarkson, now an old man, wel- 

comed it; so did James Buckingham and Jonathan Backhouse, and the 

radical Joseph Hume, who had been for some years a Company servant in 

India. Hume brought in George Thompson, who had already been asso- 

ciated with Joseph Sturge in the campaign to end apprenticeship on the 

West India sugar plantations. Thompson was an able orator, and had used 

his gifts to support both the abolition of slavery and the abolition of the 

Corn Laws. The secretary of the society, Francis Carnac Brown, had been 

born and lived in Malabar, and knew at first hand the evils of bond-slavery 

there. He had enthusiastic young helpers in his nephew J. M. Ludlow, 

Buckingham's journalist-colleague R D. Maurice, and two young Friends, 

John Bright, of Rochdale and Fowell Buxton's nephew W. E. Forster, who 

had been learning the woollen trade in Pease's business at Darlington. Last 

but not least the Society had the devoted service of Pease's daughter 

Elizabeth, who organised support from women - and much more. 

The first public meeting was held at Devonshire House, then the 

London headquarters of the Society of Friends, at the time of their Yearly 

Meeting in May 1839. This was possible because of the high esteem in 

which Joseph Pease was held by his fellow-Quakers; it was also a public 

recognition that the welfare of India could rightly claim the attention of 

Friends as a body. The speakers included the Liverpool Quaker merchant 

Thomas Frankland, and the East India Company's administrator John 

Briggs, who had direct knowledge of the burdens of the land tax. 

A few weeks later, on 6th July, the British India Society was formally 

inaugurated at a second public meeting at the Freemasons' Hall, at which 

its most prominent political supporter, Lord Brougham, took the chair. 

Thomas Frankland spoke again; other speakers, echoing Thomas Munro 

and John Malcolm, described India as a land at least as 'civilised and 

enlightened' as . Britain, possessed of her own effective organs of govern- 

ment, such as those 'little republican municipalities', the village 

panchayats. 3 

There followed some years of vigorous campaigning, and in 1843 the 

British India Society welcomed William Wilberforce Bird's Act, which 

declared any form of slavery to be non-cognisable in law. 'You have had 

something to do with this,' said the Directors' secretary to Joseph Pease 

as he gave him the' news. But the Act proved to be a dead letter, as it was 

bound to be when the local officials whose duty it was to enforce it were 

themselves implicated. Malabar slavery was one of those evils which, as 

John Malcolm pointed out, can be rectified only by society itself, and 

vestiges of it have survived into independent India. 4 

sowkrs of shhos : 1838 to 1860 

In spite of its sincere desire to be of service, the British India Socieiv 

was hampered by the fact that so few of its members, apart from Charles 

Forbes and Francis Carnac Brown, had any real knowledge of India. Thev 

were divided among themselves, like the officials of the East India 

Company, about what policies really would 'better the condition of their 

fellow-subjects' there. The 'traditionalist' point of view had been well put 

at the inaugural meeting, but not many of the audience would realise what 

it implied. Pease himself, and most of the Friends who supported him, 

were business men and inheritors of the Industrial Revolution, and the 

attitude of the 'westermsers 1 was more natural to them. It had been 

expressed a few years earlier by John Bright, then a young man of 22, 

whose first recorded speech voiced the hope that India would receive 'the 

blessings of civilisation and Christianity, the extension of British com- 

merce, and opportunity for the consumption of British manufacturers'. 5 

Bright spoke then with sincere conviction, but even among the Quaker 

supporters of the British India Society motives could be unconsciously 

mixed. Among Friends success in business tended to be regarded as a 

virtue, failure was frowned upon. The Society's speakers appealed to the 

double motive; if India were fairly treated, they argued, there would be 

wider markets and increased trade for the British business man. Honesty, 

in fact, was the best policy. 

These speakers also made use of James Cropper's ideas about how to 

get rid of slavery. Given a fair deal, they said, Indian cotton could compete 

successfully on the market with the-slave-grown cotton of the USA; slavery 

would end, India would benefit, so would the Lancashire cotton mills! 

Had not free-grown Indian indigo already driven slave-grown indigo off 

the market? The argument reveals their ignorance of facts notorious in 

India: indigo was not 'free-grown'; a few years later the peasants were to 

rise in rebellion against the brutalities they suffered. 6 As for cotton, no 

one asked why India should send her cotton to be woven in Lancashire, 

while her own skilled weavers were dying of starvation because they had 

no work. Forbes had pleaded for a fair deal, not for Indian cotton, but for 

Indian textiles. Why should India accept the British verdict that 'she can 

never again be a great manufacturing country'? 7 The British India Society 

did not raise such fundamental questions. 

In 1 840 mixed motives came into play over the opium war with China. 

The East India Company controlled the production of opium in India, 

Calcutta merchants shipped it to the Chinese off-shore islanus, Lin Tun 

and Hong Kong. From there in defiance of Chinese law it was smuggled 

into China. The Chinese government protested, and when its protests 

were ignored seized and destroyed the cargo of the opium clippers. I he 

merchants complained, and Britain's response was the opium war. 

32 

AX INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Joseph Pease denounced both die immoral trade and die dishonourable 

war, but some members of the British India Society (including some 

Friends) were reluctant to support him. They did not want to see an early 

end of the war, because so long as it lasted profits could be made from 

speculation in tea, of which China was then the only source of supply. Pease 

refused to compromise; he would have nothing to do with 'measures tainted 

with the leaven of expediency 1 , and considered that 'a man whose deter- 

mination does not rise when difficulty increases is good for nothing.' 

Pease was equally outspoken about the responsibilities of the wealthy 

men of India. In 1842 Dwarkanath Tagore paid a visit to England. He 

was Rammohun Roy's friend, and like him for honourable reasons sup- 

ported the \vesternisers 1 ; he was the first Indian to join the Asiatic Society 

of Bengal, and in 1 826 he had financed the Hindu College, 'the first centre 

of modern education in India \ He was also a wealthy landlord, a hard- 

headed Calcutta merchant, and the owner of one of the opium clippers 

whose cargo had been burnt on the wharves of Canton. He lived in a style 

which earned him the popular title of 'Prince', and he was lionised by the 

fashionable society of London. Pease was not impressed; he felt no respect, 

he said, 'for Indians of rank and wealth who, while moving in courtlv 

circles, conceal those miseries of their poor countrymen which it is their 

duty to get amended.' 

Dwarkanath however zvas 'impressed by the British India Society's 

speaker George Thompson, and invited him to Calcutta to work for the 

Landholders' Society. Thompson hesitated, but finally agreed; Calcutta 

newspapers which knew his previous record welcomed him, although they 

were surprised that he should be associated with die landlords. Dwarkanath 

himself helped Thompson to start a branch of the British India Society in 

Calcutta. 8 It attracted a number of young Bengalis who had waited 10 

years in vain for the opportunity for public service promised in the India 

Act of 1833. Nothing had changed, and they were feeling frustrated. 

Thompson and the Society introduced them to the elements of political 

organisation, and thus sowed a seed which was destined to grow. 

During the same years another seed was sown in Bombay, where interest 

in the British India Society was fostered by Buckingham's friend Luke 

Ashburner and a leading Indian citizen Jagannath Shankar Seth. Like 

Dwarkanath, Jagannath had helped to found a modern college, the 

Elphinstone College; he also encouraged the education of girls. This 

Bombay group however felt uneasy about the wording of the Society's first 

manifesto, in which Pease had appealed to the 'Christian feelings' of his 

British readers. What did that mean? Was the Society going to proselytise? 

The question reflected India's wide-spread uneasiness about what a 

Company official in 1834 had called 'the rising enthusiasm for 

SOWERS OF SEEDS : 1838 TO 1860 

conversion'. 9 Forbes understood these fears, and the ambiguous phrase 

was replaced in the manifesto by the words 'humane feelings'.. The Bombay 

branch of the British India Society included members of all the major reli- 

gious communities. 

Joseph Pease himself, in his speeches in England, sought always to 

arouse these humane feelings. He had himself been specially moved by 

the reports he had read of how once-prosperous villages had been 

deserted, leaving their fields to revert to Scrub-jungle, while the poor died 

of hunger. In meeting after meeting he declared, in a vivid phrase, that 

'the fertile lands of India are in possession of the tiger!' At one meeting 

his lively young helper W. E. Forster brought laughter into the solemnity 

by proposing, in doggerel verse, that the Society would capture more 

attention if it changed its name: * 

Call it, in order to gain notoriety, 

The Tiger-expelling-from-jungle Society! 

When Joseph Pease died in 1 846 the British India Society had not suc- 

ceeded in expelling many tigers; circumstances, and the weaknesses and 

limitations of some of its members, had hampered its work; the com- 

plexity of the situation with which it was trying to deal was not fully under- 

stood, and recurrent famine was to press heavily upon the poor for another 

50 years and more. Nevertheless the seed had been sown, both in India 

and in Britain, and those whom Pease had inspired carried forward the 

work he had begun. He was right to insist that the needs of the poor cannot 

be met by 'measures tainted with the leaven of expediency 5 ; he was right 

to declare that their condition cannot be 'bettered* without responsible 

care for India's land. His service to India was not wholly forgotten; 100 

years later, in 1 948, representatives of a newly-independent India laid a 

tribute of flowers on his simple grave at Darlington. 

His successor as Quaker spokesman for India was John Bright, who 

had entered Parliament in 1843. He was one of the first Friends to do so; 

many of them regarded Parliamentary work as spiritually dangerous, and 

during the anti-slavery campaigns they had left it to Wilberforce and 

Fowell Buxton. Elders now warned Bright, who was only 32, of the risks 

he ran. He replied with courteous humility that he had no desire for per- 

sonal advantage, but only that national policy should be based on 'morality 

and truth'. 'I feel a strong love of what is just,* he added, 'and a strong 

sympathy for those who suffer.' 

During Bright's first years in Parliament his main work was therefore 

to help Cobden, Buckingham and others to secure the repeal of the Corn 

Laws. Then in 1847, after Joseph Pease and Charles Forbes had both 

died, his attention turned to India again. By then he had become 

MP for Manchester, the 'cotton capital' of his own native Lancashire, and 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

he asked why cotton could not be obtained from India, as the British India 

Society had urged, instead of from the slave plantations of the southern 

States. Parliament refused to conduct any inquiry into the matter, so 

Bright persuaded the Manchester Chamber of Commerce to send its own 

investigator to India. His report, Western India, was published in 1851, 

and confirmed Bright in his opinion that India's political grievances must 

first be redressed. 

The next Parliamentary review of Indian affairs was due in 1853. This 

was Bright's opportunity, and he prepared to present 'the mounting evi- 

dence of oppression and. misrule'. As early as 1839, J. S. Urquhart, a 

banker in Agra, India-born and knowledgeable, had warned Joseph Pease 

that there would be 'retribution within 20 years' if nothing were done 

about India's just grievances. 10 Fourteen of those 20 years had passed; 

the burden of taxation was as heavy as ever, and racial insolence con- 

tinued unchanged. Emily Eden, Lord Auckland's observant sister, wrote 

scathingly of the treatment meted out by her fellow-countrymen to the 

clerks in the government offices, Indian and Eurasian alike: 'Very well- 

educated, quiet men. But we, with our pure Norman or Saxon blood, 

cannot really think contemptuously enough of them.' She had put her 

finger on what hurt most, contempt - shown not only by officials and bul- 

lying planters, but also by those Christian preachers who 'blackened other 

faiths in public'. 'Contempt,' said Syed Ahmed Khan, one of Bright's 

greatest Indian contemporaries, 'is an ineradicable wrong.' 

Added to these social grievances were political ones, The Act of 1 833 

was disregarded; the English 'kept all positions in their own caste', and 

were compared unfavourably with the Mogul rulers 'who had used merit 

wherever found'.! 1 Moreover during the 1840's many formerly Indian- 

ruled territories, including the kingdom of Punjab, were annexed to 

'British India' with what Bright's old friend W. E. Forster called c a criminal 

contempt for native customs and rights'. British rule was not necessarily 

an improvement. 'The traveller may discern the boundaries between the 

dominions of the East India Company and those of native rulers by the 

superior condition of the country and the people in the latter, wrote The 

Bombay Times in 1848. Mountstuart Elphinstone, in old age, said much 

of the same thing. 

Bright himself had a number of contacts in Bombay. Among them 

were men like Jagannath Shankar Seth who had been associated with the 

Bombay branch of the British India Society. Some of these men had 

recently helped to form the 'Bombay Association', in which young leaders 

from various religious communities, including Dadabhai Naoroji the 

Parsee and Mohammed Ali Rogay the Muslim, were working together for 

ihe public welfare. Bright was in touch with this group, and also with 

sowers ov siiHixs : 1838 to 1860 

some of the business men who managed The Bombay Times. A different 

kind of link with India came through W. E. Forster, who had married a 

daughter of Dr Thomas Arnold of Rugby. Her brother William Delafield 

had been for some years in East India Company service, and Bright soon 

learned of his conclusion (expressed in a semi-autobiographical novel 

called Oakfield) that 'the magnificent work of civilising Asia through 

British influence is humbugV 12 

When the Company's Charter was debated in Parliament in 1853 

Bright warned the House that India 'might be goaded into insurrection' 

if her wrongs were not redressed. He pleaded for 'a humane and liberal 

sway', and for 'very much wider employment in government service' of 

Indians themselves. 1 3 'Mr Bright looks at India like an honest 

Englishman,' wrote an observer, 'anxious that England should do her duty 

there.' 14 But powerfully as he spoke, his warnings went unheeded, and in 

the summer of 1857 the insurrection came. The British virtually lost 

control of large areas of northern India, and many innocent people suf- 

fered, Indian and British alike. After bitter fighting British authority was 

re-established, and there followed an ugly outcry in Britain for 'vengeance' 

upon India. The British Quaker journals protested strongly against this, 

but Britain was in no mood to listen. When the Governor-General, the 

large-hearted Lord Canning, set to work to administer 'justice, not 

revenge', he was publicly taunted. 'Clemency Canning!' the newspapers 

jeered, 'puling, sentimental and Quaker-likeV 

During those tragic months John Bright was a sick man. The India 

Act of 1 853 had been followed in 1 854 by the criminal folly of the Crimean 

War. Bright had opposed it with every ounce of his strength, and had suf- 

fered a serious breakdown, from which he began to recover only in the 

autumn of 1857. Then while he was still an invalid Birmingham returned 

him to Parliament unopposed, and he prepared for his constituency a 

statement about India, declaring that England would be guilty of the 

gravest dereliction of duty if her statesmen did not combine 'to work what 

good is possible out of so much evil'. 

By 1858 Bright was back in Parliament, urging yet again that there 

must be Indian partnership in government: 

There are thousands of people competent to take any position [oi 

trust] . If there were in the Governor's Council of each Province at 

least two or three intelligent natives in whom the people have confi- 

dence, you would have begun to unite die government with the 

governed. Unless you do that, no government will be safe. 

He had other proposals to meet other grievances: 

36 

AN INDIAN TAPKSTRY 

Let there be a Proclamation to reach every subject of the British 

crown and the territory of every Indian prince. Offer a general and 

complete amnesty. Promise the natives of India a security for their 

property as great as we have here. Tell them that we hold inviolable 

the rights of conscience, and that no kind of wrong shall be done 

to those who profess the religions held to be true in India. 

Following this debate East India Company rule was ended and India 

brought directly under the Crown. The Queen's Proclamation embodied 

much of what Bright asked, and was well received in India. Bui Bright 

knew, none better, that it would not be easy to put it into practice, and 

in August 1859 he made a final appeal: 

That Proclamation has in it the basis of all you should aim at. If 

you treat the natives of India as they ought to be treated, you will 

not require 400,000 men to help you to govern. . . . Look at your 

responsibilities. In that unfortunate country you have destroyed 

every form of government but your own; millions are deprived of 

their natural leaders and their ancient chiefs. I appeal to you on 

behalf of that people. I have besought your mercy and your justice 

for many a year past, and if I speak to you earnestly now it is because 

the object for which I plead is dear to my heart. 

As that speech makes clear, the 'westernised had triumphed over the 

'traditionalists'. Bright's pleas were ignored; the hopes raised by the 

Queen's Proclamation were not fulfilled. Bright wanted the army reduced, 

but the number of British troops in India increased. Local initiative was 

replaced by centralised 'efficiency'; it became more difficult for local offi- 

cials who knew their Districts to exercise a wise flexibility. Many such 

officials sympathised with the despairing cultivators in the 'indigo risings* 

of I860, but their voices were not heard. In the same year some Districts 

of Upper India suffered famine. The British India Society had been suc- 

ceeded, under Bright's leadership, by the Indian Reform Society, which 

pressed the government to take action against famine, and to give the 

indigo workers a fair hearing. But the Indian Reform Society got no 

support; it could not raise even a minimum budget, and Bright was com- 

pelled to wind it up. 

Soon afterwards, Bright refused an invitation to become Secretary of 

State for India, because he knew that in the conditions which then pre- 

vailed he would be unable to carry out the policies he believed to be right. 

Nevertheless he did not give up the struggle, he continued to bring his 

Quaker standards to bear on Indian public affairs. After 1860 he gave his 

attention chiefly to matters like famine, which directly affected the poor. 

'1 am supported,' he wrote, 'by the hope that I am sowing some good seed 

in men's hearts and minds, and that fruit may one day not be wanting.' 

SOWERS of seeds : 1838 to 1860 

57 

In 1838, when Joseph Pease was planning his British India Society to 

combat hunger in India, and John Bright was working in the Anti Corn 

Law League to combat hunger in Britain. Bright had adopted a motto: 

The needy shall not always be forgotten, 

The hope of the poor shall not always be in vain. 

The words are found in the Bible, in the ninth psalm. Their spirit was to 

inspire the work which both Pease and Bright did,, during the years that 

followed, on behalf of an India they never saw. 

Notes to Chapter IV 

1 J.Briggs, The Present Land Tax in India, 1830, and F.J.Shore, Notes on Indian 

Affairs, 1837, chap.17, vol 1 pp.168-181. 

2 I.Everett, Observations on India, 1853. [Quotation not found, but the author 

does conclude that 'the rule of conquerors, strangers, and white men, over natives, 

blacks and heathen, cannot but be a bad one, make what regulations you please' 

(p. 178).] 

3 There is a lively account of this meeting in John H.Bell, British Folks and British 

India Fifty Years Ago, 1891, pp.65-68. 

4 The Bonded Liberation Fronts of India and Pakistan still struggle in the 1 990's 

to end debt bondage and child servitude. They have the support of Anti-Slavery 

International, which is the lineal descendant of the Anti-Slavery Societies of the 

1820s. 

5 Bright was proposing a vote of thanks to James Buckingham for a lecture 

given in Rochdale in 1833. 

6 The abuses of forced cultivation of indigo by peasants for.whom it was a loss- 

making crop are set out in an official report, Indigo Cultivation in Bengal, discussed 

in The Calcutta Review, vol.34, I860, pp.355-377. 

7 R.M.Grindlay, 1837, quoted in Daniel Thorner, Investment in Empire, 

Philadelphia 1950, p. 6. 

8 A contemporary account of the inauguration, 20th April 1843, is reprinted 

in Nineteenth Century Studies no.4, 1973, pp.445-453. This journal is published 

by the Bibliographical Research Centre, Calcutta. 

9 Quoted inH.H.Dodwell, The Cambridge Shorter History of India, 1934, p.726. 

10 His warning may be compared with a later comment: 4 If Government had 

paid attention to Agra newspapers before the Mutiny, it would not have been so 

38 AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

ignorant of the state of public feeling.' C.Bbmwetsh, 1861, in the archives of the 

Church Missionary Society. 

1 1 The Hindu Pioneer, Calcutta 1835. 

12 W.D.Arnold, Oakfield, 2nd ed.1854, vol.1 p. 159 (chap. 8). 

13 This and subsequent quotations are from Bright's published speeches. 

1 4 Edmund Whitty, History of the Session 1 852-53, quoted in G.M.Trevelyan, Life 

of John Bright, 1913, p. 171. 

\ 

CHAP T E R V 

Calcutta: Invitation and Response : 

1861 to 1864 

There stood a Macedonian appealing to him: 

'Come over to Macedonia and help us' 

The Acts of the Apostles 16:9 

In 1861, exactly 200 years after the first Quaker messenger to India 

had reported his experiences to George Fox, two Indian visitors appeared 

at the Friends Yearly Meeting in London. They were Quakers, they said, 

from Calcutta. The English Friends were startled: how could there be 

Quakers in Calcutta? 

An answer to that question must be sought in the life of Calcutta in 

the first half of the 19th century. During the 100 years which had elapsed 

since Fort William had been established, the original Bengali population 

had been augmented by Armenians and Jews, and by immigrants from 

the various European trading stations along the Hugh river. Many of these 

were 'East Indians', that is to say people of mixed blood, and prominent 

among them were the Luso-Indians, the largely mercantile part- 

Portuguese community to which Thomas Boaz belonged. At one time 

Portuguese had been the lingua franca of all the coastal cities, but by the 

end of the 18th century English had largely taken its place. 

There were two English-speaking Protestant churches in Calcutta, the 

'Old Mission Church', and the Lai Bazaar Baptist Church, and many of 

the 'East Indians' were associated with them. In 1809, aware of the need 

for education, the Baptist Church founded the 'Calcutta Benevolent 

Institution'; five years later, in 1814, its managers wrote to Joseph 

Lancaster, the Quaker pioneer of education for the poor in London, and 

requested him to send them a trained teacher. Lancaster sent James 

40 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Penney (not himself a Friend), who from 1817 onwards made the school 

his life-work. 1 There were pupils from many communities, but it was the 

Luso-Indians ('Portuguese' as he called them) who set the pace. His report 

is revealing: 

The Bengalis see that the Portuguese, by having a trifling acquain- 

tance with English, obtain from the Europeans the most respectable 

situations as writers etc. . . . instruction for them is a medium to 

wealth. 

Some of the 'well-educated, quiet men' whom Emily Eden saw treated 

with such arrogant contempt may have had their education in this school. 

In 1840 a young Friend named Saunderson Walker travelled on one 

of his father's merchant ships from Gateshead-on-Tyne to Calcutta, where 

he spent several weeks while the ship unloaded and re-loaded cargo. He 

was a modest, observant young man, and his Journal 2 describes how he 

made friends with young Bengalis, who invited him to their homes and 

talked of the changes which were taking place in their traditional society. 

The pioneer of these changes was Buckingham's friend Rammohun 

Roy. Rammohun was a Brahmin, but he had grown up in Patna, a centre 

of Muslim culture, and had a scholarly knowledge of Sanskrit, Arabic and 

Persian literature. His sympathies were with the 'westernisers' of his time, 

and his spirit of rational inquiry was a challenge to the old ways in many 

fields. 

One challenge was to the authority of scripture, which Rammohun 

recognised only when it carried conviction to his own mind and conscience. 

Another was to popular superstition. In Roy's lifetime the influence of the 

Saud brotherhood was still strong, and like them he rejected the belief that 

Ganges water had a magically sanctifying power; like them he refused to 

take an oath. When he read the Gospels, their record of Jesus deeply moved 

him, and in 1818 he published his reflections in a little book: The Precepts 

of Jesus, the guide to Peace and Happiness. Could not people of all religious 

traditions, he asked, accept Jesus as a guide to right living? What could be 

better than 'that grand moral principle, do unto others as you would be 

done by'? Could not 'a church of God', transcending all sectarian divi- 

sions, be founded on the words of Peter the Apostle: 'In every nation he 

that fears God and does what is right is acceptable to Him'? 3 

Rammohun began to plan for such a church, which he thought should 

combine the monotheism of Islam, the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount, 

and the philosophy of the Upanishads, and a few years later, in 1828, the 

Brahmo Samaj came into existence. Rammohun was disappointed that it 

did not find favour with Christian missionaries, who disapproved both of 

CALCUTTA : INVITATION AND RESPONSE : 1861 TO 1864 41 

his emphasis on the humanity of Jesus, and of his insistence on the good 

to be found in other than Christian traditions. 

In 1831 Rammohun was called to England to give evidence in prepa- 

ration for the India debate of 1 833. He was already known to some Friends 

because of his friendship with Buckingham and hissupport of the freedom 

of the press, and when his ship docked at Liverpool he had a friendly 

welcome from James Cropper and other Quaker merchants there. He 

never saw India again; in 1833 he died in England. But his influence in 

Calcutta lived on, and played its part in the genesis of the Quaker group. 

Bitter disputes were taking place among Calcutta Christians about the 

rite of baptism. The 'Old Mission Church' practised infant baptism, the 

Baptists did not, they baptised adults on profession of faith. But they too 

argued hotly about whether the new member should be immersed in water 

or merely sprinkled with it. Sensitive men and women turned away from 

these quarrels in disgust, as the 'seekers' in 17th-century England had 

turned away from the theological quarrels of their own day. They were 

attracted by Rammohun's comment that faith in the water of baptism 

might be as irrational as faith in the water of the Ganges, but they did not 

join his Brahmo Samaj, perhaps because it seemed at that time too purely 

intellectual to meet their needs. 

One of these Calcutta 'seekers' was a man called William Gaumisse. 

His name is the Portuguese Gomez in French spelling; possibly his ances- 

tors were among the Luso-Indians who took refuge in French-ruled 

Chandernagore during Clive's campaigns in Bengal. Some time probably 

about 1856 he found help in his spiritual search for some Quaker books 

which, as he put it, 'fell in his way'. 

It is not very surprising that Quaker books should be found on a Calcutta 

bookstall. Saunderson Walker described how the booksellers' touts would 

run alongside his palanquin in the streets, and thrust specimens of their 

wares, attractive and cheap, through the curtains. The merchants and offi- 

cials who travelled from England to India on the sailing ships provided 

themselves with plenty of reading matter for the 1 5-week voyage, and some 

of them, such as Thomas Babington Macaulay, had Quaker connections. 4 

Walker himself, in the course of his own business, met a man who 'still 

had something of the appearance and manner of a Friend' - a description 

which implies that he had formerly been a Friend. There were in short a 

number of ways in which Quaker books might reach the Calcutta market. 

What is remarkable is that the books Gaumisse found were so well- 

fitted to meet the needs of the Calcutta 'seekers'. The first was An Apology 

for the true Christian Divinity, published in 1 674 by Robert Barclay, whose 

family in those days was so closely linked with the Forbes. Barclay wrote 

with the power and assurance of personal conviction: 

I.' 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Nm by strength of arguments came I to receive and bear witness 

to i lie Truth, but by being secretly reached by the Life ... by God's 

spirit shining in the heart, enlightening the understanding. 

This pure I .ight which is in all, he went on, is known by its power to call 

forth goodness, so that those who obey its leadings 

fee! themselves turned from the evil to the good, and learn to do 

to others as they would be done by, in which Christ himself affirms 

all to be included. 

And this true church includes all, 'both among heathen, Turks, Jews, 

( ihristians . . . of whatsoever nation or people they be', who by obedience 

;irc 'cleansed from the evil of their ways'. 

For readers in Calcutta such words vividly recalled those of 

Rammohun Roy, some of them almost to the letter. But there was also 

something more, the experience of the Life being known 'not by strength 

of arguments', but in the warmth and tenderness of loving human fellow- 

ship. Gaumissc and his friends were captured, mind and heart together. 

Along with Barclay's Apology GaumissQ had picked up two other books. 

One of them was A Portraiture of Quakerism, published in 1806 by that 

Thomas Clarkson who worked so closely with Friends in the cause of the 

slaves; the other was the Memoirs of Clarkson's younger Quaker fellow- 

worker Joseph John Gurney. Through Clarkson's book the Calcutta group 

learned of the origin and history of the Society of Friends, and learned 

that it did not practise that water-baptism which was causing so much 

trouble in Calcutta. Gurney's Memoirs, published only in 1854 after 

( iurney's death, introduced them to a man of great humility, courtesy and 

scholarship, who loved the Bible deeply and used the Christian language 

familiar to them, but at the same time declared it to be his 

firm conviction that all men receive a measure of divine light . . . 

so that those who believe in it and obey it are led to fear God and 

to keep His law as it is written in their hearts. 5 

' 1 'hose words too would recall Rammohun, and so would Gurney's interest 

in the 'Quaker-like' teaching and practice of the Sauds. 6 

Gaumisse and his friends began to worship together in the way which 

Barclay and Clarkson described. Some of them were 'East Indians' 

including a family with the English name Howatson; others were Bengalis 

with traditional Hindu or Muslim names. 7 the Meeting grew, for it was 

1 reached by the Life'. The visit to London in 1861 seems to have been 

decided on because circumstances made it possible. The two travellers 

were a married couple, Mariano and Cecilia D'Ortez, whose family home 

was in the old Dutch trading station Chinsurah. Mariano was a 

CALCUTTA: INVITATION ANT) RHSPONSH : 1861 TO 1864 4 3 

'commission agent' whose shipping contacts, it seems, enabled him and 

his wife to work their passage to England. They carried with them a letter 

from their fellow-Quakers in Calcutta to Friends in London. 

There was however no warm and ready welcome for those who had 

come so far with such a wonderful story. Thomas Hodgkin, that long- 

standing friend of India, cared for the travellers and asked permission to 

introduce them to the Yearly Meeting, but there were many difficulties to 

overcome before his request was granted. At last, after being kept waiting 

for hours outside closed doors, the visitors were admitted and their letter 

was read. It asked for 'a Quaker missionary' to help Calcutta Friends to 

grow spiritually. There was silence; no-one was 'moved of the Lord' to 

respond. Three weeks later the Indian Friends returned home, taking with 

them some more Quaker books, but no assurance of the personal support 

which they desired. 

Fortunately that was not the end of the story. In due course an account 

of the Indian visit to London reached Friends in Australia, and two of 

them, Frederick Mackie and his brother-in-law Edward May, responded 

to the Indian request. They reached Calcutta in November 1 862, and spent 

the next 10 weeks doing all they could to help the Indian Friends. They 

found a Meeting of between 30 and 40 people, some 1 5 of whom regarded 

themselves as fully committed Friends. Mackie and May accepted them 

as such, and helped them in further study of Quaker practices. There was 

great interest in the testimony against 'fighting with outward weapons'. 

What would Friends have done, asked" the Indians, during the insurrec- 

tion of 1 857? What were they doing note in the, American Civil War? These 

discussions were of great value, but after the Australians had returned home 

it did not prove possible to maintain any effective contact. 

Just before the Australians left, at the end of January 1863, three 

English Friends reached Calcutta. The leader was Russell Jeffrey, who for 

nearly 20 years had 'felt a leading to visit the peoples of India in the love 

of the Gospel'. The Indian visit to London Yearly Meeting in 1 86 1 decided 

him that the time for the visit had come. He made elaborate plans and 

arranged for two younger Friends, Henry Hipsley and William Brewin, 

to accompany him. He also obtained introductions to the Viceroy, and to 

senior British officials and British missionary leaders, and undertook an 

extensive preaching tour of India which lasted about 15 months. 

Jeffrey also carried an introduction to one distinguished Indian. This 

was Dwarkanath Tagore's son Devendranath, who had become a greatly 

revered leader of the Brahmo Samaj. Their meeting however was scarcely 

more than a courtesy call, for they had little in common. Devendranath fol- 

lowed Indian religious traditions, and was 'not in favour of any revolutionary 

measures of reform which might have the effect of alienating the general 

44 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

body of his countrymen'. 8 Jeffrey was a Svesterniser', who believed it to be 

Britain's duty to 'civilise and christianise' India. He carried with him copies 

of a book of selections from the Bible, called Scripture Lessons for Schools, 

which had been compiled by the Quaker William Allen, and did his best to 

induce officials to prescribe this as a general text-book in education. 

Calcutta was then the capital city of India, and Jeffrey and his com- 

panions spent their first five weeks there. They met the Indian Friends 

and attended their Meetings for Worship, but they were not able to relate 

to them so easily as the Australians had done. There were a number of 

reasons for this, one of which was the Quaker attitude to water-baptism. 

For the Indian Friends, in view of their own origins, the rejection of the 

outward rite was important. In his first public meetings Jeffrey too 

expounded the Quaker view, and his Indian audiences 'eagerly laid hold 

of the fact that there are good Christians in the world who have never 

been baptised'. But he found that the missionaries who helped him to 

organise his preaching tour were embarrassed by his reference to this 

Quaker tradition, and he soon ceased to speak about it. Q When some of 

the young men who had heard him speak suggested 'forming a body of 

Quaker disciples', he did not even introduce them to the 'body of Quaker 

disciples' which was already in existence! 10 In the context of his mission 

to 'the peoples of India' the Calcutta Friends were of merely marginal 

interest to him, and it has been suggested that he hesitated to recognise 

them lest, when formally acknowledged, they should become a financial 

burden on London Yearly Meeting. If that was so, it shows how little he 

understood of India. From his own background of secure prosperity the 

Indian Friends seemed to him poor and insecure; in fact, every one who 

can be traced had regular employment and adequate pay, and probably 

others besides Mariano D'Ortez owned family property. 11 

Another obstacle in the way of natural human relationships was the 

class-consciousness of the time, reinforced as it was in India by the racial 

snobbery of the British, which after 1857 had become worse than ever. 

Jeffrey, who moved in the upper levels of the British social hierarchy, found 

it very difficult to meet Indians as equals. After he and his party had left 

Calcutta two other English Friends, the brothers Benjamin and William 

Hayllar, lived in the city for a time. They were English workmen, and they 

were employed by the new East Indian Railway to train its Indian and 

'East Indian' employees in essential skills. The Hayllars would not have 

been accepted in the social circles in which Jeffrey moved, but they made 

friends easily with the Indian Quakers and were active members of the 

Meeting so long as they remained in Calcutta. After that no more is known 

until 20 years later, when the Meeting was still alive. 

CALCUTTA INVITATION AND RESPONSE : 1861 TO 1864 45 

That then is the Indian side of the story. What of the English side? 

Why in 1861 did London Yearly Meeting give the Indian Friends such a' 

cool reception? The short answer is that the Yearly Meeting itself had 

reached a time of crisis. 

The new 'enthusiasm' which Whitefield and the Wesleys had inspired 

had resulted not only in work for the emancipation of the slaves, but also 

in a great desire to carry the Christian gospel to the ends of the earth. 

The Church Missionary Society was founded in 1795 by enthusiasts of 

the 'Clapham Sect'; the Baptist Missionary Society was inspired by 

William Carey; other churches followed suit, and Quaker enthusiasts soon 

began to urge that Friends should do the same. 

For a long time they were unsuccessful. Comfortably prosperous 

Friends had no desire for such adventures, and their apathy was nothing 

new. 'You that grow rich in earthly things,' George Fox had written in 

1666, 'take heed lest you leave the service of the Lord and His business 

in minding your own.' 1 2 By 1 830 rich Friends had found a specious excuse 

for doing nothing: supporting missionaries would be no better than paying 

'hireling priests' ! James Cropper put his finger on the truth: 'The love of 

the comforts of this world so prevails among us that it would be difficult 

to find members of our Society willing to make the sacrifices those do who 

are called, by some of us, hirelings' 13 

During the quarter-century which followed, the work of Pease and 

Bright for India was inspired by the same deep religious concern as had 

prompted the earlier work for the slaves. Bright felt that he 'had been 

called as distinctly' to his work in Parliament as others were called to 

ministry in Meeting, though he very rarely spoke of it. 14 Other Friends 

were even more reticent. W. E. Forster described his own father, who gave 

heroic service during the Irish famine of the 1840's, as having such rev- 

erence for religion that it seemed to him 'almost profanity to talk 

thereof'. 143 Such men were not likely to become 'publishers of Truth'. 

This reticence came to be questioned by one of the most respected 

Friends in the country, George Richardson. He' had been a boy of 1 0 years 

old when in 1783 Friends had first petitioned Parliament against the slave 

trade; for more than 70 years he had seen their service of the needy and 

the oppressed. The Quaker Saunderson Walker, who visited Calcutta in 

1840, was his nephew; he must have listened with interest to the young 

man's account of his experiences there. Shortly afterwards, in 1842, he 

had another visitor from Calcutta. This was Dr Marshman, the scholarly 

Baptist missionary who had succeeded William Carey, and who told 

Richardson that in his opinion Quakers would be more acceptable to 

India, as preachers of the Gospel-, than most of the other churches. Over 

the years, Richardson reflected. Should Friends, he asked himself, merely 

46 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

work 'to improve men's temporal condition 5 ; should they not also seek 

'to turn their minds to God'? Finally in 1859, when he himself was 86, 

he shared these thoughts with other Friends in a series of personal letters 

which impressed all their recipients. 

By 1859 however the task of turning men's minds to God meant dif- 

ferent things to different people. From the very beginning of the century 

fear of the possible spread of a 'godless' French revolution drove large 

numbers of people to seek security in authority, in the authority of the 

Bible, in the authority of dogma. This fear was one of the factors which 

induced Parliament, between 1793 and 1813, to change its mind about 

the admission of Christian missionaries to India. Many prosperous Friends 

shared these attitudes and began to fear any independent thought on 

matters of religion. The humbler Friends, the farmers and artisans, were 

more disposed to maintain the old Quaker position, that the final 'authority' 

was not the Bible but the Inward Light, the Teacher in the heart. 

Similar differences arose in the United States, where Philadelphia Yearly 

Meeting, like London, was led by wealthy Friends who took the authori- 

tarian doctrinal position. Disputes became so bitter that in 1 827 the humbler 

rural Friends, led by Elias Hicks, withdrew and formed a separate e Hicksite' 

Yearly Meeting of their own; feeling ran high, each side was blind to any 

truth at all in their adversaries' point of view. In London the differences did 

not result in separation, thanks largely to Joseph John Gurney, who was able 

to help each party to learn from the other. Nevertheless the emphasis 

changed. The London Epistle of 1827 had affirmed the old Quaker con- 

viction that Vital Christianity consisteth not in words but in power;' in 1 836 

the Yearly Meeting declared that 'there can be no appeal from Holy Scripture 

to any authority whatsoever'. It was the general opinion that to insist on the 

supremacy of scripture was the only way to prevent separations in England. 

William Allen, in his preface to Scripture Lessons for Schools, stated categor- 

ically that 'this book has God for its Author'. 

Yet during these very years the Bible was being challenged on both 

scientific and moral grounds. Geological research showed that the age of 

the earth must be considerably greater than was allowed by a Biblical 

chronology which reckoned the date of Creation as 4004 BC. Human 

decency rebelled against the ambiguous morality of some Old Testament 

narratives. By the time the young Charles Darwin took his Cambridge 

degree he had concluded that 'the Old Testament, from its manifestly 

false history of the world, . . . and from its attributing to God the feelings 

of a revengeful tyrant', was not to be trusted. 1 5 Many young people agreed : 

how could God be the Author of a false science and an unworthy morality? 

It did not help to be told, as young Friends and others were too often 

told, that their doubts and questionings were 'sinful'. 

CALCUTTA: INVITATION AND RESPONSE : 1861 TO 1864 47 

Twenty years later, in 1859, Charles Darwin's great book The Origin of 

Species was published, and in 1860 a group of Christian scholars made a 

positive response to it. Writing with courtesy and moderation, they pleaded 

with their fellow-Christians for more openness to the findings of scientific 

research, and a less rigid interpretation of the meaning of Biblical authority. 

Although their book, Essays and Reviews* aroused much hostility in the reli- 

gious press, it was widely read. Among its readers was a thoughtful Man- 

chester Friend named David Duncan, who was impressed by its emphasis 

on inward authority, on what Friends called the inward Light'. Duncan 

shared his thoughts with puzzled young people in the Manchester Friends 

Institute; the talk he gave there was published as a pamphlet. 

The conflicting attitudes among British Friends were at once brought 

into the open. The two Quaker monthly papers, The Friend and The British 

Friend> took opposite stands. The Friend condemned both Essays and 

Reviews and Duncan's pamphlet; The British Friend welcomed their 'con- 

tribution to freedom of thought and inquiry', and declared that 'the soul 

of Quakerism' is faith in the 'inward manifestation of Christ' to everyone. 

The conflict overshadowed the whole Yearly Meeting of 1861. 

It was this Yearly Meeting, distressed and disturbed as it was, to which 

the strangers from Calcutta sought admission. Many reacted with fear, 

fear of some new challenge to scriptural orthodoxy; others felt that the 

controversies within the Meeting might be 'unedifying' to the newcomers. 

Only one voice was bold enough to declare that if the letter they had 

brought proved unorthodox it should be zvelcomed: 'originality of thought 

would greatly enhance its value'. So the response was ambiguous; as for 

the Quaker missionary for whom the Indians asked, 'only God, if he so 

willed, could call one out'. 

Russell Jeffrey had made many contacts in India with the organised 

missions of other churches, and when he returned to England in 1864 he 

and Hipsley, along with other likeminded Friends, begai to urge the 

Society of Friends similarly to organise a mission, and to send men and 

women not merely to undertake preaching tours, but to live in the country 

for extended periods of time. The Yearly Meeting however gave their pro- 

posals no united support, because the task of 'turning men's minds to 

God', to which George Richardson had called the Society five years earlier, 

still meant crucially different things among Friends themselves. It did not 

mean, said some, to instruct others in an infallible Bible and an unques- 

tioned doctrine; it meant to point them to their own Inward Teacher. 

Missionary organisations were nevertheless set up, the Provisional 

Committee for Foreign Missions in 1 864 and the Friends ^oreign Mission 

Association in 1868, but they were autonomous bodies, not part of the 

Yearly Meeting. Some, but by no means all, of the Friends who settled in 

India in the '60s and '70s were sponsored by these bodies. 

48 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Another Quaker had visited India in 1863, travelling to Calcutta by 

the same ship as Russell Jeffrey and his party. This was Joseph Pease's 

grandson Joseph Beaumont Pease. He was a young man of barely 30, but 

he was already a widower; it may be that the untimely loss of his wife was 

one of the things that induced him to make the journey when he did. He 

did not stay in Calcutta, he went off at once to Raniganj, then a major 

coaling-port for the Ganges river-steamers. 

Beaumont Pease was an adventurous young man who was eager to see 

the worlds and especially the wilder and less-known parts of it. He was 

also a Quaker business-man, with an eye to possible profitable outlets for 

family business; his sister had married a distant cousin, Henry Fell Pease, 

whose many business interests included coke. He was also a member of 

an affectionate closeknit Quaker family. His surviving letters from India 16 

cover an attractive medley of themes. There are reports on his endeav- 

ours to promote the use of coke for, among other things, fuelling river 

steamers; there are brotherly, humorous inquiries into his sister's doings 

and the progress of her babies; there is a great zest for new experience. 

Rough camping in Kashmir was a high-light of his trip, and it was with 

keen regret that he gave up the idea of returning to England by the diffi- 

cult but fascinating desert route. 

In fact, like a number of his Quaker contemporaries, Beaumont Pease 

was a man with a wide range of 'secular' interests. His grandfather had 

been a noble Quaker humanitarian; his fellow-travellers to India had a 

deep concern 'to return men's minds to God'. He regarded their work 

with a friendly eye, but he himself was the forerunner of a third group of 

Friends, the first of whom began to settle in India soon after he had left. 

During the following years lively-minded young Friends, with his own 

zestful readiness for new experience, worked alongside Indian colleagues 

in varied and important enterprises. Pease however did not live to see it. 

Before he was 40, taking a long tramp around the Isle of Wight, he con- 

tracted a chill which brought on a fatal attack of pneumonia. 

Notes to Chapter V 

1 See S.Wenger, The Lalbazaar Bapiist Church: a centenary history. [Not found.] 

2 Saunderson Walker's Journal is preserved in Friends House Library, London. 

3 Acts of the Apostles 10, 33. 

CALCUTTA; INVITATION AND RESPONSE : 1861 TO 1864 49 

4 Macaulay read insatiably during his voyage to India in 1834. See the aston- 

ishing list in chapter 6 of The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, ed. G.O.Trevelyan, 

2nded. 1877, vol.1 p.375. 

5 J.J.Gurney, Memoirs, 1854, vol.2 pp.537-8. 

6 He heard of the Sauds from a correspondent in Calcutta, W.H.Trant, in 1819. 

See J.J.Gurney, Observations on the Religious Peculiarities of the Society of Friends, 

1824, pp. 10-1 2n. 

7 Some Luso-Indian names are identical with names in the records of the 

Calcutta Benevolent Institution. 

8 See Autobiography of ' Devendranath Tagore, tr. S.Tagore and I.Devi, 1914, p. 17. 

9 In The Friend for April 1864, however, Jeffrey reports that in Vellore they rather 

conspicuously declined to join in the communion service. 'Our non-use of Baptism 

and the Supper almost gives offence to some of our missionary brethren, and I 

believe our quietly bearing a testimony to the non-necessity of these rites ... is of 

use' (p.78). 

10 One of these young men joined the Presbyterian Church, and lived to meet 

other Quakers in Calcutta in 1919-20. 

1 1 Information can be extracted from contemporary Calcutta directories. In 1 863 

Mariano D'Ortez* salary was Rs.60/- a month. That was good pay. 

12 George Fox, Epistles no. 144. 

13 Letter to Joseph Sturge, 1831. 

14 Report of a conversation with John Bright in Allen Jay, Autobiography, 1910, 

p.262. 

14a T.W.Reid, Life of William Edward Forster, 1888, vol.1 p.255. 

15 Charles Darwin, Autobiography, ed. Nora Barlow, 1958, p. 85. He refers to the 

period 1836-39, 

16 Letters in the Durham County Record Office; talk on Kashmir given in 1866 

to the Darlington Essay Society. 

52 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Thomas Lidbetter (extreme left, behind potted plants) and family 

and household servants, Bombay, 1886. 

Indian interests; soon after Martin joined it published an article about 

'Hindu Christians', who were living by the precepts of Jesus within their 

native religious community, as Rammohun Roy and his successor Keshab 

Chandra Sen urged people to do. Martin himself had now a personal link 

with India, for his old Sheffield friend James Wilson had left the cutlery 

trade for journalism and become editor of The Indian Daily News in 

Calcutta. Martin was ready for a similar adventure in Bombay, and a 

Sheffield Friend of his own age, Lydia Milner, agreed to follow him there 

and become his second wife. 

Lydia provided another link. She had been at school at Ackworth with 

a boy named Thomas Lidbetter, who when he left school had insisted on 

going to sea, and had become a master mariner. In 1853 he had visited 

Bombay and then Calcutta as captain of a cargo-ship, the Swarthmore, and 

had taken on Indian seamen there for whose services he was to be very 

grateful, for when the ship reached Australia its English crew deserted to 

try their fortunes in the gold rush. The return voyage, carrying £300,000 

in gold, was a remarkable feat of seamanship, as the ship's design was faulty 

and serious leaks developed, occasioning three weeks' hard pumping and 

much exhaustion of crew and officers. By 1860, with much practical 

QUAKER HOUSEHOLDS IN INDIA : 1 865 TO 1881 

experience of ships behind him, Lidbetter had become a shipbuilder, ami 

was engaged to build the Indus River Steam Flotilla in Karachi. When the 

work was completed he stayed on, in shipping insurance business. Then 

came financial crisis; the end of the American Civil War meant the col- 

lapse of the inflated Indian cotton market and the ruin of his business, with 

many others. In 1 866 he brought his family to Bombav, where he obtained 

salaried employment in the same field and where the Woods gave them a 

warm welcome. 

Martin Wood, in The Times of India, dealt with the financial crisis with 

steady commonsense, and soon got to know leaders of Indian public 

opinion such as Dadabhai Naoroji, Mahomed AH Rogay and Phirozeshah 

Mehta. He was much aware of the public indignation at the government's 

'criminal lethargy' in dealing with famine in Orissa in 1866; his articles 

voiced the widespread criticism of the priority given to railway building 

rather than the dependable water-supply which the public needed. 

'English engineers and surveyors,' he wrote, 'plan expensive railways, for 

which the masses pay, in a country whose first want is water.' 4 

'The masses pay' ~ and they had no say 'in how their money is spent ' 

Wood, who had known the artisans of Sheffield, had a great respect for 

the common people's ability to judge wisely of matters which affected 

their lives. 'The natives of India,' he wrote, 'are as clear-brained as our 

own race.' They are entitled to be asked what they want, and to be given 

the information which is essential to intelligent discussion, and to have 

some say in the decision-making. 

In his criticism of the 'pride and haste' of railway building, Wood could 

and did point to the warnings of Sir Arthur Cotton ('the greatest engineer 

who ever entered the public service in India'), who warned the authorities 

of the damage done to river systems and natural drainage by railways built 

without adequate survey. He himself was the author of wise schemes of 

water conservation which John Bright had drawn to the attention of Par- 

liament in 1853. 4A 

Wood, who owed so much to Bright, also took up in The Times of India 

the political themes which Bright had so often raised. Was not the listless 

heavy heedlessness' of British bureaucracy 'far more terrible in practice' 

than the sporadic acts of tyranny of which some Indian princes might be 

guilty? When accused of 'meddling with politics' he made a vigorous reply: 

'That reproach has usually been flung at those who attempt to get justice 

done by a powerful class or country towards its dependents - in this case 

by England towards India.' 

Wood kept in close touch both with Dadabhai Naoroji, to whose wisdom 

and integrity he paid generous public tribute, and with an English con- 

temporary, Henry Fawcett, who entered Parliament in 1865 and quickly 

AN I~SDIAX TAPKSTRY 

U" Viv y.>.:. 'J:^c Charles Forbes before him) as 'member for India'. 

J ;*v. ' *t had K--;vr. attracted, even as a boy, by Bright ; s championship of 

the ; 'Odr, and had decided that he too would embark on a similar political 

c;in ' r. An accident in early manhood, which left him totally blind, did not 

deflect him from his purpose. As a student at Cambridge in the 1850's he 

was convinced by Bright's speeches on India that it was part of his public 

duty to inform himself about Indian affairs; in his first Parliamentary 

contest his sponsor was Lord Brougham, who 20 years earlier had backed 

the British India Society. By the time he became 'member for India' he 

was also Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge. 

Fawcett raised in Parliament the question which Wood and his Indian 

friends were raising in Bombay: why should India, burdened by recur- 

rent famine, be made to pay the so-called 'home charges' which in all fair- 

ness should be debited to Britain? He compelled the House to attend to 

the annual Indian budget in a way it had never done before, and to listen 

to his own masterly analysis of it. He got a financial committee appointed, 

and insisted on its hearing Indian evidence. Dadabhai Naoroji, himself 

an able economist, gave evidence in 1871, and was moved by Fawcett's 

passion for justice. Fawcett indeed spoke of his motives in words which 

recall how Bright, more than 20 years earlier, had defended his decision 

to enter Parliament before his Quaker elders. 'I do,' said Fawcett, 

'whatever can be done by one humble individual to render justice to the 

defenceless and the powerless.' 

Naoroji and Fawcett were Wood's near-contemporaries. A younger 

man with a similar selfless concern for the public welfare was Mahadev 

Govind Ranade of Pune, who in 1867 founded the Prarthana Samaj 

(Prayer Society) for religious fellowship and social reform. Ranade 

believed that healthy growth in society must 'spring from one's own essen- 

tial past', though some stimulus from outside might help to evoke it. Wood, 

who had no sympathy with England's 'civilising mission', used similar 

language. 'Civilisation,' he wrote, 'is a spiritual matter, not to be induced 

from without, but to be evoked from within.' The two men undoubtedly 

knew one another, but records are too scanty to show whether they became 

friends at a deeper level. Ranade fed his spirit on the hymns of Tukaram, 

Wood turned to the English poet-mystics who had been Tukaram's con- 

temporaries. Possibly they did know one another c in that which is Eternal' . 

There is a Quakerly ring about one of Ranade 's recorded speeches: 'What 

is needed is a new freedom, responsible to the Voice of God within us, 

recognising the dignity of nature and destiny.' 5 

After about nine years with The Times of India Martin Wood gave up 

his editorship, but remained in Bombay as a freelance journalist. The con- 

tributions of 'our Bombay correspondent' to James Wilson's Indian Daily 

News were probably from his pen, for they have the forthright vigour of 

QUAKER HOUSEHOLDS IN INDIA : 1865 TO 1881 55 

his style. Then in 1878 he started an independent weekly, The Bombay 

Review f which he himself regarded as his best work, and which he used 

to further his own special concerns. 

The first of these derived from Wood's profound respect for the intel- 

ligence, goodwill and good sense of India's ordinary people. He was very 

critical of the government's failure to trust their judgment, shown in its 

suppression of vernacular newspapers. The only result, Wood declared, 

was to replace 'good cogent writing in Indian languages by poor writing 

in bad English'. The government's practice of espionage, he went on 

'breeds mistrust'. His friend William Wedderburn of the Bombay Civil 

Service proposed that rural indebtedness might be dealt with through the 

village panchayats, those -'little republican municipalities' whose value had 

been recognised by Munro and his friends. Wedderburn's proposals were 

rejected; in the eyes of the government, panchayats were merely 'a crude 

form of socialism, inconsistent with the principles of our rule'. 

Wood's second special concern was the neglect and destruction of 

India's forest wealth. This was something which Henry Fawcett well 

understood; during the same years in Britain he was fighting to save 

Epping Forest and the New Forest from reckless destruction. In India, 

following the Deccan famine of 1 877, a Commission was working on plans 

to prevent or deal with future calamities. 'The Famine Commission,' wrote 

Wood, 'should inquire whether or not the plenty of the past has vanished 

with the forests which are reservoirs without dams' The forests had been 

pillaged then to provide the millions of sleepers demanded by the 

ever-expanding railways; but more than 1 00 years later Wood's words still 

have a topical ring, and carry a present warning. 

By 1 88 1 , after 1 6 years in Bombay, the Woods decided that it was time 

to return to England. Their friends the Lidbetters had left some years 

earlier, and their own youngest child, named Arthur Lidbetter in grati- 

tude for this friendship, was already 10 years old. The family settled in 

London, where the three children went to school, but they did not sever 

their links with India. A year or two later, in 1884, Henry Fawcett died, 

still comparatively young and greatly mourned. Martin Wood could not 

be present at the condolence meeting in Bombay, where Ranade, 

Wedderburn and others expressed their gratitude and sorrow. But for the 

next 20 years he continued to work for India in England in the spirit and 

on the lines that Fawcett had laid down. 

Benares and beyond 1866-72 

In 1 866 another Friend, Rachel Metcalfe, began living in Benares. She 

was Martin Wood's exact contemporary, born like him in 1828, and her 

social background was very similar to his. She too came of Yorkshire 

56 

AN INDIAN TAPHSTRY 

Frances Knox, nee Reynolds. Rachel Metcalfe, aged 38. 

farming stock; Metcalfe farmers in Wensleydale had joined the Society 

of Friends in its earliest days/ and Rachel's grandfather had been a farmer 

in Sedbergh. He may have been 'disowned' for marrying a non-Friend, 

for her father John Metcalfe was not a birthright Quaker. Like Martin 

Wood's father he had become a small tradesman - in Macclesfield, 

Cheshire, where he regularly attended the Friends Meeting. In 1825, 

wishing to marry a Quaker girl, Mary Kendrew, he applied for member- 

ship and was accepted, and in 1826 they were married. Rachel was their 

second child and eldest daughter; three younger ones, two girls and a boy, 

also grew to maturity. 

Rachel had happy memories of childhood, of sitting in the small quiet 

Meeting, listening to the trees outside rustling in the wind, feeling that 

God was 'so good and so near'. She and her next sister went to school in 

Macclesfield, and her parents (who were less 'strict' than some Friends) 

encouraged her musical gifts; she became a promising pianist. Her beloved 

elder brother William was sent to Ackworth School, which catered spe- 

cially for Friends 'not in affluence'. 

In 1840 clouds began to gather. Mary Metcalfe fell ill and became 

paralysed, and at the same time John Metcalfe's modest business was hard 

hit, like many others, by the repercussions of the Opium War. Rachel left 

school to keep house and to care for her ailing mother and for little Sarah 

Jane who was only three. But she did not give up her music and she did 

her best to educate herself. In 1 842 her younger brother Joseph John, who 

QUAKER HOUSEHOLDS IN INDIA : 1865 TO 1 881 

57 

had followed William to Ackworth, came home in rebellious mood 

because his father could no longer afford even the very small fee. Rachel, 

full of adolescent doubt and speculation, shared his rebelliousness; should 

she not resign from the Society of Friends? 

Slowly her mood changed. In 1843 The British Friend began publica- 

tion; she read its articles, religious experience began to be real to her again. 

Then in 1 845 her mother died, the family moved to a cheaper house, and 

Rachel, now 17, realised that she should begin to earn her keep. Friends 

suggested that she might be a music teacher, but her newly-recovered reli- 

gious experience made her reluctant to associate with.the 'worldly' fam- 

ilies who might employ her. So the precious piano was sold, she left her 

next sister Eliza in charge of the household, and went to Ackworth to work 

as a servant, making and repairing the girls' uniforms, 

Not long afterwards, in 1847, John Metcalfe too died, and the family 

home was finally broken up. William had completed an apprenticeship in 

Manchester and was well settled there; Rachel and Eliza became domestic 

servants in wealthy Quaker families, and together they arranged for Sarah 

Jane, now 10 years old, to go to Ackworth School. After a few years in 

York, Rachel went to Charles and Sarah Fryer near Brighouse, to help care 

for their six small children; they found her so useful that in 1853, when 

Charles was appointed Superintendent of the Croydon Friends School, 8 

they took her with them to Croydon, where she stayed till the end of 1857, 

when the last little Fryer entered school and no longer needed her. 

The years in Croydon marked a turning-point in Rachel's life. She met 

there another young woman of Quaker origin, five years older than herself, 

who had already spent 12 years in India, and in 1855 had returned to 

Croydon and the Meeting in which she had been brought up. To under- 

stand the significance of that encounter another fragmentary story must 

be told. 

In the first years of the 1 9 th century a Friend named Thomas Reynolds 

was running a bleaching business at Beddington near Croydon. Besides 

being a successful businessman he was also a Fellow 'of the Royal So.ciety 

with a keen interest in natural science. His son Thomas Forbes Reynolds 9 

shared his interest in science (though not in business), but in 1 822 his chief 

interest was Frances Daniell, a neighbour's daughter. .Her parents were 

planning a marriage for her, but she preferred her Quaker admirer, and 

the two young people clinched the matter by eloping to Gretna Green and 

returning married. The Daniell family, forgave the escapade and accepted 

the fait accompli. Not so the Friends. Like so many others, including Joseph 

Pease's daughter Elizabeth, and John Bright's friend W. E. Forster, Thomas 

Forbes Reynolds forfeited his membership in the Society for marrying 

someone who was not a Friend. In practice (again like many others) he 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

;m»l his wile were regular attenders at the Croydon Meeting for Worship, 

;uul uleniilied themselves with it so completely that when the young wife 

died in ISM her body was buried in the Friends' burial ground, and the 

Lii i thai she was not in membership was not even recorded. 

Her little daughter Frances Mary, scarcely eight years old, was to 

remember all her life how Elizabeth Fry (who was related to the Reynolds 

by marriage) had taken her in her arms at her mother's funeral and com- 

lorted her. Her bereaved father sent her to 'an excellent girls' boarding 

school 1 , 10 and himself found a new interest in scientific studies at 

( Cambridge. There he met and befriended a penniless young man, George 

Knox, who was preparing for Holy Orders. Later, in 1838, the East India 

Company appointed Knox to a chaplaincy, and before sailing he went to 

Croydon 'to say goodbye to his friend. There he met the 15-year-old 

Frances in her father's house. 

Frances, whose unworldly father was unable to provide her with the 

usual dowry, then proposed to use her own education and earn her living 

as a governess. Her Daniell grandparents however would not hear of her 

entering such a menial occupation, and their point of view was under- 

standable; F. D. Maurice's Harley Street College had not yet begun to 

improve the governess' skills and raise her status. 'No,' they said. £ A voyage 

to India is as good as a dowry. Friends of ours are just going to Madras. 

You can travel with them; you'll soon find a good husband there!' At first 

Frances refused; her Quaker standards made her fear 'the worldliness of 

the society she would meet'. Finally however she agreed, and in 1843 she 

journeyed to Madras, a girl of 20, slight and beautiful, in her sober, modest 

Quaker dress. 

Madras was captivated by Frances Reynolds' fair beauty, her winning 

smile, and her quiet Quaker dignity. George Knox the chaplain recog- 

nised with delight the girl he had met in Croydon five years earlier, and 

before many months had passed they were married. It is easy to see why 

he was attracted. He had had an unhappy childhood, for his mother had 

died when he was only four, and his father had rejected him harshly and 

given all his affection to a younger brother. George withdrew into a prickly, 

defiant independence; in India, poor as he was, he refused to make himself 

known to his distinguished cousin Sir Henry Lawrence, whose mother 

was a Knox. Madras thought of him as *a forceful black Ulsterman' who 

never smiled - though 'he thought he knew how it was done V Then came 

Frances, who had also been a motherless child, and whose young woman- 

hood quickened memories of his own 'loved, long-lost mother'. 

One of the chaplain's duties was the oversight of the two Civil Orphan 

Asylums, one tor boys and one for girls, which had been started in Madras 

by local initiative and were managed by a diocesan committee. The bishop 

QUAKER HOUSKHOl.DS IN INDIA : 18b5 TO 1881 ^ 

encouraged Knox's interest in education, and there can be little doubt 

that Frances, with her leanings towards a teaching career, shared in her 

husband's work. 11 

In 1848 the Knoxs were transferred to Bangalore, the British 

'Residency' town in Indian-ruled Mysore State; a good many 'East 

Indians' of mixed blood were living there, and their common language 

was English. There too there were schools. When five years later the chap- 

lain and his family left Bangalore, local newspapers wrote warmly of 'the 

kindness of heart and courtesy of manner' which had won the hearts of 

common soldiers and humble civilians alike. 1 2 The tribute must have been 

echoed both in Madras and in the newly-established 'sanatorium', 

Ootacamund in the Nilgiri Hills, to which the Knoxs had been sent. 

Ootacamund already had a church, which had a free school for the poor 

to attract Frances' interest. 13 

By the beginning of 1 855 Frances Knoxhad seven children of her own, 

and George Knox resigned his chaplaincy and took them all to England. 

Frances was soon back in the familiar surroundings of her childhood, for 

her husband was appointed curate of Beddington Parish Church and also 

Association Secretary for the Church Missionary Society in the Croydon 

area. They found a house at Waddon between Beddington and Croydon, 

and there Frances created a home which had a profound influence on all 

her children, for it combined firm Quakerly standards of conduct with 

tenderness, humour and serene conimonsense, and a deep reverence for 

the things of the spirit. 1 4 

So in the year 1 856 the 32-year-old Frances and the 27-year-old Rachel 

were both in Croydon. There is no written evidence of their meeting, but 

every circumstance makes it probable. Would not Frances renew her 

friendship among the Quakers with whom she had worshipped all her 

girlhood? Might not Croydon Friends ask her to talk about her experi- 

ences in India, at a meeting, where Rachel was present? The two young 

women had much in common, a simple piety, a great love of children; 

with Frances social barriers did not count, as her record in India shows. 

The only written report is Rachel's statement made much later that she 

had received 'a call of the Lord to India' in 1856, 10 years before she 

sailed. She said, nothing of how the call had come. Was it not through 

Frances, in one way or another? 

However that may be, Rachel did not feel the call to be an immediate 

one. When she left Croydon she did no more domestic service, but 

started her own business as a seamstress, and soon decided to settle in 

Manchester, where a number of her family were already living. Her brother 

William was there with his wife and children, so were her Quaker cousins 

the Kendrews; Sarah Jane had long completed her schooling and was 

60 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

working there too. The whole family must have shared the excitement of 

the controversy over Essays and Reviews which was then raging round the 

Friends Institute; they probably also shared the outlook of The British Friend, 

which they read regularly. As for Rachel, she found so much satisfaction in 

her work, and in the company of William's children who loved her dearly, 

that she began to wonder whether after all she had been mistaken about 

tiiat 'call to Tndia'. Then one night, waking suddenly, she heard it again, as 

a Voice in the silence; she waited expectantly for 'the way to open'. 

In October 1864 The British Friend published a letter which Russell 

Jeffrey had received from Jane Leupolt, a CMS missionary in Benares 

whom he had met during his India tour. She appealed to 'wealthy Friends' 

to provide money to buy sewing and knitting machines, so that she might 

start an industrial school for needy girls and women. She was not asking 

for personal service, but Rachel saw in her appeal 'the opening of the way', 

and wrote to offer herself as a teacher. She also wrote to Russell Jeffrey, 

explaining that her call was not, like his, to 'travel in the ministry' but to 

'dwell among the people, teaching and helping in the daily routines of 

life' 15 - to do, in fact, what Frances Knox had been doing in her work for 

needy children in South India. Jeffrey advised her to lay her call before 

her own Monthly Meeting. She found no sympathy. 'Stay at home and 

mind your business,' they told her, and did not even trouble to minute 

the matter. 

Rachel however was now sure of her call. Mrs Leupolt had written to 

welcome her offer, but explained that it would only be possible if Friends 

would sponsor and support her. Rachel therefore wrote direct to the new 

Provincial Committee for foreign missions. Many of its members regarded 

her as 'poor and insecure', like those Calcutta Friends whose existence 

they tacitly ignored. But Thomas Pumphrey of Ackworth and his friend 

John Ford of York knew Rachel well, so did prominent Friends in the 

Brighouse and Manchester areas, who testified to her character and 

ability. 16 The Committee therefore agreed to accept her 'to assist with 

female education in Benares', but its 'support' was the minimum which 

would enable Rachel to help herself. She provided her own personal outfit, 

she took her own sewing machine; York Friends arranged for her to travel 

with CMS missionaries who were returning to India from York, and earn 

part of her passage by caring for their infant daughter on the voyage. She 

carried one treasured gift, a set of silver teaspoons which may possibly 

have been a token of Sarah Fryer's gratitude. One compassionate woman, 

Jane F. Greene, saw her off at Southampton. 

Rachel's missionary companions, Townsend and Sarah Storrs, were 

wise, gentle people who lived very simply among the tribal people of Santal 

Parganas, on the Bengal-Bihar border. Townsend showed his wisdom by 

QUAKER HOUSEHOLDS IN INDIA : 1865 TO 1881 61 

opposing any economic dependence of Christians on 'the mission'; he 

would baptise no one who could not support himself. Rachel's own inde- 

pendent spirit responded, and she learned much. They landed together 

in Calcutta - in Calcutta, only three years after Russell Jeffrey had visited 

the city; possibly Benjamin Hayllar the railway man, who was a member 

of Rachel's own Monthly Meeting, 17 was still there. Yet no one told Rachel 

of the Calcutta Friends, though God had 'called her out', and there would 

have been no social barriers for her. A great opportunity w T as missed; 

Rachel travelled with the Storrs to their own base, and then on alone to 

Benares, possibly for her the most difficult part of the whole journey. 18 

Any difficulties however were soon forgotten. Jane Leupolt quickly 

realised what a treasure she had got. 'She is the right person in the right 

place,' she wrote. 'She has a happy knack of making herself understood, 

and throws heart and soul into her work; she has thorough knowledge 

and a sweet cheerful temper.' 19 Rachel, 'dwelling among' these young 

women and 'sharing the daily routines of life', was happy too. She quickly 

made friends with her pupils, who talked with her freely of their hopes 

and problems. Her interest in 'female education' was not limited to the 

training of skilled needlewomen; Jane's husband Charles B. Leupolt soon 

asked her to accompany him when he visited children's schools, and 

greatly valued her help. 

Among the Leupolts' friends were Dr and Mrs Lazarus, Christians of 

Indian Jewish origin from Calcutta. Along with their own family they were 

caring for three little English children whose mother had died suddenly, 

and Rachel was soon making herself useful in that household also. 

Dr Lazarus had a lively interest in education, and in 1 867 an enlightened 

Indian prince, the Maharajah of Vizianagram, who spent a good deal of 

time in Benares, approached him for advice; he wished to provide Benares 

with an independent girls' school. 20 So high was Dr Lazarus' opinion of 

Rachel's ability that he asked her to consider becoming Principal of the 

new school. Rachel was attracted but decided that she was not yet ready 

for such a responsibility. 

The attraction of Dr Lazarus' suggestion was that it offered Rachel 

congenial work independent of the CMS. Happy as she was among her 

industrial school pupils, she felt ill at ease in the social circles in which the 

missionaries moved. 'I prefer my own simple mode of dress and living with 

its fewer cares,' she wrote. After some further reflection, she asked the 

newly-formed Friends Foreign Mission Association (FFMA) if it would 

support her in going forward independently 'as way opened'. She also 

appealed for a married couple to come and share the adventure with her. 

A response came, unexpectedly, from the USA* from Elkanah and 

Irena Beard of Indiana. Elkanah, like Rachel herself, came of farming 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

stork, and Ins record of heroic service during the Civil War was well known 

i<> I -ondon lTicnds, 21 When the-war toded he and Irena had undertaken 

iin even more dangerous task - to live among newly-emancipated Blacks, 

confronted as they were by murderously resentful Whites, in Mississippi 

:md Louisiana. An offer of service in Benares from such a couple was 

readily accepted, and after a few months of language study in London the 

Heards sailed for India. 

They landed not in Calcutta but in Bombay, travelled by rail from 

there to Nagpur, then by horse-drawn mail coach to Jabalpur, and from 

i here by a newly-constructed railway line to Allahabad and Benares. Fresh 

as they were from the scars of the American Civil War, they were shocked 

and saddened by the scars of the Indian insurrection of 1857, encoun- 

tered both on the journey and in Benares itself. Fear and hatred, Elkanah 

wrote, made British people regard Indians 'as unworthy of kindness and 

respect'. 22 Added to this was British social snobbery; the missionaries 

seemed to him to treat Rachel herself £ more as a servant than an equal'. 

'The missionaries in Benares,' reported Elkanah, 'want us to go else- 

where, and since becoming acquainted with their way of working, we are 

quite of the same opinion!' In the autumn of 1869, as soon as the roads 

had dried out after the rains, he went exploring down the Narmada river 

valley, westward from Jabalpur, until he reached Hoshangabad. The 

ancient little town was very attractive, but in those days before the railway 

had been built down the valley it was also very remote. The three Friends 

decided that for the time being they would stay in Benares - but in the 

Indian city, not in any 'mission compound'. 

From his first arrival Elkanah had made friends among the many 

students in the city, and now with their help this plan was quickly carried 

out. A house was found at Prahlad Ghat, overlooking the river, where they 

'dwelt among the people' as Rachel had always wished to do. Consequently 

they were not regarded with the suspicion with which the public regarded 

conventional 'missions'. The Government of the 1860's was aggressively 

Christian, 23 and the mixed motives with which missionaries had been 

admitted in 1813 were still in operation; the government had recently 

expressed its 'great obligation' to missionaries for making people 'better 

citizens of the Empire . . . thoroughly loyal to the British Crown', No 

wonder that many Indians 'could see no motive but a political one for the 

vast outlay of money for missionaries 5 . 24 

Benares, with its ancient Sanskrit learning and its modern 'western 1 

colleges, was a centre of religious thought and inquiry. In that same year 

1 869 a 'strange pandit' was declaring in beautiful simple Sanskrit that the 

Vcdas, the sacred scriptures, do not enjoin idolatry. 25 Keshab Chandra 

Sen, a leader of the Brahmo Samaj, was a frequent visitor; like Rammohun 

QUAKER HOUSEHOLDS IN INDIA : 1865 TO 1881 <) * 

Roy before him he urged people to live as disciples of Jesus within their 

traditional religious communities. 'The grace of God is shining in many 

hearts,' wrote Elkanah. It shone for him in men like these, in the beauty 

and dignity of Islam, in the simple humble worshippers on the river ghats. 

There were things in the religions of India which he rejected, but his test 

was one of inward attitude more than outward observance; idolatry meant 

'what is impure in imagination and wicked in practice', salvation meant 

'growth in the beauty of holiness'. 

The little house at Prahlad Ghat might fairly be*called the first Quaker 

Centre in India. 'Christ was the Head' of that household, its members 

served Him in their neighbours, its witness was in life more than words. 

Nevertheless the Friends were not afraid to use words; they spoke openly 

of what they owed to Jesus, and Elkanah, the chief speaker, made a great 

impression. Rachel reported what a Hindu priest had said of him: 'This 

man must be sent of God, he is so full of love.' Arabic scholars from 

Lucknow and Brahmin pilgrims from Bombay all sought him out as a 

'brother'; thoughtful mature men and young college students came to 

him to learn of the spiritual insights of the Gospels. 'How nicely Jesus 

puts things!' said the boys. 

Elkanah gave much time to these boys, who were fascinated by his 

microscope and his lively comments on the things it revealed. They 

devoured the American and British papers in his reading-room, and read 

of the Franco-Prussian War. 'Why do Christians fight so much?' they 

asked, and Elkanah told them of the American Civil War and Friends' 

work for reconciliation there. Meanwhile Rachel and Irena found many 

ways to befriend their immediate neighbours, especially the women and 

children. They started a school, and soon had as many pupils as they 

could manage; they held a 'widows' class', and a Sunday School, and a 

class for beggar boys. Hindu and Muslim neighbours invited them into 

their homes so often that they could scarcely fit in all the visits. 

Elkanah too was sometimes included in these invitations, and in these 

simple homes became aware of another need. Many of the menfolk could 

read a little, but not very much; perhaps, thought Elkanah, he could give 

them something simple to read which might help them and their families 

in daily living? He planned a series of colourful handbills called Good 

Words; each one carried, in large clear letters, two or three sentences from 

the Gospels: short parables, some of the Beatitudes, the 'two great 

commandments', the saying that God seeks to be worshipped 'in spirit 

and in truth'. There was no commentary, the words were left to speak for 

themselves. Dr Lazarus, who among his many interests had a printing 

press, got them printed in both Hindi Nagari and Persian Urdu scripts, 

and they were popular and widely read. 26 

64 

AN INDIAN TAPKSTRY 

The 'daily living' which Good Words were designed to help was the 

Friends' chief concern. Elkanah was critical of Christian teaching which 

over-emphasised a judgment after death. 'People say,' he wrote, 'what a 

solemn thing to die. But / say, what a solemn thing to live, a day at a time, 

for the social, moral and religious development of this people.' The year 

1870 brought rich experience of living, but it often had to be done 'a day 

at a time', for all three Friends had bouts of ill-health; should they not 

now move away from the difficult climate of Benares? A Rajah 'from west 

of Allahabad,' whose sons were studying in Benares, had once invited 

them to come and teach the people of his State 27 - but the time for a 

response had gone by. Hoshangabad? It still seemed too remote. They 

decided on Jabalpur, and early in 1 87 1 they rented a house there. Elkanah 

opened a reading-room and made friends, as in Benares, with students 

and educated men. Irena and Rachel started two schools, each in a dif- 

ferent part of the town. But Irena's health deteriorated so much that before 

the end of the year the doctor warned Elkanah that to spend another hot 

season in India might endanger her life. Hopes shattered, the Beards sadly 

returned home early in 1 872, leaving Rachel alone in Jabalpur. 'The long 

dreary prospect before me,' she wrote, 'does not lessen the assurance that 

my coming to India was a right thing.' 

Towards Hoshangabad 1873-78 

In 1872, on his way home from India, Elkanah Beard met the leaders 

of the FFMA in London, and pointed to Hoshangabad as a possible future 

centre of Quaker work. Among those who listened to him on that spring 

day was a young man of 27 named Charles Gayford. Like Beard himself 

he was a farmer's son; unlike Beard he was not a 'birthright' Friend, but 

had grown up in the parish church of his village. Then he had become a 

grocer in the little town of Stansted, where he met Friends, and found in 

their Meetings for Worship a spiritual home. He was accepted into mem- 

bership, and his thoughts turned to 'religious service' with the FFMA. 

The committee, seeking a replacement for the Beards, welcomed his offer; 

he spent the rest of the year acquiring basic language and medical skills 

from a retired missionary, and reached India at the beginning of 1873. 

By that time the new railway line from Bombay to Allahabad via 

Jabalpur was in operation. Gayford reached Jabalpur to find that Rachel, 

during her year of loneliness, had not only carried on the two little schools, 

she had also continued Elkanah's informal Bible study group. She wel- 

comed him warmly, all the more so because his social background was so 

much like her own. She felt, as she confided to him later, that his coming 

was an answer to her prayer, that she might 'be used as a plank upon which 

others might cross to the field of Indian missionary effort'. 28 

QUAKER HOUSEHOLDS IN INDIA : 1865 TO 1881 65 

There was a CMS missionary in Jabalpur, Walter Champion, who had 

been absent on leave when the Friends arrived there in 1 87 1 . He was trou- 

bled, like most missionaries, by the Quaker attitude to water-baptism. 

Gayford, ex-churchman as he was, understood Champion's feelings, and 

assured him that he and Rachel would not stay in Jabalpur, but would look 

for a new base as soon as the monsoon was over. Meanwhile he practised 

his Hindi and began to make friends. One of these friends was a young 

Luso-Indian lawyer, Lewis Mendes, who had been the first native of India 

to earn an LL.D, a Doctorate of Laws. 24 ' Another Luso-Indian was Head- 

master of the CMS High School; he may possibly have been related to a 

Calcutta Quaker of the same name, De Cruz. There were other educated 

men in the railway and police services, some of whom had attended the 

Bible study led by Elkanah and then by Rachel. Along with sensitive spirits 

like these, Rachel and Gayford began to hold a regular Meeting for Worship. 

At the end of October, when the roads had dried out, Gayford set off 

to look for a new base, speeded on his way by his friend Lewis Mendes. 30 

From the Mandla district he followed the Narmada river westward, from 

close under the Satpura ranges on the south to the foot of the Vindhya 

hills on the north bank opposite Hoshangabad. He travelled on foot, 

remembering the robust prescription forhealth in the tropics given him 

by his mentor before he left London: 'No beefsteak or brandy, and plenty 

of physical exercise!' He took a servant to Help him, and a pony for pos- 

sible emergencies, and carried a tent, and a supply of simple medicines, 

in a bullock cart. On the road he met many friendly villagers, and talked 

with them as farmer to farmer about their growing crops; he slept m the 

open air, among people of such simple honesty that a whole police 'circle' 

of 63 villages was manned by one Head Constable with seven men. He 

noted with less pleasure that although the price of wheat had doubled 

over 20 years 'the weak become weaker, the poor remain poor'. 

During the first week of his journey there was a total eclipse of the 

moon, and the people came in crowds for ceremonial bathing in the river. 

There Gayford began his 'religious service'. He offered them some of 

Elkanah Beard's Good Words; those who could read took them eagerly, 

and a group gathered round him under a shady tree. He told them a story 

from the Gospels, and talked a little about what it might mean in their 

own daily lives. The people listened, and many lingered or came back for 

further talk. It was a pattern of teaching which Gayford followed 

throughout. 

For him however at that time learning was. more important than 

teaching. In the course of his journey he occasionally met other English- 

men - a senior Inspector of Police with 'much valuable knowledge'; a 

Civil Surgeon, 'a Cambridge man with Quaker connections'. .Gayford 

AN* INDIAN TAPESTRY 

inn nc t I ;ilJ In- could from them, but he learned even more when he reached 

ilu' 'lt;u man ( ihat\ Here, a few miles from Narsinghpur, there is a large 

r.liind tn i ho river and an old ferry-crossing which is a famous place of 

i hIki in When Gayford arrived its great annual festival was in progress. 

I le pm-iu-d liis tent and stayed, among Indian devotees of many kinds. 

( >iKM>| these was a saintly old philosopher, who said to him one Sunday 

Miornmr 7// <:ar fSunday) is linked with preeti- Jove and the obedience of 

l"-.r: '/ ii' m v/<;re others, open dhdpks of Jesus outside the organised 

■ Uun.U, j/r hi<\m<£ two sannyasis who were teaching that 'Jesus has opened 

■ i new and hvjng way for all! Very different were the pilgrims, who were 

' f i tfaged i n ih e parikrama (circumambulation) of the holy river from source 

mouth and back again, willingly observing the strict personal discipline 

required of them. Different again were the Vairagya ascetics, 'fine men 

with great strength of character 5 . The use of an image, they told him, was 

//"/ idolatry, it was an aid (which many need) to the worship of the Unseen. 

( layford listened to them all; following Beard he did not 'wrangle or 

dispute', but sought points of contact and 'parted from them in peace'. 

When the festival was over Gayford left the river for a time and went 

north to Sagar, then westward to Bhilsa (Vidisha), and so south through 

the forested hills back to the river, which he crossed by the ferry to 

Hoshangabad. Among these lovely hills he found great human suffering. 

The tyranny of village malguzars (landlords) could be 'grievous and heavy 

to an extreme degree'; daily necessities were severely taxed - 'the salt tax 

is the worst'. There was hunger, and so much sickness that Gayford's tent 

'became a consulting-room for three or four hours a day'. He did all he 

could, but with keen regret that his own medical knowledge was so limited. 

Finally he saw much that might be done for education. In some of 

the villages he passed through were Government schools, 'efficient but 

amoral - which may have worse results than idolatry'. The schools taught 

children to read, but there was nothing for them to read. What a service 

it would be to provide simple books, books of immediate interest to the 

people, covering every facet of their daily lives! 

From Hoshangabad a road ran east to Sohagpur, 30 miles away on 

the new railway line, and from there back to Narsinghpur and Jabalpur, 

'Yes,' thought Gayford as he travelled, 'Elkanah was right. Hoshangabad, 

with its river ferry and its radiating roads, would be a fine centre for Quaker 

witness to spiritual truth, which should include both healing of the body 

and enlightenment of the mind.' When he reached Jabalpur again in 

February 1874 Rachel was delighted to hear his conclusions; ever 

since Elkanah had journeyed there years earlier, she had longed to go to 

1 loshangabad. 

QUAKER HOUSEHOLDS IN INDIA *. 1865 TO 1881 67 

It was to be more than two years before she was able to go. Not long 

tffcer Gayford had returnee she went down with smallpox. She had good 

nedjca! attenuon. but rccc- er : ^ s'ow. News, ot net ;uncs^rcac?vV. 

KK^KTlitue Qu^etb -scbcu. tb at >css:c Alexander tn Acra t^-v 

(Elizabeth Rebecca^ was the daughter o: a wealthy Quaker banker, and 

soon after Rachel had settled in Benares she too felt led (possibly through 

Rachel's example) to religious service in India. She needed no support 

from the FFMA, being well able to pay her own expenses. When she 

reached India she went first to Benares to consult Rachel, who was 10 years 

her senior, and then settled in Agra and started a school, a useful unpre- 

tentious piece of service. When she heard of Rachel's condition she invited 

her to stay in Agra for convalescence, and as soon as Rachel was able to 

travel Gayford escorted her there, where she was well cared for and at ease. 

Gayford then returned to Hoshangabad, found a place to live, and 

rented an open-fronted shop in the bazaar to serve as a reading-room. He 

made friends with the priests in the riverside temples, the sadhus and pil- 

grims, and the ordinary townsfolk, including the low caste weavers and 

basketmakers. He called on the Civil Surgeon, Dr Cullen, and accom- 

panied him on a visit to the Government dispensaries further west; they 

went to Seoni Malwa and Harda, and on to Khandwa, by bullock cart. 

When the rains were over Gayford took his tent and pony and trekked 

eastward again to Sohagpur and Narsinghpur and the annual Barman fes- 

tival, where he was welcomed by those he had met the previous year. After 

that he went back to Jabalpur and arranged with Walter Champion for 

the CMS to take over Rachel's two schooh. 

Rachel herself stayed on in Agra. For a long time her illness left her 

partially paralysed, and unable to stand without support. Gayford visited 

as often as he could, and her courage and cheerfulness moved him deeply; 

he cared for her like a son. One day towards the end of 1874 he brought 

news which pleased her greatly: he was engaged to be married to Harriet 

Mendes, the sister of his friend Lewis. Harriet was a teacher in Jabalpur, 

and Rachel had known her well there. To the FFMA committee in London 

the news was not so acceptable. They did not approve of marriage with 

( a native', 31 but they decided 'not to place any obstacles in the way', and 

the young couple were married in March 1875. 

Now, instead of 'camping' in Hoshangabad as he had been doing, 

Gayford needed a suitable 'family' house, and could not find one in the 

town. A house was to be had however in the new 'railway colony' in 

Sohagpur, so for the time being the Gayfords made their base there. This 

proved to be the beginning of links between Friends and local railway 

workers which were maintained for many years. A few months earlier, 

visiting Khandwa with Dr Cullen, Gayford had had a warm welcome from 

68 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

the Station Master there, who had earlier attended his Bible readings in 

Jabalpur. Among the railway employees were others who like him were 

spiritually lonely, and for their sakes the Gayfords arranged for Sunday 

evening worship in the station waiting room at Sohagpur. During the 

week Gayford spent most of his time developing his friendships in 

Hoshangabad, riding his pony from one town to the other, while Harriet, 

keen teacher as she was, opened a school for little Indian girls in Sohagpur. 

Meanwhile the London committee instructed Gayford to look for land 

for a base at Hoshangabad, and he soon found it. A farmer of Khojanpur 

village was ready to sell him about three and a half acres on the riverbank 

just outside the town; adjacent to it, and also available, was a Government 

plot of about the same size. In June 1 875 Gayford bought them both (for 

less than 300 rupees all told); actual building however could not begin 

until the four-month monsoon season was over. 

Much happened during those four months. Gayford would sit down 

on the river ghats and tell stories of Jesus and how his teachings might be 

practised in daily living. There was a friendly response. 'Yes/ the listeners 

would say, 'that's true, that's very good!', and they themselves would turn 

on the occasional heckler with a brusque 'Shut up, you!' Others sought 

Gayford out in his bazaar reading-room, among them a Brahmin school- 

master named Devidayal. Devidayai had been turned out of his village for 

opposing idolatry, and he openly regarded himself as a Christian. Gayford 

welcomed him and got him to help with the many young men who also 

came. These youngsters had learned a little English in the Government 

Middle School at Hoshangabad, and were attracted by a friendly young 

Englishman from whom they might learn more. Even during heavy rains 

Gayford kept up his visits, though sometimes he had to swim his pony 

across flooded dips in the Sohagpur road. 

On one su :h visit an 1 8-year-old Brahmin named Bal Mukand Naik 32 

came and told Gayford that like Devidayal he wished openly to declare 

himself a Christian. Gayford questioned him carefully, and felt sure that 

Bal Mukand was ready for such a step; they planned to hold an open 

meeting in Hoshangabad, to which Harriet and others might come from 

Sohagpur and at which Bal Mukand might make his declaration 'in the 

midst of his own people'. But there was still no house to be had in 

Hoshangabad, and having made his decision Bal Mukand was eager to 

carry it out without delay. Early in August therefore he went with Gayford 

and Devidayal to Sohagpur, where a little group of half a dozen gathered 

on the vernndah of the Gayfords 1 house. Gayford read the lovely verses 

of Psalm 103, Bal Mukand's written application to be received into the 

Society of Friends was read and accepted, and Bal Mukand himself took 

off the 'sacred thread' of his caste and cut off his chutiya, the lock of long 

QUAKER HOUSEHOLDS IN INDIA : 1865 TO 1 881 69 

hair which is left by Hindu custom on the crown of the head. The action 

was a symbolic renunciation of his Brahmin privilege, a declaration that 

he was now a part of the mass of common humanity. 

The same evening Bal Mukand's father followed him to Sohagpur, 

found him in the bazaar with Gayford and Devidayal, and burst into 

lamentation: 'How could you do such a thing, a good obedient boy like 

you? You are dead to me now - I am dead myself!' His wailing attracted 

a crowd, but xhepatel (headman) and the schoolmaster were among them, 

and they gave Bal Mukand a fair hearing. 

It's true [he said]. I am a Christian, a disciple of the Lord Jesus. 

It is my own free choice; no one offered me any inducements 

whatever. 

The pateU who was himself a Brahmin, understood the father's feelings. 

All the same [he said to him], I do not think your son has done 

anything wrong by becoming a Christian. I have talked with the 

sahib and with Panditji (Devidayal); there is nothing but good and 

truth in their teaching. 33 

By the next day the father felt calmer, and before he returned to 

Hoshangabad he paid a courteous visit to the Gayfords. It seemed quite 

possible that Bal Mukand would soon be allowed to go back and live in 

his own home, for he had broken no caste taboos. 34 However this did not 

happen, probably because of the hostility of Bal Mukand's step-mother, 

and the Gayfords arranged for him to go to Allahabad to take the High 

School course. Harriet had relatives there, and there, was a strong, eco- 

nomically independent Christian community. 

Both in Sohagpur and in Hoshangabad educated and cultured people 

were well-disposed towards the Christian group, but among superstitious 

common people Bal Mukand's action aroused latent fears of Conversion'. 

In Sohagpur children were forbidden to go to Harriet's school; they might 

be 'turned into Christians' there by eating something which a Christian 

had touched! But the children refused to be kept away; one little girl, finding 

that her elder sister had hidden her veil to prevent her from going out of 

the house, threw convention to the winds and ran off to school without it! 

In Hoshangabad too there was gossip : had Bal Mukand's father been bribed 

to accept his son's action? - and why had Gayford bought land} Gayford's 

own openness and good humour quickly allayed the suspicions. 

In October 1875, when the rains were over, the Gayfords went to Agra 

and brought Rachel to Sohagpur, where she happily took charge of 

Harriet's girls' school, and also began to help little boys with their lessons. 

It had become clear that her physical disability would be permanent, and 

Gayford had procured a wheelchair for her from England. As soon as she 

70 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

was well settled among their railway friends in Sohagpur the Gayfords 

took their tent, pitched it on the land which Gayford had bought, and set 

to work to build their own Hoshangabad home. All through that winter, 

and through the spring and summer of 1 876, they lived among the builders 

on the site, only moving from the tent into a thatched shed during the 

intense heat of April and May. Before the rains came the house was ready, 

the work well done; at the beginning of July they moved in. 

Site and building were soon tested by a heavy, prolonged monsoon. 

In September the river rose in a great flood. A little way downstream were 

two newly-constructed railway bridges, one designed to carry a line from 

Itarsi to the Holkar state capital at Indore, the other for an Indian Midland 

Railway route through Bhopal to Agra. The flood swept away the Holkar 

bridge, which was never re-built, and badly damaged the other, 35 but the 

new house stood high and dry. 'The whole city and cantonment might be 

swept away,' said one old man to Gayford at the time, 'but your house 

would be safe!' 

So in October 1876 Rachel Metcalfe came to Hoshangabad at last, to 

this dry, secure house. She was glad to be there, though she always spoke 

gratefully of the kindness she had received during her year in Sohagpur. 

But there was one matter about which she felt ill at ease: the house was 

too far from the homes of the people. She wanted, as she always did, to 

have a school, and for that she must live 'right among the people' where 

the children could easily come. Gayford understood, he rented for her a 

little house in the bazaar, and there the children came to school on week- 

days and the little group of Friends met for worship on Sundays. 

A few other local people had followed Bal Mukand's example and had 

been accepted into membership, at public meetings 'in the midst of their 

own people'. Ali Baksh and his wife Shogra were Muslim; others, including 

Bal Mukand's school friend Jugal Kishore, were Hindu. £ Two or three 

hundred respectable Muslims and Hindus' listened to the proceedings w T ith 

friendliness, and several asked if they too might attend the Friends' meet- 

ings for worship. By March 1 877 there were a number, Bal Mukand's own 

father among them, who confessed to being 4 Christians at heart', and whose 

faith, as Bal Mukand said, was 'known in their conduct'. 

These new Friends kept their original Muslim or Hindu names and 

personal customs. When Rachel Metcalfe came to Hoshangabad however, 

Gayford had appointed a Christian couple from outside the district, David 

and Dorcas, to maintain the friendly contacts in Sohagpur. In 1878, when 

Bal Mukand returned home after finishing his High School course, he 

married their daughter Ruth. By that time there were a dozen adult Friends 

and some 'attenders'; 20 or more were present at the meetings for worship, 

and there were 25 children in a Sunday school. 'It is the desire of our 

QUAKER HOUSEHOLDS IN INDIA : 1865 TO 1881 71 

hearts,' wrote Gayford, 'that all may become branches of the Living Vine, 

known by their fruits as disciples of the Lord Jesus.' They formed a 

Monthly Meeting for church affairs; Gayford prepared a Hindi transla- 

tion of London Yearly Meeting's Advices and Queries. It was received with 

enthusiasm, and Bal Mukand at once suggested that the Queries should 

be printed on cards, £ in large letters, with a nice border, so that we can 

hang them up in our houses'. 

In other ways 1877 was a difficult year. It was the year of the Deccan 

famine, and starving people from the stricken Maratha districts to the 

south drifted even to Hoshangabad. Just then the Friends received an 

unexpected gift from Quaker children in Philadelphia, and decided to set 

aside a substantial part of this as an 'orphanage fund'. The FFMA 

objected; an orphanage, they said, was not part of their work. The Monthly 

Meeting replied with spirit: 'An orphanage must of necessity be part of 

our work in future. What could be a more appropriate use of a children's 

gift than for other needy children? As for the rest, we shall raise the money 

locally.' A few years were to show that their forecast was correct. 

There were other disputes with the London committee. The work in 

Sohagpur had to be closed, and David and Dorcas withdrawn, because 

the FFMA would not allow it to be carried on 'under native management'. 

Only after long argument, and grudgingly, did the committee sanction 

the cost of a basic need, a well for the Gayfords' new house. They repri- 

manded Gayford for buying another house in the bazaar without previous 

approval; it was a bargain at 50 rupees, and would have been lost by delay. 

It served for years to house a fine piece of work, the Balaganj boys' school. 

The FFMA, in short, refused to trust the judgment of workers on the 

spot; most disappointing of all it ignored Gayford's repeated appeals for 

a medically qualified colleague. 

Soon after Gayford reached Hoshangabad he had met a revered Hindu 

teacher, Pandit Govind Ram, who became a close friend. 'Your mission 

is of God,' the Pandit would say. 'Life shouldbz lived as Jesus taught. But 

don't create a separate Christian 'caste'. Let the spirit of Christ transform 

Indian society from within.' Other thoughtful men had said much the 

same, and the challenge of their words was repeated in an unforgettable 

way when Gayford went to Agra in October 1875. Then, with Harriet to 

help to care for Rachel, he had been able to visit the Taj Mahal. Its inspired 

loveliness moved him deeply - how great was the spirit that had conceived 

and created it! Could not the Truth of the Gospel be shared with this 

gifted people without creating a separate Christian caste? The friendly 

response to the public meetings of Quaker testimony at Hoshangabad 

made him feel that perhaps it could. 

72 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Early in 1877 news came that the Beards, health restored, were hoping 

to return to India. Gayford rejoiced. Might not Elkanah realise in 

Hoshangabad his dream of a Friends High School, and perhaps also a 

Normal School for women teachers such as Rachel and Harriet both 

desired? In May, however, the FFMA decided not to re-appoint this mature 

and dedicated couple, apparently because they regarded the Beards as 

'unsound' in what they considered 'necessary beliefs'. 36 Gayford, who had 

so much in common with Elkanah, felt a new insecurity. Letters were coming 

from London asking on what 'grounds' people were admitted into Quaker 

membership in Hoshangabad. Would they too be considered 'unsound'? 

By the end of 1877 Gayford had been in India for nearly five years, 

carrying much responsibility almost alone. Tired and ill, he consulted a 

doctor in Bombay who advised a change of climate. He therefore asked 

the FFMA for home leave in the spring of 1 878, but perhaps did not make 

it clear that he did so on medical advice. Leave was refused; he was told 

that he could not ieave his post' till the end of 1878, when 'reinforce- 

ments' would be sent to 'relieve' him. 37 Now that the mission held 

property, he could no longer 'pull up his tent-pegs' and move on, as (like 

Rachel and the Beards) he had so often done before. He and Harriet 

agreed to stay, but he told the FFMA that when he was 'relieved' he would 

resign from their staff, and take a full medical course, in order to give 

India that service for which he had so often pleaded in vain. When the 

Gayfords reached England in the spring of 1879 that is what he did. 

It is clear that the FFMA was not wholly at ease with those whom it 

sent to India during its first 10 years. Rachel had been accepted, rather 

unwillingly, because of her own persistence; the Beards, because of their 

anti-slavery record, Gayford because they needed a man so urgently. All 

four had their roots in the farming communities and little market towns 

where the 'conservative' Quaker outlook prevailed. The leaders of the 

FFMA, like Russell Jeffrey, were drawn from the network of wealthy 

Quaker families who shared the 'orthodox' emphasis on doctrine. From 

1869 onwards the divergencies of approach had become steadily clearer. 

Neither Beard nor Gayford had any faith in the 'christianising' influ- 

ence of British rule, which seemed to them merely to encourage selfish 

materialism. 'You British!' an Indian religious leader once exploded to 

Gayford. 'You bring your railways and your telegraphs, you explore with 

your telescopes the secrets of the three worlds - and you make our people 

more worldly, more covetous, more mercenary than they ever were before! 5 

QUAKER HOUSEHOLDS IN INDIA : 1865 TO 1881 73 

At another level, Beard and Gayford both rejoiced in the grace of God 

manifest in Hindu or Muslim forms; the leaders of the FFMA did not 

believe that the Holy Spirit might inspire those who did not accept 'nec- 

essary beliefs', and they criticised Beard's Good Words because they did 

not mention any such doctrines. In 1870 they told Beard that if he met 

with so little opposition from 'the heathen' he couldn't be doing much 

good! - and the same criticism might have been levelled at Gayford. It 

probably did not help when Beard replied whimsically that he had had 

plenty of opposition, from the missionaries, or when Gayford, at a public 

meeting in London in 1 879, spoke with vivid appreciation of India's native 

civilisation, and the culture and intelligence of her village farming folk. 

Notes to Chapter VI 

1 G.C.Moore Smith, The Story of the People's College, Sheffield, 1912; also James 

Wilson, letter to the Sheffield Daily Telegraphy 1st March 1898. 

2 M.Barns, The Indian Press: A History, 1940, p.270. 

3 There was another Quaker couple in Karachi at the time, Henry and Elizabeth 

Jacob. Their occupation is not known. They left about 1863. 

4 This and subsequent quotations are from Martin Wood's editorials in The 

Times of India. 

4a John Bright, Speeches, ed.J.E.Thorold Rogers, 2nded. 1869, vol.1 pp. 16-17, 

3rd June 1853. See also Public Addresses by John Bright, ed.J.E.Thorold Rogers, 

1879, pp.404-6, 13th September 1877. 

5 Address to a conference of social workers, Allahabad 1892. 

6 A file of the Bombay Review, 1878-81, is in the Central Library, Bombay. 

7 The ancestors of Sir Charles Metcalfe of India came from the same region of 

north-west Yorkshire. The account of Rachel Metcalfe's own childhood is derived 

from an 'autobiography' edited from her letters and published as an FFMA Jubilee 

booklet in 1916. 

8 Charles Fryer was a business man, not a teacher, but for Superintendent it 

was thought important to choose a Friend in good standing. 

9 I have not been able to discover whether the name Forbes indicates any link 

with Charles Forbes' family. 

10 A number of such schools, conducted by Friends, were in existence. One was 

at Isleworth, not far from Croydon. 

1 1 There is no written evidence. Wives were ignored in official reports. 

12 Quoted in The Church in Madras, by F.Penny, vol.3, 1922, p.332. 

13 The Ootacamund of this period is described in Richard Burton, Goa and the 

Blue Mountains, 1851, pp.270-333. 

i \ AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

1 I \cr lu niniiu < ;/( Vv of an Octogenarian, 1930, by Frances' son Edmund Knox, 

ii in hull;) 1 S-17. 

I *» I run ht Russell Jeffrey, October 1864. 

I (> While Rachel worked in Yorkshire (1847-53) she was chosen several times as 

nut ul the women representatives to the Monthly Meeting. 

I V Hen jamin 1 1 ayllar's membership was transferred from Leeds to Hardshaw East 

(Manchester area) in 1857. 

1 H The citizens of Aligarh, led by Syed Ahmed Khan, had recently complained 

thai both European and Indian ladies might be exposed to insulting behaviour 

I ron i iowgrade European railway servants' who travelled free in the second class. 

1 9 I .ettcrs from the Leupolts in the archives of the Church Missionary Society 

( in the University Library, Birmingham) contain several references to Rachel's work. 

20 Another account credits 'the Rajah of Benares' with this scheme. That is 

unlikely; in social and religious matters he is known to have been conservative. 

2 1 Elkanah is said to have been the only man in the country who could cross the 

fighting lines, unarmed and unhindered, on his errands of mercy to sufferers on 

both sides. 

22 These and subsequent quotations are from Elkanah Beard's letters preserved 

in Eriends "House Library, London. 

23 The Times (London) warned the Viceroy Sir John Lawrence of the danger of 

'too much haste to encourage the propagation of Christianity'. 

24 J.Routledge, English Rule and Native Opinion in India, 1878, p. 1 76. The author 

had visited the Friends in Benares and noted their different approach. 

25 Described in a letter in the archives of the Council for World Mission. 

26 A few specimens are preserved in Friends House Library, London. 

27 The area w^est of Allahabad, between there and Jhansi, is Bundelkhand; the 

territory was divided between a number of Indian-ruled states of various sizes. 

28 Reported in a letter from Gayford, January 1875. 

29 He is therefore referred to, correctly, as Dr Mendes, but was not a Doctor of 

Medicine as has sometimes been assumed. 

30 Gayford's descriptions of this journey were published in the Friends' Monthly 

Record^ London, in 1874-5. 

3 1 Among the British officials of previous generations who held the traditionalist 

point of view, a number married Indian wives. 

32 The name Mukand has been queried by some scholars who say it should be 

Mukund, a common Hindu name. Mukand, however, occurs locally in the 

Narmada valley, probably derived from a local legendary hero Mrikandu. Bal 

Mukand, himself a Sanskrit scholar, presumably knew how to spell his own name. 

33 This account of the course of events is based on a letter from Gayford, written 

less than a week after they occurred, and published in The Friend, London, October 

1875. 

34 Ramachandra, a teacher in the Delhi College who became a Christian in the 

1840s, was readmitted to his Kayasth caste, and in the 1870s was virtually the 

QUAKER HOUSEHOLDS IN INDIA : 1865 TO 1881 

head of the biradri, the caste brotherhood. See James R Alter and Herbert Jai Singh, 

'The Church in Delhi', in The Church as Christian Community, ed. Victor 

E.W.Hayward, 1966, pp.24-25. 

35 The story may still be read in the old foundations visible when the river is low. 

The Midland bridge was re-designed, raised and strengthened, and has stood firm 

through many floods since. 

36 The minute of May 1877 gives no reason, but reflects a certain embarrass- 

ment: 'Under the circumstances, with deep sympathy with our dear friends under 

the feelings which Elkanah Beard has in great humility expressed, we cannot 

recommend any steps at present towards securing their valuable services.' 

37 These military metaphors were common in the missionary vocabulary of the 

time. 

Scale: approximately 12 miles ~ 1 inch 

Hoshangabad and its surroundings to illustrate Chapter VII et seq., 

based on a sketch-map by Marjorie Sykes. 

CHAPTER VII 

Quaker Missionaries 

Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptising them . . . 

Gospel according to St Matthew 28 : 19 

The members of the FFMA committee, who in 1877 refused to send 

the Beards back to India, committed themselves in that very same meeting 

to missionary work in the accepted sense of the term. They interviewed a 

young man named Samuel Baker, who belonged to their own social circle 

and used their own religious language. He was a Dublin Friend, educated 

at the Quaker schools, Waterford and Bootham; after leaving school he 

had helped his widowed mother with the family business. At the same time, 

influenced by D. L. Moody's revivalist campaign in 1 873-4, he had thrown 

himself into the work of the Friends' 'House Mission' in the slums of 

Dublin. The committee 'felt no hesitation' in accepting him 'for service as 

a missionary in India', and at once arranged for him to have language study 

and basic medical training in preparation for his work. 

In 1877 however Baker was barely 21 years old, and some of the com- 

mittee members insisted that he should have an older and more experi- 

enced fellow-worker. The secretary, Henry Stanley Newman, set to work 

to find one. One of his own business enterprises was a printing press, 

intended to teach needy orphan boys a useful trade. Their instructor was 

John Williams, a Scot in his mid-30's, who had formerly been an Army 

printer in India. At Newman's suggestion, he and his wife agreed to accom- 

pany Baker to Hoshangabad. They were not Friends, but before they left 

England they were received into the Society. The party sailed in November 

1878, with a great public send-off such as none of their predecessors had 

ever been accorded. For the FFMA it was a new start. 

In the last days of 1878 Charles and Harriet Gayford welcomed the 

newcomers to Hoshangabad, handed over charge, and left for Calcutta 

on their way to England. Baker was delighted with the airy, well-built 

QUAKER MISSIONARIES 

house; he settled into one wing of it, 

leaving the rest to John and Effie 

Williams and their two little boys. 

Rachel Metcalfe gave them a warm 

welcome, for the Williams were 

people of her own kind, and she took 

much pleasure in their children. 

The 'new start' nevertheless was 

not entirely happy. John Williams, 

pressed into service at short notice, 

had not had the ample opportunity for 

language study which Baker had 

enjoyed. Moreover neither Newman, 

nor Baker regarded him as a genuinely 

equal partner. Before the party left 

England Newman appointed'Baker as 

secretary of the local Hoshangabad 

committee, and told him that he was 

to take the lead - but did not feel it Samuel Baker 

necessary to explain this to his 

employee Williams. Williams naturally felt hurt and humiliated when 

Baker took all directly 'religious service' into his own hands, and gave the 

older man only the necessary but secondary tasks of keeping accounts 

and caring for animals and buildings. And Baker at first did not realise 

the harm he had done. 

Nevertheless, Samual Baker had a generous spirit and a warm heart. He 

also had a quick Irish temper, which in his impetuous youth sometimes 

flared into uncontrolled violence of speech and action, followed by bitter 

remorse and self-reproach. At such times Effie Williams, with her quiet 

unassuming goodness, became his confidante. She had soon heard all 

about Samuel's girl-cousin Anna O'Brien; he had loved her, he said, ever 

since he was eight years old, and at last she had agreed to marry him. He 

heard, in his turn, that Newman had never told Williams of his instruc- 

tions about the mission: on a generous impulse he wrote to London, 

proposing that he himself should return and be married in Ireland, leaving 

Williams in charge in Hoshangabad. The London committee vetoed this 

proposal, but for a time Baker and Williams drew closer, and Baker shared 

the grief when the Williams' newborn infant daughter and their younger 

son both died within a few sad weeks. 

In the first days of 1879 however Baker's attitude can only be called 

arrogant. Letters to the London committee include unkind comments 

about both Williams and Rachel Metcalfe, and the amazing charge that 

7S 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Charles Gayford 'had done no work since his marriage'. Baker seems to 

have regarded himself as the 'saviour' of the mission, and before he had 

been a month in the country he had rebuked the little Quaker group for 

'observing caste'. It is not clear what this means - possibly merely that 

each family had kept its original life-style and food habits. What is clear 

is that Ali Baksh and Bal Mukand, the Muslim and the Brahmin, were 

working happily together, and that Bal Mukand was making friends with 

outcaste chamars (leather workers) and telling his own jeering caste- 

fellows, with a cheerful grin, that 'God and all humanity belong to the 

same caste!' 

Baker's own plans included much building, proposals for which were 

sent to London before the end of that same month. The proposals included 

a Meeting House capable of seating 250 people, and a house for Rachel 

Metcalfe adjacent to it, in the Jumerati area on the fringe of the town, also 

a new school building on the site Gayford had bought for the school in 

Balaganj. This programme was at once approved, and Williams began 

work on the Meeting House. It was opened at a public meeting in 

November 1880, and Newman who visited Hoshangabad a few weeks 

later commented that 'it added very considerably to the position of the 

mission among the people of the town'. It is impossible to say whether 

that was really so, but perhaps Baker himself did regard it as a 'status 

symbol' for what he called 'the Englishman's religion'. 

'The Englishman's religion' was proclaimed by regular lectures and 

open-air preaching in the town, and by wide-ranging preaching tours in 

the District. At first, until Baker himself became more fluent in spoken 

Hindi, Bal Mukand and Ali Baksh did most of the public speaking, while 

Pandit Dayal Masih (Din Dayal) took charge of the Balaganj School. 

These three men, who had been Gayford 's friends and fellow- workers, 

supported Baker loyally, for although this strenuously organised propa- 

ganda was so different from Gayford's leisured personal approach, they 

seem to have recognised behind it the genuine religious experience of 

which at this time he wrote to his fiancee: 'The great thing is looking unto 

Jesus ... we are saved by the renewing of the Holy Ghost.' 1 

But the differences between Gayford and Baker were very great. Baker 

insisted that converts should not only 'look unto Jesus' but accept the 

'necessary beliefs' about him. Those who applied for membership in the 

Meeting were required to make a written confession of faith in 'the Deity 

of the Lord Jesus as only Saviour, his death as the atonement for our 

sin . . .'. This was close to a credal statement; Sunday school children 

were taught a catechism on the same lines. Gayford had based the Meeting 

for Worship on the silent expectant waiting on God which he had known 

in his rural Meeting in England; Baker made it a programmed meeting 

QUAKER MISSIONARIES 

79 

like those he had once led in the Home Mission in Dublin. Some people 

did not like the change, and became 'unwilling' to attend worship. Rachel 

Metcalfe felt uneasy; she feared that 'notions' and 'long sounding 

sermons' might take precedence over 'the love and truth of Jesus ... in 

life and action'. 'It is the life that tells/ she wrote. £ Not sayings I believe in 

the Lord Jesus Christ, but putting on Christ? In Baker's eyes however Rachel 

was old-fashioned - she had even objected to his use in mission reports 

of the 'heathen' names of the days of the week! 

Baker's attitude to Indian religious practice was also very different from 

Gayford's. He did not seek to understand it, much less to learn from it. 

He remained complacently ignorant of serious Hindu thought on the sym- 

bolism of image-worship and ritual. 'The people's ignorance and wicked- 

ness is appalling/ he wrote. 'They "bow down to wood and stone", and 

even bathing is considered an act of worship, which is rather ludicrous.' 

Islam fared no better. 'God is one^ and dwells in our hearts \ said earnest 

Muslims; but Baker heard in this no echo of Quaker experience, Only the 

stubborn refusal to accept a 'Trinity' or worship 'the Son of God'. 

Moreover he understood nothing of the network of mutual support and 

mutual obligation which, for Hindu and Muslim alike, bound Indian 

society together. He had the individualist outlook characteristic of the 

Victorian business man, and in religious terms that meant that he thought 

of 'salvation' as an affair of the individual alone. He was bewildered that 

appeals on these lines should meet with so little response. 'People seem 

unable to understand,' he wrote, 'the advantages to be gained by leaving 

their own religion and becoming Christians/ 

Anna O'Brien married Samuel Baker in Bombay at the end of 1881. 

In preparation for her coming John Williams built a new mission house 

at Sohagpur, and he and Effie went to live there and take up the threads 

of friendship which had had to be abandoned when Rachel had moved 

to Hoshangabad in 1 876. The newly-married couple had the Hoshangabad 

house to themselves. Anna had moved in 'good society' in Belfast, and 

was eager to be accepted in similar British social circles in India, in what 

was then known as 'Anglo-Indian' society. She brought with her the appro- 

priate household and personal equipment. The upkeep of such a house- 

hold required a considerable number of servants - though not many more 

than well-to-do Friends in England then employed. Baker himself had 

two personal servants, a valet and a syce (groom) for his horse; 

Anna's social ambitions tended to widen the gap between the Bakers 

and their humbler missionary colleagues. She refused to meet the 

Williams' Eurasian friends in the railway colony at Sohagpur, and she per- 

suaded Samuel that he and she should join the Hoshangabad English 

Club, where neither the Gayfords, the Williams, nor Rachel would have 

80 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

been .accepted. Samuel was at first reluctant; he was critical of many 

aspects of official society, and especially of the 'profound reverence' of 

behaviour exacted from Indians. 'We are the conquering race/ he wrote 

scornfully, 'to be looked upon as a kind of superior being! - and our coun- 

trymen love to have it so.' Missionaries, he went on, should not be too 

much of gentlemen! 'I have a great dread of appearing too grand ... we 

need to take off our coats and roll up our sleeves and regularly go in!' 

Marriage and the English Club put an end to such dreams of manual 

labour. Anna would not have thought it 'proper', and he could not well 

argue the point because of his own poor physical health; he had had 

intermittent bouts of 'low fever' even during his first weeks in India. Club 

society influenced him in other ways. In 1883 the political storm over 

I .ord Ripon's Hbert Bill shook even remote Hoshangabad. By then a 

number of able well-qualified Indians held responsible administrative 

posts, but as the law then stood an Indian magistrate or judge had no 

power to deal with a criminal suit involving an Englishman. The Ilbert Bill 

was designed to correct this anomaly, and it had the approval both of the 

Viceroy's Council and the Secretary of State in London, but it raised a 

fury of racial arrogance among the British in India. Baker, who two years 

earlier had commented so scathingly on British arrogance, now reacted 

differently. 'Popular government,' he wrote, 'is not suited to a conquered 

country with millions of people ready to shoot or stab us at the first oppor- 

t unity.' There speaks the voice of an English Club in which the scars of 

the * Mutiny' were still evident. The issue was not 'popular government', 

it was racial discrimination within the Indian Civil Service. 

In 1881 Bal Mukand's father, 'Christian at heart' as he was, brought 

to Rachel Metcalfe an orphan girl named Bhuriya Yesodha, and asked 

i hat she might be brought up under Christian care. Rachel hesitated, 

because of her own increasing physical helplessness; but Samuel Baker 

promised to give her the practical support she needed, and she finally 

agreed. Other needy ones quickly followed, and Rachel's new home near 

the Meeting House soon sheltered a 'family' of girls and babies, Bal 

Mukand and his wife took in a Maratha boy-waif named Madhu Rao, and 

got support for him locally. Other boys were brought to the Bakers. Anna 

happily took charge of them; she had enjoyed the 'ragamuffins' in her 

•>lum Sunday School in Belfast, and she enjoyed her Hoshangabad 'family' 

itt the same way. She and Rachel began to enliven the pages of the mission 

imports with vivid pen-pictures of the children and their pranks. Bhuriya 

Yesodha was growing up; together with an old woman named Appamani 

she helped to care for the little ones. 

They have a pet called Mitthu [Rachel wrote] . He is a green parrot, 

and he calls them all by their names. He can laugh and cry so 

QUAKER MISSIONARIES 8 1 

Rachel Metcalfe and Anna Baker > with orphans. 

realistically that I sometimes ask why Janab is crying, only to be 

told merrily: 'It's not Janab, it's Mitthu!' 

By 1883, in fact, circumstances -were compelling Hoshangabad 

Friends to take up the work which they had foreseen in 1877. The FFMA 

however still declared that the care of orphans was not part of its work, 

so that money to support the children had to be raised privately. In 1877 

Hoshangabad Friends had felt confident that it could be found locally (as 

Bal Mukand had found it) but during the six or seven .years which had 

elapsed the mental climate had changed; no longer were there such close 

and easy relationships with the general public. 

The change was largely due to the policies which Baker, with the 

backing of the FFMA., had pursued. The aim was to make converts, and 

converts were accepted only if they 'broke caste' and severed their links 

with their former religious community. On the other hand, Friends could 

not offer these men and women any stable religious community to take 

the place of the old, because of their ambiguous attitude to the practices 

of their fellow-Christians, especially the rite of baptism. The FFMA had 

stated its desire that converts should become 'not a narrow sect but part 

of the Christian church', but without baptism the Christian church would 

not have them. Nothing could be more confused than Baker's own 

statement: 'I do not mind whether they (the converts) become Friends 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

or not. On principle no baptism, no Lord's Supper - but I am no sec- 

larian,'!! 

The result was that the tiny group in Hoshangabad zvas in practice a 

narrow and extremely vulnerable 'sect', isolated from the great Hindu and 

Muslim communities on the one hand and from their fellow-Christians on 

the other. Many found the isolation intolerable; sbme returned to the com- 

munity of their birth, others (like Bal Mukand's friend Bal Kishore) were 

baptised into the larger Christian community. Those who remained were 

almost all in mission pay, as teachers, as catechists, or as domestic servants 

in missionary households. Baker urged that they should 'give up the com- 

forts of town life, earn their own living by manual labour, and preach in 

their spare time'. He did so sincerely, it was his own old ideal, yet he himself, 

by action ana example, made its realisation impossible. They saw his 

preaching supported by 'the mission 1 - why not theirs? He did not give up 

town life, or earn his livelihood by manual labour ; neither did the Christians 

in Jabalpur and elsewhere with whom they intermarried. 2 But they did not 

discuss these things with Baker; he, the missionary, was the paymaster, 

and natural human intercourse was very difficult. 

There was another factor : during these early years of his service Baker's 

policy had discouraged independent local initiative. The little group of 

1879 had not been consulted about building the Meeting House; it was 

provided for them, out of foreign funds, on a scale far beyond their own 

immediate needs. A few years later, when the question of support for 

orphans arose, there is no hint that any local appeal was even considered. 

By the spring of 1 885, when the Bakers took a long leave in England and 

Ireland, only one of the three independent-minded Indian workers who 

had been Gayford's friends remained. Bal Mukand was still there, but he 

was chafing. He and Samuel Baker were of almost the same age; he was 

the younger in years by only a few months, and in knowledge of Indian 

ways and Indian thought he was much the senior. Yet Baker was apt to 

command rather than consult, and there are hints that Bal Mukand felt 

himself being treated 'more as a servant than an equal' - as Beard had 

seen Rachel treated, years before, in Benares. 

During all these years Gayford had been a medical student in London, 

and in 1885 in his 40th year became a qualified doctor. He had kep 1 - up, 

throughout, an affectionate correspondence with Rachel, and had urged on 

the FFMA the need for her to have companionship and help. In 1883 they 

sent Ellen Nainby, a former Ackworth girl Ellen's work was in the zenanas, 

visiting secluded women in their homes, but she lived with Rachel in the 

Jumerati house and became her treasured friend. Gayford also realised that 

the time had come for a separate girls' orphanage, and he encouraged one 

of Ellen's Ackworth schoolfellows, Anna Louise Evens, to offer herself for 

QUAKKR MISSIONARIES 

83 

the job. In the midst of these concerns, he and Harriet had had to bear a 

great personal sorrow in the death of their infant son, their only child. 

The FFMA had not accepted Gayford's earlier resignation, but had 

treated his years of medical study as extended leave. When' he had com- 

pleted his studies they invited him to return to Hoshangabad; from there 

the villages north of the river, whose need for medical services had so much 

impressed him, were within easy reach. So it came about that by. the begin- 

ning of 1 886 the Gayfords were back in their old home; they had a special 

welcome from Rachel and Ellen, Bal Mukand and Ruth (who knew of the 

death of their baby). Bal Mukand was living in his own home in the city, 

and running the Balaganj School, where his work won high praise from 

the Government Inspector. And as usual he was full of ideas. 

Gayford's first step was to move the medical work away from the 

mission compound to a more accessible rented building in' the city, where 

he soon had many patients. His next step was to visit' Bhopal and discuss 

with the State officials how he might co-operate with them to meet the 

needs of their villages. He met with a friendly reception, and-hopes ran 

high. Meanwhile, apart from his medical service, he had much to do on 

the mission compound. The house itself, which had stood empty all 

through the monsoon of 1885, needed major repairs.' A portion of the 

compound had been rented out; Lewis Mendes, his friend and brother- 

in-law, strongly advised him to resume possession, level and plant it. That 

too was done. Anna Evens, who had been accepted by the FFMA for the 

orphanage work, was due to arrive at the end of the year, and a second 

bungalow and orphanage building were needed. Gayford assembled mate- 

rials and prepared foundations. 

The Gayfords were therefore busy and happy, but there was anger and 

grief in Sohagpur. A military transit camp had been set up near the town, 

and Williams with his former army connections naturally enjoyed visiting 

it. He may or may not have been indiscreet but malicious gossip about 

him began to spread. The tensions, between him and Baker were 

(inevitably) common knowledge locally, and mischief-mongers made sure 

that the gossip reached the ears of the Bakers in London. The fat was in 

the fire. Williams blamed the whole community, refused to attend 

Monthly Meetings at Hoshangabad or receive them in Sohagpur, and 

wrote to London asking to be 'relieved'. The Bakers were also disturbed, 

and wondered for a time whether they should resign from the FFMA. It 

may be that the charged atmosphere of that summer contributed to the 

tragic blunders which were to follow. ' 

The Bakers were expected to return to India at the end of 1886, and 

local Friends began to plan their future work. The first idea was that they 

might open a new 'station' at Seoni Malwa, a step which Baker had been 

84 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

urging on the London committee for several years. On further reflection 

however it was- decided that Gayford would be unable to meet the demands 

of an expanding medical service unless Baker took charge of the other 

work in Hoshangabad. There should be no difficulty about living quar- 

ters; several Government bungalows were lying vacant, and the Bakers as 

members of the English Club could certainly rent one. 

When these proposals reached London there was an unforeseen 

obstacle. The Bakers refused to live anywhere but in 'their' mission bun- 

galow, regardless of the predicament in which this would place the 

Gayfords - for it was well-known that as she was Indian they would be 

unable to rent a Government bungalow. The London committee never- 

theless complied with the -Bakers' wishes and instructed the Gayfords to 

vacate the mission house in their favour. The Hoshangabad Friends were 

so deeply hurt and angry that the whole group, British and Indian together, 

resigned in protest. 

At the end of the year the Bakers returned, bringing with them Anna 

Evens, and accompanied by A. J. Crosfield and Dr John Dixon, who had 

been appointed by the London committee to deal on the spot with the 

Williams affair. The Gayfords had vacated the mission house; they met 

the London Friends, handed over charge, and left the district, going first 

to Harriet's relatives in Allahabad. Bal Mukand and his family went with 

them. The Williams left India for a leave that was long overdue and their 

place in Sohagpur was taken by Henry and Susan de St Dalmas, inde- 

pendent missionaries of good family 3 recruited in India. Crosfield and 

Dixon persuaded Ellen Nainby to withdraw her resignation; all her sym- 

pathies were with the 'rebels', but she could not bear to leave the help- 

less Rachel alone. 

This unhappy conflict was undoubtedly embittered by personal pre- 

judice, but differences of principle also underlay it. In 1881 a Quaker 

doctor, C . Tregelles Fox, had turned his back on the need at Hoshangabad 

because he did not believe that medicine should be used - as Baker was 

openly using it - as a bait to attract converts. Neither did Gayford believe 

it. Fox spoke for him, and equally for Rachel Metcalfe, when 10 years 

later, without mentioning names, he described medicine, education and 

industrial training as being 'as truly missionary work as preaching the 

Gospel. There is no real division - the doctor or teacher is called "to speak 

a word in season'". 4 There were other differences. Was the task of the 

FFMA to enable those 'on whom the Lord has laid his hands' to obey 

their calling? Or was it to lay its own hands on people - as it did on John 

Williams - and use them for a plan not their own? The questions kept on 

recurring. 

In 1886 Anna Evens was a woman of about 30 - Samuel Baker's age 

with varied practical experience. Her father was a hard-headed Quaker 

QUA K MR MISSIONARIES 

85 

businessman. He had sent her to school at Ackworth, for it had such a 

good reputation that well-to-do families like his were glad to send their 

daughters there. At Ackworth Anne made friends in all social classes, and 

later continued to do so among the families of her father's workmen. An 

illness in adolescence affected her hearing, but she 'set herself to be useful 

and forget her own troubles 1 . She helped her father with book-keeping, 

she learned to draw and to cook, and opened a school where her cookery 

lessons were very popular. Then she met the Gayfords and heard of the 

need in Hoshangabad. Appearing rather nervously before the FFMA com- 

mittee she was set at ease by an unexpected question: Can you cook? 5 

Knowing the Gayfords as she did, the events of her first few days at 

Hoshangabad must have been a shock, but she lived with the Bakers and 

'set herself to be useful'. The new 'Riverside' bungalow and orphanage 

had to be completed; she supervised the building and planned the equip- 

ment. She helped Anna Baker with her baby Margaret. She made shuttle- 

cocks (a skill learned at Ackworth) to give them all some exercise during 

the hot weather. And finally she moved Rachel Metcalfe's family of 

orphans into their new home. Like Rachel and Ellen she kept in touch 

with the Gayfords; Harriet sent her a gift of some household equipment. 

During the seven years when Rachel had cared for the orphans in 

Jumerati, Bhuriya Yesodha had married a Christian boy; some of the 

others, unable to overcome their earlier privations, had died in spite of all 

her care. When Riverside was opened she kept two, the smallest baby of 

all, and also 'Tcpsy'. Topsy was difficult, mentally backward and out- 

wardly unattractive, but specially dear to Rachel just because of this. Rachel 

had a soft spot for 'black sheep'. In 1851 her own rebel brother Joseph 

John had been disowned by Friends while she was working in Yorkshire. 

Rachel did not disown him, and it must have rejoiced her heart when he 

was honourably re-instated 20 years later/' She also kept in touch with 

her brother William's children. About 1875 the eldest, J:>hn, had emi- 

grated to Massachusetts, followed by his brother and sister. The young 

man married, and when children began to appear in 1884 Rachel sent 

them Indian gifts, including a wonderful 'Noah's Ark' whose human and 

animal figures had been skilfully carved by the craftsmen-toymakers of 

Budni village, which faces Hoshangabad on the northern bank of the river. 

With most of the children gone, Rachel was still happily busy. Many 

sought her out, for 'she was always there, when anyone needed help or 

counsel'. She also put together a book of devotional bible readings in 

Hindi, called Daily Bread. It was based on a booklet which Joseph John 

Gurney had prepared 50 years earlier to help the children at Ackworth to 

read and love the Bible, and which was in use when Rachel worked there 

in 1847. Her Hindi book was found 'very useful'; it was printed and many 

AN ]!\'1>IAX | ! Ai h PM KV 

copies were distributed or ho] J. And as always she hud a school, with 

which Ellen Nainby helped her. 

The Rakers had a bard rime in LMSH : rheir bj;hy Margaret died, and 

Anna's beloved father atso r In the hm sl l ;nui of I BEQ both they and Ellen 

Nam by look much-needed holidays, and Rachel went lo slay at Riverside 

with Anna Evens and die children. A lay was an exceptionally hot month; 

Anna grew anxious about RachelY health ana wrote to ask HUen to come 

home, Ellen arrived early in June, lo Rachel's delight, and she talked 

happily and long. Then came a stroke Rachel had every care, but did not 

speak again and died on the third day. Her body was buried in the 

Government cemetery beside the little graves of her orphan children, and 

her few personal possessions \vem lo her family in 1-n^land and America/ 1 

In the loneliness and pain which had so often been her lot, did Rachel 

ever remember the yuung woman in Croydon who had hrst turned her 

mind to India - and who in the end on dived her? On the tombstone of 

Frances Knox K are words taken from the s lory of Mary in [he garden of 

the Resurrection: 'Jesus said to hcr n .Mary! She sivunt; round and said to 

him. My Master! 1 For Rachel too Jesus had been to the end a living, 

irusied Master. In 1S65, with the prospect of India close at hand* she had 

composed a hymn: 

F will not fear the wilderness 

Nor dangers yei lo come* 

With Jesus still m love and hk-ss 

And guide ttte to my home. 

J t re m a ins to record what is known of the Friends who left 

Hoshangahad for Allahabad in ISHfi. 

Charles Gayford was offered employment in a mission hospital but 

did not accept it - perhaps because he did not approve the common prac- 

tice of treating patients as a captive audience for Christian preaching, 

perhaps because he was more strongly drawn in remote, needy rural areas. 

A possible opening occurred in one such area in the Himalayan 

(fool hi I Is) but for some reason die venture proved impracticable and by 

the summer of 1RRR he and Harriet were- back in l:n gland. 

As a medical student in London Cray ford had attended Meeting for 

WiT^iipand i :iken part in the vocal minisu y. and in the Devonshire 

1 louse Monthly Meeting recorded him as a ^m'mMerV'Whcn he returned 

three years later, after all the turmoil of the iniervening years* he wrote 

again to the Monthly A Meeting submitting his resignation from the Society 

of Friends, L was not easily accepied, In n lon^ personal conversation 

wiih two senior i : riends n Gay lord explained thai he had given the ma tier 

'full and careful consideration 1 , and that he no louder accepted the Quaker 

position h as regards Baptism and the Supper\ while he continued to feel 

QUA KKR MISS J Q NAR] L!i> ^7 

in unity with much Quaker 

teaching and practice. He 

therefore l tli ought it right to 

return to die communion of 

the Church of England in 

which he was brought up 1 . He 

seems to have reached conclu- 

sions similar to those of his 

fc Ho w-churchma n Percy 

Dearmer : w r ho urged Friends 

tu witness lo their distinctive 

insights within the church, ™ 

Lkde more is known. By 

1891 Gayford had earned his 

MD f and for 20 years or more 

he worked among rhe poor in 

the cky of London and was 

honorary surgeon to a Cottage 

Hospital at BlackheaLh. Ulien 

he and Harriet retired to 

Brixton Hill where he died in 

1917, Wart ime restrictions on 

the use of paper forbade the BalMukmd mtk kit wife Ruth. 

printing of an obituary notice 

by the British Medical Association; all that remains is Harriet's moving 

three-line tribute in the South I.omhtt Times to the loving and devoted 

husband 1 with whom she had shared L 4 2 years of most happy married life 1 . 

A her three years of lonely widowhood her body was laid beside his in the 

same grave. 11 

In 1 8 R6 Ba I Muka nd s s sen se o f rel agio u s vo cation wa i> as s tro ng a s ever. 

He was baptised > and prepared fur ordination in the CMS Divinity School 

at Allahabad, and was then put in charge of a small congregation at Prat- 

apgarh 4U miles to the north. He was there when famine struck in 1 896, 

and he and Ruth cared for orphan girls, as his father and Rachel Metcalfe 

had done in Hoshangahad 1> years earlier. In 1897 he was recalled to 

Allahabad to join the staff of die Divinity School. 

Bal Mukand was then a ttuin of 40 in the full maturity of his powers 

For the next 16 years he directed the study of Hindu ism /a task for which 

tie was well qualified. His youth had been spent in a cultured Brahmin 

home, his knowledge of Sanskrit had earned him the 1 title of Pandit, his 

personal religious experience and his liveliness made "htm an admirable 

teacher. As his own children grew up he took care that bovs and girls alike 

should have a good education. Then in 1013 he and Ruth mewed to the 

88 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

newly-organised missionary language school at Landour in the Himalayan 

foothills, where his eldest daughter Pushpavati was trained as a teacher 

at the Woodstock School. 

In Landour Bal Mukand built himself a house, a house with a 

traditional 'prayer room' and a scrupulously clean Brahmin kitchen. He 

regularly washed his own clothes, and when the house needed white- 

washing or repairs he joined in the work, joking with his labourers. After 

he retired he would spend hours among the people in the bazaar - people 

were his abiding interest. Ruth would sometimes complain laughingly that 

he was always late for lunch: 'He gets into some religious discussion and 

just forgets the time!' 

When their eight children were married, the traditional social barriers 

were ignored - husbands or wives might be of Muslim or Bengali origin, 

one was a Scot. Did not God and all humanity 'belong to the same caste'? 

One son was" ordained in the church, one entered the Indian Medical 

Service, two were Principals of High Schools, and the daughters' hus- 

bands held similar responsible positions. The parents visited them in the 

winter months; children and grandchildren found their way to Landour 

in the summer. 

Fifty years of loving partnership ended when Ruth died in 1928. Bal 

Mukand kept on the old home but spent much time with Pushpavati in 

Ajmer. There the old man, now in his 70s, built with his own hands a 

little room for himself on' the verandah of her home. 12 Then, during the 

Second World War, an engineer grandson joined an army supply unit, 

and after the war was over was posted to the Army Engineering Centre 

at Pachmarhi. His grandfather joined him, to spend his last years in the 

district of his birth. ' 

Bal Mukand died in Pachmarhi in 1950, aged 93. The flat slab which 

marks his grave in the churchyard is so distinctive in its stark Quaker sim- 

plicity that it must surely have been so carved at his own request: 

PT. BALMUKAND NAIK 

BORN HOSHANGABAD 1857 

DIED PACHMARHI 1950 

Thin is all. " 

QUAKER MISSIONARIES 

-SO 

Notes to Chapter VII 

1 This and other quotations from Baker's letters are taken from tiles in the pos- 

session of his grandson Patrick O'Brien Baker, who has generously permitted their 

use. 

2 Gayiord's jabalpur friend the CMS missionary Walter Champion had com- 

mented on this in 1 874: l It can be done and has been done, three acres being suf- 

ficient lor a family. But Christians have a prejudice against village life and want 

towns. 1 

3 Susan was a cousin of the distinguished Henry Lawrence and his brother the 

Viceroy. 

4 Speech at the Darlington Missionary Conference, 1896, The Friend 2nd 

October 189(>, p.050. 

5 Stories of Anna livens 1 activities come from her Journal preserved in Friends 

House Library, London. 

6 1 owe this information to the late John Haines, who found it in the records of 

Hardshaw West Monthly Meeting (Liverpool area). 

7 Her niece Rachel Alice, a much-respected nurse, received Rachel's portable 

writing-desk, and kept in it the letters she had had from her aunt in India. The 

desk is a family heirloom, but the letters cannot now be traced. The silver tea- 

spoons Rachel took to India in 1 860 also survive. So does the Noah's Ark, enjoyed 

by successive generations. 

8 In the churchyard at Edmundthorpc, Leicestershire, where Frances spent her 

yea/s of widowhood with her unmarried son Lindsay. It was probably he who 

chose the very appropriate inscription. - 

9 The practice of recording the names of those whose vocal ministry is recog- 

nised as generally helpful is now no longer followed. 

10 See his article in The Friend, 1911, p. 2 39. 

1 1 Her whole remaining property, less than £ 1 00, was left in her will to her solic- 

itor. 

1 2 The account of Bal Mukand is based on information from his grandsons the 

brothers Erasmus and the recollections of their aged mother Pushpavati. Friends 

in Nagpur diocese supplied information about Pachmarhi and a photograph of 

the grave. " ° c 

CHAP T E R VIII 

The Invisible Stream 

He showed me a river of the zvater of life, sparkling like crystal, 

flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. 

1 i ii Book of Revelation 22 : 1 

Thh City oe Allahabad, where Bal Mukand spent so much of his 

youth and his maturity, was then the capital of a Province roughly corre- 

sponding to the present State of Uttar Pradesh. 'Allahabad' is the name 

given by the Muslim rulers of India, but (like Hoshangabad) the city has 

a more ancient history and a more ancient name. It is Trayag\ the 

Confluence; it stands where two great rivers, Ganga (the Ganges) and 

Yamuna (the Jumna) flow into one another. It is said that a third, invis- 

ible river joins them there. This is Saraswalhi, river of divine wisdom, 

whose presence gives the united stream its power to cleanse and bless. 

From the beginning of the 1 Oth century two visible rivers of Quaker 

interest had flowed into India. There was a river of humanitarian service, 

there was also a river of religious appeal, the one touching the public 

welfare, the other the individual conscience. The rivers of 'mission' and 

'service' continue to run; each new generation reflects on the right place 

for a confluence of the two. What of the 'invisible third'? Have Friends 

known any River Saraswathi, any wisdom and power which can purify the 

two currents and make them a blessing to the world? Is it possible to trace 

the waters of the invisible stream in Quaker life in the 19th century? 

Certainly it is, both in the west and in India. That well-spring of life in 

the heart, of which Jesus had spoken, was known both to Friends and to 

those others among whom and with whom they worked. 

One source of the living water was an old book, The Imitation of Christ, 

written in Europe in the 1 5th century at a time of great distress. The book 

has spoken to the heart of humanity, in east and west alike, through all 

the centuries since. It was treasured hv some of the Friends who came to 

W 

THE INVISIBLE STREAM 

India in the 1880's; it was treasured equally by some of their I lindu eon 

temporaries. 

Another book, less famous, also spoke of this well-spring of life in ilu- 

heart. It was written about 1838 by a gentle clergyman named Frederick 

Myers, who longed to offer help to those many young people who like 

Charles Darwin were unable to accept some of the church's doctrines. 

Myers called his book Catholic Thoughts. 'Don't let the doctrines trouble 

you,' he said in effect. 'They are after all very subordinate. The core of the 

faith is loving obedience to Jesus the Christ, and those who may never 

have heard of Jesus are all nevertheless children of the Father, and may 

receive the gift of the Spirit.' For many years copies of this book circu- 

lated privately from hand to hand, but it was not actually published until 

after its author's death. * • 

Frances Mary Knox wrote nothing, but she lived '.in the same spirit; 

we see her in her later years through the eyes of two of her sons, Edmund 

with his fine mind and irrepressible enjoyment of lifej Lindsay in whose 

rural home she spent her 12 years of widowhood. She' sat in her room iri 

her simple Quaker dress, serene and much lowed, practising among those 

around her that 'loving obedience to Jesus' of which Myers had spoken. 

In that room 'Christ was the "the unseen guest". . . . There were no harsh 

words; the motive power was always love.' 1 ■ 

Her son Edmund, a priest and afterwards a bishop of the church, 

united in his own .person the two 'visible streams' of religious' vocation 

and humanitarian concern. As a student in Oxford he had spent himself 

in unpaid service in the poorest parts of the town; later he turned his back 

on the comforts of a country parish and chose to live among the needy in 

the squalor of Aston-juxta-Birmingham. Like his mother he drank from 

the invisible stream, knowing 'the Voice of God within'; like his Quaker 

contemporary Rendel Harris he believed that 'Truth and Love were meant 

to advance together'. 2 

Others, both in England and in India, 'walked the lowly and hidden 

lanes of our common life'. 3 One was James Buckingham's journalist col- 

league Frederick Denison Maurice. Maurice owed much to the writing of 

William Penn; along with the India-born J. M. Ludlow he backed Joseph 

Pease's British India Society; with Ludlow he pleaded for a 'Christian 

socialism' which should challenge both 'unchristian socialists and unsocial 

Christians' and satisfy both reason and conscience. He also echoed Myers 

in his plea that 'all that is just, lovely and generous' in all religions should 

be recognised as the fruit of the one Holy Spirit, and therefore questioned 

the missionary attitudes of his time: 'Jesus did not say, Go and convert 

them from their religions to another religion. He said this: . . . Go . . . and 

teach all nations ... so long as we think of Christianity chiefly as a Western 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

or English religion, which is to drive out different Asiatic religions, so long 

I think ii is good for us to find lions in our path of proselytism.' 4 

Maurice and Myers were followed by a younger man, the Cambridge 

historian J. R. Seeley, who in 1865 published a study of Jesus which he 

called licce Homo {Behold the Man) . Behold one, said Seeley, whose supreme 

humanity calls out the enthusiastic personal devotion 'which makes men 

pure, generous and humane'. Coming at a time when the doctrine of Jesus' 

'divinity* was presented in a way that obscured his real manhood, the book 

had a powerful appeal. In India it meant much to the Bengali thinker 

Keshab Chandra Sen. 'We are seeking Christ/ he said, 'as he was in 

Palestine, going about doing good and giving the water of life freely. You 

tniiKi be content,' he added (echoing Maurice) 'to let Christianity come to 

us in its own oriental dress; let us absorb all humanity and all truth.' 5 

The 'river of the water of life' flowed in western India in that man of 

•selfless and saintly integrity', Dadabhai Naoroji, and in Martin Wood's 

fellow-worker Mahadev Govind Ranade, 'the most forgiving of men'. 

Such men were examples of £ the modern Indian Sannyasiy [who] wears 

the Karh of ordinary men, mingles with them as one of themselves, yet 

inwardly is the.' renounced. 6 

Another such 'renouricer' was known both in India and in Britain. 

Thoihas Valpy French was a contemporary of Frances Mary Knox, and 

his wife like Frances was of Quaker stock. 7 While the Knoxes were in 

South India, French founded St John's College in Agra and led it for many 

ye itrs, I lis 'noble saintliness' won him the friendship of students who at 

f u hi were sullenly hostile to Christian teaching. In the 1860's he estab- 

lished a theologicalcollege at Lahore, studied the Granth Sahib, the Tulsi 

Ritmavarw, the hymns of Kabir, and sought out Hindu and Muslim devo- 

tees who aspired to the unseen Reality beyond 'the things of Time'. Like 

\m contemporary and counterpart Elkanah Beard he tried to share his 

faith 'without losing a grain, yet measuredly as the people can bear it'; a 

wine and gentle charity shines through all his letters, 8 In 1874 he came to 

Finland and brought his family to Oxford; there his daughter Ellen met 

and married Frances Knox' son Edmund. 9 

In I H()*S, the year in which Seeley published Ecce Homo, a young man 

hum a very different background was invited to lead religious meetings 

» m a (junker burial ground in East London. William Booth had grown up 

in great poveri v; in adolescence he had been attracted by the warmth and 

iulot mahiy of a Methodist church, while he scraped a living as assistant 

to a pawnbroker. In the church he met his wife Catherine, whose back- 

Hiiiuiuioi poverty was similar to his own. During those years both of them 

illMovetrd the 'well-spring' of the waters of life, and were filled with 

rHilttiniii«m to share their experience as itinerant preachers, like George 

Fn* and iIm- WVslcv brothers before them, often in the open air. 

THH INVISIBI Ai STRKAM 

93 

So the Salvation Army began its battle with Sin and the Devil, cap- 

turing for God 'the Devil's best tunes', and offering its recruits the same 

gaiety, warmth and comradeship as did the Devil's strongholds, the public 

houses. Its soldiers, like the early Friends and the early Methodists, often 

suffered violence. 'Hundreds of young working men and women endured 

hardship, obloquy and obscene abuse for their God and their General.' 10 

The Army survived and grew, and by 1880 fair-minded people like Dr 

Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury, were giving friendly support, recognising 

the value of its work among the 'dregs' of society who had previously been 

untouched by any religious group. 

In 1 882 Catherine Booth spoke to a crowded session of London Yearly 

Meeting, 1 1 and appealed to Friends to 'get out of the ruts' of respectable 

religious observance and join in the tasks of practical compassion to which 

the Salvation Army felt itself called, and there were a number of Friends 

who responded. And in that same year 1882 an 'Expeditionary Force' of 

the Salvation Army landed in Bombay. 

The commander of the Force was Captain Frederick Tucker. His 

grandfather had served the East India Company with great distinction, 

his father and uncles had won the trust and affection of the Indian people, 

he himself had been a young civil servant in Punjab when he read of the 

Salvation Army's work in England. On leave there in 1881 he sought out 

General Booth, resigned from the civil service and returned to India as 

leader of the new venture . The journalists who met the ship when it docked 

in Bombay were amazed to find that the 'Force' totalled three men and 

one young woman! 

Officially they encountered great hostility,* imprisonment, fines and 

distraint of goods for such 'offences' as music and processions in the 

streets. But this persecution, and their own cheerful patience, called out 

a great deal of sympathy from fair-minded people in India. In Calcutta 

Keshab Chandra Sen appealed to the Viceroy to uphold the principle of 

religious neutrality; if Hindus were allowed music and processions, he 

asked, why not Christians? The popular liberal Lord Ripon took action, 

the harassment ceased, and before a year had passed the Army had a 

Bombay headquarters and stations in Calcutta and Madras, Lahore and 

Pune. Tucker, who had studied Sanskrit and the Indian spiritual tradi- 

tion, knew that 'in the eyes of an Indian, religion means self-denial'. Under 

his leadership the foreign personnel adopted Indian dress, simple Indian 

ways of life, and Indian personal names, Tucker himself becoming Fakir 

Singh, the renouncer. 

The Society of Friends in Britain naturally felt the impact of all these 

currents of thought and experience; a process of intellectual and spiritual 

ferment had begun, and in 1878 Frederick Myers' Catholic Thoughts was 

published at last. Young Friends read it eagerly and began to express 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

themselves on the same lines, and London Yearly Meeting listened to their 

voices with increasing sympathy. In 1 884 there appeared a book called A 

Reasonable Faith, the work of three much-respected Friends, and only two 

or three years later, in 1887, came a crucial turning-point. A group of 

Yearly Meetings in America had drawn up what was known as the 

Richmond Declaration, which sought to promote unity among Friends 

by inviting all Yearly Meetings to subscribe to the same doctrinal state- 

ment. London refused to do so; even though many English Friends would 

personally have had no difficulty in doing so, the Yearly Meeting held fast 

to the old Quaker insight that the true basis of unity is something deeper 

than unifoimity of opinion. 

It was natural therefore that among the Friends who came to India 

during the last 20 years of the 19th century there should be much diver- 

sity of social, political and religious outlook. Some clung to old patterns 

of work, some pioneered new ones; some came for the first time with the 

support of American Friends, others as officers of the Salvation Army. 

And there was one couple, Philip and Annie Thompson, who were not 

part of any 'visible stream' of Quaker service, but whose presence opened 

channels of communication between various groups of Friends in India 

which otherwise might not have existed. 

Philip Thompson was the son of a Quaker ironmonger in Bridgwater, 

Somerset, and had been educated at Bootham School. In 1865 he had 

been the first Bootham boy to matriculate in London University, where 

he studied civil engineering. He then went into partnership with another 

Friend, William Alexander, in Cirencester; it was in Alexander's home 

there that he met his future wife Annie Pirn Frankland. 12 

The Franklands were Quaker linen merchants in Liverpool and were 

connected, in business and by marriage, with Irish Friends. Annie's uncle 

was that Thomas Frankland who had supported Joseph Pease's British 

India Society and been one of the chief speakers at its inaugural meetings 

in 1839. His brother John, Annie's father, had died in 1862; his sister had 

married and settled in Cirencester, and after her husband's death Annie's 

mother and her sister Maria had gone to live with her in Cirencester, 

where Maria married William Alexander. In due course Annie paid her 

sister a visit, and when Philip met her, as he recorded, 'the matter was 

settled in two weeks'! They were married in 1874 and spent the next few 

years in Cirencester, but Annie developed severe arthritis and was advised 

to live in a warmer climate. 

Among their business acquaintances in Cirencester was a young woman 

whose relatives were trading in tea and coffee from a base at Coonoor in 

the Nilgiri Hills. By then Indian tea had become an important commer- 

cial crop, and the Stanes brothers were leaders in the business. They 

THE INVISIBLE STREAM 

95 

encouraged Philip Thompson to come to Coonoor, where they knew that 

a man of his qualifications could find work. Philip and Annie therefore • 

arrived in Coonoor in the summer of 1883, leaving their two little boys 

with Frankland relatives until they saw how things would work out. 

Things worked out well. The Stanes found them a place to stay, and 

introduced Philip to a man called Groves with whom he was soon in part- 

nership, helping to run a very mixed business including building and engi- • 

neering work. Annie and Philip got a home of their own, Teach Cottage', • 

and Annie's sister Susanna brought the children to join them. Annie's 

health improved rapidly, and a third son was born in 1886. The older 

boys, encouraged by their father to be self-reliant and independent, played 

happily with other children in the local park. ; 

The Thompsons had not long settled in Coonoor when the storm 

broke over the Ilbert Bill. A good many British military men had retired . 

to the pleasant climate of the hills, and most British civilians, including 

Philip Thompson's partner Groves, joined them in abusing the bill. Philip 

himself 'stuck to his liberalism', though he seems to have been a minority 

of one! His reaction was very different from that of his near-contempo- : 

rary Baker, of whose presence in India as a fellow-Friend he was aware. 

The Thompsons lost no time in getting in touch with the Bakers and 

invited them to spend a summer holiday in. their home in Coonoor in ' 

1885. The Bakers however were due to take leave in England that; year, 

and the visit did not take place till 1890. 

It was not only in political matters that the two.men differed. Samuel 

Baker was a townsman, and natural beauty seems to have meant little to 

him; the magnificent forests of the Hoshangabad district aroused in him 

only the terror of the unknown. 1 ^ Philip Thompson took a keen interest 

in his natural surroundings; his early letters from Coonoor overflow with ■ 

his delight in the new flowers and ferns by the roadsides arid the majesty 

of the hills. 

Professionally Thompson the engineer found that the most interesting 

thing in Coonoor was the plan for a mountain railway to. provide access 

from the plains. Discussions had been going on for some time when the 

Thompsons arrived, and in 1 8 8 5 a scheme for a rack railway was approved ; 

it was to climb the steep narrow gorge down Which the Coonoor river 

rushes to join the Bhavani at the foot of the hills. Finance was not easily 

secured, but at last the work was completed. It -was Philip who built the 

many iron bridges, large and small, which were needed along the route. 14 

Such then was the position in the 1880's, when Quaker encounters " 

with India began to take new and varied forms. 

<>6 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Notes to Chapter VIII 

I Quoted from Penelope Fitzgerald, The Knox Brothers, 1977, p.39. 

:» Rcndel Harris, letter to Rufus Jooes 1 897, quoted in Memoirs of J. Rendel Harris, 

eii. Irene Pickard, 1978, p.9. 

S ITic phrase is used by George Boobyer in The Friend, 22nd September 1950, 

\um: 

4 RD.Maurice, The Indian Crisis. Five Sermons, Cambridge 1857, pp.12-13. 

^ The words are reported by the FFMA secretary Henry Stanley Newman, who 

met K.C.Sen in Calcutta, 1881. 

ft H.RJinarajadasa, The Meeting of the East and the West, 1921, pp.63-64. 

7 She belonged to the Lloyd family of Birmingham. 

H A number of her letters are preserved in the CMS archives, University Library, 

Birmingham. 

<) Kdmund and Ellen named their first son (later to be 'Evoe' of Punch) Edward 

Valpy Knox. And in India Bal Mukand's daughter Pushpavati named one of her 

bnby sons Thomas Valpy Erasmus. 

10 E.St.John'Ervine, God's Soldier: General William Booth, 1934. 

I I The speech is reprinted in John D.Waldron, The Quakers and the Salvationists, 

Atlanta, Georgia, 1990, pp.45-55. 

1 2 Material about the Thompson-Frankland family is derived from relevant 

Monthly Meeting records in England and references in contemporary Indian 

directories. Philip Thompson's surviving diaries and letters were consulted by 

courtesy of his grandchildren Henry Frankland Thompson and Jean 

! I.Thompson, who added their own recollections. 

1 3 Baker entered the forest once, along with the District Forest Officer, to select 

timber for the Hoshangabad Meeting House. He was glad to get safely out again. 

It may be that one factor in the personal tensions between him and Gayford was 

that Gayford as a countryman had a very different outlook. 

14 There is a strong family tradition that Philip Thompson 'built railway 

bridges'. I have been unable to discover any detailed records of the construction 

of the Nfilgiri Railway which might confirm this, but in view of the known dates 

1 regard the tradition as almost certainly correct. 

C HAP T H R I X 

The Changing Nineties 

One of Martin Wood's older contemporaries in Bombay was a cul- 

tured American named George Bo wen. Bowen conducted a weekly news- 

paper. The Guardian, which commented on Indian public affairs 'with 

comprehensiveness and candour' from a Christian point of view. The 

paper had a good reputation and was widely read, and when Henry Stanley 

Newman, the FFMA secretary, visited Wood in Bombay in 1880, he had 

met Bowen also. 

In 1887 George Bowen died, and Newman formed a Quaker trust and 

bought the paper. A Quaker editor was ready to hand. Alfred Dyer had 

reached Bombay that year on a special mission. He and his wife Helen rep- 

resented a strong Quaker group in England which was working for the abo- 

lition of legalised prostitution, an evil which, as the law then stood, affected 

India also. In addition to this, the Dyers were encouraged to do what they 

could about the traffic in drink and opium. Dyer was a printer by trade, 

and he took over The Guardian and made it the vehicle of his campaign. 

The causes Dyer had at heart were worthy causes which many Friends 

and others in India were ready to support. Nearly 50 years earlier Joseph 

Pease had spoken out about the opium traffic; more recently Martin 

Wood's friend A. O. Hume, as a District officer, had bluntly called the 

Government's income from licensed drinkshops 'the wages of sin'. Samuel 

Baker reported that the Bishop of Bombay was in full sympathy with the 

demand for the abolition of licensed brothels. Unfortunately Dyer's style 

of campaigning rapidly alienated responsible people. Towards^the end of 

1888 Samuel Baker went to Bombay to convalesce after an illness, and 

was the Dyers' guest there. He was greatly troubled by Dyer's obsessive 

mentality and uncharitable language. 'His cause is right,' Baker com- 

mented, 'but he uses such very strong language that one feels ashamed 

to acknowledge him as a member of the Society of Friends. The 

Government would give a fair hearing to a fairly put case - but not to 

invective.' Alfred Dyer - and his cause - paid the penalty. He had 

well-documented evidence about the abuses of the drinkshops, but he 

98 

AN INDIAN TAPHSTRY 

himself had closed men's ears to his words. The Guardian also suffered; 

Dyer was unable to listen with courtesy to any criticism of his own views 

and methods and refused to print dissenting opinion. Naturally, many of 

the paper's former supporters gradually ceased to subscribe. 

Other Quaker links with Bombay were being made through the 

Salvation Army. The first stimulus seems to have come through a Quaker 

couple in Brighton, Alfred and Bertha Smith,. who by 1883 had thrown 

in their lot with the Army's work in their own town. Alfred was an accoun- 

tant by profession; he made friends with a young Brighton bookseller 

named Edward Butler, and brought him into the Army too. In 1888 

Captain Butler was sent to Bombay, where under John Lampard's lead- 

ership his artistic gifts were soon noticed. Later, as Staff-Captain 

Santosham he was transferred to Madras. 

By about 1888 Alfred and Bertha Smith had given up their own com- 

fortable home in Brighton and plunged into Army service in London, and 

in 1890 they too were transferred to Bombay. Alfred took charge of 

accounts, and Bertha made herself quietly useful in the bookshop and 

behind the scenes, becoming 'Mother' in the household and 'a perfect 

treasure' to the Territorial Headquarters. But they had been in Bombay 

less than a year when she had a fatal attack of typhoid fever. Alfred and 

Helen Dyer were present at the funeral; the tributes to her in The Guardian, 

reprinted in The Indian War Cry, are moving in their simplicity: 'She spoke 

little (Quaker-like) of her religious experience; it was known in life, in 

perfect sincerity and candour. ... She worshipped the Father in Spirit 

and in truth.' A few months later her bereaved husband received yet 

another promotion, but does not appear again in Army records, though 

he did not lose touch with India. 

Meanwhile, in January 1891, a happier event had taken place in 

Madras. Staff-Captain Santosham married Captain Kristina, who as 

Elizabeth McLaren had reached India from Canada in 1888, a short time 

after he did. Before her marriage she had been posted in the Nilgiri Hills, 

where she - and her husband - probably knew Philip and Annie 

Thompson. Soon after the wedding, unknown to herself, she made a deep 

impression on a young Indian Christian from Madura, who had been 

strongly attracted by the Salvation Army ideal of renunciation; he went 

into one of its public meetings in Madras, and what he saw impressed 

itself on his mind 'like a photograph': a young white woman, in a simple 

sari, sitting on the platform beside two Indian girls. That young Indian 

enlisted in the Army, and during the years that followed he too was to 

have a number of links with Quakers. 

Philip Thompson himself helped another Quaker recruit to settle in 

India. Annie's next older sister, Eliza Frankland, had been for 20 years 

Headmistress of the Friends' Stramongate School in Kendal, where their 

THE CHANGING NINETIES 

99 

eldest sister had settled and where their mother had spent her later years. 

In 1 888, at the age of 46, she resigned this post and joined the Thompsons, 

seeking an opening for missionary service. It was possibly Philip's friends 

the Stanes, Christian enthusiasts as they were, who put her in touch with 

a small mission organised by Anglo-Indians or Eurasians from Cuddalore 

(where the East India Company's Fort St David had once stood). She 

worked for them for two or three years at a little town called Panruti, and 

then she too became part of the widening Quaker network. 

From the end of 1889 and during the following years, a number of 

new missionaries were sent to the Hoshangabad district by the FFMA, 

with the hope of 'occupying' the whole territory which the Friends 

regarded as their special field of service. In view of the various currents 

of thought which had influenced the religious life of England during the 

previous years, it is not surprising that the newcomers had widely dif- 

ferent attitudes and interests. The senior among them was Joseph Taylor, 

who had been Samuel Baker's contemporary at Bootham School in York. 

He was a man with many interests and broad human sympathies, matured 

during 1 5 years of independent business life in an English provincial town 

He knew something of Friends' dealings with India, and deplored the way 

in which the Calcutta group had been ignored; he knew of George Bowen's 

ideals for The Guardian and of John Bright's work for India during his 

own young manhood. He believed that Friends should not confine them- 

selves to one small district, but should share the life and aspirations of 

India as a whole. When he felt led to personal service his first thought 

was to do as Philip Thompson had done and earn his own living in India 

independent of any 'mission'. It was with a certain reluctance that he 

agreed to accept the opening offered by the FFMA, in the new 'station' 

at Seom Malwa for which Baker had been asking since' 1883. It was not 

long, however, before among his fellow-recruits he found his life-partner, 

Katherme Murphy; for close on 40 years they were to give remarkable 

service, in Seoni Malwa and far beyond. 

Other recruits of similar background, but narrower vision, were 

Charles and Mabel Terrell. Samuel Baker sent them to investigate open- 

ings in Sehore, the British Residency town in Bhopal State. The State was 

about the size of Yorkshire; it was Muslim ruled, but except in Bhopal 

City itself Muslims were a small minority of the population/In Gayford's 

time, in 1878, Bal Mukand and Ali Baksh had paid visits to Sehbre and 

had a friendly reception. These informal contacts had been maintained, 

and in 1888 Colonel Wylie, the Political Agent, had sent two destitute 

boys to be cared for by the Bakers at Hoshangabad. ' 

The Ruler of Bhopal was a woman, Shahjahan Begum Sahiba, who 

took her responsibilities seriously. In 1889-90, in consultation with 

100 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Colonel Wylie, she. established a Leper Asylum near S ehore, and expressed 

her wish that all its inmates should be able to follow their own religious 

. faith. Colonel Wylie, himself an earnest Christian, asked the Friends in 

Hoshangabad, the nearest mission, if they would undertake the care of 

the Christian patients. Hence the Terrells' visit. When they reached 

Bhopal they found themselves treated las State guests. The railway from 

Bhopal to Sehore had not then been built; they travelled the 30 miles in 

a carriage provided by the Begum, 'with a coachman and wo footmen, 

and an armed sepoy on horseback behind.' 1 

During the next few years Sehore became an organised 'station'. The 

Friends made an agreement with Colonel Wylie and his successors that 

mission work should only be expanded after consultation with the Political 

Agent, and in practice this caused no difficulty. The Terrells bought two 

bungalows, one for themselves and one for the two women missionaries 

who joined them. They opened schools for boys and girls and visited not 

only the Leper Asylum but also the jail. Later they built good school build- 

ings on sites granted by the Resident, and used a big schoolroom for 

Meeting for Worship on Sundays^ There was no access to Bhopal City 

where Christian missions were denied entry, but they could visit and preach 

in some of the smaller States of the Agency whose rulers imposed no ban. 

The Terrells did not return to India after their leave in 1896. Earnest 

and hardworking as Charles was, there were facets of his personality which 

made him a rather difficult colleague, and his rigidity of outlook hard- 

ened with the years. But the foundations he had laid in Sehore endured, 

and made possible future service of great value. 

In 1889-1890 the FFMA also broke new ground by including among 

its missionaries, as the Salvation Army did, men and women of 'working 

class' origin. Samuel and Anna Baker were very critical of this policy. 

'Nothing but a London shop-girl!' they said scornfully of one of the new 

arrivals. It was Anna Evens who befriended the poor girl, and won her 

trust and devotion. (She never saw the London shops again, she died in 

1892.) As for the men, 'why not send more Bootham boys instead?' asked 

Baker. Yet these recruits, Ernest Munnings and George Swan, and Francis 

and Ann Kilbey who followed in 1894, were among the most dynamic 

. and independent-minded workers the FFMA ever had. And it was Joseph 

Taylor who gave them their apprenticeship. 

Joseph Taylor listened with great interest to George Swan's story of 

what had brought him to India. George was a Gypsy; his boyhood had 

been spent fiddling and singing in a company of strolling players. Just as 

he entered his teens, while they were based in Gloucester, his whole family 

began to attend religious meetings and became Christians. George got a 

job in a foundry, and on Sundays went to the services at the Friends' 

I'm; CHANGING NINETIES 

101 

'Home Mission' hall. One day Caroline Pumphrey, Henry Newman's 

sister, spoke to the Missionary Helpers Union there. George, as he lis- 

tened, became convinced that God was calling him to missionary service, 

and went and told her so. 'Can you read?' she asked. 'No,' replied George, 

'but I can learn!' and at once began to attend night school. He made such 

good progress that Friends sent him to the Rawdon Friends School in 

Leeds. Life there was not easy, among boys so much younger than himself; 

in vacations, moreover, he was determined not to be a burden on anyone, 

and went back to work at the foundry. There too his old mates were apt 

to jeer at 'Gentleman George, full of book learning'. Years later, when 

asked what a missionary needed, George replied: 'A call from God, and 

a very thick skin!' He, proved in those years that he had both. He com- 

pleted his schooling, joined the Society of Friends, and celebrated his 2 1 st 

birthday on board the ship which took him to India, a well-educated, 

thoughtful young man. 

Joseph Taylor encouraged Munnings and Swan to follow up his own 

interest in the forest tribes around Seoni. It was not long however before 

Munnings was married, and he and his wife Sarah went to start another 

new 'station' at Khera, just outside the growing railway town Itarsi. Swan 

remained, and soon felt much more at home in the simple open-air life of 

the tribal hamlets than in the middle-class English ways of the mission 'sta- 

tions'. He would take his fiddle and disappear for days\together into the 

forests, sleeping among the people and coming to know them with an inti- 

macy impossible for the 'carefully brought-up Friends' who were his col- 

leagues. He found the values of his own Gypsy boyhood reflected in the 

natural disciplines and loyalties of the tribal villages. He soon discovered 

what grave injustice was being inflicted on these humble communities by 

moneylenders from outside, who first tempted them into debt and then 

used the 'British' law of the courts to seize in payment the lands which by 

ancient custom were inalienably theirs. As Martin Wood's friend William 

Wedderburn commented on a similar situation elsewhere, 'they sought 

justice, and we gave them law. Swan was filled with compassion; he knew 

how it felt to be despised, ignorant, and bewildered. He saw the people 

drained of material security and spiritual strength by forces beyond their 

or his control, and he longed to bring them 'a Gospel of social deliverance 

no less than spiritual power'. He had no sympathy with missionaries who 

denounced them as devil-worshippers and sinners; he knew them to be 

more sinned against than sinning. What if they made offerings to the sun 

'because their fathers did'? He knew that they also recognised 'a great god 

who made the sun' - a true insight, surely, on which he might build. 

Meanwhile a crisis had arisen in the Salvation Army which was des- 

tined to have a large impact on Friends in India. General William Booth's 

youngest daughter, Colonel Lucy, had been sent to work in India in the 

102 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

hope that the warm climate might improve her delicate health, and she 

joined her sister Emma Booth-Tucker there. When the General visited in 

1 89 1 Emma, who was seriously ill, was ordered home, but Lucy remained 

till 1892. Early that year she and John Lampard both went to England on 

leave, and in April The War Cry announced that they were engaged to be 

married. Almost immediately however Lampard wrote to the General in 

great distress, saying that he felt 'unfitted, and unworthy' to marry his 

daughter, and that in order to save her from future unhappiness it seemed 

right to break off the engagement. This letter, which was duly published, 

raised a storm. It was bewildering, and humiliating, that anyone could 

wish to break off an engagement with one of the Booths. An 'investiga- 

tion' was ordered, but no report was published. Instead, the verdict of an 

unnamed physician, 'reputed for treating mental diseases^ is quoted: John 

Lampard 'was so mentally deranged as no t to be responsible for his action' , 

'The impression left is that John Lampard found himself less in love with 

his General's daughter than he had supposed, and very generously allowed 

himself to be stigmatised as a sort of lunatic so that the face of the Booth 

family might be saved.' 2 Lampard disappeared, abruptly and finally, from 

Salvation Army records. 

These events had a notable effect upon those who had known and 

respected John Lampard in Bombay. Alfred Smith found himself employ- 

ment in Southern Africa, in an industrial mission on the Zambesi. Edward 

and Elizabeth Butler stayed for a time, happy in their work in South India, 

but then resigned, saying quite plainly that they did not like the way things 

were done at the Headquarters in London. Alice Weston, who had come 

to Bombay in 1888 as a girl of 19 and worked under Lampard there, left 

the Army to marry a Mr Lukey who had a mission to seamen in Sind. 

John Lampard himself came back to India, and by 1893 had started an 

independent, non-sectarian 'mission to the Gonds' in the Balaghat dis- 

trict of the Central Provinces. It is possible that Joseph Taylor had already 

met him in Bombay on his own first arrival in 1889, but in any case he 

very quickly got to know of Lampard's work among the Gonds, and the 

two men became close friends. 

A short time afterwards an Ojha 3 chief named Jagraj, who was greatly 

attracted by Christian teaching, persuaded his clan that they should all 

become Christians together. Joseph Taylor suggested that they should 

create a Christian village community in the way that some of the Gonds 

in Balaghat were doing under John Lampard's leadership. They settled in 

an abandoned village called Bhantna, among the Satpura forests between 

Itarsi and Seoni Malwa. Eight miles away over the hills was another village, 

Sali, which had a mixed population of Ojhas, Gonds and Karkus. Jagraj 

soon persuaded his fellow-Ojhas in Sali to adopt the new religious 

teaching, and the other Sali villagers followed suit. Soon, along the forest 

THE CHANGING NINETIES 

103 

tracks between-Itarsi to the east and Seoni Malwa to the west, there were 

several such Christian communities. They were as Rachel Metcalfe might 

have said, 'very young in the school of Christ;' but in their modest way 

they were a fulfilment of Pandit Govind Ram's dream of a natural com- 

munity living by Christian values. Joseph Taylor and George Swan encour- 

aged each village to manage its own affairs through its i own .panchayai* 

and to build its own prayer hall of mud and thatch, like the houses around 

it. Naturally there were problems, some were of the people's own making, 

and George Swan treated them with 'the levity of love 5 , singing, laughing, 

scolding, insisting on a daily bath for all! 

The Sali villagers were all illiterate, but they kept a few books in their 

prayer hall for passers-by who might be able to read. They did know some 

stories from the Gospels, and some songs, and were eager to share what 

they knew. One day some of them went off to a local fair, taking their, 

books with them; as they sang, they held the books open in their hands 

as they had seen Swan do. A Brahmin, his curiosity aroused, looked over 

one man's shoulder. 'Why, your bookis upside down!' he said. There was 

a happy response. 'Oh good! you can readl please'read to us!' and the 

Brahmin read the Gospel to an attentive crowd. 

Meanwhile, in 1893, another woman missionary ■ had arrived. 

Katherine Dixon, like Anna Evens, had had previous teaching experience 

in England, and for the next 20 years she gave herself to the work of the 

girls' orphanage and school with single-minded devotion. She was ful- 

filling Rachel Metcalfe's dream of a place where 'good wives and mothers' 

(and teachers too) were educated in an atmosphere of hard work, good- 

fun, and happy security. * ■ * 

Katherine's coming set Anna Evens free to pursue her own growing 

interest in the tribal village communities, especially but not only the ' 

women. One day she noticed that an iron-worker from another clan had 

built himself a hut in one of the Christian villages, and she asked him why ■ 

he had come, 'I feel-safer here,' he replied. 'These people sing songs about ' 

Isa Masih (Jesus the Christ), and the tigers won't come near when they 

sing those.' But you could easily sing those songs yourself, in your own 

village,' said Anna. < That wouldn't do,' he objected. 'If /were to sing them, 

the tiger would know I wasn't singing from my heart!' A statement, Anna 

commented, that did much credit both to the tiger and to the iron-worker. 

Anna did her best to teach these songs and stories to the women, but 

they had little confidence in their own ability to learn. 'Our heads are 

thick,' they would say. 'No one but ever tried to teach usV they would 

express their affection by their own beautiful gesture, kissing their fingers 

and gently touching her cheeks. But no, they would not let her take their 

daughters to Katherine Dixon's school in Hoshangabad. Anna argued in 

104 - H AM INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Emm and Sarah Mannings, Frederick Sessions. 

■ tviih William a$td 1 year. 

Vllnj finally in desperation she picked up a sickle. s See, ? she staid with a 

realistic gesture 'you may cut my throat, like this^ if I don't bring them 

nil safely back when the holidays come I* 'Do you cart: so much?' they said. 

Next morning 1 8 Little girls walked with her by the village tracks to Itarsi 

railway station, There they not only saw a train, they actually boarded 

one. They must have been a bit scared, for the railway, barely 20 years 

o1d f was regarded with awe. The British, people said, worshipped the ter- 

rible goddess Kali - did they not put red lights by the rails, and on the end 

of the train? And did not Kali sometimes claim her victims - in 'acci- 

dents'? But the children reached Hoshangabad safely; three or four 

months later they came home, clean, healthy, able to read and tell stories. 

Pmgd parents sent them back for more, 

During those days Ernest Munnings in Khcra was visited by a family 

. of weavers who lived in a village not far away* a village where Munnings 

had recently given his Gospel message. 'We heard you talk/ they said. *We 

hive thought about it, we would like to become Christians - but if we did, 

how could we live? 5 £ By your trade, of course, 1 replied Munnings, *as you 

hpvc always done / 'Not in our village, our caste would not allow it; they 

Mild. The family therefore set up their loom on the Khera compound and 

noon other families joined them for similar reasons, When the Munnings 

went on leave in the spring of 189a George Swan went to live at Khera 

TH!- t:HAN-<r[Nti KSNl-TSHS 

105 

in their place , and under his guidance the group became the nucleus of 

a future weavers 1 cooperative society. 

During these six years Samuel Baker himself, the leader of the mission* 

was giving much of his attention to two new projects: an industrial school 

where orphan boys might be trained to earn a living, and a high school 

where the Christian message might be commended lo the cultured classes 

of Hoshangabad town. 

In 1 along with the first party of new missionaries, caine an English 

Friend named Frederick Sessions, the son-in-law of the FFMA pioneer 

Russell Jeffrey, Sessions took much interest in the orphans, and knew the 

importance of preparing die growing boys to earn a livelihood. Baker 

thoroughly agreed, and the two men talked over ways and means, there 

was in the town a mechanic named Shiv Dayah who had the reputation 

of being able co Tackle any job from hlacksmithing to watch repairs - and 

even dentures! Baker had used his services several times* and he was much 

attracted by Christian teaching. On being consulted, this mechanical 

genius made a most generous offer: he would contribute the goodwill of 

his own business and repuTaiion, and for a modest salary train the appren- 

tices himself. Work began at once in a corner of the mission compound; 

the boys 1 hrst big job, it is reported, was to help to repair the town fire 

engine. 

Frederick Sessions himself made the second great contribution. In his 

own building business in England he was 7 employing Joseph Taylors 

brother Alfred, who was a skilled carpenter and plumber, Alfred was inter - 

ested in the scheme, and he and hh wife reached Hoshangabad in the 

autumn of 1 89 1 . They bought a 1 0 -acre plot of land from Rasulia village, 

then a tiny hamlet with more land than its inhabitants could cultivate.' 5 

Shiv Dayal and the boys brought dieir sheds and re-erected them on the 

north-east corner of the site, A bungalow was built for Alfred and Florence 

Taylor on the higher ground to the south-west, with a peepul sapling in 

front of it, a banyan behindhand a lovely view westward down the Narmada 

valley. The temporary sheds were replaced by a good workshop and office, 

and Shiv Dayal bought the needed equipment from his old business con- 

tacts in Bombay. 

In its first year the new 'Industrial Works 1 employed 18 men and boys 

as well as its three or four first orphan apprentices, Some were skilled 

workmen, carpenters, cabinet makers and smiths, selected by Shiv Day ah 

They undertook much miscellaneous work, built and repaired tongas 

(puny traps) and soon began to make padlocks. They worked on the usual 

Indian pattern, from six in the morning co six in the evening, with a two- 

hour break at noon for a meal and rest. Just before noon they all came 

together, Hindu, Muslim, Gond, Christian, for 10 minutes' Bible study. 

106 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

It was a happy group; there were excursions on holidays to the Mrigannath 

hill across the river, and games of cricket on the old mission compound. 

Visitors commented on the boys' 'manly and independent bearing, cour- 

teous but not cringing'. 

During the next few years the business expanded, so that the work- 

force increased to 40. There were an increasing number of Christian boys, 

who lived on the Rasulia compound under Florence Taylor's motherly 

care, and helped to run Sunday schools in the villages nearby, such as 

Adangarh and Phepartal. Indian standards of excellence in craftsmanship 

were combined with Quaker standards of business integrity in a very 

admirable way. Besides much work for the general public the Works 

accepted a Government order for finger posts for the District roads, and 

a contract for a new Head Post Office for Hoshangabad, the bricks for 

which were made on the mission compound at Kharraghat near the river. 

The High School project had been mooted in 1887 by the citizens of 

Hoshangabad themselves. They had come to Samuel Baker and asked if 

he could provide one as a commemoration of Queen Victoria's jubilee. 

Baker was eager to do so, but he needed an academically qualified man, 

and it was not until the end of 1891 that he found one, in Anna's cousin 

George O'Brien. By that time the government itself had opened a High 

School on a central site, but O'Brien went ahead and opened a Friends' 

High School at Kharraghat in 1 892. In spite of the distance from the town 

it made a good start - and then, in 1895, George O'Brien died of small- 

pox, a great sorrow to the Bakers. His place in the High School was taken 

by Douglas Maynard, a man with a fresh and vigorous mind. He too could 

not stay long, but was obliged to withdraw on health grounds after a few 

years. 

Baker himself, in his later 30's, had become a very different person 

from the impetuous youth who had burst upon Hoshangabad in the early 

days of 1879. During the years which had followed the painful crisis of 

1886 he had been joined by colleagues who were his equals in age, edu- 

cation and experience, and so could argue with him as no one had been 

able to do during his first period of service: Joseph and Katherine Taylor, 

the women Anna Evens and Katherine Dixon, Joseph's wise brother 

Alfred. There were others too, not Quakers; there were Anglicans like 

Henry and Susan de St Dalmas, and Alfred's witty, fun-loving wife 

Florence, who teased Samuel in sisterly fashion, as no one had ever dared 

to do before. He mellowed and matured, and now worked with John 

Williams without the crippling tensions of earlier years. These men and 

women, various as they were, were all moved by a genuine devotion which 

attracted first-rate Indian recruits: Ramcharan, the learned pandit at 

Sohagpur, the Muslim fakir who joined Friends at Seoni Malwa; Nathulal 

THE CHANGING NINETIES 107 

and his wife Indu, who had come into the district from further north., 

Nathulal had been employed on the railway, but had given up his job and 

his prospects of promotion because he felt 'called of God' to full-time reli- 

gious service. He and Indu had found their field of service with Friends, 

In the company of such fellow-workers Baker no longer mocked at the 

Indian tradition that cleanliness is part of godliness. On' the contrary he 

supported a fine minute of the Hoshangabad Friends: 'In God's house 

all people are on an equality. We will hinder no one from sitting among 

us who comes having bathed and wearing clean clothes.' He was no longer 

so sure that it was essential for converts to cut themselves off from their 

social roots. 'I have come to think lately,' he wrote, 'that we may be hin- 

dering some by refusing to jecognise them until caste is broken.' He came 

to prefer silence and quiet, meditative prayer to the wordiness of the pro- 

grammed worship which he himself had introduced in earlier years. He 

began to reflect with more charity of spirit on the practices which meant 

so much to his Anglican fellow- workers; present for the first time in his 

life at a service of baptism, he recognised the spirit of inward dedication. 

'Every important doctrine has two sides at least,' he concluded. 'I think 

of water-baptism and the bread and wine in this way.' And finally, with a 

wry glance at the limitations of his own education: The feeling of per- 

sonal superiority which a Friend's training engender.s<!) may be a hin- 

drance to receiving a blessing through others.' 

Baker owed much, in these later years, to George O'Brien and Douglas 

Maynard. They encouraged him to study, and made riim aware of how 

much the understanding of the Bible might be enriched by the work of such 

men as Lightfoot and Westcott, bishops though* they were. He appreciated 

the historical realism of their commentaries on Biblical.narratives. 'Where 

should we be,' he once asked, 'without these right reverend scholars?' 

Baker also read with great appreciation the life-story of Charles 

Kingsley, the heir of F. D. Maurice's- Christian Socialism. 'He may be 

unorthodox,' he wrote, 'but he brings God into everyday life in a . very 

refreshing way,' Baker had a strong Quakerly feel for 'God in everyday * 

life', and recognised that economic fair play mattered; he employed a good 

deal of labour in various ways, and he was a fair employer. He sympa- 

thised with Indian complaints of oppressive taxation: 'Why have a salt tax 

at all? Why not tax tobacco instead?' In this spirit of practical common- 

sense he and Williams together carried through two useful projects. The 

first was the provision of Friends' burial grounds in their main, stations 

Rachel Metcalfe's was the last Quaker interment in the Government 

ground at Hoshangabad. 6 The second was the purchase pf a house at 

Pachmarhi, in the hills 80 miles south-east of Hoshangabad. 'Lake View' 

served Friends well, as a holiday retreat in the hottest months, as a pleasant 

place for a Quaker honeymoon, as a refuge for mothers with young 

108 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

children during the unhealthy monsoon season. In later years its central 

position in India, and its lovely surroundings, made it a good venue for 

country-wide Quaker consultations. The securing of 'Lake View' was a 

piece of wise foresight. 

The 'changing 90V -also saw the first tenuous beginnings of those 

country-wide Quaker links. In 1890 Samuel and Anna Baker were able 

at last to accept the Thompsons' invitation to a holiday in Coonoor. There 

is no record of whether on that holiday they met Annie's sister Eliza 

Frankland, but sometime during the following year Eliza gave up her work 

at Panruti and came to help the Friends' schools at.Sohagpur. Little is 

known of her work there, except that she was a lively recruit with ideas of 

her own, and that she had a good deal of ill health. In 1895 she returned 

to England with the Williams, but she had not finished with India. 

Much more is known about the link with Calcutta. Joseph Taylor was 

. responsible for this 5 although his many duties and interests in Seoni Malwa 

prevented him from visiting the Calcutta Friends in person. He corre- 

sponded with them, and in 1891 one of them paid an unexpected visit to 

Hoshangabad - but did not meet him. The following year however Dr 

Dixon, and another FFMA leader Isaac sharp, were visiting India under 

religious concern, and were persuaded, probably by Joseph Taylor, to 

meet the Calcutta jgroup. Thanks to Isaac Sharp, who recorded much of 

what they told him, something of their story during the years of isolation 

can be told. 

It is not surprising that a good many of those whom Mackie and May 

had met in 1 862 should have died or fallen away. But in 1 890 some of the 

original leaders, such as Mariano D'Ortez and Alexander de Cruz, were 

still there, and had been joined by younger men. One of these, S. Pir 

Baksh, was of Bengali Muslim origin, and had been an attender for many 

years. He had been employed by the Baptists for writing and translation, 

and did not apply for Quaker membership till 1883, when he had retired 

and so was free from what he called 'the silver chains of the mission'. As 

a Friend he continued to write Bengali pamphlets, presenting the Quaker 

faith 'in its own oriental dress', saying that discipleship of Jesus did not 

mean giving up one's native culture. 7 

In 1884 the Meeting admitted another new member, Prabhu Dayal 

Misra. He was not a Bengali. He had been born in 1847 in a Brahmin 

Christian family in Delhi, and so was a boy of 10 when Delhi was laid 

waste in 1 857. That shattering experience was followed by another when 

he was 17. The pandal (marquee) erected for an elder brother's wedding 

suddenly collapsed, and the bridegroom and another brother were both 

killed. Prabhu Dayal was deeply disturbed by the tragedy and left home 

to seek peace of soul as a sannyasu Nothing is known of the next 20 years, 

but by 1884 he had found the peace he sought with Friends. He was still 

THH CHANGING NINETIES 

109 

asawiyasi, but spent the four months of each rainy season (when by tra- 

dition no travel takes place) with his mother in Calcutta. From there, 

when the rains were over, he set out on foot towards his own homelands 

in Upper India, a Christian sawiyasi like those Gayford had met on his 

travels in 1873, He carried copies of Pir Baksh's Quaker pamphlets in 

Hindustani translation. One trace of his passage is to be found in a letter 

to The Friend from an inquirer in Dinapore, Bihar. In 1888 he had found 

a lively interest in his Quaker message among Christians at Allahabad, 

where the Gayfords and Bal Mukand had been been before him. 

Prabhu Dayal was attracted by the fame of the ageing saint 

Ramakrishna Paramahansa, and during the rainy season of 1 886 he visited 

him in Calcutta. The saint's disciples were curious that a Christian should 

be wearing the sannyasi's ochre robe. 'India's ancient symbols and prac- 

tices of devotion are things I hold in honour,' replied Prabhu Dayal. A 

long friendly discussion ensued, which Ramakrishna himself brought to 

an end with a homely parable: 'There is one well of the water of life for 

all. Hindus draw water at one ghat and call it jala, Muslims at another 

and call it pant, Christians at a third and call it zvater: The English word 

'water' is used in the Bengali original of this story, and shows how widely 

Christianity was identified with the foreigner. 8 

Prabhu Dayal was not alone in protesting that Christians were not all 

'brown Englishmen' who aped the foreigner. Kalicharan Banerji, the 

Christian nationalist leader, also protested vigorously. 9 'Because we are 

Christians, we do not cease to be Hindus,' he wrote. 'We are Hindu 

Christians, as much Hindu as Christian.'. On the same principle, the 

Friends in Calcutta were Hindu Quakers. In 1890 however their numbers 

sank so low that the very survival of the Meeting seemed in doubt. 

Alexander de Cruz died; Mariano and Cecilia D'Ortez retired to their 

family home at Chinsurah. Almost immediately however one of Pir Baksh's 

neighbours joined the group. He was a civil engineer of about 50 years of 

age named Poornachandra Sarkar, and he had been a 'seeker' for many 

years. Taught as a child to worship Shiva, he had turned in youth to the 

Brahmo Samaj and under Keshab Chandra Sen's influence he became an 

enthusiastic disciple of Christ. He had had a 'western' education and was 

employed as a Government engineer, and during long years of spiritual 

loneliness his youthful ardour cooled. Then, during one of his official tours 

he had had 'an experience of grace', and shortly afterwards, meeting Baksh 

and his fellow-Quakers, found with them his spiritual home. 

Poornachandra 's enthusiasm brought in others including his own son, 

and by the end of 1891 the Meeting had nine adult members, seven or 

more attenders, and seven children in a Sunday School. It was just then 

that Prabhu Dayal, encouraged by Joseph Taylor's letters, decided to 

110 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

include Hoshangabad in his pilgrimage, though it was far to the south 

and west of his usual route. He arrived unannounced, as sannyasis usually 

do, and found not Taylor but Samuel Baker. Baker had no interest in the 

Indian tradition of religious pilgrimage, and suspected that Prabhu Dayal 

might be using the Quaker name to beg for money. When he found that 

tiiis was not the case, he allowed the traveller to spend two nights with 'a 

native evangelist'. It was not a happy experience; when Prabhu Dayal 

returned to Calcutta he reported to the Friends there that their fellow- 

Quakers in central India 'denied that Hindu sages and saints (such as Sri 

Ramakrishna) m'ght truly be guided by the Spirit of God'. 

Dixon and Sharp, who visited Calcutta shortly afterwards, were among 

those English Friends who most strongly emphasised -necessary beliefs'; 

they were anxious to discover whether the Calcutta Friends were sound 

'regarding this cardinal doctrine of redemption through the blood of 

Jesus'. Baksh and his friends were familiar with this religious language; 

they did not argue, but tried to present their own experience positively. 

Isaac Sharp rt ported that 'they had more to say of the Divine leading than 

of the blood of Jesus', but he was impressed, especially by Poornachandra 

who, he said, 'appears to partake of the gentleness of Christ'. He was 

impressed too by their enthusiasm for die Quaker 'peace testimony', espe- 

cially in its 'social and national' aspects. And yet, in spite of his honest 

and generous tribute, the contact was not maintained. In view of what 

was to follow, it seems a tragic failure. 

So, in the 1890's, Friends in India sowed much good and varied seed, 

and the seed was beginning to germinate and grow. But already there were 

clouds in the air, although the danger was not recognised until the storm 

burst in full fury in the disastrous famines at the close of the century. 

Notes to Chapter IX 

1 Description by Mabel Terrell in an article in Our Missions, vol.1, 1894, p. 103. 

2 This account is based on that of E.St John Ervine, God's Soldier: General 

William Booth, 1934. 

3 The Ojhas were closely related to the Gonds. They were musicians and sor- 

cerers, credited with magical powers. 

4 Panchayat: 'council of five', the elders of the village community. 

5 Rasulia village is on the Hoshangabad-Itarsi road a little over a mile south of 

the town. Older people told the Friends at the time that in their childhood it had 

been large and flourishing; it may have been one of the 'deserted' villages in the 

THE CHANGING NINETIES 

111 

Narmada valley mentioned in The Present Land Tax in India, 1830, whose plight 

had moved Joseph Pease. 

6 The District Collector told Baker that 'the burial of the unbaptised with the 

baptised is a sort of outrage on Christian feelings' - though no one in Hoshangabad 

had objected to the burial of Rachel Metcalfe's body in the Government ceme- 

tery. It was, however, too small for the needs of an Indian Christian community. 

7 It may have been he who in 1885 encouraged two Bengali Friends to write to 

the FFMA. Their letter survives, but there is no record of any reply. 

8 For this story see The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna by 'M' (i.e. .Mahendranath 

Gupta), Madras 1924 (4th edn.), and Ramakrishna the Great Master by Swami 

Saradananda, Mylapore 1920. The two accounts differ slightly in detail. 

9 The Indian Christian Herald, 22nd February 1883. It should be remembered 

that at that time the word Hindu still connoted race and culture rather than reli- 

gious belief. . 

CHAPTER X 

The Famine Years - and After 

To make an ordinary trade one's first business, and consecrate it 

by doing it well, requires a strength, humility and simplicity of 

devotion of the highest order. 

Herbert Kelly, quoted by George Swan (1901) 

At the end of 1892, four American Quaker women, obeying a strong 

lending to religious service in India, had landed in Bombay. Bishop 

Thoburn of the Methodist Episcopal Church befriended them, as he had 

befriended the Salvation Army pioneers 10 years earlier, and sent them 

to mission stations in north India where they learned Hindi and gained 

much useful experience. One of them became a regular Methodist Mission 

worker; the others, like Elkanah Beard 25 years earlier, began to look for 

an area of Quaker service untouched by any other mission. 

Curiously enough their choice fell on Bundelkhand, that area 'west of 

Allahabad' one- of whose rulers had invited the Benares Friends in 1870. 

One day in Lucknow the three Americans met a British Army chaplain 

f rom Nowgong, the small town which was the site of the British Agency 

lor the 24 States of Bundelkhand. Like Sehore in the Bhopal Agency, 

Nowgong was in the largest of the States, Chhatarpur, and accessible by 

ull weather Government roads. The women listened eagerly to the chap- 

lain's description, and confided their hopes to him. 'Yes,' he said thought- 

fully, 'it may well be the right place for you. It would give you the new 

licld you are seeking, and in the Agency town you would not be com- 

pletely isolated.' A visit was paid, an empty bungalow rented, and the 

three women moved in, bag and baggage, on 1st April, 1896. 

The leader was Delia Fistler, then about 29 years old, who was already 

known in her Yearly Meeting as a gifted Quaker minister. She and Esther 

Maud, a trained nurse in her 35th year, were sponsored by the Ohio 

MiNNion Board, which in contrast to the all-male FFMA committee in 

THE FAMINE YEARS 

- AND AFTER 

113 

London was composed entirely of women! Their friend Martha Barber 

was privately supported. 

That night in Nowgong the three simply went to bed. It had been a 

long hot journey, the last 19 miles of it by bullock cart along the dusty 

road from the nearest railway station at Harpalpur. Next morning they 

set to work to put their new home in order. Before they had finished a 

crowd of about 100 people had gathered on the wide verandah outside. 

Delia tried to speak to them, to give her religious message, but there was 

no response in the gaunt faces and lifeless eyes. Bundelkhand was in the 

grip of famine, after three consecutive years of serious crop failure. 

The previous day, as they travelled towards Nowgong, the three had 

wondered how they should begin their service. Now they knew! Grain 

was bought, and taken by bullock cart or elephant to village after village. 

The good news spread fast: there was help to be had in Nowgong. The 

long streams of the needy increased, the meagre funds were exhausted, it 

would be 10 weeks at least before the urgent appeal despatched to Ohio 

could bring a reply, and the Famine Code, drawn up for British India in 

1880, did not apply to 'native States'. Supplies were obtained on credit 

from the Agency's bakery and dairy, and a 'bread and milk class' for 

starving children was set up. Within a day or two seven friendless little 

waifs had been taken in, and an old stable cleaned out to receive them. 

They were Martha's special charge, and the numbers increased. 

During the next 18 months over 500 children were received, fed, and 

passed on to established Christian orphanages, among them those of the 

British Friends further south. Some parents however pleaded that their 

children should be kept in Nowgong. 'When times are better,' they said, 

'we will take them back.' At the end of 1897, when conditions began to 

improve, there were 53 who could not be taken back, their parents had 

not survived. Already, early in that year, Delia had invited an Indian friend 

to join the team. Charlotte Bai had been a resident of the Women's Home 

at Lucknow; she was blind but she had the wisdom of experience and a 

great love of children. Her coming lifted a heavy burden from Martha's 

shoulders. The children loved and respected her and she taught them the 

ways of a simple Indian home. Like Katherine Dixon's girls in 

Hoshangabad they shared the household work, and ground the wheat for 

their meals; Charlotte's sensitive fingers quickly told her whether the flour 

was up to standard or not! 

In 1897, a few months later, came another welcome helper, Eliza 

Frankland. Eliza, her health restored, had returned to the Nilgiris in 1 896, 

and was there to help her sister when in March 1897 Philip Thompson 

died prematurely in his 50th year. Annie took the boys back to England, 

and Eliza, through the Quaker 'grapevine', heard of the need in Nowgong. 

114 

AN INDIAN TAPHSTRY 

Her coming made it possible for the three Americans, who by then had 

spent five srenuous years in India, to take leave in turn. Delia went first, 

at the end of 1897; she told the Board that the mission must have its own 

land and buildings, and that there was no need to wait for some large 

legacy in order to get them; she could and did raise the money by large 

numbers of smaller gifts. 

A year later Martha went home, not to return, and Delia came back 

with a new worker to take her place, while Esther Baird went on leave. 

Delia was troubled; she believed that her 'call' was to 'publish Truth' from 

village to village - was it right to be tied down to orphanages and schools? 

Soon however she began to see things in a different light: the children 

were a trust from God, and if God should call them to His service, would 

they not be able to commend the Gospel to their own people better than 

any foreigner? 

Who were these children? The majority were boys, and many had a 

moving history. 1 One day in 1896 Delia and Esther had carried grain by 

elephant over the last difficult miles to a village called Tikar. During the 

distribution they noticed a dignified woman who waited quietly with her 

children round her, weak with famine, but clean. When her turn came, 

she asked permission to bring them all to Nowgong. 'No, stay here,' said 

the Americans, and mounting their elephant started for home, only to 

find the family waiting for them at the village gate. Again they said No, 

and on reaching the cart track dismissed their elephant and returned to 

Nowgong by bullock cart. When they reached their house the mother and 

children, walking by short cuts, were waiting good-humouredly on the 

Verandah. Delia and Esther could not say no for a third time; they took 

them in, and little by little they learned the story. 

The woman's name was Duoji Bai. Her husband Bodhan had been a 

prosperous farmer, but years of crop failure brought disaster. All their 

possessions were sold to buy food, until only a few brass plates remained. 

Leaving the five children in the empty house, the parents trudged to 

Nowgong and sold the plates for grain, only to be attacked by robbers as 

they left the town. Bodhan tried to defend his precious purchases; they 

killed him and made off. Duoji Bai, weeping and empty handed, stum- 

bled back to her hungry, fatherless children. No wonder she was desperate 

that day. 

Esther had found one little boy of five or six in Nowgong bazaar, ema- 

ciated, covered with sores, and with feet so badly deformed that he could 

scarcely shuffle along. He had come in from the jungle, said the towns- 

folk; he did not know who he was, just Tanga\ the lame one. Esther took 

him home; weeks of care were followed by long montiis in the Agency hos- 

pital. When he came back he was still 'the lame one', but he could walk. 

THE FAMINE YEARS 

- AND AFTER 

115. 

Then there was Gorelal. His mother had brought him, a child of five 

'Keep him, feed him,' she had pleaded. 'I will never trouble you again.', 

they took the child in, and gave the mother money to buy food for herself 

'You won't see her again,' said a man standing by. 'That sort is too proud 

to beg. She will starve.' However, a year later the mother did come back: 

'I know I promised,' she said, 'but I can't keep away. Please give me work 

and let me stay with my boy. I want no money, what he eats, I will eat ' 

Soon she was helping in the children's kitchen and sharing their life. 

One day a child of about seven was found lying at the mission gate in 

the last stages of exhaustion. He too- was lame, and as. he slowly recov- 

ered strength the missionaries learned his story. His name was Hiralal, 

his village 60 miles away through the jungles to the north-east. He knew 

that his lameness unfitted him for the heavy farm labour by which the 

family lived, and when hard times came he felt uneasy: 'When food is so 

little the useful ones should have it, not a useless fellow like me People 

say there is help in Nowgong.* So Hiralal slipped away from home and 

set out. For a lame child of seven it must have been a nightmare journey 

- and he had only just survived. The story, with its matter-of-fact heroic 

unselfishness brought tears to the listeners' eyes. 

Famine struck Hoshangabad a little later, and it was not until November 

1 896 that the Friends there realised how serious the situation was. No one 

had dreamed that there could be famine in such a favoured district, and 

there was some delay in bringing the Famine Code into operation. Before 

it became effective, people were dying of starvation. As in Bundelkhand, 

Friends concentrated on the 'gaps' in the Government organisation, the . 

special needs of children and other vulnerable groups, such as the 

'respectable' people who would rather die than face the 'shame' of public 

relief, even when it became available. One story echoes that of Duoji Bai: • 

A rich farmer with plenty of land got into debt during the bad 

seasons, and sold everything to pay his creditors. He and his parents 

died of famine; his widow and three children were found gathering 

grass-seed for a meal. 

Friends opened emergency 'refuges' at Seoni Malwa and Sohagpur; 

the orphanages at Hoshangabad were filled to overflowing; the girls' home 

builtfor50,somehowhoused350. At this crisishelp came from theQuaker- 

Salvation Army links in Bombay and the south. For Alice Weston-Lukey 

1895 had been a year of tragedy; she had lost both her husband and her 

baby. When she had recovered a little from the shock, she came to give 

Kathenne Dixon much-needed help in the girls' orphanage. . Edward and 

Elizabeth Butler came from the south to make their home at Bankheri in 

the extreme east of the district, and in 1897 applied for and were accepted 

into membership of the Society of Friends. And at the same time, in 1896, 

Alfred Smith came back to India to help John Lampard with his work 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

among the tribes of Balaghat, where famine relief was equally urgent. The 

young Indian recruit who in 1891 had been so impressed by the sight of 

Hlizabeth Butler at.the meeting in Madras, was now, five years later, Captain 

Jivanandam of the Army's 'garrison' in Gujerat; he came to the rescue of 

the hard-pressed .American Friends in Chhatarpur state, and took 30 or 

40 starving and friendless children to be nursed back to health in the Army 

Home near Ahmedabad; they were' so weak that he and his helpers had to 

carry them in and out of the trains on the long cross-eountry journey. 

In the 'stations' in Hoshangabad district relief was given on a 'food- 

for-work' basis; wells were dug, water-storage banks' (reservoirs) deep- 

ened, a cemetery laid out, and the little Friends Church built at Khera, 

where other needy weavers joined the little group which Munnings and 

Swan had organised. An empty house was bought near the Meeting House 

at Jumerati, Hoshangabad, and filled with destitute women. They spun 

cotton, hungry weavers wove their yarn into cloth, and the women made 

the cloth into kurtas (shirts) for the orphan children. 

One of these 'food-for-work' projects was to improve the narrow lane 

which led from the railway station on the outskirts of the town to the 

mission buildings by the river at Kharraghat. The lane was good enough 

for horses, 2 but for wheeled traffic such as bullock carts and tongas, it was 

decidedly hazardous. There were stretches where, as Anna Evens put it, 

'one wheel has to take the high road and the other the low road'; as a 

result, her cart had once toppled over, depositing her among her luggage 

by the roadside. She had watched, helpless with laughter, while the bul- 

locks plodded patiently on, dragging the wheels and axles behind them. 

Famine labour levelled and widened the road under the direction of young 

Thomas George,, one of the first orphans to be trained at Rasulia. 

Another project was organised from ^Rasulia itself with Government 

cooperation and approval. This was the building of the 18-foot embank- 

ment which now carries the Hoshangabad-Itarsi road across the low 

marshy ground south of Hoshangabad railway station to the higher ground 

on which Rasulia village stands. The road here had been submerged in 

every rainy season, and was often impassable. The work was organised 

by Nathulal, and employed hundreds of people for nearly five months. 

The square* strongly built office of the Industrial Works had inside it 

a wooden gallery, reached by a hinged stairway which could be raised and 

lowered at will. Here, says a reliable local tradition, the daily wage of grain 

was distributed, the stairway being lowered or lifted to regulate the traffic. 

The small safe once used in that office is stijl in use. An attempt in 1987 

to repair the nest of drawers it contains led to the discovery of a receipt 

relating to the relief work of 1897. Ninety years later its beautiful Hindi 

script was still clearly legible, acknowledging payment for the bricks which 

were used to build the bridge which spans the central water channel below 

THK FAMINH YHARS - AND AFTER 

117 

die new road. During those 90 years there have been some great floods; 

the water has sometimes reached the top of that 18-foot embankment, 

but it has never again closed the road. The famine-weakened men and 

women who dug and carried the thousands of heavy baskets of earth which 

were needed must have come very wearily to claim their day's wages, but 

their work has endured. 

The Industrial Works themselves were well established before the 

famine began. By May 1897 about 09,000 people, a quarter of the popu- 

lation of the district, were receiving some form of Government relief, and 

the Works were called upon to supply the enormous number of tools, water- 

carts and miscellaneous equipment needed for its many projects. As Alfred 

Taylor wryly reported, they 'did very well' out of the famine. Nevertheless 

when it seemed that it was over, a, the end of 1 897, there was much thank- 

fulness. For a time, harvests were better and hope revived. George Swan, 

who had gone to England on leave, returned in 1898 and married Alice 

Weston-Lukey. As they revisited the tribal villages of the Satpura Hills, 

where George had given so much of himself, they saw them as spiritually 

'white to harvest', so open were the people to his Gospel of love and hope . 

Before the end of the year however Indian astrologers were predicting 

an even worse calamity in 1899. Samuel Baker no longer ridiculed their 

predictions as he had once done. 'Their warnings should not be disre- 

garded,' he wrote. 'We ought to be prepared.' The predictions proved all 

too accurate, but Baker did not live to say 'I told you so!' He had had 

much ill-health during the previous years,- and though he was a member 

of the local Famine Relief committee and was constantly consulted he 

took little active part in the work. But by the end of 1898 he felt so much 

better that he and Anna resumed the village camping he had always 

enjoyed so much. 

In February 1899 the Rajah of Hoshangabad, the local land-owner, 

invited them tc Bamangaon, 10 miles down the river. They rode mere 

along the village lanes, while servants took tents and equipment by bullock 

cart. That evening after dark Samuel gave one of his popular 'magic 

lantern' shows, which of course attracted villagers from miles around. By 

10 o'clock it was over and everyone in bed. Samuel woke during the night 

feeling unwell. Anna's usual remedies gave only partial relief, and shortly 

before dawn he got up and sat in a chair, hoping that a change of posi- 

tion would help. Anna who was dozing after her wakeful night, was aroused 

by hearing him fall; she rushed in to him and raised his head, but a few 

moments later he had died. 

One of the servants galloped into Hoshangabad to get help, and call 

the Civil Surgeon Dr Handley. Friends came at once, and Anna and the 

children were surrounded by every possible kindness. Dr Handley at first 

assumed, as she did, that Samuel had died of heart failure, but he did not 

AN INDIAN TAlUiSTRY 

feel entirely satisfied, and with Anna's permission he carried out an 

autopsy which revealed an internal haemorrhage in the lung. 'It looks 

rather if he had had consumption, 1 he said. Anna sent Dr Handley's report 

to her family, along with her own detailed account of Samuel's last hours, 

and it has been preserved along with his own letters. A modern patholo- 

gist has confirmed the doctor's diagnosis: 

The most likely cause of haemorrhage in the lung is tuberculosis. 

This is borne out by the history of Samuel Baker's recurrent fevers. 

A chronic infection with TB could cause such recurrent fever and 

ultimately erode a major blood vessel. TB in this chronic form may 

run a very unspectacular course. 

The fact that Samuel had had bouts of low fever during his first weeks in 

India makes it probable that he had got the infection in Dublin or London. 

These details are included because a story soon became current in 

Hoshangabad that Samuel Baker had been murdered - and it is easy to 

see how the idea might arise. Hundreds of villagers had watched him 

giving his lantern show in his usual lively style. How could he have died 

before the next day dawned, unless some one had poisoned him? Well, 

his hot temper had made him some enemies, everyone knew that! 

Whispers were repeated until conjecture was accepted as established fact. 

Anna was not there to contradict them; as soon as possible she had taken 

her two little boys back to England. The truth lay buried, and nearly 100 

years later the legend is still current. 

Hot-tempered Samuel Baker undoubtedly was - no one knew it better 

than himself. But it was not that which was remembered by those who 

knew him best. His funeral that evening was attended by every family in 

the Civil Station and all the leading men of the city. Kalidas Choudhury, 

the Chairman of the Municipal Council, and his Hindu and Muslim col- 

leagues, all paid their tribute to one whom they held in great respect. 

Charles Gayford's old friend Pandit Govind Ram of Raipur, hearing the 

news, came to Anna and sat with her in silence, too moved to speak. He 

had last seen the Bakers at the Bandrabhan mela^ three months earlier. 

They had met just as the Pandit was leaving for home with his sick 

daughter, who was lying unconscious in the bullock cart in high fever. 

Samuel had at once set to work, brought stimulants and smelling salts, 

got her relatives to massage her hands and feet, and restored her to con- 

sciousness. Then he had got medicine and a glass of hot milk. It was the 

Bakers' glass and so (to the orthodox) 'untouchable', but the Pandit had 

taken it and held it to the young woman's lips. She had made a good 

recovery and her father was deeply grateful. 'My own brother could have 

done no more,' he said. 

Such stories show that in practice Baker did not use his medical skills 

7>/// v as a means to proselytise'. He acted often as he did then, with sensitive 

THE FAMINE YEARS AND AFTER 119 

human sympathy and goodwill. This warmth and kincjliness won him the 

affectionate regard of people like the Pandit, whose religious outlook was 

very different from his. His missionary colleagues, tMough'they did not 

always fully agree with him, shared the regard and th| affection. He had 

been the unique trained leader (the Bishop, as Florence Taylor loved to 

call him). Circumstance and ability had combined to.fiaake him so. • 

The fine people, Indian and British, who had been recruited in the 

1890's, shared the burden of the terrible years that followed. The Te.rrells 

and the Munnings were no longer there, but in 1896£Catherine Dixon's 

brother-in-law George Clark arrived to take over. the Industrial Works and' 

Alfred and Florence Taylor went to Sehore. There,' whe^ the Famine Code 

did not operate, the situation was desperate. Thousands of starving 

Marwaris from arid Jodhpur were pouring into the littl^town, where food 

and water were already in short supply, and they were not welcome. Friends . 

fed about 11,000 people, and helped them forward, Whenever possible, 

into British territory where public relief was available*. If the smaller States 

to the west, where local resources were even more limited it was estimated 

that one- third of the population perished. Alfred Taylo|and George Swan 

toured the area and reported to London the appalling conditions they had 

found. Joseph Taylor and his friend John Lampard, jvho were both in 

England, at once volunteered to cut short their leave |ind go to do what 

they could. They went to the tiny states of Kilchipur and Sunth Rampur, • 

among Bhil tribes in utter misery. They lived among them for months in 

great personal discomfort, and by their presence persuaded the people to 

remain in their own homes. They organised a weekly, supply of food for 

each village, and seed corn, and bullocks, if need be, fpr the winter crop. 

As soon as the first rains came each family was able tp cultivate its own 

little garden arid begin to feed itself. After a. few more months they no 

longer needed any outside help. Their rescuers however were completely 

exhausted; when the task was done Joseph Taylor had tg have a prolonged 

period of recuperation in England before he could retur^ to Seoni Malwa. 

In the Hoshangabad District itself valiant work wa&dorie. As before, 

Friends worked closely with the Government. Honestfafficials had been 

much troubled that during the earlier famine 'so much disappeared on its ' 

way to the needy', and they asked Friends to assist injhe supervision of 

their own projects. One of these was a soup kitchen nea^Rasulia, of which 

George Clark took charge; another was stone-cutting on|the rocky Outcrop 

to the southeast. There the indomitable Anna Evens supervised the dis- 

tribution of cloth to those in greatest need. § 

There were several sharpers on the Rocks [she reported] who seized 

the cloth given to the very naked, and sold it. I tried tickets but they 

copied them, very cleverly. So I got a stencil plate, and stencilled 

every yard of cloth with the Friends' sign. 6 This made them very 

120 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

angry, and one afternoon when the servants were away off duty, they 

came to mylhouse in Jumerati and broke open the door. As they 

came in I jumped on a table, to keep my head from blows and to 

see who the|ring-leaders were. They raved, but seemed unable to 

get near, enofcgh to hit me. Then a passer-by, seeing the crowd, sent 

the policed '§ 

As in the Bhopal Agency it was the remoter tribal areas which suffered 

most. In the Satpifra hills springs dried up and villages were abandoned. 

George Swan, now* based on Seoni Malwa in Joseph Taylor's place, vig- 

orously set to worR,to re-kindle hope for the future. Going from village 

to village he led at*& persuaded the people to repair and deepen old wells 

and sink new onesiThey knew and loved him and responded. By the early 

weeks of 1900 he had already got 17 wells going. 'I need my own lime,' 

he reported,, 'from limestone, cow dung and wood - a sort of cooperative 

system to give soml benefit to all.' He set some of the women, for example, 

to collect the limeliodules from the fields, or to other simple but neces- 

sary jobs, and wrotis hopefully that he expected 'to start a good many more 

Gonds and Korkus on the path to life again'. There is no record of how 

many more were helped, but the need was far beyond his power to meet; 

many tribal families, in despair, indentured themselves as labourers in the 

tea-gardens of distant Assam. 7 What one man could do, George Swan 

did, giving himselflso completely that before the end of 1901 he had died 

. exhausted at the age of 3 1 . His last letter from Seoni, received in London 

after his death, is fall of his conviction that 'the path to life' lay through 

useful, consecrateq labour -such as he had encouraged among the weavers 

of Itarsi and the flmine waifs in Seoni. The Seoni boys got such a good 

local market for tr&ir products that in 1899 jealous - possibly less honest 

dealers had triecfco stir up a riot againstvthem, and it had taken George 

Swan three or fourhours of patient argument to calm things down. 'If we 

want our church tb be strong spiritually,' he wrote, 'labour must have a 

place of honour irjgit.' His young contemporaries among the missionaries 

backed him up: lef'there be gardening, and good mixed farming; let the 

tfirls too be brou'gjbt up as real villagers, and in the occupation of their 

own caste. He specially looked forward to Joseph Taylor's return to Seoni, 

knowing that Joseph shared his own dread of creating 'a hot-house com- 

munity of people Called Christians'. 8 

There is one lJst glimpse of George Swan in the family lore of one of 

the children he relcued. In 1900 or so a young tribal metal-worker died 

in the famine; hisjbridow took her two children and set out to seek food 

and water in the fflains. There in the foothills she sank down exhausted, 

the baby girl at her side, and gasped to the little boy to go for water. The 

child set off, succ&ded in finding a village well and filled his vessel. When 

he got back he foiAid his mother and sister both lying dead, and stumbled 

THK FAMINK YFARS ~ AND AFTER. 

121 

terrified back to the well and the village beyond it. There George Swan 

found him, picked him up and took him to the Refuge at Seoni Malwa. 

The child's name was Kodulal; he grew up to be a respected, sturdily 

independent Friend. 0 But when George Swan died, nothing remained of 

the hopeful little Christian villages among the hills, except mounds of 

earth buried more deeply with each monsoon in the encroaching jungle. 

Losses were heavy everywhere, and of the 1,500 members and attenders 

of the Friends churches of 1806 fewer than 700 remained. 

When the famines were over there were nearly 800 children of all ages 

in the Friends' orphanages and refuges, and they accepted over 200 more 

from the Government's Poor Houses, when all efforts to trace their families 

had failed. The care of these children was an inescapable and heavy respon- 

sibility, but some features of the life of the orphanages aroused much con- 

troversy. In 1892 there had appeared a study of Joseph Pease's work for 

the British India Society in which the author declared that 'no section of 

the British public now regards famine as a visitation of Divine Providence'. 

The statement is not entirely accurate; among the varied groups of the 

1890's there were some including some Quakers, who did just that, 'May 

not God be sending the distress/ wrote one Quaker missionary in 1896, 

to arouse people from their sins and draw them to the Lord Jesus? 

. . . one rejoices exceedingly that by hunger or any means the seem- 

ingly impregnable fortress of caste is being broken down for the 

Gospel message to find an entrance. 10 

For these Friends, orphanages were an opportunity 'to lift children out of 

the horrors of heathenism' and bring them up as Christians. 

This attitude had never been acceptable to thoughtful people in India. 

During a famine in 1824 Rammohun Roy had pleaded that religious scru- 

ples should be respected in the administration of relief. Years later Syed 

Ahmed Khan had acted on the same principle. Such men were sensitive 

to the value of self-respect; it was wrong, they said, to compel people to 

break laws they held sacred in order to satisfy their hunger. But in the 

Friends' refuges in Hoshangabad district these scruples were disregarded, 

with tragic consequences. After the famine was over people came looking 

for their lost children, recognised them - and turned sorrowfully away; 

older children went looking for their parents, found them - but were not 

accepted. Kind motherly Katherine Taylor was haunted all her life by such 

heart-rending scenes. 1 1 Did loyalty to Christ demand these cruel choices? 

One of their Indian fellow- workers said 'No, it does not demand them'. 

Pandita Ramabai Medhavi was a Maratha Brahmin whose father had 

passed on to her his own Sanskrit learning. Then when she was about 18 

both her parents had died in the Deccan famine of 1877; she and her 

brother survived through great privation, she became recognised as 

AN INDIAN TAPHSTRY 

Pandita, and married. More sorrow followed; little more than a year later 

her husband died, leaving her with an infant daughter. From then on she 

devoted herself to the care of other lonely women, and especially of child 

widows. She went to England to improve her English, and then to America, 

where Quaker women helped her to raise money for the Widows' Home 

which she opened near Pune in 1887. During these years, after mature 

reflection, Ramabai had become a Christian', but she retained a great 

respect for the faith which had sustained her saintly father, and she encour- 

aged every resident of her Widows' Home to keep her own religious law, 

while she herself led an openly Christian life. Like Kalicharan Banerji she 

was a 'Hindu Christian', and her position closely resembled that of the 

'Hindu Quakers' in Calcutta. 

The famines of 1 896- 1 90 1 did not seriously affect Pune, but Ramabai 

at once set to work to help sufferers elsewhere. She visited Hoshangabad, 

Nowgong and Sehore a number of times, took charge of widows and many 

others, and so relieved the hard-pressed Friends of part of their burden. 

She took Duojibai's two little girls, Rupiya and Harbi, gave them a good 

education and sent them back later to Nowgong. 

In the Hoshangabad area the controversial practices of the famine refuges 

aroused suspicion and hostility. During the second famine diere were 

rumours that the 'white sahibs 1 forcibly abducted children for their orphan- 

ages. It is possible that they did not always take enough pains to find out 

whether the hur.gry children (and their parents) really wished to accept help 

on die missionaries' terms. 12 Moreover, it was not easy to distinguish these 

white sahibs from Government officers, persons it was wiser to avoid. 

In Bundelkhand things were different. There the missions had begun 

with famine relief, and this had opened many doors. For years afterwards, 

when Delia and Esther visited some remote village for the first time, they 

were recognised and welcomed. l I know you,' someone would say. 'You 

are the people who helped us during the famine,' Their little orphanage 

had grown up because the people themselves had pleaded with them to 

care for their children, To adults they had given money, or wages for 

labour, so tha; they could satisfy hunger without breaking caste laws. They 

were women, they could not be identified with the 'white sahibs' of the 

Residency, and in any case the Residency, though powerful, was not the 

Government cf the State of Chhatarpur, 

In Hoshangabad the cost of the five famine years was heavy. A number 

of good Government officers died from overwork or disease, and among 

Friends not only George Swan but Edward Butler also. Henry and Susan 

de St Dalmas retired, and a number of others had to be invalided home. 

George Clark and Francis Kilbey, and Alfred Taylor in Sehore, had a 

heavy burden to carry, even though it was shared by experienced Indians 

THE FAMINE YEARS — AND AFTER* 123 

like Nathulal, Ibrahim and Prem Masih, and by a finfe group of English 

and Indian women, including the two young widows Alice Swan and, 

Elizabeth Butler. There were not enough people to maintain the work and 

the Mission High School had to be closed. In spite qf having lost. three 

Principals in succession - George O'Brien, Douglas Maynard, Edward 

Butler - it had done a good job and was much missed. 

There seems to have been another more subtle clause of weakness. 

Missionaries who (like Samuel Baker) belonged to ike Quaker 'estab- 

lishment' brought with them an attitude towards 'social inferiors' T who 

included, for them, the ordinary people of India - wr^ch did not expect 

from them any initiative of their own. Their Meetingslfor Worship were 

pre-planned; spontaneous Spirit-guided ministry wasli very rare event. 

The Americans in Nowgong, on the other hand,iiad brought with 

them the democratic traditions of their own country, is recorded how, 

among the children in the orphanage, they waited fori^e Lord "to choose 

His own messenger as well as message'. 13 The childrep responded, and 

shared in the ministry of their little Meeting. By 1 902 the. biggest boys, 

Dalsaiya and Bhagwana, were going out with Delia atMieir own earnest 

request to carry the message of Christ to the villages. * ' 

t 

By 1901 there were about 40 committed Christiaps, who formed a 

Monthly Meeting of the Ohio Yearly Meeting. From'ttie beginning they 

too took initiatives; in their first two years they arranged for unpaid vol- 

unteers to visit each Sunday in eight village centres and give their message 

to the people. Others like Dalsaiya became full-tim^p evangelists' and 

accompanied Delia on her more distant camping toursl All tliese leaders 

were local people; by contrast, in Hoshangaba'd, locaj people had very 

little weight, and most of the leaders, like Ibrahim and Jfathulal, had orig- 

inally come into the district from outside. f . 

In other ways the two Friends' missions were very similar. Both groups 

expected their converts to cut themselves off completely from their orig- 

inal communities and to form a separate Christian diurch. Both had 

similar requirements for church membership: evidence of 'change of 

heart', acceptance of 'necessary' doctrinal beliefs, abstention from drink 

and drugs, freedom from debt. Both groups kept to xhk Quaker practice 

regarding 'water baptism' and e the Lord's Supper'. f • 

■p - . 

Both missions found, when the famine ended, that ^ey must provide 

for similar needs: medical, educational, economic; In quieting these, the 

British Friends were able to build on the foundations laid during the 20 

years preceding the famines; they also had to plan on #arger scale than 

in Bundelkhard, because they had much greater numbers to deal with. 

The first need was for medical care, a need to which the London com- 

mittee had given no priority until the privations of the famine years brought 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

increased disease in their train. In 1902 at last they sent a young woman 

dtK'ior, Hilda Rowntree, who opened a small women's hospital in the 

Jumerati house which Friends had bought for a famine refuge. She had 

scarcely done so when the first and worst of a Series of outbreaks of plague 

struck the town. New as she was to India, she turned for advice to the 

( avil Surgeon. 'If the Government Hospital gave the cavcyou do/ he said 

to her, 'many more lives might be saved.' But in spite of all Hilda's care 

the plague claimed the lives of 12 members of the little Hoshangabad 

Meeting, two of the orphan children and the clerk of the Industrial Works. 

At such times people from the town were evacuated to the Rasulia 

compound while the plague-infected rats were destroyed. Anna Evens 

went with them to help, and young men from the Works willingly 

volunteered for the risky and unpleasant task of carrying the dead to the 

burial ground. Sometimes infection was not the only risk. 

One young woman died [Anna reported] on the day of the Kali fes- 

tival, which brings so much riotous drunkenness. The burial 

ground was on the other side of the town, and the boys hesitated 

to go without me. I was very tired, but I went with them in my 

bullock cart, while the boys walked alongside carrying the body. 

We took a side road to avoid the town, but as we rounded a corner 

we met a crowd of men, very drunk, with torches and sticks, and 

their faced reddened in honour of Kali. I shouted, 'Keep back! 

Keep back! We carry the dead.' They stopped a moment, but then 

came on again in a menacing way. I stood up behind the driver and 

shouted again, 'Keep back!' They stopped, then suddenly with a 

terrible yell they turned and fled. With thankful hearts we went on, 

and buried our dead. 

Next day in the bazaar the boys heard the other version of the story. The 

men had gone singing in honour of Kali, they said, when a voice com- 

manded them to stop. Then a figure had risen up before them, which 

grew and grew till it touched the skies, and again ordered them to stop. 

'The Goddess is angry with us,' they thought, and fled from her wrath. 

'So, Miss Sahiba,' laughed the boys, 'You are the goddess Kali!' 

In 1905 Hilda Rowntree married another newly-appointed Quaker 

missionary, Henry Robson. Soon afterwards the little hospital was closed, 

for both she and the nurse who worked with her became seriously ill. The 

FFMA found a successor in Dr Joseph Robinson. He was not a Friend; 

he belonged to the Independent Methodist Church which had been 

founded by a group of Friends and Methodists who were dissatisfied with 

some aspects of their respective traditions. Its members were sometimes 

called 'singing Quakers', and they were happy to work with the FFMA in 

foreign missions. When Robinson arrived, Friends began to plan for a 

hospital at Sohagpur. 'Why not Itarsi?' asked friendly Government 

THE FAMINE YEARS - AND AFTER 

125 

officials. Sohagpur has a Government dispensary already, and Itarsi is 

growing by leaps and bounds, and has no regular medical help at all.' 

Friends however were very reluctant to give up their dream of Sohagpur, 

and the matter dragged on year after year, while they vainly attempted to 

buy land. Dr Robinson did what he could; he held a dispensary on his 

verandah, and his wife Jessie won many hearts by her friendliness and her 

skill with babies. But he was frustrated, and in the end his increasing deaf- 

ness led him to resign. When Friends at last agreed to go to Itarsi, and 

accepted the Government offer of land, it was Hilda Robson, restored in 

health, who opened a small hospital there in 1914. 

In Nowgong there was the same kind of need, and Esther Baird the 

nurse had found much to do from the first. When she returned from leave 

in 1900, most of her time was spent in building a mission bungalow and 

orphanage on the 13 acres of good land which the Political Agent had 

assigned to the mission on the edge of the town. She did however pay 

regular weekly visits to the railway town, Harpalpur, which was in the ter- 

ritory of Alipura State. There she rented a small house where she and her 

assistant spent the night and treated all who came. One day the Rajah of 

Alipura, passing that way in his car, noticed the crowd and stopped to 

investigate. He was delighted; he at once offered Esther a piece of land 

and asked her to build a dispensary. She and her colleagues found the 

money somehow, largely from their own pockets, and at the end of 1 903 

Dr Abigail Goddard came to join them. 

The medical service made a good start, both in Harpalpur and in 

Nowgong, where a room in the spacious mission bungalow was set apart 

for the dispensary. The doctor was greatly loved and trusted, and was 

deeply mourned when she died in 1908 after less than five years' service. 

William Parsad, who had been the very first orphan to be taken into the 

stable-refuge in 1896, had begun to work with her in the dispensaries, 

and Esther now sent him to Agra to be properly trained as a pharmacist. 

'By the time my next leave comes,' she thought, 'he will be able to run 

the dispensaries unaided.' Before he had completed his training, however, 

she was so ill that she had to go back to America. 

The Rajah was distressed. 'You must not leave Harpalpur,' he said. 'If 

the dispensary must be closed for a time, at least help us to run a good 

school - I will provide the building.' This was done, and not long after- 

wards William Parsad returned and reopened the dispensary. Plans were 

drawn up for a little hospital on the Nowgong land in memory of Abigail 

Goddard, and this was completed and opened in 1913, a few months 

before the one in Itarsi. 

The second need was for education. The Hoshangabad district 

already had schools; the one at Balaganj was now a Middle School with a 

teacher training class, and Government inspectors ranked it as the best boys ' 

120 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

school in the District. Friends had other schools at Sehore, Seoni, and 

Sohagpur, with able Indian headmasters, and a rapidly growing Anglo- 

Vernacular school at Itarsi. The Harpalpur School was of the Anglo- 

Vernacular type ; these schools provided teaching in English as well as Hindi. 

For the girls, Katherine Dixon's 'Riverside' was both a home and a 

school. Classrooms were built on the spot, and as the girls grew some 

went to Jabalpur to be trained as teachers, others became nurses. All 

shared the household work, and as in an Indian village home older girls 

cared for younger ones, and for the orphan babies who were brought from 

time to time. When the time came they were married to boys from the 

Seoni orphanage. The missionaries arranged the marriages, and some- 

times 1 0 or a dozen weddings were celebrated together. There must have 

been difficulties sometimes, but many happy homes were set up. The 

Nowgong missionaries followed a similar policy, but with their smaller 

numbers each wedding was a separate event, and as most of their orphans 

were boys, brides came from outside, including some from Riverside. 

Meanwhile the famine refuge at Sohagpur had become a girls' school, 

and during the following years Christian families from all over the District 

began to send their daughters there. Classrooms and residential accom- 

modation were built, and the school became a Middle School with a 

teacher training class. When Katherine Dixon left India in 1913 the few 

orphans still living at Riverside were also transferred to this school. 14 

In Bundelkhand, before the famine, a girls' school had been unheard 

of. 'Teach girls?' said Nowgong's leading citizens. 'You might as well try 

teaching cows!' When Eliza Frankland arrived in 1897 she was deter- 

mined to change this. Tactfully and courteously she met the objections. 

'You all know Charlotte Bai,' she would say. 'She is a woman, she is a blind 

woman, and yet she has learned to read, with her fingers. If she can learn, 

why shouldn't your bright little daughters learn?' The citizens allowed her 

to try, and the school grew and flourished. When Eliza retired at the end 

of 1 °02 other women carried it on, first Eva Allen and later Carrie Wood. 

A Chapel was built in the town in 1904, and the building was used on 

weekdays for the school, and also housed a small public library. 

It was not long before a question of principle arose, both in Nowgong 

and in Hoshangabad : should 'idolaters' be employed in a Christian school, 

when Christian teachers were not available? Over the years, differing 

answers had been given by equally dedicated people. Gayford had 

regarded 'a-moral' government schooling as more harmful than idolatry; 

Rachel Metcalfe had considered it unjust to dismiss competent Hindu 

teachers in order to employ Christians; Delia Fistler, like Samuel Baker 

before her, did dismiss a competent and cooperative Hindu teacher, and 

when the boys' orphanage lost its Christian teacher she sent the boys to 

the 'a-moral' government High School rather than employ a Hindu. 

THE FAMINE YEARS - AND AFTER 

127 

The third need was economic: to provide orphans and converts with 

a means of livelihood. The Industrial Works at Rasulia, and the weavers' 

colony at Khera, had been started before the famines, and Joseph Taylor 

and George Swan had from the beginning set the boys in Seoni Malwa 

to useful trades. The Industrial Works was kept very busy throughout the 

famine period, but the report which covers that period, 1895-1 902, raises 

a number of tantalising questions: 

The loss over the whole period after deductions for depreciation 

have been made, is Rs. 1672, about £14 a year. There have been 

four changes of Superintendent and two famines, the responsible 

Hindu foreman and the book-keeper have been dismissed for dis- 

honesty, the Superintendent's time is taken up by building work 

away from home, a full set of steam-driven machinery has been 

installed by untrained lads - so that we are surprised to find the 

loss so small. We think there has been too much tendency to indulge 

in experiments, and in bricks and mortar. If the Superintendent is 

relieved of outside work there is hope of reasonable profit. A 

prospect of regular government orders has been secured, and the 

outlook has never been so bright. 

So, Shiv Dayal, to whom the enterprise owed its very existence, was 

dismissed. Was the charge of dishonesty justified? If so, were he and his 

book-keeper exposed too long to the temptations and threats which caused 

government relief materials to 'disappear'? The only 'indulgence in bricks 

and mortar', apart from mission buildings, was the contract for the Head 

Post Office at Hoshangabad, undertaken in 1 898 - a building which served 

the town well for about 80 years. One of the 'experiments' was a piece of 

simple, useful technology, the design of a hand-operated winnower which 

enabled farmers to separate the chaff from the grain* without waiting for 

the wind to do the job. It secured 'regular government orders', and when 

the Works were finally closed some of the former employees began making 

winnowers in Hoshangabad, where they are still being produced for a 

steady local demand. 

Another simple successful invention was the fly-shuttle loom designed 

by George Clark, who was a skilled and creative carpenter. It was first 

used by Christian weavers at Seoni Malwa, and quickly adopted by the 

Khera weavers also. In 1908, when there was a big exhibition at Nagpur, 

the Works won a medal for it, and a Seoni boy got a prize for his demon- 

stration of weaving. The winnower won another medal, the household 

furniture a third. Cabinet-making was of a high standard, and the Central 

Government itself placed orders for 'camp furniture', light but tough, 

when royal visitors had to be entertained on organised hunting expedi- 

tions and the like. 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

The quality of training is excellent; wrote a visitor. 'There is exact- 

nrss, i horo ugliness and honesty. The boys are eager to learn and the night- 

u hool is well attended.' Life nevertheless was not all study and hard work, 

ritluT for tliem or for Katherine Dixon's girls, many of whom became 

expert swimmers in the great river on whose high banks they lived. There 

were picnics and excursions for all. The apprentices at Rasulia were 

admitted at half-price to the Indian Recreation Club in Hoshangabad, 

where they played hockey and cricket with all sorts of people. One of the 

leaders of the Club was Dr Johory, who had become a Christian in Seoni 

Malwa, and he persuaded the committee not to plan matches on Sundays! 

In Rasulia itself the atmosphere was relaxed; 'an aged Hindu devotee' had 

loniul himself a little shelter there. He was allowed to stay, and work as 

he could, and so to earn enough for his very simple needs. 

Net, in the Works as in the schools, fundamental questions remained 

unanswered. Their aim was now stated to be 'to assist the mission - prof- 

itable business is secondary'. An ambiguous statement. The Works had 

been founded to nurture an independent, self-reliant, Christian commu- 

nii v, and for that purpose 'profitable business' was not secondary. The ten- 

dency however was to interpret 'assisting the mission' as meaning to provide 

i he workforce to carry out whatever jobs the missionaries wanted done. 

" 1 he Works were told not to submit tenders for 'outside' jobs, or to accept 

more than a limited number of 'outside' orders, lest these should interfere 

with 'mission' work. The orphan apprentices were required to 'serve the 

mission' for three years after their training was completed. Ambiguity again, 

Inn the impression is that they were not envisaged as independent craftsmen 

who would give mission orders priority when needed. The development 

ol self-reliant independence was no longer the first consideration. Kodulal, 

that son of a village craftsman whom George Swan had rescued, had his 

apprenticeship abruptly terminated because a missionary happened to 

need a domestic servant and took a fancy to him. 

"I 'he 'steam-driven machinery' referred to in the report is another sign 

of the iame tendency. Shiv Dayal had trained his apprentices to use the 

Indigenous hand tools with which the independent craftsmen earned his 

living; but the young men trained on the machines could make their living 

only in factories and workshops, and they found work on the railways in 

Bombay, or in the mills and ordnance factory in Jabalpur. 15 They did not 

remain to strengthen the Friends church in the Hoshangabad District. 

I ; rom tins point of view 'regular government orders' were another 

doubtful blessing. They poured in for a time; furniture, doors and 

windows were needed for the new stations on the expanding railways. 

Pressure to fulfil these contracts, in addition to the pressure to 'assist the 

mission', resulted in failure to cultivate the natural local market, the small 

individual orders by which the individual craftsman lives. 

THE FAMINE YEARS - AND AFTER 

129 

Moreover machinery needs maintenance and did not always receive 

it. Chhotu, the workman in charge of the engine room, was diligent and 

faithful, a saintly character who exercised a great personal influence for 

good, but 'he knew nothing about machinery except that it needed oiling'. 

There were long delays and costly mistakes in setting up the unfamiliar 

machines; on at least one occasion the government cancelled an order 

because a consignment was not up to standard. 

The small-scale enterprises at Seoni were modestly successful. A few 

boys were taught carpentry by a young craftsman trained at Rasulia in 

pre-machinery days; others learned tinsmithing, others tailoring. Francis 

and Mary Ann Kilbey, who had both once earned their living in the shoe- 

making trade in England, taught some others these skills. The work done 

in Nowgong was very similar to this. There were 1 4 boys whose aptitudes 

were practical rather than scholarly, and the versatile, practical Esther 

Baird got them trained in a variety of skills: gardening, blacksmithing, 

masonry, shoemaking, tailoring. They were soon able to undertake much 

useful work, both in the mission and outside. 

We want our boys [wrote Esther] to serve the Master as trained 

workmen, able to teach poor village converts how to earn an honest 

living with their hands. 

The British Friends, with something like 500 boy orphans to provide 

for, turned to the basic resources, the land. Many of the boys brought to 

Seoni during the famines were Gonds or Karkus from the densely forested 

hills to the south. Some of them, as soon as they felt strong enough, ran 

away - back to their familiar life. The Friends planned to settle more of 

these boys in surroundings familiar to them, and in 1902-3 with govern- 

ment cooperation they acquired a thousand acres of land at a village called 

Lahi, where the boys might practise seasonal cultivation as other tribals 

did, and supplement their income by casual labour for the Forest 

Department. Simple buildings were erected on a lovely site overlooking 

a little river, and a group of boys went to live there with Thomas George 

in charge. But the scheme was not a success, partly because Thomas 

George, brought up from childhood in Hoshangabad town, had no 

farming experience and no knowledge of the hills. 

At this juncture came a recruit, Alfred Smith, who all through the 

famine years had been John Lampard's right-hand man in his mission to 

the Gonds. In 1905 plans were being made to hand that mission over to 

the American Methodists, 16 and Friends welcomed Alfred to Lahi, which 

at once became a happier place. Alfred very soon was everyone's beloved 

'Uncle', but he could not overcome the basic difficulty, the widespread 

'Christian' prejudice against village life. 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Notes to Chapter X 

1 Letters in Friends Oriental News, Swarthmore College Historical Library, 

Pennsylvania, USA. 

2 Samuel Baker, it is said, would sit writing his English mail till he heard from 

his bungalow the rumble of the Bombay-bound mail train on the first span of the 

river bridge, then as now about ten at night. Then he would leap on his waiting 

horse, gallop to the station, and thrust his letters into the mailbox on the train. 

3 The present writer was a party to this discovery. 

4 Dr Dorothy Rule heard the legend while working at Rasulia in the 1 970s. The 

pathologist quoted is her friend. 

5 Bandrabhan stands at the confluence of the Narmada and its great tributary 

the Tawa. There is a bathing festival at the time of the November full moon. 

0 Was this 'sign', one wonders, the red and black star? 

7 Years later a few came home again. Anna Evens met them and found that they 

still remembered Gospel stones they had learned from George Swan. 

8 Letter quoted in Friends' Quarterly Examiner, April 1902, vol.36 p.234. 

9 Story related by Kodulal's son Titus and recorded by RC.Aggarwal, Rasulia. 

10 Quoted in Caroline Pumphrey, Samuel Baker of Hoshangabad, 1900, p. 160. 

[The missionary was Ellen Nainby. I have not discovered the second part of the 

quotation.] 

1 1 Sec the record of the interview with Mahatma Gandhi, 1930 (Friends House 

Library). 

1 2 Shanti Edwards, now a senior Friend at Seoni Malwa, records a story told by 

her father, a Gond: One day in his childhood he and some older boys heard mis- 

sionaries coming along the road. All the others ran away; the child, who could 

not run quickly, climbed a tree. A missionary saw him, coaxed him down and 

took him to an orphanage. It was years before he saw his family again. 

13 Merrill M. Coffin, Friends in Bundelkhand, India, Mysore, 1926, p. 18. 

1 4 There was no link, as is sometimes claimed, between this school and Harriet 

Gayford's little day-school, which had been followed by others. 

1 Indian Friends did not object to work in the ordnance factory; the testimony 

an:iinst the use of 'outward weapons' was not real to them. When asked in a 

Scripture test 'Should Christians fight?' two boys replied 'Yes! we should put on 

the whole armour of God and fight our great Enemy!' That inward war was real. 

1 (> The transaction was completed in 1906. John Lampard's subsequent history 

is not known. Possibly he went to the USA as a Salvation Army 'rumour' says. 

CHAPTER XI 

Families and Friends : 1883 

Quakers have a tradition of extraordinary potency 

handed on in families 

NlCOLETTE DEVAS, SUSANNAH'S NIGHTINGALES 

The Quakers whose work was described in the last two chapters had 

come to India primarily to share a religious experience. During the same 

period were other Quakers in India who were following in John Bright's 

footsteps, and like Martin Wood before them were concerned for justice 

and mercy in public affairs. Many of them, like the Indians with whom 

they worked, gave their service through education. 

The first of these to reach India was Theodore Beck. He was Samuel 

Baker's near-contemporary, and when Baker was beginning his work at 

Hoshangabad he was one of the group of Cambridge Quaker students, 

led by John William Graham, who were trying to restate their faith in 

terms compatible with historical and scientific scholarship. He had a bril- 

liant mind, and no use for unexamined ideas. 'When he wants to abuse a 

thing,' wrote his friend Walter Raleigh, £ he always calls it doctrinaire: 1 

The Beck family lived in the village of Stoke Newington on the northern 

fringe of London, where they worshipped, and intermarried, with other 

remarkable Quaker families, Aliens, Foxes, Listers. Theodore's mother 

was an Allen. His father Joseph Beck was a maker of optical instruments; 

he was also a member of the Anti-Slavery Society and Treasurer of the 

Friends War Victims Relief Committee during the Franco-Prussian War. 

People of all sorts were made welcome in their home - Americans, for 

example, from both sides of the Civil War. There were other doings, very 

interesting to a growing boy; Joseph Beck designed and rode his own 

bicycle; along with Theodore's youngest uncle he successfully climbed Mt 

Blanc; he practised home conjuring, he set up a telescope on the roof to 

study the stars. Theodore soon showed a similar versatility. He was 'the 

131 

132 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

jolliest and best of elder brothers', and gave the younger ones great fun in 

home theatricals. As he grew older he haunted the Zoo, bought birds in 

the London market and set up an aviary on the roof. He had a good Quaker 

schooling, and by the time he was 20, in 1879, he had completed a course 

at University College London, and won a gold medal for biology and a 

scholarship at Trinity College Cambridge. There he showed himself a fine 

mathematician, but 'just missed being a Wrangler because he refused to 

conform to routine and worked in his own way'. 2 

Four years later, at the end of 1883, Beck landed in India. The cir- 

cumstances which brought him arose from the consequences of the insur- 

rection of 1857, especially as they affected two of Martin Wood's 

contemporaries, Joseph Hume's son Alan Octavian, and Syed Ahmed 

Khan. A. O. Hume, like Martin Wood, had been inspired as a boy by the 

'Corn Law poet' Ebenezer Elliott, but while Wood was still a grocer's 

apprentice in Yorkshire, Hume had already entered East India Company 

service. Syed Ahmed Khan also entered the service, in Delhi where his 

ancestors had served the Mogul Emperors. He was a Muslim of the highest 

rank - the title Syed connotes a descendant of the Prophet. He and Hume 

knew and respected one another; both had held positions of responsibility 

in northern districts, and had won the goodwill of the people; the Syed 

was able in 1 857 to save a number of English lives. But for him the revolt 

ended in tragedy; his own city of Delhi suffered the full fury of British 

reprisals. For almost a generation it lay desolate, its cultural and intellec- 

tual life blotted out. 

Hume and Ahmed Khan were both distressed by the intensified British 

arrogance which followed. Like Bright in England and Wood in Bombay 

they pleaded that the Government should allay the people's fears and 

redress their just grievances, and when this did not happen both men 

resigned from service. Hume devoted himself to organising enlightened 

Indian opinion in what was to become the Indian National Congress, and 

Ahmed Khan turned to education. 

He did this because of the new insistence on the use of the English 

language for all administrative business. Previously, over large areas of 

northern India, the Company's affairs had been conducted in the per- 

sonal style and Persian language of the Mogul court. Ahmed Khan was 

himself in many ways the heir of the spirit and outlook of Rammohun 

Roy; he was a cosmopolitan, at home in both languages. So were other 

Muslim leaders in Calcutta and Bombay. Many of their fellow-Muslims 

however regarded the use of English as 'little less than embracing 

Christianity'. The Syed realised that if they persisted in this attitude they 

would have no place in public affairs, and he set himself to change it. The 

Muslim Anglo-Oriental College was opened at Aligarh in 1875, and in 

FAMILIES AND FRIENDS : 1883 

133 

spite of its name it offered an English education not only to Muslims but 

to the many Rajput families of the region who had once served the Mogul 

Court. 

Some years earlier the Syed had sent his own son Mahmud to the 

Government College at Benares, and in 1869 the young man had won a 

scholarship to Cambridge. His father had accompanied him, and had 

been favourably impressed by the English university. Fourteen years later, 

when he needed a new Principal for Aligarh, he sent Mahmud back to 

Cambridge to find one. Mahmud returned with Beck, whom he had found 

through his father's connections. Sir John Strachey, Governor of the 

Province, had known Ahmed Khan for years and took a friendly interest 

in his College, and he gave Mahmud an introduction to his son Arthur, 

then a Cambridge student. Arthur knew Theodore Beck; they were both 

members of the 'Apostles', 3 the famous Cambridge society founded by 

F. D. Maurice, for 'the pursuit of Truth with absolute candour by a group 

of intimate friends'. It was full of the spirit of 'candid, uncompromising 

youth, where speculation is a passion made profound by love'. 4 The leader 

in Beck's day was the great Henry Sidgwick, and it says much for Beck's 

quality that he should have been elected. He was well-known in University 

life, and in 1882 had been President of the Union. 

At first Beck had almost refused Mahmud's invitation. He had very 

deep family affections and did not want 'to break from all he cared for'. 

But his father, whose adventurous spirit he shared, urged him to accept; 

after all, the plan to create an Indian counterpart of a Cambridge college 

offered an-exciting prospect. During that summer of 1 883 the Cambridge 

historian J. R. Seeley had published his book The Expansion of England^ 

in which he pointed out that in exploiting India as 'a mere colony', 'good 

and bad had been destroyed together'. India, he said, should be treated 

as an equal partner, helping to build up a commonwealth of nations which, 

in future might become worldwide. An Indian college, thought Beck, 

might help to create that equal partnership. 

Some shocks awaited him. The ship on which he and Mahmud trav- 

elled to India was full of Anglo-Indians who were furious opponents of 

the Ilbert Bill. In Aligarh fanatical Muslims were threatening the Syed 

with death, and regarded the newcomer as a Government spy. Even some 

of his fellow-teachers were suspicious of his friendliness towards the stu- 

dents, and wanted him to confine himself to getting good results in 

Allahabad University examinations. 'They object,' he wrote to his family, 

'to my jokes (which I cannot restrain), my affectionate relationships, my 

casual disposition.' 

The young Apostle persisted with Ahmed Khan's backing. He treated 

his students as equals and friends, something they had not expected from 

134 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

an Englishman. He went walks with them, encouraged their enthusiasm 

for cricket, cared for them in sickness, enchanted them with his witty talk. 

His unassuming modesty won the day. 

Outside the College there was much to admire. 'I have seen nothing 

in India,' runs an early letter, 'so devoid of art, beauty and good manners 

as the East End of London.' He saw one of the College cooks sitting 

reading the Ramayana: 'One wouldn't find marly English cooks reading 

Paradise LostV He delighted in the pageantry of the Rajput chiefs ; he began, 

on occasion, to wear Indian dress himself. 

'Casual' Beck might be, but he was firm on principle. In 1885 he told 

the Syed that he would resign if a certain grossly insubordinate student 

were not expelled. The Syed agreed, but the decision alienated an influ- 

ential supporter. From then on the College relied on its own merits, not 

on personal pressure, to bring students. Then Beck revisited England and 

returned with two recruits ~ his friend and fellow-Apostle Walter Raleigh 

and another young Cambridge man Harold Cox. Once more the suspi- 

cious of the 'orthodox' were around when, with the Syed's backing, they 

introduced such 'Christian' influences as tables and chairs, knives and 

forks, into the College dining room. But by 1886 there was a Fellows' 

Table, where staff and senior students sat together for meals on equal 

terms. The three young Englishmen, working hard in term time, spent 

their vacations exploring India. On one occasion, they reported, they 'ven- 

tured on a river full of rapids' . The only Indian river which fits that descrip- 

tion is the Narmada, far to the south. Had they travelled through the 

Rajput States of Bundelkhand, and the enlightened Muslim-ruled Bhopal, 

and did they go further, to the southern Muslim State of Hyderabad, 

where another Cambridge Friend had arrived in 1 886? Aligarh was devel- 

oping increasingly friendly contacts with all of these. 

During the next few years Beck was able to persuade the College 

Trustees to accept a new constitution, with more power for the Principal 

and safeguards against the risks of personal pressure in College affairs. 

He also joined with others in attempts to reform Allahabad University. 

His students' academic results had not yet been very good, partly because 

of the difference between his own standards of excellence and those of 

Allahabad. If only, he thought, there might be an Apostles' Club therel 

He set a high value on the less formal aspects of education. There was a 

College Union, whose debates were modelled on those of the Cambridge 

Union of which he had once been President. The students grew in con- 

fidence, and organised other activities on their own initiative. One of these 

was a club called 'The Duty' which set to work to raise money for bur- 

saries for the poorer students. Some of its ways of doing so, such as running 

a canteen for Ahmed Khan's conferences, involved work which these boys 

FAMILIES AND FRIENDS : 1883 

135 

would formerly have left to their servants ! As the years went by there grew 

up an 'Aligarh image': an Aligarh man would be reliable and practical; 

he would be ready to put the wider public interest before the narrower 

claims of family 'self-seeking' or social and religious prejudice. It was a 

fine achievement. 

The emphasis on the public interest was timely. In 1880 Martin Wood, 

in The Bombay Review, had roundly condemned the 'narrow fanaticism' 

of street preaching in Bombay, by Christian, Hindu and Muslim alike. The 

Syed whole-heartedly supported him. He pointed out that the Hindu oppo- 

sition to 'cow-slaughter' (directed originally against the beef-eating British) 

had merely increased the number of cows killed by Muslims: 'An appeal to 

Muslim goodwill would have been much more effective.' At the same time 

he told his fellow-Muslims that it'was 'cantankerous folly' to kill cows just 

to annoy the Hindus. 'His heart,' wrote Dadabhai Naoroji, 'was in the 

welfare of India as one nation.' As he remarked, 'I have often said that 

India is like a bride whose two eyes are the Hindus and the Mahomedans'. 5 

Nevertheless, the change to a wholly western-type, English-based 

administration caused a great deal of heartburning in the regions where 

Aligarh stood. The old Muslim and Rajput aristocracy saw themselves 

ousted by people they regarded as 'up-start nobodies', 'downtrodden 

Hindu Bengalis'. Bengalis had learned very quickly as Penney had fore- 

seen in the 1820's, that English education was 'a medium to wealth', and 

they staffed the administration, the law-courts and the high schools in 

every District town. When the British residents of Calcutta started their 

lawless agitation against the Ilbert Bill it was the numerous Bengali District 

officials who were most directly affected, and who, felt insulted by the 

wrecking of the Bill. They at once started 'vehement public demonstra- 

tions', demanding that Indian members of the Provincial Councils should 

be chosen by public election. The Syed could not approve either their 

methods or their aims; agitation was not 'the best way of submitting argu- 

ments', he said, and amidst the preaching of sectarian fanaticism 'the 

people's judgment of the common welfare is clouded', so that they could 

not vote calmly or fairly. 6 

The Syed's old friend A. O. Hume was equally concerned for 'the 

welfare of India as one nation', and in the planning of the Indian National 

Congress he called for 'India-wide action on the social plane' to combat 

the sectarian factions. But his appeal for support to the graduates of 

Calcutta University meant that when the Congress came into being in 1 8 85 

'Hindu Bengalis', with their belief in political agitation, had a place in it. 

The Syed therefore refused to join either the Congress or the National 

Mahommedan Association formed in Calcutta - they were both 'too polit- 

ical'. Instead, he founded the Mahommedan Educational Conference, 

136 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

which held its first session in Aligarh in 1886. By the end of 1887 however, 

when the Conference met at Lucknow, Ahmed Khan used the occasion 

for a political attack on 'the Bengali movement', and accused the Congress 

of making 'false statements' to the British press and members of 

Parliament. It was tragic estrangement; as years went on unfair invective 

was used on both sides; any criticism of Government became 'Bengali- 

style sedition', any criticism of Congress the work of 'fossils and time- 

servers 1 . 

As for Theodore Beck, he was neither a fossil nor a time-server, nor 

was he a seditionist. Like Hume and Wood (who had become a member 

of the Congress support-committee in London) he could be very critical 

of Government, which in his view 'did nothing to appeal to the popular 

imagination', and he agreed with them that 'a great reform is needed'. 

But Hume and Wood believed that 'John Bull cannot be moved without 

a clamour', and so did their best to make one; Beck advocated another, 

perhaps more Quakerly approach. 'Reform,' he wrote, 'can be brought 

about only by an appeal to the nobler side of the English character, not 

by stirring up feelings of resentment.' 

In the Mahommedan Anglo-Oriental College itself there was no anti- 

Hindu or even anti-Bengali feeling. With Beck as Principal no one, staff 

or student, had cause to complain of any discrimination. A Muslim poet, 

Hali, visited the College. 'If one has not seen the picture of affection and 

discipline,' he wrote, 

let him come here and see Beck and his students conversing with 

one another, let him come here and see Hindus and Muslims as 

one soul in two bodies. 7 

One of the most trusted and respected teachers was a Bengali, Prof. J. C. 

Chakravarty, whom Beck appointed in 1888, and who later became 

Registrar of the College. The numbers increased rapidly until there were 

between 500 and 600 students, a considerable number of whom were 

Hindus. This was proof of a popularity which was partly the result of good 

examination results, but Beck saw the danger of relying on these: 

Examination results are not the best criterion. More important is 

the moral and intellectual tone, and this is threatened by students 

who enter the College classes without going through the school* 

and so don't know the traditions. 

These strenuous years were lightened by happy personal events. In 

1888 Joseph Beck came to visit his son, bringing his wife and eldest 

daughter Jessie, who had been Theodore's closest friend and playmate 

from their early childhood. When the parents returned home Joseph char- 

acteristically celebrated the occasion by wearing a fez to Stoke Newington 

FAMILIES AND FRIENDS : 1883 

137 

Meeting! But Jessie stayed on in Aligarh, with much benefit to her brother's 

domestic arrangements. Vacation excursions continued; on one of them 

Theodore met a congenial compatriot, Frederick Hickson, who was 

working for a British business firm, but somewhat reluctantly, for his real 

interests were music and teaching; it was his family who had insisted on 

a business career. Beck was attracted too by his attitude to India; Hickson 

had been profoundly impressed by hearing Canon Barnett, the founder 

of Toynbee Hall, 8 preach in Delhi from the text: 'I am among you as he 

that serveth,' and apply it to the British in India. Finding that Hickson 

was about to go on leave, and that his home was not far from Stoke 

Newington, Beck gave him an introduction to his family. When Hickson 

returned, he was engaged to be married to Theodore's next sister Lizzie. 

In December 1890 they were married at Aligarh, with Jessie acting as 

bridesmaid. It was a Quaker wedding in form and spirit, though the Becks 

were the only Friends present. 9 Theodore's Quaker faith was real to him; 

when, in his friendly personal intercourse with his students the talk turned 

to religion, he would lend them a precious book, The Imitation of Christ. 

In 1891 Joseph Beck died, and Theodore went to visit his bereaved 

mother, taking Jessie back with him. When he returned at the end of the 

year he had been married to another Jessie, the sister of his old friend 

Walter Raleigh. They had a great welcome in Aligarh, where a new 

boarding house for students was soon to bear Joseph Beck's name. 

During the years that followed clouds began to gather. There were 

some puzzling incidents: the Aligarh Students Union was forbidden to 

debate political themes, and pro-Congress newspapers were excluded 

from the College reading-room - a ban which, of course, only made the 

forbidden fruit more attractive! It is difficult to imagine how a man of 

Beck's background and character came to impose such restrictions. A 

possible guess - it is no more - is that they emanated from the ageing 

Ahmed Khan, and that Beck, who described himself as the Syed's 'humble 

disciple in matters political', loyally complied. Loyalty stood high in his 

scale of values; for him, to be a Friend meant a striving to be loyal to the 

teachings of Jesus. 

All Beck's loyalty and compassion were called out in 1895, when the 

old man made the heart-breaking discovery that a trusted employee had 

for years been practising large-scale embezzlement of College funds. 

Public confidence was shaken, and the famine of 1896-7 added to the dif- 

ficulties. Student enrolment fell to less than one-third of what it had been, 

and when Syed Ahmed Khan died, in March 1898, the very existence of 

the College he had nurtured was in jeopardy. Beck saved it. He at once 

launched an appeal for a Memorial Fund, to realise the noble dream which 

the Syed had cherished from the earliest days : 'that the college may expand 

138 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

into a University, whose sons shall preach the Gospel of free inquiry, large- 

hearted toleration, pure morality. 510 There was a generous response, and 

an enthusiastic endorsement of the vision by a great meeting of the Muslim 

Educational Conference at Lahore. It would be over 20 years before the 

Aligarh Muslim University came into existence, but the College was saved. 

From 1895 onwards Beck had carried a very great burden. When the 

crash came, he had himself taken charge of the College finances, acting as 

Registrar as well as Principal, and refusing to draw any salary as long as 

the crisis lasted. The pressures of those years, followed by the battle to save 

the College, proved too great a strain. In the spring of 1899 he joined Jessie 

in Simla, where she had gone for the birth of their first baby. A daughter 

was born and named and rejoiced in, but eight weeks later her father had 

died exhausted in his 40th year. The grave in the Simla churchyard is fash- 

ioned of the same red brick as the College he had served, and the Persian 

inscription it bears was in all likelihood chosen by his colleagues: 

Man lays stone on stone and calls it, my house. 

Neither mine nor thine, 

Only a place of shelter for the birds to pass the night. 

The Friend who came to Hyderabad in 1 886 was Philip Henry Sturge, 

whose grandfather was a cousin of that Joseph Sturge who had taken up 

the cause of the slaves in the 1830's. Philip himself had been one of the 

Cambridge Quaker group, studied under J. R. Seeley, took a brilliant 

degree in history, and then accepted a position as private secretary to a 

highly-placed Hyderabad official. Whether or not Beck had any hand in 

this appointment, he was almost certainly consulted about the plans which 

Sturge and some of his Hyderabad friends were making during the fol- 

lowing year to up-grade a pioneer school, the Madrasa-i-Aliya, into a 

'Nizam's College'. By 1890 Sturge was Vice-Principal of the College, 

which he served for the next 28 years. It was he who, after he had become 

Principal, secured the pleasant site the College still occupies. It had close 

links with Aligarh, which it strongly resembled. It attracted a similar type 

of student, for aristocratic families from many formerly independent 

States such as Oudh, had migrated to Hyderabad when the territories 

came under British control. Like the Aligarh college it was open to stu- 

dents of any religious community. 

Philip Sturge was a great teacher, vividly remembered not only by his 

students, but even by the little boys who met him casually in the street, 

some of whom still recall his very jokes. 11 One who was first his student 

and later his colleague treasured into old age the personal testimonial 

which Sturge had given him. Gentle, even-tempered, a good scholar, a 

lover of literature (and of cricket!), with a serious manner shot through 

with gleams of boyish fun - and one who never allowed his increasing 

FAMILIES AND FRIENDS : 1883 

139 

deafness to sour his humanity: this is the word-portrait that remains. The 

tributes paid to him when the news of his death reached the College speak 

of his integrity, his devotion to its welfare: 'Students trusted and respected 

him, colleagues were happy to work with him, officials recognised in him 

a loyal servant of the State.' 12 His facility in light verse and humorous 

drawing must have delighted his Hyderabad students as much as it 

charmed his little nephew in England during the few years of his retire- 

ment. His Cambridge fellow-student John William Graham, who visited 

India in 1927, was given a specially warm welcome in Hyderabad for the 

sake of the beloved Philip Sturge. 

Meanwhile other members of Beck's 'extending family' - members by 

birth, by marriage, by 'adoption' - had also been drawn to Aligarh. One 

of them was Theodore Morison, who was already in Bundelkhand (pos- 

sibly by Beck's own doing) as tutor to one of the young princes. He joined 

the College in 1889 and 10 years later succeeded Beck as Principal. There 

are other hints of how intimate Beck's contacts with these Rajput states 

had become. In the early 1890 J s his youngest brother Horace - perhaps 

of all the family the one most closely resembling him in brilliance and ver- 

satility - came for a long visit, part of which he spent with a young, Oxford- 

educated Prince. 'You know, my dear Beck,' the Hindu Rajah would say, 

'being my people's god isn't all beer and skittles!' There speaks a man 

who, like the Begum Sahiba of Bhopal, took his duties seriously beneath 

all his flippant phrasing. One wonders how far the warm friendliness some 

of these rulers experienced from the Beck family contributed to their own 

friendliness towards the American Friend missionaries in later years. 

Another recruit was Thomas W. Arnold, who replaced Walter Raleigh 

when ill-health compelled the latter to resign in 1887, and who in 1892 

married Frederick Hickson's sister Mary and so joined 'the family'. In 

1897 he moved on to the Oriental College in Lahore - perhaps partly 

because, generously unselfish as he was, he wished to relieve the College 

of part of its financial burden. An Arabic scholar and a serious student of 

Islam, he spent his later years first at the India Office Library and then, 

in the 1 920's, as Professor of Arabic at the new London School of Oriental 

Studies. Like Philip Sturge he loved being among students, sharing his 

knowledge generously, with gaiety and good humour. For many years he 

was a popular 'educational adviser' to Indian students in London. 

Theodore's sister Jessie devoted herself to a similar service after she 

returned to England in 1891. There was a flourishing National Indian 

Association, started after Keshab Chendra Sen visited Britain in 1870, 

which worked 'to extend the knowledge of India', and stressed especially 

educational and social topics, such as the position of women. Jessie joined 

the staff, and soon became Honorary Secretary and busy with an Indian 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Students Union and Hostel. She so distinguished herself that she received 

1 1 u« first-class Kaiser-i-Hind medal at the King's Durbar in 191 1. 

Yet another younger sister, Hannah, was also drawn to Aligarh, 

all hough not until years later. Theodore, keen as he was to nurture a 

'feeder' school for the College, had planned for a boarding house for the 

younger schoolboys, but during the years of financial crisis it was not pos- 

sible to build it. Hannah, who though unmarried was known as 'a genial 

mother of little boys', would have been the ideal matron, but by the time 

the house was ready, in 1901, she had suffered a severe bout of rheumatic 

lever and had accepted similar work in Canada. When the first Aligarh 

matron retired in 1915 Hannah took her place, and spent there the years 

of the First World War. Her sister Lizzie's eldest son Eric Hickson, now 

a newly-qualified young doctor, was posted to India in the Army Medical 

( lorps and visited her. Other visitors she entertained were the Begum 

Sahiba of Bhopal and the Nizam of Hyderabad; Aligarh's links with the 

princely states were still close. But during the year following the war India 

was restless and unhappy; she and another English member of staff went 

to another school in Burma, much to the regret no doubt of the little 

Aligarh boys who missed their 'genial' Quaker mother. 

Theodore Beck drew two other family recruits to India, sons of his 

mother's brothers and so his own younger cousins. One of them, Percy 

Si afford Allen, spent five years in the educational service at the Government 

( allege, Lahore. But he was essentially a scholar; instead of remaining in 

I mlia he became a distinguished exponent of Erasmus at Oxford. The other 

cousin, Basil Copleston Allen, joined the Indian Civil Service and spent 

Si) years in administration work mainly in Assam. He developed a great 

interest in the tribal peoples of the region, especially the Nagas and the 

Khasis, and also in the Indian religious tradition of the sadhu - an interest 

t hat would be followed up, just as he himself was leaving India, by a distant 

cousin, another scion of the Stoke Newington Allen family. 

As for Frederick and Lizzie Hickson, their contribution may well have 

been the most widely influential of all, though it is the most difficult to 

pin down. They spent the first four years or more of their marriage in 

Cttteutu where two children were born. Then they were faced with the 

choice which confronted all 'Anglo-Indian* families: should they send the 

children to England for the sake of their health and education, at the price 

of long years of separation? Unlike most of their contemporaries, the 

I licksons decided that the family must not be broken up; after 16 years 

in India Frederick gave up his secure position in his firm, and they went 

hack to England to start afresh. During the next five years Frederick built 

up a small business of his own at Bollington in Cheshire, where he found 

m ope for his interest in teaching as chairman of the local education 

FAMILIES AND FRIENDS : 1883 

141 

committee. There three more children were born. Then when the Boer 

War was over Frederick who was a great peace-maker, felt impelled to 

visit South Africa. During his absence Lizzie rented a house at Swanage 

on the south coast, and settled down to teach her own children and any 

others who cared to come. When Frederick returned in 1 905 they bought 

a house, and began together on a life-long teaching career. 

Lizzie had all the Beck liveliness and breadth of outlook. When in 1 878 

a Girls High School opened at Highbury not far from Stoke Newington 

she was already 16, but she had at once enrolled, and her younger sisters 

had followed her. Then there were University Extension Lectures. For a 

time she had longed to go to Cambridge, to Newnham College, to escape 

from the 'over-seriousness' of life at home. But by the time Frederick met 

her she was devoting herself to a club for working girls in the slums of 

Islington, and raising the money for it from her fellow 'Old Girls' of 

Highbury School. She now gave her energy, experience and insight to the 

new 'Oldfeld School 5 . By that time F. D. Maurice's concern for training 

governesses had grown into the Parents' National Education Union, and 

its principles were followed in the school. One of the first recruits to the 

staff was Thomas W. Arnold's sister, and in the lists of pupils were many 

well-known Quaker names (in addition to Aliens, Becks and Hicksons), 

and other names honoured in India, including a sprinkling of Indians. 13 

Visits are recorded from e Mrs Theodore Beck' and from other lively- 

minded ex-India Friends such as the Maynards. The Hicksons were open 

to new ideas, judging them on their merits, by standards of complete 

moral integrity, while they held on to whatever in the past was intrinsi- 

cally good, however 'old-fashioned'. 

Oldfeld School, which came to an end when it was commandeered by 

the Army in 1939, was one of the links between older and younger gen- 

erations of friends of India, many of them Quakers. The Hicksons believed 

that 'education should be based on religion, not on materialist patriotism'. 

Oldfeld's religion was not formally Quaker; the school attended Swanage 

Parish Church - until one day the preacher declared that there was no 

salvation outside the Church of England! After that Oldfeld remained 

'outside', and held its own services. 

The sehoel magazine shows hew far Oid&id was a M«d-t>at> of \&m% 

which were to have their impact on Friends in India as the 20th century 

wore on. There was a hotly-contested debate on 'Is machinery benefi- 

cial?', won by the Noes with a margin of three. There was a comment on 

the destruction of carnivorous birds: £ We would far rather leave [pest 

control] to nature than to guns, traps, and poison.' 

The Hicksons' own children were part of their achievement: Eric, the 

much-loved doctor, a peace-maker like his father, a believer in the cottage 

142 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

hospital and the general practitioner; Philippa (Pip) who preserved her uncle 

Theodore's letters from India; 14 Arthur the youngest, who cheerfully gave 

up his own dreams of a medical career to help his mother in the school when 

his father's health failed. Friends in India owe something to them all 

The Becks were not the only Friend family to play a part in the life of 

India over the generations. In 1892 Arthur Lidbetter Wood came home 

to the Bombay he had left, as a boy of 10 in 1881. He held a Cambridge 

degree in classics, and had passed the examination for the Indian Civil 

Service with distinction in Marathi. Martin Wood was at first not alto- 

gether pleased that his son should choose to work within the government 

machinery; it was the same issue that had divided him from Beck, the 

choice between attack from without and reform from within. Arthur 

himself felt that while he did not 'follow the same path' as his father, he 

was 'guided by the same lights' of inward, Quaker conviction. 

Arthur was soon involved in the Government's projects for relief during 

the famines at the end of the century. He was put in charge of a large 

camp of labourers who were excavating a new water reservoir in the Nasik 

District. Day after day he worked alongside his famine-weakened work- 

force; during the midday rest he would sit on a boulder among them to 

eat his own snack. His cheery, geniaL commonsense - a trait which he 

shared with his father -made a great contribution to the general morale. 15 

Next he was sent as 'forest demarcation officer' to the wild and hilly 

Thane District. The work v/as most congenial; it meant finding ways of 

protecting the traditional livelihood of the tribal peoples while at the same 

time ensuring the conservation of the forests. He spent long days among 

the simple people, and then when darkness fell settled down with his dogs 

beside his tent. He would take out some favourite volume of the Greek 

classics and become a student again. It was a strenuous happy life, and it 

helped to reconcile him to his father, who 20 years earlier had issued his 

own prophetic warnings against the dangers of forest destruction. 

Then came the day when Arthur travelled to Allahabad to be married 

to Agnes Chichely Plowden (always known as 'Pip') whom he had met on 

board ship as he returned from leave in England. Her family had for gen- 

erations given the Government and people of India much able, honest and 

compassionate service. Pip's own father had been civil magistrate for nearly 

20 years in Meerut (where the insurrection of 1857 had started) and had 

won the respect and affection of Indian and British alike. An older cousin. 

Sir William Plowden, had had a most distinguished Indian career. He had 

gone back to Britain soon after Martin Wood, and had entered Parliament, 

where in 1890 he had introduced a Bill to provide for local government in 

India based on the traditional panchayat system. The Bill had impressed 

Martin Wood very favourably, but it had not become law. 

FAMILIES AND FRIENDS : 1883 

143 

After his marriage Arthur Wood was offered a transfer to the more 

highly-paid judicial service, but refused it; he would not, as a Friend, 

accept a position which might involve imposing a death sentence. He 

continued as before; wherever he was posted, it was the needs and inter- 

ests of the people which had his first attention. Files came a long way 

second, and often had to be dealt with by midnight oil. He was not pleased, 

in 1910, when he was sent to take charge of the salt revenue, for he was 

openly critical of the Government's salt monopoly. However he obeyed 

orders, and Pip sometimes accompanied him on his tours of inspection 

around the coastal creeks. In her company there was fun to be had, even 

in this distasteful work; they mischievously named the official yacht Lot's 

WifeV* 

Then came a Government circular, proposing that salt excise officers, 

should take precedence of the mamlatdars (offices of the local adminis- 

tration) according to the salaries they received. Arthur's reaction was blunt 

and outspoken. 

There is no reason [he wrote], why we should treat the excise as if 

its success were more important than the general good government 

of the country. To treat the mamlatdar as inferior is false policy, 

particularly so when the other officer represents an unessential and 

unpopular branch of the administration, whose very claim to exist 

is vehemently questioned. The wrong is accentuated when the dis- 

tinction is made on the soul-less and irrelevant criterion of salary. 

So Arthur Wood, 'guided by the same lights' as his father, struggled 

to reform government practice from within. He saw much to be 

reformed. Years of varied administration experience had led him to 

conclude that British institutions were not always best suited to India, 

and he hoped to be 'one of the leaders of change'. The hope was not 

to be realised. In February 1911, leaving Pip in Bombay with their 

baby daughter, he went out on tour alone. A chill developed into 

pneumonia; he was brought back to Bombay, but too late to save his 

life. Like Theodore Beck, he died in his 40th year; in him, as in Beck, 

India prematurely lost a friend. The letters which reached Pip from 

many Indians in humble walks of life, as well as from personal friends 

of both races, bear witness to the affection he had inspired. 17 

The surviving records of Arthur Wood's life are too scanty for any- 

thing more to be said with certainty. But it seems possible that his inti- 

mate knowledge of Marathi and his experience among the villagers of 

Nasik and the tribal communities of Thane were leading him towards 

an understanding of Indian society akin to that which Beck set out in 

his Essays on Indian Topics published in India in 1888. Beck described 

the interlocking circles of Indian society, the natural ties of village 

Ml 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

or igin unci occupational tradition which could and did bind people of 

different religions in 'a common loyalty to a personal ruler and a 

common reverence for the saints'. Then he went on: 

The East has yet, I believe, soihething to teach the West in this 

age of violent industrial competition - the gentle influence of 

ideals of life that belong to a simpler, fresher world. England 

need fear no impoverishment of her intellectual life by closer 

union with India. 18 

The East has something to teach: ideals of life. That was something 

which no Friend before Beck had seen so clearly, or set in such sig- 

nificant contrast to the 'violent' structures of western society. 

Notes to Chapter XI 

I Sir Walter Raleigh, Letters, ed. Lady Raleigh, 1 928, vol. 1 p.39. 9th November 

188*5. 

*. Oscar Browning, Memories of Sixty Years, 1910, pp.307-8. 

s The Apostles Society was founded in the 1820s by F.D.Maurice and others. 

There were originally twelve members: hence the name. 

I < U .owes Dickinson, elected an Apostle in 1 884. See his Autobiography, 1 973, 

Quoted in the introduction to Syed Ahmed Khan's Speeches and Writings, ed. 

S Mahomed; and see Sir Syed Ahmed on the Present State of Indian Politics, 

Allahabad 1888, p.25. 

<) Quotations from Ahmed Khan's speeches in the Viceroy's Council, 1883. 

Hivk has been blamed for 'turning the Syed against the Congress'. These speeches 

wi re made before Beck reached India. 

/ The original is written in traditional Persian couplets. 

m T< »y nbec Hall was a centre for service to the London poor founded by Barnett 

in 1 HH4, and named for his friend the economic historian Arnold Toynbee (1852- 

IHH S), 

'» An account of the wedding is in the minutes of Devonshire House Monthly 

Mtviin^ (of which Stoke Newington was a member), 15th January 1891. 

in Speech at the foundation-stone ceremony for the College building, 1877. 

I I Out* ni the little boys became Dr H.Amir AH, a personal friend of the author, 

wlm wtm hIno able to meet some of Sturge's former students in Hyderabad in the 

FAMILIES AND FRIENDS : 1883 

145 

1 2 The Nizam 's College Magazine, 1 922-23 . 

13 The account of the Hicksons' Oldfeld School is derived from copies of the 

school magazine in the possession of their granddaughter Mrs Rachel Heifer of 

Knitson Farm near Swanage, along with personal recollections of a pupil, Hannah 

(Cadbury) Taylor. 

14 Philippa preserved Theodore Beck's letters to his mother from India. They 

are now on permanent loan to the India Office Library, London. 

15 Account in the obituary article in ThePauliner, 191 1 . See also L.S.S.O'Malley, 

The Indian Civil Service 1601-1930, 1931, p.164. 

16 For the story of Lot's wife see Genesis, chapter 19. 

17 These letters, with other papers quoted earlier, were preserved by Arthur 

Wood's daughter the late Mrs Imogen Wilcox. 

18 Essays on Indian Topics, Allahabad 1888. 

146 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

CHAPTER XII 

V 

The 'Defeated Causes 5 

Viczrix causa deis placuit sed viola Catoni 

(With the gods the winning cause finds favour but with Cato the defeated) 

The Latin verse quoted above, the Roman poet Lucan's tribute to the 

statesman Cato, is carved on the stone which marks Martin Wood's grave. 

He died in 1 907, and the words were chosen by his son Arthur Lidbetter, 

who knew how faithfully his father had fought in 'the cause of the suf- 

fering and the oppressed'. 1 He had carried on the struggle for more than 

40 years, in India and then in England; he had cared nothing for 'the 

gods' of worldly success, and he died almost unknown, even among 

Friends. After he left India he had continued to work for India alongside 

Indian fellow-workers; one of the last of the many Indian guests to enjoy 

the hospitality of his home was the younger statesman Gopal Krishna 

Gokhale, who visited him in 1906. 

Gopal Krishna Gokhale had served his apprenticeship to national 

service in the Deccan Education Society which M, G. Ranade had 

inspired, and had taught in its Fergusson College at Pune (angl. Poona). 

There while still a young man he had given outstanding moral leadership. 

He stood for truth* as against all political or religious-partisanship. In 1 896 

he received information on the basis of which he charged the British 

administration in Pune with serious shortcomings. Later he found that 

his informants were unable to substantiate their accusations, and he there- 

fore issued a public apology, in which Pandita Ramabai strongly supported 

him. This earned him the abuse of some Maratha nationalists, who took 

the line that 'all's fair in love and war' and called him a traitor, but Gokhale 

stuck to his principles. He had promised the Deccan Education society 

20 years of service, and when these were completed in 1905 he launched 

his own Servants of India Society, which attracted men of the highest 

intellectual and moral calibre. They contented themselves with the barest 

maintenance allowance, and undertook many forms of service for the 

THE 'DEFEATED CAUSES' 

147 

powerless and the voiceless: outcasts, women, aboriginal tribes. The 

Society was to live on after Gokhale's death, and to inspire many public- 

spirited leaders during the following decades. 

In 1885, just as Gokhale was starting on his career, three leaders of 

the newly-formed Indian National Congress visited England. Henry 

Fawcett was no longer living, but the ageing John Bright warmly wel- 

comed them, and they set up a committee in London to keep Indian inter- 

ests before the eyes of the British public. Martin Wood was a member of 

this Committee; political economist as he was, he concentrated on the 

financial aspects of Indo-British relationships, both in relation to famines 

and the military policies of the jingoistic 1890's. Lord Eustace Cecil in 

Parliament had strongly condemned 'the iniquity of treating India as the 

barracks of the British Army in the eastern seas', and Martin Wood's 

language was even more forthright: 

The War Office and the Treasury are determined that India must 

and shall pay for . . . our defiant and aggressive militarism, for a 

force for South Africa and a sham scare about Russia. 

Gokhale also scrupulously fair-minded as he was, concluded (as he told 

the Indian National Congress in 1905) that the Army and the so-called 

'Home Charges' together swallowed up so much of India's total revenue 

that barely 20% was available for India's own needs. 2 

What could be done? No matter what statesmen like Lord Cecil might 

say, thought Martin Wood, the War Office and the India Office were in 

practice 'always in power', and it was they who determined the issue. In 

1 904 he put this point in a letter to Gokhale, and proposed a line of action. 

The one thing which would bring the inner circle of your despots 

to book [he wrote], would be systematic passive resistance - namely 

for two or three prominent men from each Province to refuse to 

pay income tax unless the Home Charges are substantially shared 

by the British Treasury. Such men should be prepared to go to 

prison rather than pay. 

In 1 905, when Gokhale had been chosen President of the Congress, Wood 

repeated his proposal, urging that such action was the only way 'to make 

Congress resolutions effective'. 3 

One wonders where this proposal originated. Was Martin Wood 

thinking of those old Quakers who had gone to prison rather than pay the 

tithes they considered unjust, or was he influenced by some more modern 

writer such as Thoreau? The fact remains that the proposal was not taken 

up; there is no hint in the Congress records that it was even considered. 

But during the following year, 1906, an Indian whom Gokhale had met 

and greatly respected, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, did lead 'passive 

147 

MH 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

resistance' against injustices suffered by Indians in the Transvaal, and 

(riuhily disliking to apply the term 'passive 5 to such an active protest) re- 

named it saryagraha, a firmness for truth. Perhaps in the last months of 

his life Wood heard of this, and recognised a kindred spirit; his cause, 

defeated for the time being in India, was not entirely lost. 

Meanwhile another cause was being fought for by some of Wood's 

younger contemporaries in western India. One of them, N. G. 

( lliandavarkar, had been one of the three Congress leaders to visit Britain 

in 1885. One day in 1895 he came upon two humble railway linesmen 

relaxing together under a tree while off duty. One was a Muslim, the other 

a Maratha, and they were singing together the hymns of Kabir and of 

Tukaram. 'Nowadays,' they said to him, 'we see much of the quarrels of 

the sects, but we are bhaktas (devotees) and brothers.' 4 The 'common 

reverence for the saints' of which Beck had spoken was exercising its 

reconciling power, and Chandavarkar and his fellow-workers recognised 

its value. 

As the Servants of India Society was to live on after Gokhale's death, 

so in eastern India a much older Society lived on, Rammohun Roy's 

Brahmo Samaj. Dwarkanath Tagore's grandson Rabindranath, nurtured 

in its traditions, was a young man of 24 when the Indian National Congress 

was founded, already becoming known as a poet. Growing to manhood 

during the 1 870's he had been deeply moved by 'the large-hearted radical 

liberal ism' of John Bright, 4a and during the following years he played a 

great part in the national awakening. He worked in Bengali villages to 

promote self-reliance and unity, and his penetrating and challenging essays 

were widely read. He launched his ashram-school at Santiniketan, and 

welcomed helpers of all religious traditions to make it a centre of humane 

and creative Indian education. 

In 1 904 an event took place which stirred national feeling throughout 

India: an eastern nation, Japan, inflicted a military defeat on a western 

nation, Russia. Marathas, remembering their own hero-king Shivaji, 

dreamed of winning Indian freedom in the same way, by force. At the 

same time Bengali feeling was deeply hurt by the British administrative 

decision to partition their native land. 5 Rabindranath plunged into the 

political arena, and led great public protests through the streets of 

Calcutta, singing his own magnificent national songs. 

The public excitement made British officials very uneasy; the 50th 

imniversary of the insurrection of 1857 was approaching, and they feared 

u possible repetition. Some of them panicked, and a much-respected Punjabi 

national leader, Lala Lajpat Rai, was summarily deported to the Andamans. 

( iokhnle intervened. He led a determined and successful all-India cam- 

paign for Lajpat Rai's release. That done, he turned his attention to the 

turmoil in Bengal. Bengali anger at the partition of Bengal had been 

THE 'DEFEATED CAUSES' 

149 

expressed in a wide-spread boycott of foreign goods, and this had been 

followed by serious rioting in which Muslims attacked Hindus, and for 

which officials blamed the boycott. Gokhale went to Bengal and studied 

the situation for himself. The rioting had nothing to do with the boycott, 

he found; Muslims benefited by the boycott. The violence had been pro- 

voked by a broadsheet calling Muslims to sl jehad (holy war) and the offi- 

cials had done much harm by winking at the violence and failing to 

suppress it when it first began. Gokhale offered to establish these facts 

before a Commission of Inquiry. None was ever appointed, and he was 

much distressed. 'I do not blame the men themselves,' he wrote. 'They 

were ignorant and misled. But for those whose best hope for the future 

lies in the two communities working together, the quarrel is deeply 

painful.' 6 Another great cause had been defeated. 

Gokhale also interested himself in one matter which was of direct 

concern to Friends. In 1899 he joined with Pandita Ramabai to plead that 

The Guardian should not cease publication when Alfred and Helen Dyer 

left India, in spite of the difficulties which had resulted from his editor- 

ship. Their protests were heeded, and a young Quaker couple, Percy and 

Alice Home, were appointed joint editors. Under their leadership, and that 

of their helper and successor Arthur J. Sharpe, The Guardian recovered its 

original breadth of outlook, and began £ to deal with all current topics from 

the standpoint of spiritual views of Christian truth and its testimony for 

peace and national righteousness.' It soon earned wide recognition for its 

sanity of outlook and its £ undeviating standard of right and wrong.' 7 But 

during the exigencies of the First World War Friends could not continue 

to provide personnel and the editorship was taken over by Christians who 

held the view that 'national righteousness' was 'quite different from the 

Gospel' and therefore was not their concern. Once more The Guardian lost 

subscribers, and in 1918 Friends closed it down. 

In 1893 the opium trade - that 'national sin of the greatest possible 

magnitude' 8 which Joseph Pease had struggled against 50 years earlier - 

was challenged in the House of Commons. A Royal Commission of 

Inquiry was appointed, but the 'opium lobby' succeeded in getting the 

China traffic excluded from its terms of reference, which covered only 

'the production and consumption of opium in India'. The Society for the 

Suppression of the Opium Trade had a Quaker secretary, Joseph Gundry 

Alexander, who spent several months in India in the winter of 1893-94 

in order to monitor the Commission's proceedings. His work recalls that 

of Joseph Pease before him; he showed the same compassion, the same 

openness, the same determination in face of difficulties, the same prac- 

tical commonsense. Visiting Bombay first, he concluded that Dyer's 

unproven charges against local officials were not wholly unfounded. He 

quickly realised that those who 'took their cue from officials' in order to 

150 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

serve their own interests were unreliable witnesses, as were the big land- 

lords who found poppy-cultivation profitable. As for the missionaries, 

Those missionaries who live altogether above the natives' were too remote 

from the latter's daily lives to have any real knowledge of the matter. 

In Bihar Joseph Alexander met an Indian Christian pastor named 

Premchand, who lived among the peasants and knew what poppy-growing 

meant to them. Like indigo, it meant oppression. With Premchand's help 

Alexander learned of the brutal methods by which peasants were 'per- 

suaded', against their will, to cultivate the opium poppy. He also learned 

of the mean, dishonest subterfuges by which people like Premchand were 

prevented from giving evidence before the Commission and so bringing 

the facts to light. When he reached Calcutta he therefore did ail in his 

power to ensure that such witnesses were heard. He was bitterly attacked 

by a section of the 'Anglo-Indian' press, but editors of Indian newspapers 

sought him out to thank him, and members of the Brahmo Samaj gave 

him friendly support. 

When the findings of the Royal Commission were debated in 

Parliament a Quaker MP, John Edward Ellis, laid Joseph Alexander's inde- 

pendent report before the House, and pointed out that the Commission's 

conclusions could be invalidated by the unscrupulous tinkering with evi- 

dence which Alexander had exposed. Ellis made an outstanding speech, 

but the House was unwilling to listen. Another good cause suffered defeat, 

as William Plowden's Local Councils Bill had suffered defeat a few years 

earlier. 

In the south of India, during the same period, missionary and Indian 

leaders united to press upon the Government the importance of the local 

cooperation and self-reliance which Plowden's Bill had been designed to 

encourage. They were especially concerned for education. The system of 

grants-in-aid to independent educational bodies (which William Delafield 

Arnold had helped to establish during the last years of East India Company 

rule) 'fostered a spirit of reliance upon local exertions, and combination 

for local purposes which,' they wrote, 'is itself of no mean importance to 

the well-being of a nation.' But the tendency, in education as elsewhere, 

was to centralisation, to a pattern of Government institutions which in 

the words of Syed Ahmed Khan, 'left the inner spirit dead,' and which 

provoked an Indian Christian leader to declare that 'the spirit of selfish- 

ness has Indian education in its grip'. 

A disappointment of another kind was the response - or the lack of 

response - to what could have been an important contribution to Indian 

Quakerism. Poornachandra Sarkar, whose 'experience of grace' has been 

mentioned in Chapter IX, set to work in 1892 on a full exposition of what 

Quakerism meant to the local, independent group in Calcutta. He begins 

THE 'DEFEATED CAUSES' 

151 

by describing himself as 'a Hindu Quaker, by race a Hindu and by grace 

a Quaker', who desired to be 'a humble follower of Jesus Christ in deed 

and truth.' He goes on to say that he would try to write from his own 

inward knowledge, so that the book might be 'the outcome of my actual 

experience, and not of mere notion'. He speaks gratefully of those writ- 

ings of early Friends which the group had received as a gift from London 

in 1861, and especially of the words of Isaac Penington: 'All truth is a 

shadow except the last - except the utmost, yet every truth is true in its 

kind . . . and the shadow is a true shadow, as the substance is a true sub- 

stance.' The words for him, echoed those of his own teacher Keshab 

Chandra Sen: 'We do not come to a determination when we have found 

out one truth. We find there is yet a deeper truth beyond it.' 9 

Poornachandra made the image of the shadow and the substance his 

own. Those who know 'the new birth, and the substance and spirituality 

of the religion of Jesus Christ,' he says, 'have no need to abandon their 

nationality and their society.' He spoke of Jesus in Indian terms as the 

Kalki Avatara, the Incarnate One of our age of darkness. But his knowl- 

edge of the treasures of Indian thought was limited, they had formed no 

part of his western-oriented education. One day however while he was 

writing his book his Quaker son brought home a Bengali translation of 

the Bhagavad Gita. 10 Reading it for the first time in the maturity of his 

own experience Poornachandra was deeply impressed, and began to plan 

a second volume in which the insights of the Gita might be related to the 

Quaker principles of 'peace and public righteousness' which meant so 

much to Calcutta Friends. It is not clear that this second volume was ever 

written, although a note of its proposed contents has survived. 

The first volume, The Universal Spiritual Religion of God on Earth, never 

found a publisher, and Poornachandra's hope of being able to commend 

his Quaker faith to his countrymen in its Indian setting was defeated. In 

1896 when the book was completed Joseph Taylor, who alone might have 

advised him, was more than fully occupied with the onset of the famine 

years. It was more than 20 years before Joseph himself settled in Calcutta, 

and by that time Poornachandra and other senior Friends had died. Those 

who remained brought the manuscript to Joseph, but many years passed 

before its contents were studied. 

In 1908-09, after the years of struggle with post-famine difficulties, 

morale among the Friends in Hqshangabad District was low. Some 

seniors, tired and set in their ways, tended to work as they individually 

pleased, with little regard for other interests, litde sense of common 

purpose. Among the new recruits from Britain were fine young people, 

but also some serious misfits who had to be withdrawn. The mission, 

wrote Joseph Taylor 'is middle-aged, and there are weeds in the hear:*. 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

The FFMA sent a delegation of three men to study the problems; one of 

them was A. J, Crosfield, who prayed so earnestly and often for a renewal 

of 'the Holy Spirit' that Indian Friends called him 'the Holy Spirit man'. 

An able and enthusiastic youngster, Roland Priestman, who had 

arrived in 1903, saw clearly the need for unity and cooperation. He 

believed however that this could be achieved by drawing up a set of rules 

to which everyone should conform. He got the support of the young doctor 

Joseph Robinson, and also of Crosfield's fellow-delegate W. E. Wilson. A 

code of rules was drafted, pushed through and brought into operation, 

with no previous consultation either with experienced Indian workers or 

with senior women like Anna Evens or Alice Swan. The consequences 

were sometimes ludicrous, but in general they were disastrous. Men like 

Nathulal and Ibrahim were deeply hurt; they felt degraded to the level of 

Government clerks by rules about 'working hours' and 'leave'. The Lord 

had called them to serve Him at all times, they said, not with one eye on 

the clock! They knew well that some of the foreign missionaries were not 

even on speaking terms with one another; rules would not help, only a 

renewal of love and trust. 

This was the situation when towards the end of 1910 Rasulia got an 

unexpected recruit from an unexpected quarter: Frank Berry Farrington 

joined the staff from South Africa. Like Alfred Smith he was a man of 

about 50 when he reached Hoshangabad. 

Farrington was a London Friend, educated at the Croydon Friends 

School and trained in banking, who had joined the Standard Bank of 

South Africa in 1889. There, along with his Croydon schoolmate James 

Butler, and another steadfast Friend Howard Pirn, he had struggled in 

vain to bring Boer and British together and to oppose the policies which 

led to the Boer War. During that war he had held a responsible position 

at De Aar, the great railway junction equidistant from Cape Town, Durban 

and Johannesburg. There he witnessed the plight of the Boer civilians who 

were driven from their homes by the fighting. Many of them were aged 

and infirm, and he wrote forcefully to London about their needs. 12 

These were years of heavy strain and in the end caused a nervous break- 

down. Farrington resigned from the bank and settled in the quiet town 

of Worcester in Cape Colony where he earned an independent livelihood. 

In 1905 a younger Friend arrived in the Colony with whom he found a 

personal link; the newcomer was a member of the same Hull Meeting in 

1 England as Farrington's own younger brother. His name was Leonard 

Priestman, and he was a cousin and close friend of Roland Priestman in 

Hoshangabad. Through him Farrington heard of the need in Rasulia, 

offered to help, and was appointed on a three-year contract. 

THE 'DEFEATED CAUSES' 

153 

'What a boon to have a yoke-fellow!' wrote George Clark, who was 

heavily burdened with the Outside work' demanded by the mission. 

Farrington at once took charge of the Works, and soon picked up enough 

Hindi to make friends with the workmen and the young apprentices. The 

following year Henry Hodgkin, the newly-appointed secretary of the 

FFMA, visited India and met him for the first time. 'A great good warm- 

hearted man,' he wrote, 'a simple-minded, genuine Christian, a doer not 

a talker, zealous in his business affairs, with a sense of humour that is 

much needed. He speaks his mind, sometimes bluntly, but a joke always 

follows, and he is not a man to bear a grudge.' It is a pleasant picture. 

Before Farrington's coming there had been a good deal of discontent 

among the workmen, for George Clark, with all his great gifts, was not 

skilled in personal relationships. Farrington's friendly interest changed 

things; by common consent arbitration machinery was set up to deal with 

future disputes, and it was arranged that a Hoshangabad Friend should 

occasionally lead the midday Bible study, in order to provide variety and 

interest. Difficulties arising from the general situation in the mission, 

however, were not so easily overcome. George Clark was not on speaking 

terms with the secretary of the local Works Committee. Farrington 

himself, who was one of the most senior and experienced men in the 

mission, was informed that 'under the rules' he was not 'fully accredited', 

and that he therefore had no right to participate in decision-making or 

even to put his own practical and sometimes urgent needs before the com- 

mittee. It could be a frustrating experience. 

Nevertheless Farrington persevered. As his own detailed knowledge 

of the business increased he came to the conclusion that the policy of sub- 

ordinating 'profits' to 'the service of the mission' was unsound. If the 

Works were to produce self reliant workmen and so strengthen the Quaker 

church, he argued, there must be a thoroughly business-like approach. 

He proposed that the Works should be organised as a private company 

and made into a useful, profitable enterprise. One might then look forward 

to its development as a Christian cooperative. It was an imaginative pro- 

posal, but his fellow-workers had neither the vision nor the courage to 

adopt it, and Farrington was not prepared to consider any extension of 

his three-year contract on any other terms. 

Farrington therefore left Rasulia towards the end of 1 9 1 3, and the final 

weeks before his departure were tragically unhappy. On Farrington's invi- 

tation Nathulal had given a talk at the midday Bible study which George 

Clark chose to interpret as a personal criticism of himself. Hot letters fol- 

lowed, to Joseph Taylor and to Henry Robson, and Farrington finally left 

'without taking stock or handing over charge'. That is so inconsistent with 

all that is known of him otherwise that one can only surmise that constant 

154 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

mental strain had resulted in a temporary loss of control such as he had 

suffered earlier at De Aar. Henry Hodgkin, Henry Robson and Joseph 

Taylor, all generous fair-minded men, were much distressed. 13 

Farrington went back to Worcester, and there in 1914 he married a 

Friend who came from his own part of north London. Eight years later 

he died, 'after much suffering patiently borne'. The Industrial Works did 

not long survive his departure. In 1918 Roland Priestman closed down 

the whole enterprise, with what seemed to many undue haste and a reck- 

less disregard of the loss sustained. 

Even the Bundelkhand Friends, whose situation during these years 

was happier and more hopeful, suffered one sad defeat. Only about half 

a mile from their Nowgong compound was a village called Kanjarpur. 

The Kanjars were one of the so-called 'criminal tribes' who traditionally 

had lived by thieving. The Government, in an attempt to reclaim them, 

had organised 'settlements' for such tribes throughout India, of which 

Kanjarpur was one. There as elsewhere there was police control and a 

daily roll-call. 

Duojibai's son Prem Das, who by 1912 had become a teacher in the 

orphanage, became interested in the Kanjars. So did another able young 

man named Pancham Singh, also an ex-orphan. The two of them got per- 

mission to talk to the Kanjars after roll-call one day, and they had such a 

friendly welcome that they persuaded the church to include Kanjarpur 

among its centres of voluntary service. Pancham Singh could not long 

continue: he was transferred to Harpalpur, but Prem Das gave two hours 

a day, after his regular teaching hours, to a score of Kanjar boys, all eager 

pupils. The Political Agent took a friendly interest in these developments, 

and suggested that some of the girls might learn too. The mission had a 

new woman helper, Margaret Smith, who like Eliza Frankland had been 

recruited in India. She took up the idea with enthusiasm and soon had a 

class of 18 young women learning needlework and other things. 

Margaret soon began to urge that someone, or betters married couple, 

should go and live in Kanjarpur, right among the people. The Political 

Agent took a further step; in 1914 he invited Friends to take over the 

whole settlement and start agricultural and industrial projects there with 

the Government's financial support. It was a great opportunity for service. 

But in 1914 Delia Fistler had left India gravely ill, never to return, while 

at the same time the American Board was faced with a financial crisis so 

serious that it was only the faith and persistence of Esther Baird, 

Superintendent in Delia's place, that prevented them from giving up the 

Bundelkhand work altogether. The mission was told that it must retrench, 

and as any other retrenchment seemed unthinkable Clinton Morris, the 

first male missionary, decided to retrench himself and return home. So 

THE 'DEFEATED CAUSES* 

155 

that when the Agent's invitation came the missionary staff was seriously 

depleted, and Prem Das, who with his dedicated young wife might have 

made the ideal leader for the project, was dying of tuberculosis. In any 

case, the missionaries were not yet ready to give such responsibility to 

Indians without supervision - and that they were too few to provide. So 

nothing was done, except that Mangalwadi, Prem Das' younger brother, 

continued his faithful small-scale work. 

A few years later came the final blow: the Government decided that 

the settlement should be closed. The Kanjars came and begged the 

Friends for help, and the Friends had no help to give. With tears in their 

eyes they watched the homeless people pick up their bundles and walk 

away, back to the old life of petty theft. It is an even more tragic picture 

than that of the mounds of earth in the Satpura jungles which marked the 

end of George Swan's tribal settlements of the 1890's. 

The record of defeat is dark indeed. But a new dawn had already begun. 

Notes to Chapter XII 

1 Tribute published in The Times of India, 1907. 

2 Presidential Address, Indian National Congress, 1905. 

3 Letters to Gokhale preserved in the National Archives, New Delhi. 

4 See A Wrestling Soul, centenary memorial biography of Chandavarkar by 

G.L.Chandavarkar, Bombay 1955, pp.l86-7.[Marjorie's quotation is not exact, 

but conveys the sense of the original faithfully enough.] For Kabir and Tukaram 

see Chapter 1 . 

4a Tagore heard Bright speak in Parliament in 1879, and recalled this 62 years 

later, shortly before his death. See Krishna Kripalani, Rabindranath Tagore: a 

Biography, 1962, p.394. 

5 The previously unwieldy province included along with Bengal the present 

States of Assam, Bihar and Orissa. Some division was necessary, but a division 

which partitioned Bengal itself was unacceptable. 

6 Report in the National Archives, New Delhi. 

7 J.Sinclair Stevenson, Ahmedabad, letter to Joseph Taylor. 

8 So characterised by Dr Thomas Arnold of Rugby: see A.P.Stanley, Life and 

Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, 1 844, vol.2 p. 1 98. 

9 The words quoted are as recorded by Henry Stanley Newman, who met 

Keshab during his visit to India in 1881: Days of Grace in India, 1882, p.251. 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

10 One of the most revered of India's sacred books. See Chapter 1. 

1 1 When the Taylors left Calcutta in 1924 the manuscript was left with the 

remaining Bengali Friend, Nalin Ganguly, who died in 1940. In 1943 Nairn's 

brother Alin brought it to Horace Alexander, who took it to England. There it 

spent the war years in the keeping of some Friend at a distance from the risks of 

central London. When the war was over it was sent to Friends House; when the 

present writer first saw it over thirty years later it was still in the brown paper wrap- 

pings in which it had arrived. It bore the postmark of the little country town 

Berkhamstead, the home of a Friend who had previously been in Madras. 

12 See Hope Hewison, A Hedge of Wild Almonds, 1989, p. 146. 

13 First-hand evidence for these events is not available. In 1925 when London 

Yearly Meeting moved to its new offices in Friends House, difficult decisions had 

to be made about which of the accumulated mass of records should be kept, and 

which discarded. All that remains is comment. 

CHAPTER XIII 

Vision Renewed 

Every new generation needs a free and fearless education 

and the opportunity for service. 

W. C. Braithwaite, The Second Period of Quakerism 

One of the heralds of the new dawn, in Britain and in India, was Bishop 

Brooke Foss Westcott of Durham. He was one of the 'right reverend scholars' 

the historical realism of whose biblical commentaries had appealed to 

Samuel Baker, and he combined his Greek scholarship both with a deep 

interest in Indian thought, and with a sensitive awareness of the social dimen- 

sions of the Gospel. This led him to work for fair wages and better condi- 

tions for the coalmines of his diocese, and to support Martin Wood in the 

cause of peace among the nations. His book Social Aspects of Christianity 

was much quoted at two important gatherings of British Friends which took 

place at Manchester in 1895 and at Darlington in 1896. 

The Manchester conference was concerned with the intellectual and 

spiritual nurture of Friends in Britain. A young thinker, John Wilhelm 

Rowntree, took a leading part. 'The true Gospel of Jesus Christ,' he said, 

£ is not written in books, but in the collective illuminated conscience of his 

followers. 5 He challenged many widely held ideas, and the conference 

reached no unity of opinion, but it was roused to the need for study. It 

took steps which led in 1903 to the opening of the Woodbrooke College 

in Birmingham, which aimed both 'to inform and to enflame' the Society, 

so that 'love and truth' might advance together. 

The Friends who met at Darlington the following year, like those who 

had met in Bedfordshire in 1657, were concerned with the call to 'publish 

Truth among all nations'. As at Manchester the generations met, and fresh 

insights were expressed. Charles Terrell, back from his six years in Sehore, 

told his hearers of the 'dense spiritual darkness' which existed in India. 

His chairman, the historian Thomas B. Hodgkin, 2 raised courteous ques- 

tions : Was not a Friend's distinctive calling to seek and 'answer' the natural 

goodness in others? When faced with evil, should not one endeavour £ to 

157 

158 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

read the palimpsest of the human heart'? A palimpsest is a parchment 

whose original words have been over-written and obscured; with care they 

may be uncovered and read. So, said Hodgkin, should a Quaker lookbeneath 

the defaced surface of humanity for the original divine inscription. 

'The Society of Friends/ said another speaker, 'need not fear a reverent, 

sympathetic and honest study of other faiths. Jesus came not to destroy but 

to fulfil.' Tregelles Fox the doctor 3 argued that Truth might be published 

as well by medical, educational and industrial workers as by preachers. 

Antonius Manasseh, a medical student from Sjnria, suggested that Friends 

called to foreign lands should seek guidance from the people of the country 

to which they went, rather than take the lead themselves. 

Each of these speakers was questioning practices followed by most 

FFMA leaders and missionaries during the previous 20 years. They had 

undoubtedly taken the lead; they had seen little but unrelieved 'darkness' 

around them and had regarded India's religions with hostility; they had 

valued clinics and schools mainly as giving them a 'captive audience' for 

their preaching. On the other hand these new voices at Darlington had much 

in common with the pioneers of the 1860's, Rachel Metcalfe, Elkanah 

Beard, Charles Gayford, and with other Friends who had worked in India 

outside the mission. In that very year 1896 T. W. Arnold of Aligarh pub- 

lished his 'sympathetic and honest study' of some aspects of Islam, 4 and 

Poornachandra Sarkar completed his Universal Spiritual Religion, expressing 

the point of view of 'the people of the country'. But Aligarh and Calcutta 

were then unknown in FFMA circles. 

The FFMA was preparing its new missionaries at Chester House in 

London, where they received basic language and medical training as 

Gayford and Baker had done earlier. In 1901 when Joseph Taylor needed 

prolonged recuperation after his famine service he had taken charge of 

Chester House. As soon as Woodbrooke was opened in 1903 however he 

urged that Chester House should be closed, and that the missionary training 

should be carried out somewhere near Woodbrooke and benefit from what 

Woodbrooke had to give. This was agreed. Kingsmead College took the 

place of Chester House, John William Hoyland was appointed Principal, 

and Joseph Taylor, his health restored, returned to India. 

Meanwhile Bishop Westcott had shared his thoughts on India with others 

in the University of Cambridge. India and Greece, he said, were the two 

'great thinking nations'; in India as in Greece, there had been a never-failing 

response to love and truth. Would not India respond to the love and truth 

of the Gospel, if it were offered in humility and reverence? So the Cambridge 

Mission to Delhi, a new kind of mission, was founded in the closing decades 

of the 1 9th century. It chose Delhi, the ancient capital, and built St Stephen's 

College in a style inspired by Delhi's great Mogul architecture. S. S. Allnutt, 

VISION RENEWED 

159 

the Principal, incurred much disapproval for this in missionary circles, but 

won the approval and support of T. W. Arnold of Aligarh. The support was 

mutual; each man valued the other's understanding and friendship. 

In 1890 a Birmingham lad of 19, Charles Freer Andrews, entered 

Pembroke College Cambridge. Born in 1871 he was an exact contempo- 

rary of Arthur Lidbetter Wood. Both read classics, both were rowing men, 

so that although they were members of different colleges it is possible that 

they met in lecture rooms and on the river and that Andrews knew of Wood's 

enthusiasm for India, his native land. That however is speculation. What is 

certain is that Andrews was quickly drawn into Westcott's circle and into 

support for the Cambridge Mission to Delhi. He did not himself join the 

staff of St Stephen's till early in 1904; he spent much of the intervening 

years in service to the poor in England which was also inspired by Westcott. 

During Andrews' first year in India he encountered that 'Pride of race' 

among Englishmen, and 'Pride of caste' among Indians, which were in his 

eyes both equally wrong. His own friends were Indian. In St Stephen's 

College there was the Vice-Principal, Sushil Kumar Rudra, a staunch lover 

of his country. Outside the College there was an informal club of cultured 

Delhi Muslims, supporters of the Aligarh College, who made him welcome 

and introduced him to the treasures of Islamic devotion. 

In the summer of 1905, needing some medical treatment, Andrews paid 

a short visit to England and his Birmingham home. In Birmingham he met 

John William Hoyland and his schoolboy son John Somervell Jack) who 

was himself working for entrance to a Cambridge college. During the next 

few years, while Andrews was back in India, Jack Hoyland entered Christ's 

College for the three-year course for an honours degree in history. During 

his time at the University the links with Andrews were maintained and 

strengthened. 

In 1907 the English Principal of St Stephen's retired, and Sushil Kumar 

Rudra succeeded him. An Indian Principal for a Christian college was some- 

thing unheard of; it would not have happened even then if Andrews and 

other young foreigners had not insisted that they must work under Indian 

leadership. During the years that followed, Andrews, Rudra and other 

Indian Christian thinkers were frequent contributors to the British univer- 

sity magazine The Student Movement and the church magazine The East and 

the West. They introduced English readers to the insights and achievements 

of the great Indian saints of the past.* 'That God hid himself frc h men like 

these, who sought Him with such consuming passion,' wrote G. C. Chatterji, 

'is a thought that India can never accept.' These writers invited young British 

Christians to come to India as friends and equals (as Beck and Sturge and 

Arnold had done). Many responded. Christians they were, but they did not 

assume that they therefore had the whole truth. They shared Bishop 

160 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Westcott's faith in a spiritual illumination, universal as the family of man, 

which meant having God as their fellow-worker and the secret voice of the 

soul their witness. 6 

While Jack Hoyland was at Cambridge his father John William Hoyland 

visited India as a | lember of the British Quaker delegation of 1 908-9. Besides 

the personal problems of the time with which they had attempted to deal, 

there were others which were equally serious. The little mission was almost 

completely isolated both from the creative thinking of some of their fellow- 

Christians in India, and from the national aspirations voiced by such men 

as Gokhale and Tagore. On the local level they were equally isolated from 

their Hindu and Muslim neighbours. The 'ghetto' mentality showed in the 

anxiety that Christians should live apart from the general population in order 

to 'avoid contamination'. There were some among the missionaries who 

deplored this attitude - Joseph Taylor in the older generation, Henry Robson 

and Basil Backhouse among the young. Their oudook was shared by Francis 

and Ann Kilbey, 'working-class' missionaries like Munnings and Swan, who 

had earned their living in the shoe-making trade in London. Francis had 

attended one of the Friends' Adult Schools, got a good education by his own 

efforts, become a Friend and been sent to India in 1894. But apart from 

these the isolation was generally accepted. How could it be overcome? 

Back in England in the summer of 1909 Crosfield and Hoyland called 

a conference of young Friends to consider possible new forms of Quaker 

religious service in India. The meeting was held at Kingsmead, and Joseph 

Taylor who was once more on leave was there to help. There was a good 

response, and among those who attended were three young men each of 

whom was to make a distinctive contribution: Joseph Alexander's son 

Horace Gundry Alexander, Hoyland's son Jack, and Geoffrey Waring Maw 

whose mother (like the mothers of Theodore Beck and Tregelles Fox) was 

an Allen of Stoke Newington. At the same time Crosfield and Hoyland were 

pressing the FFMA to reopen the Hoshangabad High School as one way 

of broadening the intellectual and spiritual outlook of Indian Friends. They 

found a sympathetic listener in the new secretary, Henry T. Hodgkin, who 

had himself been engaged previously in higher education in China. In 1 9 1 0 

under his leadership the FFMA approved the reopening of the school, and 

provisionally accepted Jack Hoyland, who was just completing his studies 

at Cambridge, as its future Principal. For various reasons however an imme- 

diate reopening was not possible. 

The first young recruits from the Kingsmead conference to reach India 

were therefore Geoffrey Maw and his fiancee Mildred Brison. They had 

spent a year gaining some basic medical knowledge in London hospitals, 

where Geoffrey showed himself 'a born doctor', and they sailed for India 

towards the end of 1910. After some hesitation over 'the proprieties' they 

were allowed to travel by the same ship, but as soon as they reached their 

VISION RENEWED 

161 

destination they were sepa- 

rated as widely as possible 

and told that they might only 

think of marriage after they 

had passed their language 

examination. It was a pow- 

erful incentive, if they had 

needed one! A year later 

Geoffrey topped the whole 

list of candidates, with 

Mildred not far behind. 

They married, and settled 

down to work and to learn. 

Fortunately, as they soon 

found, the difficulties and 

tragedies of the post-famine 

years were not the whole 

picture. There were signs of 

independent thought and 

spiritual growth, much of 

which had its roots in Joseph 

Taylor's 20 years of witness 

in Seoni. Prem Masih Datt 

had become a Christian 

there, and in 1905 he and 

Henry Robson together opened a Bible School, and began to train for reli- 

gious service a group of young men, some of whom had once been famine 

orphans. Dr Johory had also joined the Friends in Seoni; he now had a 

medical practice in the little towns on the borders of Bhopal and Gwalior 

States. Because of his friendly contacts there one of Prem Masih's students 

started a little Christian centre at Bhilsa (Vidisha), support for which was 

raised entirely by local Friends led by Nathulal. In Seoni itself Alice Swan 

had created a very simple industrial school for village girls, who lived in 

wholly village ways, and the Friends' Boys' School there had an excellent 

Headmaster, Kalu Ram, who owed much both to Joseph Taylor and to 

Douglas Maynard. 

There was also one rather tenuous link with the wider Christian com- 

munity. This was the India Sunday School Union whose headquarters were 

at Coonoor in the Nilgiri Hills, and in which Philip Thompson's friends 

the Stanes family took an active interest. Perhaps because of die links which 

Eliza Frankland had established with the Hoshangabad Friends, Leonard 

Stanes had visited Hoshangabad for Sunday School work in 1 904. By 1 909 

the Sunday School Union had Quaker secretaries, Edward and Edith 

Jack Hoyland with his two sons John and Denys 

(the younger one) in 1919 > shortly after the deaths 

of his wife Helen and of their third son Peter. 

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AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Annett, who had previously worked for Friends in Sri Lanka, They 

combined devotion to the Gospel with respect for historical and scientific 

scholarship as Westcott did. But influences of this kind had a very slight 

impact, and the Hoshangabad Friends still hesitated to send promising stu- 

dents even to a Christian college unless they could live in a hostel under the 

care of 'one of our own missionaries'! 

Jack Hoyland had a wider vision. As a student in Christ's College he had 

brought together in one college Christian Fellowship members of student 

Christian societies which were usually regarded as rivals. Soon after he had 

taken his degree he and Geoffrey Maw had both joined the young volun- 

teers who helped at the ecumenical Missionary Conference at Edinburgh 

in 1 9 1 0. 7 After that he had gone to the United States to study theology, and 

there along with the American Friend Rufus Jones he quietly began to bring 

together in personal friendship members of the separated branches of 

American Quakerism. Months of patient work culminated in July 1912 

when young men and women from all the separate groups met face to face 

and discovered one another's likeable human qualities and genuine reli- 

gious experience, so that the divisive labels no longer mattered. 

In 1 9 1 2 it was not only the Hoshangabad High School that was making 

a new start, the agricultural settlement at*Lahi was also being re-shaped. 

When Alfred Smith went on leave in 1 9 1 1 it was decided to make the village 

of Makoriya the centre of operations. It was in the plains, on the fringe of 

the forest, and it was hoped that farming there would be easier and more 

profitable. A practising Cumbrian farmer, T. Ratcliffe Addison, was 

appointed to get the new scheme going, and he reached India in October 

1913. During the following year, in the missionary language school, he met 

a young doctor from Iowa who was working for the Disciples of Christ 

mission. In 1916 they were married, and their home in Makoriya came to 

have a high place in Jack Hoyland's affections. 

The year 1912 had seen a new start for India also. The King-Emperor 

had paid a State visit to the country and at a ceremonial Durbar had per- 

sonally announced the reversal of the unpopular partition of Bengal and 

along with this the transfer of the seat of government to Delhi, the ancient 

historic capital. Both decisions were welcomed by the Indian people, but 

many British residents stood aloof, for the fears aroused in 1857 were still 

playing havoc. G. Lowes Dickinson, a senior Cambridge 'Apostle' who had 

been elected in 1 884, visited India later in 1 9 1 2 and found the gulf between 

British and Indian society 'almost absolute'. 'Indians feel degraded and 

slighted,' he wrote. 'One of them told me that it was like a breath of fresh 

air to be able to talk to an Englishman as they used to do in England.' Jack 

had the same kind of experience on board ship, where his British fellow- 

passengers treated him as 'a rank outsider' because he made friends with 

Indians on the voyage just as he had done in Cambridge. 8 

VISION RENEWED 

163 

Besides Joseph Taylor and the Maws, Jack found another Kingsmead 

contact in Hoshangabad. Percy B. Herring had been living there in 1909 

while he studied at Birmingham University, and had attended the young 

Friends' conference. He was the son of a Gurkha soldier who had been 

drawn to Christ by his English colonel and who when baptised had taken 

the colonel's name. Percy (whose Indian name was Shiv Ram) was attracted 

to Friends, and on returning to India had settled in Hoshangabad and 

opened a Commercial School in the Bazaar. As for Joseph Taylor, he was 

as convinced as ever that Quaker insights should be shared more widely, 

especially with Bengal. A. J. Crosfield's nephew, William Winstanley 

Pearson, had joined the staff of Tagore's school in Santiniketan, and by 

191 1 he too was pleading that Friends should provide a hostel for students 

in Calcutta. It was something much needed, but Friends had no one to 

send. Jack Hoyland was committed to Hoshangabad. 

The first step was to learn the language, and Andrews had already 

arranged that Jack should live and study in Sushil Rudra's home in Delhi. 

There he went, after a few preliminary days in Hoshangabad, and quickly 

made friends with Sushil's son Sudhir. Andrews himself was there, and on 

one occasion took Sudhir and Jack with him on a visit to Mahatma Munshi 

Ram. The Mahatma was one of the leaders of the Arya Samaj, whose aim 

was to re-invigorate Hinduism by purifying its practice, and whose methods 

of propaganda were similar to those of Christian missions. Most Christians 

regarded it with suspicion and hostility. Not so Andrews; he went to listen, 

understand and make friends. He asked quiet courteous questions, he 

sought fellowship with the Mahatma in a common search for truth. Jack 

remembering his own experience of the healing power of personal friend- 

ship in America, watched eagerly. Was not the task of Friends, he reflected, 

simply to be friends, to support others as they found their own way to 

truth? In Simla where he continued his language study during the hot 

weather of 1913, he watched how other friends of Andrews, the Viceroy 

and Lady Hardinge, brought the same warm and sympathetic listening 

into their dealings with Indians. 

Before he left England Jack had become engaged to be married, and 

it was arranged that his fiancee Helen Doncaster should join him in the 

late autumn of 1 9 1 3 when he had passed his language examinations. That 

summer Katharine Dixon had retired, the remaining girl orphans were 

sent to Sohagpur, and the bungalow and the orphanage buildings became 

available for the Hoylands and the High School. So when Jack came back 

to Hoshangabad in August it was no longer to spend a few happy-go-lucky 

days with Percy Herring in the bazaar, but to live in the bungalow and 

prepare it for his bride. 'Too many servants,' he grumblecj but it was not 

possible to run a 'European' bungalow without them. Some of his col- 

leagues were not very congenial; few of them were aware of the noble 

1 (,4 AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

national ideals 01 men like Gokhale, to which Andrews and Rudra had 

introduced him. All they had met were the recurrent rumours that 'the 

British' were spreading plague and poisoning wells, and most of them 

therefore thought it their duty to 'uphold the cause of loyalty'. 

October 1913 arrived, and Helen Doncaster. Jack's examinations were 

successfully over, there was a happy wedding and a honeymoon. They 

went first to the mountains, to Darjeeling; then turning westward again 

they came to Benares (Varanasi) with its great Hindu monuments and the 

Buddhist Sarnath close by. 'It is impossible,' Jack wrote, c to express in 

words the meaning of Benares for the work of the Kingdom of God.' Like 

Elkanah Beard before him he was moved by the devotion of the wor- 

shippers on the river ghats, and thought how 'easy-going' in contrast much 

Christian practice seemed. 

The Hoylands went on from Benares to meet Jack's friends in Delhi, 

where there was a different kind of stimulus. G. K. Gokhale had just come 

back from a visit to South Africa, and was appealing for support for 

Gandhi's struggle there. It was no cheap appeal. Gokhale faced crowded 

meetings of excited students and told them that they had no right to 

condemn 'apartheid' in South Africa so long as they practised it against 

so-called 'untouchables' at home. Then south to Agra where some of 

Jack's Cambridge contemporaries were teaching at St John's College. 

From Agra they went south again to Bhopal. Jack made friends there with 

Dr Johory, who by then had become the Begum's personal physician. 

They reached Hoshangabad again just as Lord Hardinge, speaking in 

Madras, identified himself with India's anger at the treatment of Indian 

indentured labour in the sugar colonies. Jack set to work to arrange a local 

public meeting in Hardinge's support, only to find himself followed about 

by government 'informers'! 

From the beginning of 1914 Jack took up his own task, the restarting 

of the Friends High School. He chose a Headmaster, Nalin Ganguly, a 

Bengali Brahmin with 10 years of teaching experience. He arranged with 

Percy Herring to amalgamate his Commercial Institute with the High 

School classes. The school was formally opened in April, and students 

were enrolled, but regular work did not begin until July, when the monsoon 

rains had modified the fierce heat of May and June. The Hoylands spent 

those two months in Simla where Jack engaged a pandit and studied the 

Ramayana, not in Hindi but in Sanskrit. What made him do that? During 

his visit to Benares a few months earlier, did he meet his Christ's College 

contemporary Ralph Lilley Turner? Turner had taken a brilliant degree in 

classics; then while Jack went to America he had stayed on in Cambridge 

to study oriental languages and win a prize in Sanskrit, and earlier in 1913 

had been appointed to the Government College in Benares. Was it Turner 

who 'infected' Hoyland with his own enthusiasm for Sanskrit, so that 

VISION RENEWED 

165 

Hoyland decided to taste it for himself at the first opportunity? There is 

no evidence of a meeting, but neither is there any other explanation of this 

interest in Sanskrit, which was not afterwards maintained. 

Jack Hoyland envisaged the High School's task as 'to permeate the 

culture of India with the values and standards of Jesus'. The imagery of 

permeation, familiar to Beard and Gayford more than 40 years earlier, 

was no longer unacceptable to the FFMA. Henry Hodgkin had set in the 

forefront of his first annual report a quotation from N. G. Chandavarkar, 

who wrote of 'the permeation of Indian thought and life by the ideas which 

lie at the heart of the Gospel'. Permeation moreover did not mean com- 

promise. Jack was committed to a '100%' discipleship of Jesus as fully as 

were the Maws and their contemporaries in Bundelkhand. He believed 

that Friends should practise this discipleship in every aspect of life, not 

only in Bible classes but in all the activities of the school community. 

Among these activities he gave a large place to games and sports. With 

his own magnificent physique he himself joined the boys on the playing 

fields, and encouraged them to take a pride not only in the mastery of 

skills but also in unselfish team work and scrupulously honest fair play. 

The Narmada river was close at hand. Together Jack and the boys built 

boats, and launched them, and crossed the river to explore the hills and 

forests beyond. They invited other schools in the region to join them in 

holiday camps, where sports and excursions went hand in hand with 

worship and Bible study, and where Dr Johory, at 55 years of age delighted 

everyone by demonstrating in person how to 'turn cartwheels'. 

The boys also produced school plays, with all the practical team work 

which such an enterprise involves. One year they chose Hamlet, translated 

it into Hindi, orientalised it, and embellished it on their own initiative 

with topical comic interludes! Another year they chose the well-known 

Indian drama Harischandra, and themselves carried through every detail 

of the preparation and the public performance. In these activities, as on 

the river and the playing-fields, the traditional social divisions were simply 

ignored; what counted were the individual's gifts* The same held good in 

the election of School prefects. About one third of the boys were Brahmins, 

another third or more were Hindus of other castes, but they chose as their 

leaders three Muslims, one Christian, one non-Brahmin Hindu and one 

Brahmin - in that order. With all this they held their own academically, 

and were able to send a number of boys on to college at Allahabad or 

Nagpur, in spite of the fact that Kharraghat was a mile outside the town, 

and that the prestigious Government High School, centrally situated, 

attracted all the 'best' boys. Some bad feeling between these 'rival' schools 

could easily have come about, but this was not allowed to happen. When 

the Friends school won the hockey shield for the whole Narmada divi- 

sion, and at the same time the Government school won that for cricket, 

166 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

they celebrated their triumph together, and carried their trophies in a 

happy joint procession through the town. 

All this was good, but there was something more central to a 'free and 

fearless' Quaker education than any of these things. Already in 1913 the 

Government itself had raised the question in a public statement: 

The most thoughtful minds [it ran] lament the tendency to develop 

the intellectual at the expense of the moral and religious faculties. 

. . . The neglect of character training is the most important edu- 

cational problem of our time. 

The problem was not new; Penney had reported 100 years earlier that 

schooling was being sought as £ a means to wealth 5 ; Syed Ahmed Khan had 

criticised government colleges which 'left the inner spirit dead'; about 1908 

a Christian leader, S. K. Datta, had declared that 'the spirit of selfishness 

has Indian education in its grip'. The Government's invitation to the public 

to help to find a better way sparked offa great deal of discussion. Jackhimself 

wrote a number of articles in a widely-read periodical, The Indian Social 

Reformer. He argued that only a basically religious education could touch 

the inward spirit where the roots of character are nourished, and that such 

an education could best be provided not by government but by local ini- 

tiative, in schools managed by various religious bodies. Government should 

encourage them, but should also leave them free. It was much what the 

Christian leaders of south India had said a few years earlier. 

In Hoshangabad therefore vigorous and imaginative Bible study was 

an integral part of the life of the High School, and gave 'meaning to all 

the rest'. Jack's interest ranged beyond the High School; was not all the 

work of Friends in the district, he asked, an atterjipt in one way or another 

to offer that 'whole' education? Prem Masih's 6ible School, now being 

run by the Kilbeys, offered a happy combination of biblical study and 

intelligent interest in the world around. The boys' schools at Balaganj had 

a teachers' training class. Why not unite them? asked Jack. Why should 

there be jealousy and division between 'teachers' and 'pastors' when both 

were really doing the same job? 

Moreover, if the values of Jesus were to 'permeate' Indian society there 

must also be fearless openness to what India had to give, a readiness to 

listen and to learn. Jack opened himself to the Indian poet-devotees who 

spoke like St John of 'abiding in love' and of the compassion and for- 

giveness of a 'Mother' God. 9 When a village headman and the Hindu 

headmaster together started an 'all-faith library' in the Balaganj school 

he warmly welcomed their initiative. 

All this purposeful hopeful work was carried on in the harsh condi- 

tions of the First World War. The High School had been working barely 

a month when war broke out. Shallow confidence in human 'progress' 

VISION REN EWE P 

167 

was shattered; among Friends and other peace-lovers there was much 

heart searching. In India the younger English Friends were exempted from 

military service, but some wondered whether they should not join the 

Friends' Ambulance Unit, as Joseph Taylor's and Francis Kilbey's sons 

had done. There were grave financial problems; support for the FFMA 

in Britain declined by 30%, and in India there were poor harvests and 

near-famine conditions. 

Jack himself had had health problems almost from the beginning. In 

1 9 1 5 an attack of malaria was followed by jaundice, and in his enthusiasm 

for his work he found it difficult to allow himself the relaxation he needed 

for full recovery. By the autumn of 1917 he had had nearly five years of 

strenuous service, and while Helen and their two children were away in 

the hills he went down with enteric fever. He was nursed through several 

critical weeks by Gail and Ratcliffe Addison at Makoriya. Recovery was 

very slow, and he was forbidden to return to his beloved school until the 

beginning of the new academic year in July 1918. He spent the time in 

reflection and in writing, and in helping the hard-pressed YMCA as it 

struggled to meet the demands of the war years. 

When Jack took up his school work once more the Government had 

just published the Montagu-Chelmsford report. This contained proposals 

for new 'self-governing institutions' for India, including the election of 

popular representatives to the Legislative Councils. The Secretary of State 

for India, Edwin Montagu, the author of the report, had visited India 

twice during the preceding years and had shown great sympathy and 

understanding of the position of such men as Tagore. Jack at once got 

copies of the document for his senior boys to study, and held a 'citizen- 

ship class', wondering whether he was destined to be the teacher of 'a first 

generation of democratic rulers'. None of those boys, so far as is known, 

ever did enter the Councils, but one of them, 'Dada 5 Dharmadhikari, 

became in later years a distinguished follower of Mahatma Gandhi, and 

looked back with gratitude to what he had learned as a schoolboy in the 

Friends' High School at Kharraghat. 10 

Jack also saw 'remarkable parallels between the needs and problems 

of modern India and those of the Jewish nation at the time of Christ'. He 

worked out these parallels in a course of Bible study which was published 

later as Christ and National Reconstruction. In the light of Christ, citizen- 

ship means unselfish service, and the opportunity for service came with 

tragic urgency in the influenza epidemic of October to December 1918. 

For two terrible months the virus devastated India. Millions died; the next 

census in 1921 showed an overall decrease of population, as compared 

with 1911, of fully 10%. In the Central Provinces where famine condi- 

tions already prevailed 11 many villages were almost wiped out. 

108 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

When the crises came the Quaker doctors, Hilda Robson and Gail 

Addison, were both out of India and the Itarsi hospital was closed. 

Geoffrey Maw opened the dispensary, and he and his helpers treated all 

comers each morning; in the afternbons, as long as daylight lasted, they 

visited every village they could reach; after dark there were the Christian 

families in Khera and Itarsi to be cared for. The Kilbeys at Makoriya did 

similar work from the village dispensary there. In Hoshangabad the 

Hoyland family were among the first to catch the infection. They all soon 

recovered, but the faithful warden of the Kharraghat hostel was among 

many who died, and in the town the need was desperate. 

Jack appealed to his schoolboys for help. £ You have been talking about 

citizenship, 5 he said, 'Now is your chance to practise it!' Some frankly 

confessed that they were afraid; others were forbidden to volunteer by their 

parents. But volunteers there were, and they like Jack himself were soon 

working 14 hours a day. They went out two by two, carrying medicine by 

tonga or cycle, into the town and the villages around. The poorest and need- 

iest would often refuse their help, for rumour was rife. 'Government,' it was 

said, was spreading 'the red fever,' and the boys' medicines must be poison! 

Others however were very grateful; they took the boys with their medicines 

right into the women's quarters; they insisted on giving them a meal or a 

hot drink. Florence Taylor sent an appeal for help in Sehore, and two of the 

best boys went there and had a warm welcome; officials provided a bullock- 

cart, medicines and someone to introduce them to the villagers. 

Jack led other boys to the remoter villages in the Satpura hills. There 

amid the glorious beauty of the forests was unforgettable human tragedy. 

The famine-weakened people could neither resist the infection nor even 

collect a little firewood for warmth in the November chill. The boys, young 

as they were, worked pluckily through e a huge black nightmare', sleeping 

as they could in the fields, often 'with too little straw between them and 

the ground'. When at last in December the sickness began to abate, one 

question filled Jack's mind: could anythingbe done to give more lasting 

help to these poorest and most vulnerable people? 

The answer, he thought, was a school - a school planned to meet these 

people's needs. It would have to offer, first, 'the best traditional teaching 

in the craftsmanship of each caste occupation'. Then there should be agri- 

culture for all, and 'the right kind of Scripture teaching, and many coop- 

erative activities'. Could not Kalu Ram, the Seoni headmaster do it? He 

was a gifted teacher, a Rasulia trained carpenter, a keen scout. 

A similar emphasis had characterised Quaker education from the ear- 

lit-M years, when Fox and Penn had advised Friends to teach children 

pi m tu nl skills 'building houses or ships, but agriculture is especially in 

miv rvr\as Penn put it. Penn's younger contemporary John Bellers agreed. 

VISION RENEWED 

169 

'Tis labour sustains, maintains and upholds [he wrote.] The hand 

employed brings profit, the reason used in it makes wise, the will 

subdued makes them good. 

In India it was an idea whose time had come. Tagore was developing a 

village-based school in Bengal; Gandhi, now back home in Gujerat, was 

to use his experience in South Africa as the seed-bed for a 'basic national 

education' based on cooperative useful work. 

But Jack's dream remained a dream, for tragedy intervened. At the 

very end of 1918 Helen Hoyland gave birth to another baby son. At first 

all went well, but a few days later she developed enteric fever. She died, 

and the baby did not long survive her. Jack took his two motherless little 

boys back to England where they were cared for by Helen's family. Then 

he returned to India, but not to Hoshangabad. That creative enterprise 

was over. 

So for a few years a few hundred boys got a taste of a 'free and fearless' 

education and a challenge to give themselves in honest and costly public 

service. The vision and the challenge remain but have not again been 

embodied in any Indian Quaker school. As the years passed the Boys' High 

School in Itarsi and the Girls' High School in Sohagpur both developed out 

of established Middle Schools, and both accepted the prevalent 'bookish' 

pattern of teaching. The growing practice of requiring a school certificate 

from those who sought any salaried employment or form of training meant 

that there was great pressure to conform, especially as so few of the Quaker 

community were independently self-employed. Much good and faithful 

work has been done within the pattern, and the Sohagpur school, as a largely 

residential community, has given generations of girls a happy experience of 

corporate life and the personal growth it made possible. 

The story of the Bundelkhand mission during the period of the First 

World War was of a different kind. In 1912 Gorelal took charge of the 

Friends' School in Harpalpur, so that Pancham Singh and his wife were 

free to obey their own inward call and to carry their religious message to 

Chhatarpur town itself. Chhatarpur, like Bhopal city, had been closed to 

Christian preaching, and the Dewan was strongly opposed to it. At first 

therefore the two Friends had a difficult time. They could not get a house 

and were obliged to lodge in the local inn. Pancham Singh went out daily 

to preach in the streets. He was threatened with jail if he persisted, but 

he knew that many were listening to him with interest, and he did persist. 

His courage and patience were rewarded. One day the Maharajah himself 

170 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

sent for him and told him that no further obstacles would be put in his 

way; he might rent a house and live in Chhatarpur as long as he wished. 

Here is one example of how closely the threads of Quaker work were 

woven into the 'human tapestry' of Indian history. When the Maharajah 

was a boy in the 1 880's his tutor was a young Englishman named Theodore 

Morison. Morison had been a Cambridge friend of Theodore Beck, and 

in view of the close links between Aligarh and the Rajput states of 

Bundelkhand it is probable that Beck had had a hand in his appointment. 

Morrison seems to have encouraged the young ruler's religious and philo- 

sophical curiosity, a trait which Lowes Dickinson, the Cambridge Apostle 

who visited India in 1912, noticed and commented on: 

When he couldn't sleep he sent for his cook to talk philosophy and 

religion with him. That, at least, is democratic in a way inconceiv- 

able anywhere in the West. 12 

It is in character that the Maharajah should intervene to protect Pancham 

Singh from the hostility of his. own Dewan. A year or two later, finding 

Friends at one of the great festivals at Khajaraho, 13 he got a large marquee 

erected so that they might show their lantern slides of the life of Jesus in 

comfort to the crowds who came. Pancham Singh's entry into Chhatarpur 

was to prove a turning point in the life of the mission. 

In 1915 the stringency which had marked 1914 suddenly gave way to 

prosperity, A boom in the American economy was reflected in increased 

support of the mission, both by regular contributions and by a substantial 

legacy for Bundelkhand. In Harpalpur the school got a badly needed new 

building, part of the cost of which was met by the friendly Rajah, who also 

paid part of Gorelal's salary. The dispensary too was enlarged, so that 

patients could stay overnight if need be, and a small chapel was built. 

Meanwhile Carrie Wood returned to her quiet work in Nowgong. 

Margaret Smith trained girls and young women to do useful and beautiful 

needlework for sale, and the young men's industrial school continued to 

be a profitable enterprise. The famine conditions of 1918 were met by 

food-for-work projects much like those set up by British Friends during 

earlier famines. Then came the influenza epidemic, and 70 members of the 

Christian community of less than 200 caught the infection. The three 

women missionaries suspended other work and gave their whole time to 

nursing the sick, and with this intensive personal care all but two recovered. 

As 1 9 1 9 dawned there was a spirit of forward-looking hopefulness. In 

March the Maharajah again showed his friendliness by giving Esther Baird 

an outright gift of land on the outskirts of Chhatarpur. She at once decided 

to use it for a first step towards the women's hospital which the Maharajah 

and the mission both desired. With the assistance of Margaret Smith and 

Pancham Singh she planned and built a bungalow for a future woman 

VISION RENEWED 

171 

doctor. Before the end of the year the mission had its first automobile, 

which brought Harpalpur and Chhatarpur within easy reach of Nowgong. 

In Hoshangabad there was little hopefulness. The Rasulia Works were 

already closed; Alice Swan's village girls' industrial school was soon closed 

too. Alice had nursed her girls safely through the influenza, but there were 

no more funds. The Kilbeys' lively Bible School suffered the same fate. 

'Uncle' Alfred kept the High School going until a new man, Perry Pryce, 

arrived at the end of 1919. He did an excellent job, and once more in 

1921 the boys won the Narmada Division hockey shield. But then Pryce 

withdrew to marry and undertake educational work elsewhere; his suc- 

cessor John Douglas suffered serious ill health, and the High School was 

finally given up. When the winds of change began to blow, as they did, 

they blew from a different quarter. 

Notes to Chapter XIII 

1 These phrases were used by Rendel Harris, Woodbrooke's first Director of 

Studies. 

2 Thomas B. Hodgkin was a nephew of that Thomas Hodgkin who had 

befriended the Indian visitors to London Yearly Meeting in 1861. 

3 Tregelles Fox was connected with the lively Friends group at Stoke Newington. 

His mother was an Allen. 

4 Thomas Walker Arnold, The Preaching of Islam, 1896, a historical account of 

the way in which the religion was propagated. 

5 Arnold refers to Allnutt's friendship and help in his preface to the second 

edition of the above book, 1913. 

6 Brooke Foss Westcott, Social Aspects of Christianity, 1 887, p. 1 28. 

7 A hundred years before the great William Carey had suggested that such a 

conference should be held in 1 8 1 0 in Cape Town, but the idea had been dismissed 

as *a pleasant dream', Carey went ahead and carried it out in India, where he 

found 'the utmost harmony ...a union of hearts'. 

8 This and many other details of J.S.Hoyland's life are derived from letters to 

his father which have been preserved by his daughter Rachel Gilliatt, who has 

kindly permitted their use. Others are derived from Hoyland's own contributions 

to Quaker periodicals. 

9 Whoever knows that love itself is God 

Shall dwell in love, one with God. 

TlRUMOOLAR, EIGHTH CENTURY. 

I7J 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Mow often have I sinned against Thee! 

Vet fondly Thou callest me, O Mother, 

Come unto me, Thou callest. 

I ; orgiving all transgressions, Thou callest. 

Kabir. * 

! 0 Oada Dharmadhikari's personal letter to the author. 

1 1 It was reliably reported that the reason why famine was not officially declared 

was that in the difficult year 1918 Government would have been unable to fulfil 

its obligations under the famine code. 

1 2 O.Lowes Dickinson, Autobiography, 1973, p. 180. 

1 i The magnificently sculptured temples of Khajaraho are the family shrine of 

the rulers of Chhatarpur. 

CHAPTER XIV 

Sadhus and Pilgrims 

A life close to the Gospel, full of peace and blessedness. 

John Somervell Hoyland, 1916 

While Jack Hoyland was re-creating the Friends High School, his 

friend Geoffrey Maw had been doing well and faithfully the tasks allotted 

to him in the mission. For him they were £ a necessary drudgery' ; he found 

nothing to fire his spirit as Jack's had been fired by his work among the 

schoolboys. 'I have not found my niche/ he said to Jack before he and 

Mildred left for furlough in 1 9 1 6. 'Perhaps I should not return.' Jack urged 

him to leave the matter open, and in the autumn of 1917 he did return, 

but alone. It did not seem right that Mildred and their two little children 

should travel in war conditions, and m fact Geoffrey's ship was in grave 

danger from enemy submarines as it passed through the Mediterranean. 

Having reached the safer waters of the Red Sea passengers and crew 

celebrated their escape from disaster. There was a party, and 'toasts* were 

drunk. The speaker who proposed the toast of gratitude to their military 

escort used the opportunity to abuse 'conchies' (conscientious objectors 

to military service) and to call them 'cowards'. Geoffrey therefore 

remained seated and did not drink, and his fellow passengers angrily 

demanded an explanation. 

I honour the courage of the army as much as you do [he replied], 

but I know that 'conchies' are not cowards, and I cannot approve 

of what was said. 

For the rest of the voyage people refused to speak to him; he occupied 

himself with the books he had brought with him, and found in them a 

pointer to his own future service. 

One of these books, The Love of God> was by a young American named 

Samuel Evans Stokes. Stokes' ancestors, in 1677, had been among the 

very first Quaker pioneers in New Jersey, where they had prospered. A 

173 

174 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Stokes of a later generation, and his Quaker cousin Anna Evans, wished 

to be married, but because of their kinship the Elders of the Meeting refused 

permission. After much patient but unsuccessful effort to persuade them 

to change their minds the young couple married £ out of Meeting' and were 

disowned. They joined the Episcopal Church, but like many others with 

a similar history they kept their pride in their Quaker traditions. 

Samuel Evans Stokes was born in 1882. As a schoolboy he was much 

distressed by preachers who threatened 'unbelievers' with the fires of hell. 

He himself was trying to follow Jesus, but he was troubled about what 

might happen to his schoolmates. Then there came to him a vision of the 

Good Shepherd seeking the lost sheep, and along with it a voice saying 

over and over again, 'until he find it, until he find it . . .'. The vision and 

voice brought comfort, 

In the summer of 1903 Stokes, now a university student, met a Dr 

Carleton who had started a leprosy sanatorium at Sabathu in the Simla 

Hills. He was so much impressed by the needs of the work that he aban- 

doned his studies and went to India to do what he could to help. He arrived 

early in 1904 (at about the same time as did C. F. Andrews) and during 

that summer he explored the Simla hills. Simla itself was only 17 miles 

from Sabathu by the short cuts. Fifty miles beyond Simla was Kotgarh, 

an old Moravian mission centre. Stokes found his way there, visited the 

mission school, and met a Mrs Bates, the widow of a tea planter who 

owned a large estate at Bhareri, not far away. But when he tried to make 

friends with the peasant farmers of the hills he came up against an invis- 

ible barrier. In their eyes he was a 'white sahib' a member of the ruling 

race; they were polite, but they kept their distance. 

Stokes longed to find a way to break through this barrier, and once 

more, as in his boyhood, a 'vision' came to his aid. He was walking alone 

along a mountain road when he found Jesus walking beside him, travel- 

stained as with the dust of Palestine. It seemed to him that his Master was 

calling him to go out, as the first apostles had done, 'taking nothing for 

his journey'. 

During the following months, pondering his vision as he worked in 

Sabathu, Stokes was joined by a young Sikh named Sunder Singh, who 

had been driven from his village because he had declared himself a 

Christian. Here, Stokes found, was a kindred spirit, for Sunder Singh also 

felt called to the life of a sadhu. In 1 905 they went together to Simla, where 

Sunder Singh was baptised; after the ceremony he put on the Sadhu's robe 

and went his own way. 

In the Christian tradition there have always been such 'renouncers', 

and successors of the Desert Fathers and of St Francis of Assisi had already 

been known in India. Thomas Valpy French had sought out the Hindu 

SADHUS AND PILGRIMS 

175 

sadhus ('seekers of Reality') and the sannyasis (those 'emptied' of posses- 

sion), and thep/rs and fakirs honoured in Islam. Charles Gayford had met 

Indian sa<i/z«-Christians at the Barman mela> and Prabhu Dayal Misra 

had continued to live the sadhu's life after he became a Friend. Some of 

the finest men who had joined Friends in Seoni and Sohagpur came from 

the same tradition, like the Fakir Ibrahim in Seoni. 

Stokes himself spent much of the remainder of 1905 helping with 

earthquake relief in the Kangra valley. Then in the spring of 1906 he 

returned to Kotgarh, where he discovered a cave among the rocks below 

the Kotgarh-Bhareri road. This, he decided, should be his hermitage, and 

Sunder Singh soon joined him there. The two young men travelled the 

hills in their sadhu's robes, wearing a cross and a rosary, and giving their 

Christian message. It was a hard life but a joyful one, for Stokes found 

that the barriers which had separated him from the people were gone; 

they now sought him out, invited him to their homes, and opened their 

hearts. 'The sadhu, he wrote, 'finds doors open everywhere, and comes 

in contact with men of every caste and school of thought.' 

Then came months of strenuous practical service, for in 1907 the 

Punjab suffered much from epidemics of plague and smallpox. Stokes 

and Sunder Singh devoted themselves to the sufferers from small-pox. 

These were isolated in a 'pest-camp' where conditions were so appalling 

that local Sikhs asked in amazement where the two sadhus found the 

strength to persevere. Five destitute children were taken into the her- 

mitage-cave at Kotgarh, and Stokes began to dream of a Children's Home, 

built on some corner of Mrs Bates' land. Such dreams might be realised 

because although he spent nothing on himself he could call on family 

wealth when he felt it right to do so. 

By the beginning of 1908 however Stokes had a larger dream: might 

there not be an Order of Friars, who should devote themselves to the 

service of the poor in India as the Little Brothers of St Francis had done 

in Italy? Bishop Lefroy of Lahore listened to him with friendly sympathy, 

and encouraged him to put his ideas before the Pan- Anglican conference 

which was due to meet in London that summer. Stokes did so, and went 

on from London to pay a visit to his family in Moorestown, New Jersey. 

The Love of God was written and published, and had many readers. 

During 1909 much thought was given to the proposed Brotherhood of 

the Imitation of Christ (the choice of name once more echoing that on- 

going Quaker love for Thomas a Kempis). It appealed strongly to C. F. 

Andrews, who had met Stokes and Sunder Singh during a holiday spent 

with Mrs Bates in the summer of 1 907 . It appealed also to another member 

of the Cambridge Mission to Delhi, F. J. Western. 1 As the four men talked 

it over it became clear that Sunder Singh must be free to follow his own 

176 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

vocation unbound by any Rule; Andrews also finally decided not to join. 

So when Bishop Lefroy inaugurated the Brotherhood early in 1910 its 

only members were Stokes and Western, and within a year Stokes himself, 

the originator of the idea, had begun to question his vocation. The life of 

a sadhu had indeed broken down barriers, but it had raised others which 

he had not foreseen. For many people believed that a truly religious life 

could only be lived by those who were free from 'the net of worldly affairs'. 

Indian tradition regarded boyhood and youth as a time of disciplined 

preparation 2 for the responsibilities of the married 'householder'; only 

when these had been fulfilled might one free oneself from 'the net' and 

turn to the religious life - though it was also recognised that there have 

always been a few (like Sadhu Sunder Singh) whose special vocation is 

life-long celibacy and sannyas. 

At first Stokes thought that he had this special vocation, but as time 

went on he felt it to be a barrier between him and the people. He shared 

his thoughts with Western. 'In the mystery which we call Incarnation,' he 

wrote, 'all that is essentially human has become of God.' 3 Should he not 

live out his loyalty to Christ in the midst of 'the world 5 , like the Quaker 

farmers, doctors and business men who were his ancestors? At 29 he had 

had a long and varied 'apprenticeship'; it was time to become a house- 

holder and undertake family responsibilities as his farmer neighbours in 

Kotgarh did. 

Stokes sought and found a bride among the people of the Kotgarh 

district, his second home. She was a Christian girl named Agnes; her 

parents consented to the match, Stokes' mother visited and made friends 

with her, and in 1912 they were married. From then on Stokes became 

in effect an Indian among Indians. He used his inherited wealth to buy 

from Mrs Bates a good tract of land, and built his new home in the local 

style. Only its name, 'Harmony Hall', was an echo of his American past; 

it was the name of that Quaker home which his ancestors had built in 

Moorestown almost two centuries before. The record of his life there 

belongs to a later part of this story. 

Meanwhile The Love of God had been reprinted several times, and the 

edition of 1912 included an account both of Stokes' life as a sadhu and 

of the reasons why he had given it up. It was this edition that had come 

into Geoffrey Maw's hands, and it is easy to imagine how deeply it inter- 

ested him. He knew that soon after he himself had left for England in 

1916 Jack Hoyland had met Sunder Singh in Kotgarh, and had invited 

him to come to Hoshangabad for the Golden Jubilee of Rachel Metcalfe's 

arrival in India in 1866, which was to be celebrated at the end of the year. 

Sunder Singh came, and made a deep impression both on Jack's High 

SADHUS AND PILGRIMS 

177 

School boys and on the general public; Hindu and Muslim alike crowded 

into the big Friends Meeting House and hung on his words. 

When Geoffrey got back to Hoshangabad Jack was on sick leave, but 

as soon as they could the two friends had long talks, and agreed that the 

special witness of the sadhu was one much needed in the Christian com- 

munity. Besides The Love of God Geoffrey had also read another account 

of experience as a Christian sadhu by an Englishman called Sherwood. 

I know him, [Jack responded] . He was my junior at Cambridge, 

and I met him in Kotgarh in the summer of 1 9 1 6 . He came to lunch 

with me one day and told me all about his work. 4 

Before any further steps could be taken, however, they were both over- 

whelmed by the influenza epidemic and the tragedy which ended Jack's 

service in Hoshangabad. Geoffrey had had his own disappointments. He 

had gready hoped that on his return he might carry the Gospel message 

to Bhopal city, but the Begum would not allow any male missionary to 

reside there and he needed a house for Mildred and the children when 

they returned (as they did early in 1919). Friends therefore posted him 

in Itarsi as 'care-taker' of the Robsons' work during their absence on leave. 

One day in June 1918 Geoffrey climbed the 'Itarsi Peak', which rises 

steeply to over 2,000 feet from the forests south of the town. The first 

monsoon showers had fallen, ferns and orchids were growing in the 

crevices of the rocks, the air was clear. Standing on the summit he sur- 

veyed his parish - southward through -the hills to the borders of BetuI 

District, northward to the Narmada Valley and the first spurs of the 

Vindhyas, westward to Seoni (the roof of the Friends bungalow at 

Makoriya clearly visible 10 miles away), and eastward to Sohagpur. At 

his feet he could see 'every house in Itarsi'. It was a difficult parish. The 

Meetings for Worship seemed 'dead', and Sohagpur was a source of special 

anxiety. The Jubilee had been marked by the opening of the 'Rachel 

Metcalfe Home' for needy women, and the wise and sensitive Louise 

Walker was in charge. But ever since Geoffrey returned she and her charges 

had been subjected to much malicious harassment by 'Christian 5 youths 

in the town. The 'rot' had set in much earlier; even before Geoffrey had 

left for England in 1916 one of his young Indian colleagues, Khushilal, 

had commented that the people had 'the Christ of the New Testament', 

but what they needed was the Hiving Christ'. 

Yet while Geoffrey was labouring through the influenza epidemic the 

'living Christ' was at work in ways he did not know. In the weavers' com- 

munity at Khera were two young men, Pyarelal and Jagannath, who had 

been little boys when Geoffrey first arrived in India in 1 9 1 0 . He had made 

friends with them then, and they had helped him to learn Hindi. Now, 

when the 'red fever' of 1918 was bringing fear and death, Jagannath 

178 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

gathered the young children of the community for prayer. At first they 

met in secret, then Pyarelal found them and joined them, and soon the 

children's prayer meetings, no longer secret, filled the little Khera Meeting 

House. When Khushilal heard about them, he came to Geoffrey with two 

others, Sunderlal (Samuel Harry) of Sohagpur and Kampta Presad of 

Hoshangabad, who two or three years earlier had been awakened spiri- 

tually by Jack Hoyland's summer camps at the Kharraghat High School. 

The little group prayed together, and then called a meeting of their 

fellow-Friends and spoke as they were moved. The outcome early in 1 9 1 9, 

was a genuine spiritual revival, especially in the weaver community and 

in Samuel Harry's home Meeting at Sohagpur. In Khera it showed itself 

in a new spirit of generous and good-tempered common work, an unselfish 

readiness to spend long hours on tedious but necessary jobs. In Sohagpur 

the Rachel Metcalfe Home suffered no more harassment; on the contrary 

it received much practical voluntary help from local Friends. There were 

many emotional scenes of repentance and confession, but Khushilal was 

quick to rebuke mere emotionalism. He and Geoffrey, who was only a year 

or two older, became very close friends, and during the following months 

they devoted most of their time to nurturing these seeds of the Spirit in 

the local Meetings. In October, during the Diwali holiday, they invited 

people from other missions to share their experience. Some Indian Friends 

who came from Nowgong were much impressed, and Louise Walker 

herself visited Nowgong to follow up the contact. 

Khushilal was then a man of about 30. He had been born, probably 

in 1 888, in the village of Bagtra on the north side of the Narmada in the 

territory of Bhopal State. His father was famous for many miles round as 

a parihar, one who had power over the 'Spirit' whose shrine stood within 

the walls of their home, and whose cult had a great hold on the local 

people. There were parihars in many villages both north and south of the 

river. The tradition ran in families, and had some affinity with the medi- 

aeval European belief in the 'familiar spirits' of sorcerers and witches. 

When Khushilal was a boy, the spirit from time to time 'came into his 

head', giving him a compulsion to eat dirt and so on. This demon, as he 

told his own sons later, was finally exorcised by one of the Christian 

Friends. The Friends did not work on the north side of the river, but there 

was a great deal of coming and going between the north and the south 

banks. The villages on both sides had all once been part of an old Gond 

kingdom, and there was a lot of intermarriage between them. KhushilaFs 

own sister had married into a family on the south side, in Shobhapur not 

far from Sohagpur. It is likely that Khushilal experienced this exorcism 

and healing in 1902 when he was about 13 or 14 years old. In his grati- 

tude he determined to become a Christian, and the Friends sent him to 

their farm settlement-school at Lahi. 

SADHUS AND PILGRIMS' 

179 

Lahi during those years was a lively place. Devlal, the man in charge, 

was himself from Bhopal State, where he had done excellent work for 

Friends on their farm in Sehore. There were about 70 adolescent boys 

who were being educated and trained in farming skills. Khushilal soon 

showed himself to be intellectually gifted, and a few years later he went 

on from there to Prem Masih's Bible School, and so began his religious 

service in the Friends Mission. He brought to it his own Sanskrit culture, 

a deep spiritual experience, an open attractive way of speaking, and 'the 

most infectious laugh in the whole of the Central Provinces'. 5 

In 1919 Geoffrey, the 'born doctor', was reflecting much on what he 

had read of Stokes' service to the sick, as well as on the power of the Spirit 

shown in the revival. He also thought about the possible 'diffuseness' of 

the sadhu's witness, and came to the conclusion that the usual pattern of 

village preaching by missionaries was equally diffuse. He and Khushilal, 

along with several others, therefore planned a new kind of village camp - 

they would stay in one village, not just for a night or two, but for a full six 

weeks, and see what happened. The village they chose was Bardha at the 

southern end of the district, over 20 miles from Itarsi. Outside the village 

was a big banyan tree, said to be the home of a powerful demon who par- 

ticularly disliked egg-eaters. Here they pitched their camp and ate their 

eggs, while the villagers watched to see what disaster would befall them. 

Five weeks passed, they came to no harm, and interest in their message 

and their books increased. 

Then, towards the end of the sixth week, Khushilal was seized with 

severe pain in the stomach, on which Geoffrey's medicines had no effect. 

Geoffrey thought of how, as is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, the 

disciples of Jesus had exercised powers of healing in Jesus' name, as he 

himself had done during his lifetime. Should not the same divine power 

operate still? He laid his hands on Khushilal and prayed earnestly; sud- 

denly and completely the pain disappeared. 6 

At the end of the six weeks the rest of the team returned to Itarsi, but 

.Geoffrey and Khushilal with a third friend, Dharmasevak, stayed on. More 

healings followed. One day they came upon a man who was crouching over 

a little fire by the roadside and shivering with fever; with his consent they 

laid their hands on him and prayed, and then continued on their way. 'They 

took my fever away with them,' declared the man to his fellow-villagers, 

'and it hasn't come back!' Then there was the village barber whose trouble 

was 'demon-possession'; he too was healed. Then one evening the Friends 

were called to the home of a Brahmin family who had previously ignored 

them. A little boy lay seemingly close to death; the Ayurvedic doctor had 

given up hope of a cure. They prayed long and lovingly with the near- 

despairing parents, but when late at night they withdrew to their camp 

180 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

there had been no visible change, and they dreaded the news the morning 

might bring. Soon after sunrise people came running to call them; the little 

boy was playing happily in the courtyard of his home. 

In the records of Geoffrey's life there are hints of other such healings., 

though later he rarely spoke of them. He was grateful to have a channel 

of healing power, but these experiences did not lead him to neglect the 

'ordinary' medical skills which he possessed, and which he used always 

with loving prayer for his patients. 

Shortly after the long camp at Bardha Geoffrey and Khushilal decided 

to visit Khushilal's home district on the north bank of the Narmada. In 

January 1920, starting from Bankheri in the extreme east of the 

Hoshangabad District, they crossed the river by the ferry at Khedgaon, 

and spent three weeks travelling in sadhu's robes through the villages and 

little towns in that part of Bhopal State. They encountered much suspi- 

cion: were they bogus sadhus spying out the land for their robber con- 

federates? or criminals on the run? or perhaps policemen in disguise? 

If I really were in the secret police [wrote Geoffrey whimsically] , I 

should have excellent opportunities. Finger-prints for example. 

There are few better recorders than the shiny surface of a freshly- 

peeled egg, standard hospitality in these parts. 

There were however some friendly educated officials, and as they trav- 

elled westward they came to a large village where a man ran up to them 

and greeted Khushilal warmly. He was a merchant from Bagtra who had 

known Khushilal from childhood and who had at first been very angry 

with him for becoming a Christian. Later however he had been healed of 

a sickness by Khushilal's prayers and had become his firm friend. Even 

while they were talking another man approached. 'Panditji!' said 

Khushilal, giving him a respectful greeting - for this man had once been 

his Sanskrit teacher. But they did not go on to Bagtra itself; after they had 

come about 25 miles downstream from Khedgaon they crossed the river 

«nain and made straight for Sohagpur. They had at least prepared the way 

lor a more friendly reception next time. 

*Next time' did not come for another year; the ever-present 'drudgery' 

claimed most of Geoffrey's attention. He did pay another visit to Bardha 

Litut was able to exorcise a 'spirit' from a Christian woman there. 'She was 

in perfect health,* he reported. *It was not a case of epilepsy.' In February 

\ l >2 1, with Khushilal and Dharmasevak, he crossed the Narmada 

Mtfuiti. Tim time they crossed at Hoshangabad and travelled upstream 

mi i Ik* Hhopal side towards the area they had visited the previous year. 

No ihevt time to HaKtru, and had a very warm welcome from KhushilaPs 

(itiuilv KhwMhiliil had once sought them out 10 years earlier, and they 

hint irjivirtl him harshly, but in the meanwhile his merchant friend 

SADHUS AND PILGRIMS 

181 

had persuaded them to change their minds. The family shrine was still 

here, the parihar tradition was still active, but friendly listening had 

replaced hostility. Both the family and the people in general readily 

accepted Geoffrey as a fellow-sarfAw; very few, apart from the educated 

officials, recognised him as an Englishman. 

Once in 12 years a great religious festival, the Sinhast mela, takes 

place at Ujjain, one of the most ancient and sacred cities in central 

India. In the third century before Christ (and many centuries before 

Greenwich!) Ujjain had been reckoned the zero meridian of the world. 

Ascetics and pilgrims from both the main Hindu traditions gather at 

the mela, which fell due in 1921. Geoffrey and Khushilal spent a few 

days there, among the sannyasis who were worshippers of Shiva. When 

the 1 2 years had passed, in 1 933, they returned and made friends with 

some of the bairagis, the devotees of Vishnu. Many of the sannyasis 

were open-minded men who sympathised with Gandhi's campaign for 

the 'untouchables', while the bairagis were stout defenders of tradi- 

tional orthodoxy. The two Quakers listened to both parties, trying to 

respond to 'light and truth' in each position. 

It was natural that Geoffrey Maw's thoughts should turn to pil- 

grimage. Living in the Narmada Valley he continually encountered 

the parikrama-basis (the 'dwellers on the circuit') who were circum- 

ambulating the whole course of the holy river, from source to mouth 

and back again, a pilgrimage of over 1,700 miles. Everyone in the 

Hoshangabad District knew of the great annual pilgrimage to the 

mountain shrine beyond Pachmarhi, for the worship of Mahadeo, the 

'Great God' of George Swan's aboriginal friends; everyone knew of 

the mela on the November full-moon day at Bandrabhan where the 

Tawa river joins the Narmada. 7 All along the banks of the Narmada 

itself were little shelters or caves where lived true 'renouncers'. As 

Geoffrey wrote long afterwards, he was moved by the 'inward glory' 

of their lives : 

The more I discovered the haunts and hiding-places of sadhus 

and ascetics, and found among them truly devout men and 

women who had renounced the world and all its attractions, the 

more strongly I felt the urge to turn my back on the rush and 

worry and excitement of the modern world, pick up a little 

bundle of a change of clothes and a blanket, and with staff in 

one hand and brass lota in the other forsake all else and follow 

the well-worn footpath. 

He was soon longing to share in the greatest pilgrimage of all, those 

to the sources of the Ganges ('Mother Ganga') in the central Himalayas, 

to Badrinath, Kedarnath and Gangotri. 8 In the summer of 1923 the 

182 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

opportunity came. Mildred had gone back to England with the children, 

and Geoffrey and Khushilal joined the pilgrimage throngs who trav- 

elled from Hardwar, where Ganga emerges into the plains, up through 

the Himalayan gorges for 225 miles to Badrinath and beyond. 

The adventure caught the imagination of the mid-India Friends, 

who gave Geoffrey a new set of sadhu's clothes - saffron-coloured 

turban, shirt and dhoti (waist-cloth). Geoffrey's attempts to wind the 

turban round his head met with no approval from his friend. 'You look 

like an unemployed waiter,' declared Khushilal, and set to work to do 

the job properly. One end of the cloth became a jaunty 'cock's comb' 

on Geoffrey's head, the other hung down his back to protect his spine 

from the sun. He also wore a chain with a plain cross, thus proclaiming 

openly but wordlessly where his allegiance lay. He found that this gave 

no offence; his fellow-pilgrims accepted him as one of themselves. 

Very occasionally there were suspicions, as among the Bhopal vil- 

lages, that he might be 'a government spy'. On one occasion an 

unfriendly 'nationalist' accused him to his face of being 'an informer 

in disguise'. 'Why disguise?' asked Geoffrey, speaking in Hindi for the 

benefit of other listeners. 'It's obvious that I am English. Have you 

ever noticed any Indians wearing European dress? Would you say they 

were in disguise, or informers? One of the bystanders suddenly 

doubled up with laughter, and Geoffrey understood why when he later 

met his accuser wearing 'European dress' himself! 

Ancient religious tradition enjoined that a pilgrimage should be 

made 'on foot, with joy, in the company of worthy people'. 'Something 

precious has been lost,' Geoffrey was to write 25 years later, 

. . . now that a motor-road has been driven as far as Badrinath. 

The humble pilgrims who still travel on foot must cling to 

crevices in the rocks and inhale petrol fumes and clouds of dust. 9 

But in 1923 the motor-road was undreamed of; he and Khushilal 

shared in the long trek with its spiritual exaltation, its hardships and 

its risks. (In 1923 'the man-eating leopard of Rudraprayag' 1 0 was still 

at large on the pilgrim route.) They felt themselves to be 'in the 

company of worthy people', for the simple common folk with whom 

they shared the journey were full of courage and patience, of goodwill 

and mutual helpfulness. 

As they made friends on the road and at the halting-places there 

were many opportunities to speak, as one friend to another, of what 

they owed to Christ. One such friend was Ram Sarikh Singh, who 

spent every summer in his little hermitage at Badrinath. Ram Sarikh 

had begun life as a door-keeper in a Calcutta business-house. He was 

SADHUS AND PILGRIMS 

183 

entirely self-taught and had read widely. He had inclined to atheism, 

but an experience he called 'a vision' had ^rought him faith. The two 

Quakers met him at Badrinath in 1923 and worshipped daily with him 

in silence. During the years that followed they exchanged letters and 

in 1930 they were able to make the pilgrimage again. This time they 

reached Badrinath in the company of other sadhus whom they had met 

on the way, and invited Ram Sarikh to tea with these new friends on 

the mountainside. 'Here we are all guests of Jesus Christ,' said Ram 

Sarikh. 'I salute Him, but I do not yet know Him.' In 1934 they went 

again. Ram Sarikh was overjoyed to see them, for he had great news: 

he had 'received the initiation of Jesus Christ', and he knew. 

As for the simple humble pilgrims, they had often saved for a life- 

time to meet the cost of this one journey. Geoffrey was angered to see 

how they were treated by the pandas, the professional Brahmin guides; 

these men were often quite merciless towards the poor and extracted 

from them every coin they could. Yet there was compassion and honesty 

to be found even among the pandas, and when Geoffrey met it he 

recorded it with pleasure. On one occasion Khushilal had been left 

behind in hospital at one of the halting-places, Geoffrey was struggling 

alone up the last steep slope to Badrinath. He was shivering with malaria, 

stung by a fierce hailstorm, and feeling 'just about at the end of his 

tether'. A party of pandas overtook him and looked at him. They stopped. 

One of them took off his own coat and put it round Geoffrey's shoul- 

ders, another took his knapsack and carried it for him. They supported 

him up the slope, took him to an inn, brought blankets and hot tea, and 

saw him comfortably settled. Pure, disinterested human kindness! 

Geoffrey's love for pilgrim-seekers led him to other places, to 

Allahabad for the Kumbh-mela, a 1 2th year festival like the Sinhast- 

mela at Ujjain; to the ice-cave of Amarnath among the mountains of 

Kashmir; to the pilgrim centres along his own beloved Narmada river. 

Finally, during his last months in India he visited the sacred source of 

the Narmada itself, in the company of another sensitive sadhu whom 

like Ram Sarikh he had met at Badrinath. He used his camera skill- 

fully to record what he saw, and the camera still opened the way to 

new friendships. Outwardly he made no'converts'; inwardly many lives 

besides his own were enriched, and there were some who saw in his 

life that Indian ideal, nishkama Karma ('action without desire') whose 

spirit is reflected in the prayer of St Ignatius Loyola 'to labour and not 

to ask for any reward save that of knowing that we do Thy will'. 

Geoffrey's vision from Itarsi Peak in 1918, when the land had lain 

before him in the clarity that follows the first monsoon showers, was 

symbolic of much of his later travels among immensely greater peaks 

184 

AX INDIAN TAPESTRY 

and wider vistas. On that day he had rejoiced in the ferns and flowers 

at his feet; on all his journeyings he rejoiced in the wealth of wayside 

flowers and the life of the wild creatures, as well as in the glorious 

scenery. There was a poem whose words he made his own: 

I may not grudge the little left undone. 

I keep the dreams, I hold the heights I won. 

The whole poem has survived among his papers, lovingly transcribed 

in his own beautiful calligraphy. This skill of his added clarity and 

dignity even to the mission account books - a form of 'drudgery* which 

often fell to his lot because of his early training in a bank. 

Geoffrey used this craftsmanship, very joyfully, on the words of 

great passages of prayer and meditation. One of these, a clear and 

lovely transcript of St Paul's Hymn of Love, hung for many years on 

the wall of the Meeting Room at the Quaker Centre in Delhi. The 

words were read, reflected on and treasured by merf^and women of 

many religious traditions, most of whom knew little or nothing of St 

Paul, and who probably gave no thought at all to the man who had set 

his words before them. That too was nishkama Karma, selfless service. 

Geoffrey Maw and Samuel Stokes were neither the first nor the 

last Quakers to value the vocation of the sadhu. Prabhu Dayal Misra 

had been before them; in later generations other Quakers have sought 

out Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry and Sri Ramana Maharsi in 

Tiruvannamalai, and paid tribute to their wisdom, compassion and 

spiritual power. During the decades following the Second World War 

another Quaker sadhu, Gurdial Mallik, enriched the lives of many 

people in India and elsewhere. He lived a life of consecrated 

vagabondage, ready to go anywhere 'at the drop of hat' in response to 

human need. Always he shared the suffering, yet he carried with him 

laughter as joyous and infectious as KhushilaPs before him. 

Gurdial loved to name those to whom he owed most: N. G. 

Chandavarkar, his teacher in Bombay; C. F. Andrews to whom 

Chandavarkar had introduced him; Rabindranath Tagore; Mahatma 

Gandhi. A powerful part of Gandhi's appeal, both to him and to the 

common people of India, was that of the 'renouncer'. A well-known 

story tells how a journalist once challenged Gandhi to put his philos- 

ophy 'in five words only'. 'Five words?' smiled Gandhi. 'Three will do: 

renounce, and enjoy.' Gandhi's merry laughter held a whole-hearted 

enjoyment which was not forgotten by those who were privileged to 

shiire it. 

SADHU S AND PILGRIMS 

185 

Notes to Chapter XIV 

1 F.J.Western later became a much-loved Bishop of the Indian church. 

2 The discipline was called brahmacharya and included celibacy, with which the 

word is often identified. 

3 Compare the words of Rabindranath Tagore: 'Our God has joyfully taken on 

Himself the bonds of creation; he is bound with us all for ever.' 

4 Jack gave further details in a letter to his father dated 3rd May 1916: 'He 

wears apagri (turban) and a long khaki cassock and rope, and bare feet and sandals, 

and carries a blanket and a package of food and a huqah ('hubble-bubble'). He 

says he gets an exceedingly good hearing, though it is a rough life. ... The people 

treat him with great courtesy, fetching water and cooking for him. He smokes his 

huqah with them and tells them about Christ.' (The huqah is passed sociably from 

hand to hand.) 

The author has been unable to trace Sherwood in Cambridge; he may have 

left without taking a degree. Nor has it been possible to trace the pamphlet seen 

by Geoffrey Maw. Many Sherwoods held civil or military posts in India about the 

turn of the century; he may have belonged to one such family. 

5 Description by Amy Montford who met Khushilal in 1927. 

6 This and other details of work in Bordha and Bhopal are found in Geoffrey 

Maw's letter preserved in Friends House Library, London. 

7 The Tawa flows into the Narmada from the south about six miles above 

Hoshangabad. 

8 The Ganga is formed of three rivers, Bhagirathi, Mandakini and Alaknanda, 

and is named Ganga only below the confluences where these unite. 

9 In 1948 the road was open except for the last 50 miles. On Geoffrey's last visit 

in that year he travelled by bus because of his lameness. 

10 Jim Corbett's book of that title tells of his own efforts, finally successful, to 

free the district of this scourge. 

CHAPTER XV 

Kotgarh and Nagpur : 1920 to 1927 

Only a nation that is disinterested can be trusted. And of the 

temple we have to build trust is the cornerstone. 

G. Lowes Dickinson, The Choice Before Us (1917) 

By 1920 Gandhi had become a significant figure in Indian public life. 

He had returned home from South* Africa early in 1915, and had gone to 

Gokhale for his apprenticeship to Indian public service. The next few 

years saw the accomplishment, in part, of some of the things which 

Gokhale had worked for, though he himself did not live to see it. By 1920 

indentured labour overseas was ended - but forms of near-slavery per- 

sisted in India itself; the constitutional reforms planned by the popular 

Montagu promised real political advance - but provision for the people's 

participation in local government, urged by Plowden, Wood and Gokhale 

alike, was still inadequate. And by 1920 other actions of the Government 

had forfeited the people's trust. In 1918 the repressive provision of the 

Rowlatt Acts brought bitter disappointment and wide-spread public 

protest; in April 1919 Government forces opened fire on unarmed demon- 

strators trapped in the enclosed Jallianwala Bagh at Amritsar. That action, 

and the humiliations which followed, turned disappointment into hatred. 

Gandhi, who like Gokhale had believed in co-operation, now became 

a determined non-cooperator, and his influence in India rapidly increased. 

In September 1920 the Indian National Congress held a special session 

in Calcutta to decide whether or not it should cooperate with the new 

Councils. Most of the older leaders wished to do so; Gandhi called for a 

boycott both of the Councils and of the Law Courts and the recognised 

educational institutions. Gandhi carried the day and the boycott was 

launched. One result was that Samuel Stokes, the Kotgarh 'householder', 

became for a time a public figure. In 1915 Stokes had taken his family to 

the United States, where he learned all he could about apple cultivation, 

in the hope that diversified farming might prove useful in Kotgarh. He 

186 

KOTGARH AND NAGPUR : 1920 TO 1927 187 

also made a thorough study of his Quaker ancestors: Thomas Stokes who 

in the 1660's had been imprisoned as a Friend in an English jail; the poor 

Welsh farmers, forefathers of the Evans family, who 'refused to do what 

they considered wrong and suffered greatly for conscience' sake'. 1 These 

were the things he taught his growing children to admire; their family 

wealth, he said, was a serious responsibility, to be used for 'honourable 

service and the privilege of helpfulness'. He felt himself to be what Gandhi 

would have called a trustee, both for his material possessions and for the 

spiritual treasures of his Quaker ancestry. From 1916 onwards he tried 

to exercise this trusteeship in his life in Kotgarh. 

He soon became aware that there was a challenge in Kotgarh to refuse 

to do what was 'considered wrong'. For many centuries the local chief- 

tains of the Simla hills had received from their subjects a service known 

as begar, which meant that the people of a village where the Rajah stayed 

on his travels were required to carry his camp-kit to the next village on 

his tour. On this small local scale the service was not onerous, but after 

1814 when the British took over the administration it became a heavy 

burden. Villages were compelled to work not only for administration offi- 

cers but also for4he postal, public works and forest departments, and even 

for officials and private individuals on pleasure trips and sporting excur- 

sions. This could mean great hardship, especially at times when their own 

fields urgently needed their whole attention. 

Stokes therefore decided that it was his duty to fight this injustice on 

behalf of those who were 'unable in their ignorance to defend themselves'. 

Only constitutional means should be used, but these might include passive 

resistance, which like Martin Wood he defined as willingly accepted suf- 

fering. 'We should conquer,' he wrote, 'by enduring, not by force.' 

The first step was not difficult. By 1 9 1 7 Stokes was a naturalised British 

citizen, respected by Government and people alike. A friendly official 

helped him to secure an agreement that the rate of pay for begar should 

be doubled, which meant that less begar was demanded for frivolous 

reasons. That was only a beginning; to do more he needed united and 

determined popular support, and he found it in Kotgarh. 

In September 1920, just as the Indian National Congress was meeting 

in Calcutta, the Viceroy Lord Chelmsford made a pleasure trip from Simla 

to Baghi. It was a time when the peasants should have been free to prepare 

and sow their fields for the precious winter crop, yet thousands of them, 

poor as they were, were taken from their work to minister to the Viceroy's 

comfort. The time had come to act. Stokes described the situation in an 

article in Gandhi's weekly Young India. 2 Then he drew up a monster peti- 

tion, got it signed by every peasant in the Kotgarh area, and presented it 

to the local authorities at the end of November. It stated courteously but 

18K 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

clearly that after the end of March 1 92 1 - four months ahead - the people 

would refuse all begar whatsoever except for administrative officials on 

duty. They would continue to work for such officials until other arrange- 

ments could be made, but only on conditions : lists of their schedules must 

be posted where the people could easily see them; any supplies they needed 

must be paid for direct, cash down, at fair rates, and not through any 

'middle-man'. They were safeguards which bitter experience had shown 

to be necessary. 

This 'petition* at once brought an official to Kotgarh for face-to-face 

talks, and it was agreed that begar for the postal service should be sus- 

pended immediately. This decision was very welcome, for the postal begar 

could be a dangerous task especially during the winter months ahead. But 

the officials were not prepared to meet the other demands of the people; 

the 'strike notice' came into operation, and the Kotgarh peasants awaited 

developments. Meanwhile they chose Stokes to represent them at the 

regular annual session of the National Congress which was to take place 

in Nagpur at the end of December. 

The chief business before the Congress was to decide whether or not 

Gandhi's non-cooperation programme should be continued. Stokes had 

been one of those who believed in cooperation with the new Provisional 

Councils; it was part of his Quaker tradition, as he saw it, to cooperate 

with anything inherently good. Earlier in the year, before the special 

session at Calcutta, he had met Gandhi and 'argued with him by the hour' 

about it, Stokes had maintained that the first task was to build up the 

people's capacity for self-government. Let the Congress take up local griev- 

ances (such as begar) which the people understood, and show them how 

to act effectively for redress. Let local panchayats be encouraged to execute 

real justice in local disputes, and so by-pass the Law Courts. Congressmen 

in the Legislative Councils, Stokes argued, could give valuable support 

to such programmes. But he argued in vain. £ I can no more convince him 

[Gandhi],' he confessed, 'than he does me.' 

By December when the Nagpur Congress met, the boycott had such 

a record of success that many of those who had previously opposed Gandhi 

were now prepared to support him, and the non-cooperation movement 

was confirmed and continued. Stokes also supported him, but for quite 

different reasons, which he explained in an article in the press. 2A 

Mahatma Gandhi [he wrote] is the greatest moral and political asset 

of our national life. He is working not to impose swaraj from without, 

but to call it into being from within. In obeying him, though dis- 

armed and defenceless [the people of India] have a nobler weapon 

than any invented for human undoing by the hand of man. His is 

the old call to victory by self-renunciation. 

KOTGARH AND NAGPUR : 1920 TO 1927 

189 

Gandhi was 'the renouncer', the renouncer with the vein of steel; that was 

part of his attraction for Stokes. He was one who would conquer, as Stokes - 

had urged the Kotgarh villagers to do, 'by enduring, not by force'. And 

along with this Stokes was attracted by the global human significance of 

Gandhi's leadership: 'He attacks the strongholds of selfishness and sin in 

the national and international life of our race.' 

So in 1921 the non-cooperation movement went on, but in many places 

with a changed emphasis, and other Friends besides Stokes recognised 

its power for good. Even in the political 'back-water' of Hoshangabad 

Perry Pryce described with appreciation Gandhi's attack on such 'strong- 

holds of sin' as untouchability and drink. Siva Ram Herring and Kampta 

Prasad, working for temperance in the local villages, made friends with 

Congress volunteers who were doing the same. Francis Kilbey noted the 

successful campaign to purge the great spring festival, Holi, of its drunken 

licentiousness and spoke of this 'great spiritual movement which mani- 

fests the spirit of Christ'. There was a new hopefulness in the air, in spite 

of some outbreaks of violence in some places. In May, soon after the new 

Viceroy, Lord Reading, had reached India, he invited four men for 

personal talk - Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, C. F. 

Andrews, Samuel Stokes. They were men who represented the wider and 

deeper aspects of the national movement. The Indian Social Reformer, com- 

menting on the Viceroy's choice of advisers, welcomed them as people 

'who place the spiritual above the temporal, and whose highest hopes for 

India are not for herself but for the sake of humanity' 

After that however Stokes concentrated on what he felt was his own 

calling, the service of his local community. At the beginning of April 1 92 1 

when their 'strike notice' expired, the people of Kotgarh quietly and unit- 

edly acted on their decision and refused begar. The officials could not 

move them, and within a week their terms were accepted and begar on the 

Kotgarh stage was ended. The news, of course, ran like wildfire across 

the hills, and the peasants of Bushahr, one of the Agency states, led by a 

man called Kapur Singh, drew up another petition. This time there was 

a riarsh response; Kapur Singh and others were imprisoned, and the 

people appealed to Stokes. Publicity and public opinion had their effect; 

by August the prisoners were released and a full settlement followed; begar 

was ended throughout the region. The battle had been won by wholly 

peaceful means. 

There were other Friends in Nagpur during the stormy year 1920, 

although Stokes did not know of their presence. Before the end of 1919 

Jack Hoyland had arrived there, and begun to work with another Friend, 

Harold Peterson from USA, in the YMCA. Jack took charge of the student 

hostel, and in July 1 920 after the summer vacation he also became manager 

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AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

of the Collegiate High School attached to the Hislop College. The College 

had been founded by Scottish missionaries of whom there were a number 

in the city. They made him welcome, their company was mentally stim- 

ulating, and he was once more doing the work he loved among boys and 

young men. Nevertheless it was a searing experience to return to India 

alone, without Helen and their little boys, and during the first months the 

stress brought on physical ill-health. 

When the summer vacation came, the wise understanding Alfred 

Taylor took Jack off on a trip among the mountain ranges beyond Kotgarh. 

Together they tramped the Tibet road, along the snow-line, and Alfred 

introduced Jack to the scenes and people which he himself had discov- 

ered and enjoyed a few years earlier. 3 For Jack, the holiday was the begin- 

ning of healing, and back in Nagpur the healing continued. He got to 

know Jessie Marais, who had joined the mission in Nagpur about the same 

time as he did, and by November they were engaged to be married. During 

that Christmas vacation, while the Congress assembled in Nagpur, Jack 

took her to meet his old friends in Hoshangabad; in March 1921 the 

wedding took place (with what he felt to be Helen's blessing) under the 

great banyan tree at Makoriya. From then on he enjoyed in Jessie's 

company a serene and happy home; he was no longer alone as he had 

been during that first tumultuous year. 

Tumultuous it was; if Hoshangabad was politically a backwater, 

Nagpur was a volcano. A hundred years earlier it had been the capital of 

a great Maratha state; long before Gandhi launched the Congress non- 

cooperation movement its students were seething with anger at the humil- 

iations in the Punjab, and pride in the Maratha past turned into burning 

hatred of all things foreign, including the 'foreign' religion of the mis- 

sionaries. They tore up their Bibles; when Jack began work at the 

Collegiate High School in July they hissed him in open assembly; one pas- 

sionate youth seriously attempted to murder him. 

During 1920 therefore Jack was involved in what he called 'a continual 

process of reconciliation*. For him the schoolboys of Nagpur were as much 

'younger brothers' as those of Hoshangabad had been, and he at once set 

to work to study and use their own Marathi language. He gave himself 

unstintedly in friendship, entered into their feelings, slowly got their con- 

fidence. When the student who had tried to murder him developed tuber- 

culosis Jack found him a place in a sanatorium, paid for the treatment and 

won his lasting devotion. The young men who had torn up their Bibles 

eagerly attended his scripture classes, and Jack in his turn shared with 

them his new-found enthusiasm for the great Maratha poet-saints, 4 

By October 1 920, when the Congress non-cooperation movement was 

in full swing, Jack could say that in his own school 'all was well', and that 

KOTGARH AND NAGPUR : 1920 TO 1927 

191 

in contrast with the 'chaos' which prevailed in some other places life in 

Nagpur was 'sweet and pleasant'. There as elsewhere the Congress had 

organised independent 'national schools' for those who boycotted the 

Government institutions. Jack recognised their quality, for they offered 

the all-round character training in which he himself so strongly believed 

and which Government schools so often failed to give. Because of this he 

felt the 'chaos 5 at Aligarh to be especially tragic. The new Muslim 

University with its noble ideals, the fruit of so many years of vision and 

devotion, 5 was disrupted by 'nationalists' who captured one wing of the 

building, and whose leaders (as was shown later) deliberately instigated 

serious rioting. 

As 1921 wore on there were other outbreaks of rioting and violence 

which Gandhi was unable to prevent or control. Early in 1922 he there- 

fore called off the whole movement, an action which displeased many 

Congressmen. He himself was arrested, tried for sedition and sentenced 

to six years' imprisonment. His integrity, and the courtesy of the British 

judge, gave the trial a unique dignity, and partly at least because of the 

moral authority he exercised the people accepted the sentence peacefully. 

Government officials who had 'expected no end of trouble' were pleas- 

antly surprised; Jack Hoyland, who had earlier considered that Gandhi's 

talk of non-violence was 'fatuous', changed his mind! 

The end of the non-cooperation movement meant the end also of most 

of the 'national schools'; the Hislop College, which for a time had been 

almost emptied, filled up again. For the next five years Jack devoted himself 

to a 'free and fearless' education for his students there as fully as he had 

done in Hoshangabad. Trained historian as he was, he took classes in 

history; he also wrote a text-book on the subject, hoping to promote a 

more human and humane approach. This turned out, as he drily 

remarked, to be a compromise between his own ideas of how history should 

be taught and his publisher's ideas of what would sell! He played games 

with his students, as in Hoshangabad. Remembering what a contribution 

the hostel there had -made to the life of the Kharraghat school, he urged 

Friends to build a student hostel for the Hislop College in Nagpur, and 

did much to raise the money and bring the hostel into being. Again and 

again he led parties of volunteers to the aid of villages devastated by plague 

or cholera, as he had done during the influenza epidemic of 1918. For 

college assemblies and hostel devotions he wrote Prayers for use in an Indian 

College, a book which was treasured and used far beyond the confines of 

the college for which it was written. 

The year 1923 brought further opportunities for the kind of service 

Jack could give. Nagpur was the headquarters of the National Christian 

Council, which in that year decided to publish its own journal, TheHanei: 

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AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Field, and invited Jack to become one of the editors. He accepted, on the 

understanding that it should promote 'non-party constructive political 

discussion', advocate Indian leadership in the church, welcome original 

religious thought (even the 'heretical') tind emphasise spiritual regenera- 

tion - the new birth - as the core of the faith. Talk of church union was 

already in the air, and Jack, whose thinking and friendships had always 

over-leaped sectarian boundaries, began reflecting on what Friends in 

India might contribute to 'the united church of the future'. Their func- 

tion, he wrote, was not to be a sect, but 'a vitalising force without a label', 

which might help the church to find unity not in doctrine but in experi- 

ence, the experience of 'new birth' and of a 'living Christ'. That spiritual 

presence guides his people now, and will guide them to decide whether 

or not to be baptised or renounce their caste allegiance. 

During the same years Samuel Stokes in Kotgarh was working and 

thinking on parallel lines. He too sought the right kind of education for 

his growing children and the village children who were their playmates. 

He started a school for all of them together, and from 1925 onwards he 

had valuable help from a fellow-American named Richard B. Gregg. 

Gregg settled in Kotgarh for about three years, and worked out methods 

for teaching science, mathematics and so on, which were geared to the 

needs and interests of the local people. Stokes also, like Jack, wrestled 

with questions of Christian unity. He wrote for an independent Madras 

paper, The Christian Patriot; Indians, he said, must not be content simply 

to adopt western patterns of church life. They must find their own way, 

and work out for themselves the right relationship between loyalty to the 

universal Christ and loyalty to their own local community. 

Jack had been stirred by the Maratha saints and especially by George 

Fox's contemporary Tuka Ram. Stokes also found in the treasures of 

Indian devotion confirmation and challenge for his own faith. He called 

himself (like the very earliest disciples) a 'follower of the Way', and his 

attitude to the scriptures, all scriptures, was essentially a Quaker one. 

Their 'authority', he said, lies in their power to speak a living word to the 

individual soul. Stokes' words echo that book he had so long treasured, 

The Imitation of Christ, but in speaking of the sense of ultimate mystery 

lie turns to ancient India, to one of the great hymns of the Rig Veda. 6 

Stokes like Jack found deep contentment in his home* During the non- 

cooperation movement in 1921 he was sentenced to six months' impris- 

onment, and like many others used his enforced leisure to reflect and 

write. He wrote for his wife, to share with her the thoughts which had 

developed from the insights that had led him 10 years earlier to take her 

us his bride. The paper was not meant for publication, and became known 

only later when Andrews persuaded Stokes to let it be printed. Human 

KOTGARH AND NAGPUR : 1920 TO 1927 

193 

personal selves, he wrote, are the fruit of the 'timeless inherent need 5 of 

a God of love for loving personal experience; the 'profound truth [that] 

lies at the back of the teaching of the Cross' is that 'he who loves is surely 

crucified in the pain and sorrow and bewilderment of those he loves.' 7 

The Hoylands' home in Nagpur was a place of hospitality for old 

friends and new. It was a special delight to have a visit from Geoffrey Maw 

in 1924, when they listened with deep interest to Geoffrey's account of 

his experiences the previous year on the road to Badrinath. They arranged 

for him to speak on the subject at a public meeting; he attracted an even 

bigger crowd than the political speakers, and during the following years 

he too became a familiar figure in Nagpur and gave valuable service there. 

Meanwhile the life of the Hoyland home was enriched by the birth of 

Jessie's children, a son, and then amid special rejoicing, a daughter] 

Apart from that, there were aspects of the Indian scene which gave 

Jack great uneasiness. After Gandhi's imprisonment the mutual goodwill 

between Hindu and Muslim which had prevailed during the non- 

cooperation movement was eroded by ugly 'communal 5 rioting, of which 

Nagpur had its share. When Gandhi was released on health grounds early 

in 1924 he at once sought the help of his Muslim friend Mahommad Ali 

in restoring confidence. His scrupulous sense of honour forbade him to 

enter the political field until the six years of his original sentence had 

expired. He devoted himself to what he called his 'constructive pro- 

gramme', to the kind of 'building from below' which Stokes had urged 

in 1920, and one plank of it was the 'Hindu-Muslim unity 5 for which 

Gokhale had pleaded. 

Another friend, the great Muslim Abdul Ghaffar Khan, saw that this 

unity must rest on something deeper than mere political convenience; 

there must be a willingness on both sides to study and understand the 

other's religion and culture. Jack Hoyland responded eagerly; he and 

Harold Peterson, the American Friend, talked over ways in which Friends 

might help to build 'bridges of understanding 5 , 'What about getting 

Thomas Kelly 8 to India?' asked Peterson. 'He longs to see devotees of all 

religions united in a joint search for truth.' Jack welcomed the idea, for 

he realised that in this sensitive field he himself, as an Englishman, would 

inevitably be suspect; an American might have a better chance. But in the 

end Kelly did not come; the 'bridge of understanding' was unbuilt. 

The Hindu-Muslim tensions affected remote Kotgarh little if at all, 

but Stokes fully shared Jack Hoyland's uneasiness at another aspect of the 

scene : the danger that 'nationalism 5 could become mere national selfish- 

ness. For Stokes, national selfishness was as bad as any other kind of self- 

ishness. 'Nationalism' had become an almost unquestioned ideal, and not 

many Indian nationalists were as clear as Gandhi was that service of the 

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AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

motherland was a part of service to humanity, and that 'if need be the 

nation must die in order that the human race may live'. Young Indian 

Christians, rightly in rebellion against the isolation of their community 

from the mainstream of Indian life, were as slow to accept the limitations 

of nationalism as were others. In 1924 Jack told a Christian student con- 

ference in Madras that deeply as Jesus cared for his own people he was 

not a 'nationalist' ; the idea was not well received ! Jack however was coming 

to believe that 'modern democratic nationalism is the arch-enemy of God 

on earth', 9 and with this in his mind he read Rabindranath Tagore's essay 

Nationalism. 

Tagore argued, not for 'democracy', but that the cold foreign bureau- 

cratic 'government by machine' should be replaced by the Indian tradi- 

tion of personal human relationships between rulers and ruled. So far so 

good, thought Jack, but how to ensure that the rulers fulfilled their moral 

obligations? The Indian States, as far as he knew, ranged over the whole 

spectrum, from those far better ruled than 'British India' to those 

oppressed by petty and grievous tyranny. He had himself seen how such 

tyranny might be exercised by local bullies over helpless outcaste villagers 

-he had seen it done with impunity only a few miles from Nagpur. What 

if Indian personal rule were to meet oppression of that kind? The articles 

which Jack continued to write for The Indian Social Reformer show him 

'thinking aloud' about the whole question. . 

The third source of uneasiness for Jack was that during the later 1920's 

some 'national' leaders were advocating that India should use methods 

very different from Gandhi's in the struggle for freedom. They were 

angered by those who said that because India could not 'defend herself 

she was unfit to govern herself. It was widely believed that Gandhi, polit- 

ically inactive as he then was, was politically finished, that the non-violent 

method of victory through endurance which had appealed so strongly to 

Stokes had failed. In Nagpur itself, as Jack knew, one national leader was 

telling Indian youth 'to learn to kill, scientifically'. The evil of political 

assassination, against which Gokhale had fought since the mid-90's, raised 

its head again, and was used not only against the British rulers but in the 

service of Hindu-Muslim rivalry also. Andrews' old friend Mahatma 

Munshi Ram (now Swami Shraddhananda), of whom Jack cherished such 

a vivid memory, was murdered by a Muslim in Delhi. 

The YMCA's triennial conference was meeting in Bombay, and Jack 

was present. The conference laid aside all other business and sought 

earnestly for guidance about how its members might best serve India in 

this crisis. They found one guide in the philosopher Dr S. Radhakrishnan, 

who spoke in the spirit of Gandhi. 'You Christians,' he said, 'are called 

to a life of reconciliation, forgetting patriotism in the service of humanity' 

KOTGARH AND NAGPUR : 1920 TO 1927 

195 

Once more, for Jack, came the call to build 'bridges of understanding'. 

Radhakrishnan 's message was completed by Manilal Parikh, a Christian 

who combined his loyalty to Christ with loyalty to the community of his 

birth, and lived with his Jain kinsfolk in their family home. 'Our recon- 

ciliation,' he said, 'can only be offered in humility, recognising that we 

share the guilt.' The anger against the Arya Samaj which had led to the 

murder had been provoked by its adoption of the aggressive methods of 

propaganda practised by some Christians. 

Through those five years in Nagpur, therefore, the burdens on Jack's 

shoulders had become steadily heavier. It was only possible to carry them 

at all because his happy home life was combined with a very disciplined 

routine in his own use of time. Then in 1927 came an overwhelming per- 

sonal grief, the death of his father John William Hoyland. Ever since, as 

a child of five, Jack had lost his mother, his father had been his most 

trusted friend; all through his 15 years in India they had shared every- 

thing by letter. The realisation that this comradeship was irrevocably 

ended brought complete nervous exhaustion. Finding himself incapable 

of any mental exertion whatever, he spent months doing simple physical 

tasks in his beloved Makoriya. Early in 1928 he and Jessie returned to 

Britain with their young children. 

The nervous exhaustion passed off, but medical checks in Britain 

revealed other problems. In 1924 Jack had had a bout of dengue fever, a 

disease of the coastal plains which he probably contracted on a visit to 

one of the coastal cities. That, along with the enteric fever which he had 

suffered in 1917, had caused permanent physical damage. The doctors' 

verdict was that he should not return to India, and he accepted it. His 

service for India was not however ended, though from then on it was given 

indirectly. Nor was Stokes' service ended; but he too never again played 

the part in public affairs which he had done in the 1920's. 

Notes to Chapter XV 

1 Stokes gives as the source of these particulars the Journal of John Humphrey 

of Merion, 1680. 

2 Young India, 1 3th October 1920. 

2a Presumably one of the articles referred to in the Foreword to The Failure of 

European Civilisation as a World Culture, Madras 1921, p. 1: 'During December 

last I contributed a series of articles to the Servant and the Bombay Chronicle: 

I 0(> AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

l Ihr hulure of European Civilisation (set previous note), pp.ix-x. 

I Article, 'Our Duty', in the Bombay Chronicle^ 1921. 

World Outlook, Geneva 1926. [Xot founds 

u Young India. [Date not found.] 

7 Satyakama, Madras 1931, p.345. 

K The author of the much-valued Testament of Devotion. 

( J I ,ctter in the archives of the American Friends Service Committee. 

CHAPTER XVI 

'Embassies of the City of God' : 

1919 to 1927 

Make a new beginning 

And mingle again the kindred of the nations 

in the alchemy of Love, 

And with some finer essence of forbearance and forgiveness 

Temper our minds. 

Aristophanes, Peace 

QUOTED By'H. T. HODGKIN IN LAY RELIGION 

During the years which followed the First World War, and largely 

because of the new thinking induced by the war, there emerged a new 

pattern of Quaker activity in India. From the turn of the century there 

had been influences working for change; Jack Hoyland's work at 

Hoshangabad had been shaped by such influences, but from 1919 

onwards the change was visible and recognised. 

The pioneer was Carl Heath. A contemporary of Andrews and of 

Gandhi, he had spent his boyhood among radical thinkers in Paris, Then, 

after a period as a young teacher in the London slums he had begun to 

work like Martin Wood, for arbitration and peace in Europe. After the 

Peace Congress of 1908 he joined Joseph Gundry Alexander in the 

National Peace Council in Britain. But in 1914 the flood of 'patriotic' 

passion swept the Peace Council away, for its appeal to reason and 

commonsense was not enough, and to stand for peace in those days needed 

'a conviction of the soul'. Carl Heath possessed this conviction, as did the 

Friends; in 1916, at the age of 47, he himself became a Friend, 

Heath shared Westcotfs faith in a 'spiritual illumination' available to 

the whole human family, and he at once called on Friends to prepare to 

set up 'embassies of the city of God in every great city of man'. Their 

197 

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AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Frank Squire. 

Frederic Gravely. 

ambassadors, he said, should spearhead 'a new missionary movement' for 

peace and goodwill among men, and stand for the reality of the universal 

divine indwellings then for study, and thirdly for service. Heath laid these 

proposals before London Yearly Meeting in 1 9 1 7, with the strong support 

of Henry Hodgkin the secretary of the FFMA. Joseph and Katherine 

Taylor, who had retired in 1915 after 25 years in the Hoshangabad area, 

spoke of their own long-standing concern for Calcutta; it was agreed that 

Calcutta should be the first 'great city of man' to receive a Quaker embassy, 

and as soon as the armistice of November 1918 made travel possible the 

Taylors sailed, arriving early in 1919. They found other Friends already 

there who were ready to share their concern for a centre of peace and 

goodwill, Friends who were trying 'to spread the Truth through their ordi- 

nary daily business'. 1 

The first to arrive had been Frederic Gravely. A Quaker home and 

education had given him an interest in natural history, and after taking 

his degree in 1909 he had obtained a post in the Indian Museum in 

Calcutta, where he worked for his doctorate in biology. There was no one 

to tell him of the 'Hindu Quakers', but he ignored the gulf which sepa- 

rated British and Indian society, and found a congenial field of service 

among some of the needy and despised. The 'Old Mission Church 5 in 

Bow Bazaar had a Boys' Home for the destitute of any race - Indian, 

Chinese, Eurasian, and there Gravely spent his free time, making friends 

with them and introducing them to the fun of scouting. 

'embassies of the city of god' : 1919 to 1927 !*>*> 

Calcutta was the headquarters of the Indian YMCA, which had been 

founded from America and was still largely American-led. One of its 

special concerns, as in Nagpur, was the welfare of students; it was in fact 

doing work which was later taken over by the Student Christian 

Movement. During the war however the needs of young men in the army 

claimed prior attention, and the Calcutta staff was depleted. In 1917 an 

Irish Friend named Frank Squire, a business man in his early 40\s, arrived 

to help them. He and Gravely, along with F. B. Hadow, the padre of the 

Old Mission Church, began to hold a Friends Meeting for Worship in the 

church every Saturday evening, followed by the Compline prayers. Not 

long afterwards Nalin Ganguly came back from Hoshangabad to his 

Calcutta home and also began working for the YMCA. 

The Taylors therefore got a warm welcome. They spent their first six 

weeks with Frederic Gravely, while Nalin Ganguly and his Bengali friends 

set to work to find them a house - not in the 'European' part of the city 

but in the midst of its Indian population. They decided on 96 Beadon 

Street, in a modest Bengali neighbourhood near the University, and went 

to live there along with Frank Squire in March 1919. The house had 

previously been 'The Beadon Bar Hotel', and had had rather a shady 

reputation. They cleaned it up, and had soon 'turned hell into heaven', 

as a Bengali neighbour put it. They decided to call their new centre the 

'Friends Settlement', and their Indian visitors quickly felt at ease there, 

as they had done in Elkanah Beard's first 'Quaker centre' in Benares nearly 

50 years before. 

One of Joseph Taylor's first acts was to seek out the 'Hindu Quakers', 

Poornachandra was no longer there; he had died about 1912, and the 

younger, less-experienced members, who were very few in number, had 

been unable to maintain their Bengali Meeting for Worship without him. 

Nalin Ganguly the Bengali might perhaps have helped them, but he left 

for further study in England soon after the Settlement was opened. The 

new Meeting at Beadon Street used English; the Bengali group did not 

find this easy, so although they paid friendly visits and brought the Taylors 

their old records, they did not become involved. 

In her own special work Katherine Taylor was able to overcome these 

language barriers. She was warm and outgoing, and quickly made friends 

among women of all communities, who worked together hard and 

methodically for the welfare of Calcutta's women and children. They 

revived the then moribund Vigilance Committee; they got a Children's 

Bill brought before the Provincial Council and passed into law; they 

opened a Home for children rescued from the brothels of the Chitpore 

Road. The value of Katherine's leadership was recognised; in spite of her 

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AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

foreign blood and lack of Bengali she was invited to stand for election as 

representative of her ward on the Municipal Council. 

Katherine courteously declined the invitation, but it was remarkable 

that it should have been given at all during those years. They were the 

years of 'non-cooperation'; the Amritsar tragedy had taken place barely 

a month after the Settlement was opened, and Calcutta was a place of 

constant political unrest. This however was not immediately apparent, 

and did not prevent much quiet work at the Settlement. As time passed 

other Friends came to Calcutta in the course of 'their ordinary daily busi- 

ness', and greatly valued the Meeting for Worship as the power-house for 

their work. Among them were former members of the war-time Friends' 

Ambulance Unit, Jack Clarke in the YMCA, Stanley Virgo in a bank. 

There were British and American Friends in business and in the profes- 

sions. There were others, not Friends, who valued the Quaker fellowship 

for special reasons. The vindictive hatred of Germany which marred the 

Treaty of Versailles in 1919 also poisoned the life of 'English 5 churches 

in Calcutta, and drove sensitive spirits away. One of these, a young Baptist 

named Horace Collins, was to become a tower of strength to lonely paci- 

fists in India 20 years later. 

There were also Indian attenders. Many of them were students, 

attracted by Joseph Taylor's lively open mind and Frank Squire's interest 

in their welfare. The 'study' programme of the Centre included Sunday 

evening lecture-forums, which were popular with thoughtful people of all 

ages; there were also more intimate groups which read and discussed the 

Gospels. Interest was keen, for Mahatma Gandhi's reverence for Jesus 

was by then widely known, and Hindus and Muslims alike were asking 

their Christian friends to help them to learn about him. 

For Gandhi, Jesus was the supreme example of a life wholly regulated 

by 'the eternal law of Love'. For the students who came to study and 

worship at the Friends Settlement, Gandhi himself embodied 'the way of 

love taught by Jesus, the way to freedom'. But for these young men 'Christ' 

was one thing and 'Christian' another. A Christian was still, for them, a 

foreigner. One of Frank Squire's students was so openly committed to 

Christ that Frank asked him why he did not 'become a Christian 1 . 

Everyone knows [he replied], that I love Christ and try to live like 

Jesus. But I must remain a Hindu. I do not wish to have hatred in 

my heart as the English do against the Germans. 

No wonder that Joseph Taylor, as he watched these earnest young- 

sters, felt increasingly that he wished neither to be 'bottled and labelled 

and put on a shelf, nor to apply labels to other people. Younger Friends 

in India were with him; Jack Hoyland in Nagpur had also felt the chal- 

lenge to Friends to become 'a vitalising force without the label'. Even 

'embassies of the city of god' : 1919 to 1927 201 

before Joseph Taylor left England for India at the end of 1918 he had 

urged his fellow-Friends 3 to practise, along with their accepted standards 

of moral integrity, a new poverty and simplicity, and the presence of a 

'living Christ' who can and does guide his people now. These too were 

things which had become real to Joseph's younger contemporaries, Stokes 

and Maw and Khushilal. The task was not to insist on labels, but 'to lead 

men to Christ and leave them there'. 

The Friends Settlement therefore began to print short papers through 

which these things might be shared more widely. By the end of 1 92 1 there 

were three. The World's Greatest Guru was about Jesus; A Great Spiritual 

Teacher described the work and message of George Fox; A Friend of Man 

andBeastwas about that prophet of simplicity John Woolman. 4 The papers 

were printed anonymously, but the first is known to have been written by 

an Indian Friend, G. L. Narasimhan of Bombay, and that it so 'spoke to 

the condition' of India in 1921 that it was re-printed in full in a widely- 

read periodical, The Christian Patriot of Madras. 

G. L. Narasimhan came originally from Vizianagram in south India, 

but had settled in Bombay. There he became a friend of the Karmarkar 

family who owned The Guardian's press, and Joseph Taylor had met him 

in earlier years when he visited -Bombay on Guardian business. They 

became friends, and Narasimhan visited the Taylors in Hoshangabad 

district and became interested in Quakers. In 1916 he attended their 

Golden Jubilee meetings and was much impressed by Sadhu Sunder 

Singh; soon after, he was accepted into membership. Previously he had 

been a member of the Brahmo Samaj, and his wife was the daughter of 

one of its Calcutta leaders, so that he was a regular visitor to the city and 

his friendship with the Taylors was renewed. 

Narasimhan's paper, The World's Greatest Guru y was written for an 

Indian readership at a particular time, but had a wider relevance, for like 

Henry T Hodgkin he regarded Jesus as 'the most revolutionary and daring 

spirit the world has ever known'. 3 At a time when 'all eyes are turned on 

Mahatma Gandhi', Narasimhan's purpose is £ to lay bare the secret of his 

wonderful power and authority'. That secret, he says, is to be found in 

the 'eternal law of Love' which Gandhi had learned from Jesus, and which 

when perfected 'casts out fear'. 'Fearlessness,' Gandhi declared, 'is the 

first requisite of spirituality;' he believed that India had lost her external 

freedom because she had lost her 'moral stamina 5 . Therefore, said 

Narasimhan, the guru who can teach modern India the Vidya (knowl- 

edge) of fearless love is the greatest of all gurus. Jesus taught that secret 

by the cross; the meaning of the cross is an 'internal swaraf by which self- 

ishness is crucified, and without which external swaraj cannot be had. 

202 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Narasimhan goes on to speak of the obstacles which keep India from 

Christ: he is the foreigners' god; his church is split up into institutions 

defaced by the quarrels of the sects; the so-called Christian nations, greedy 

for wealth, make war on one another. Let India reject these things, but 

let her recognise also that 'the moral and spiritual grandeur of Christ 

belongs to all . . . Christ is the Seed of the spirit of Love, buried in each 

one of us.' If we follow this Guru's teaching 'we shall not overcome the 

west with firearms but with that true spirituality which at one time made 

India the preceptor of the world.' 

The Settlement itself did its best to overcome the three obstacles 

of which Narasimhan had written. The first and most difficult was its 

'foreignness'. The Meeting for Worship grew no local roots. It was valued 

and attended chiefly by foreigners and students, but the latter were nat- 

urally a continually changing group, not permanent residents. There was 

friendly social intercourse with Bengali neighbours, at ease in the sim- 

plicity of the Friends' way of life, but they were not attracted to the 

Meeting, which therefore did not survive when the foreign Friends with- 

drew. 

The Settlement did make some contribution to lessening the evils of 

sectarianism. Frederic Gravely and Frank Squire had already made a 

beginning when they joined F. B. Hadow to help the Old Mission Church, 

and shared both forms of worship. At the end of 1919 Gravely had been 

transferred to Madras, but Squire and Taylor had continued the friendly 

contact with Hadow and the boys. The established churches nevertheless 

regarded the Taylors' coming with suspicion, but this soon changed. 

' When you first came you were not wanted,' said a senior Indian Christian 

to Joseph Taylor. 'But you have been a blessing. This house is a centre of 

unity and fellowship for us all.' Joseph's own attitude opened the way. 

'The church is an organism, a living body,' he wrote, 'which means that it 

has distinctions within a unity. Both the unity and the distinctions are 

essential.' The Oxford Mission, which gave a high place to sacramental 

ritual, showed generous appreciation of the Settlement's work, whereas, 

as Joseph was aware, some Friends in England regarded 'ritualists' with 

hostility. 'We have very good relations with our friend the enemy? he once 

wrote to London, 'but better not say so in a report!' (Forty years later a 

young London Friend, Fred Pinn, worked with the Oxford Mission to 

create a school where boys from the poorest homes learned 'to handle 

tools with skill, tackle jobs with confidence, and use their brains on their 

real problems.' It was practical education for the poorest of the poor such 

as Jack Hoyland had longed to see provided for the needy villages of the 

Hoshangabad District.) 

'embassies of the city of god' : 1919 to 1927 203 

The third obstacle, the violence and hatred which Narasimhan had 

seen in the 'Christian' nations of the west, was encountered in the 

Settlement in a different form. Bengal never wholeheartedly accepted 

Gandhi's leadership, and national feeling in Calcutta sometimes exploded 

into acts of indiscriminate anti-British violence. Beadon Square was a sort 

of local Hyde Park Corner; within a few yards of the Settlement speakers 

poured out such racial hatred that the Taylors' Bengali neighbours invited 

them to take refuge in their homes if need should arise. Fortunately it 

never did. 

It seemed to Joseph Taylor that one good way to make the Settlement 

a centre of peace and goodwill would be to revive the Bombay Guardian, 

and to carry on in its pages the same fair and honest scrutiny of public 

affairs which had marked it in the days before the war. Letters came to 

him from former readers, telling him how much they had valued its 4 unde- 

viating standard of right and wrong' and its 'combination of breadth and 

spirituality'. 6 Jack Hoyland too was enthusiastic that this should be done, 

and Joseph hoped to make it a priority and get the Guardian going by the 

beginning of 1 920 as 'a link in the chain of Quaker periodicals' . In Calcutta 

the way was open, for a former organ of Christian opinion, The Friend of 

India, had ceased publication. 

The Trustees in London however preferred that Friends should coop- 

erate with others in the venture. Joseph understood why; the Bombay 

Guardian had had to close because Friends could not provide continuity 

of Quaker editorship. There followed months and years of time- 

consuming and fruitless negotiation with the YMCA, which Joseph found 

very frustrating. Finally an independent Indian committee was formed, 

and the Guardian published its first Calcutta number in January 1923. 

There was therefore no mouthpiece of concerned and impartial Quaker 

commentary on the momentous national events of the intervening years. 

Joseph Taylor and his committee found an able and sensitive Associate 

Editor in A. N. Sudarisanam. He was one of that growing number of 

thoughtful Indian Christians who deplored the isolation of their com- 

munity from the mainstream of national life. Some of the pioneers, men 

of Francis Kilbey's generation or a little younger, had in 1905 formed a 

'National Missionary Society', to by-pass the sectarianism of the foreign 

missions and witness for Christ in their own country in their own way. 

From that initiative grew others; like-minded thinkers established The 

Christian Patriot, and the first Christian ashrams came into being seeking 

to express discipleship of Christ in Indian spiritual terms. A sympathetic 

foreigner, J. N. Farquhar, left his original mission to become literary sec- 

retary of the YMCA, and work alongside an Indian, K. T Paul, to build 

up a cadre of Indian writers for YMCA publications. Sudarisanam, himself 

204 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

a South Indian, had worked closely with K. T. Paul, a Christian who had 

spoken at meetings in London, organised during the Yearly Meeting in 

the summer of 1919, of India's need to judge for itself how much it could 

rightly and wisely accept from the west - even from western Friends! 

For the first issue of the Calcutta Guardian Joseph Taylor and 

Sudarisanam drew up a statement of editorial policy. 

This paper is national [they wrote] . It believes that the government 

of the country should be carried on with the willing consent of 

those governed. ... It stands for freedom - national, religious, 

social - which it believes to be a profoundly Christian thing. 

The paper was welcomed; Hoyland and Kilbey did what they could in 

writing for it; G. L. Narasimhan raised in its columns a question of great 

interest to the cause of goodwill in India: 'Can the Hebrew-Christian and 

Hindu-Buddhist streams of religious thought unite? 5 It was a good start, 

but Joseph Taylor could not share in its development for much more than 

a year. By 1924 he had become almost completely deaf, and he and 

Katherine decided to withdraw. The Settlement was closed; as Joseph had 

foreseen, there was no concerned Friend available to provide continuity. 

The Guardian however did not close down, though it passed through 

some very difficult times. Sudarisanam carried it on with courage and 

determination, with the help of the Indian committee and especially of 

Dr H. C. Zacharias, a Christian member of the Servants of India Society. 

The paper maintained its scrupulous honesty and fairness, but after The 

Christian Patriot ceased publication Sudarisanam moved it to Madras, 

where its integrity and independence continued to win respect, and where 

Friends in India, as well as the Trustees in Britain, gave a good deal of 

personal support. 

Joseph Taylor himself died early in 1927, when the Guardian was still 

in Calcutta, and it printed the tributes of his many friends there. He was 

so young in mind, they said, so 'actively interested in everything'. Like 

his brother Alfred, who loved exploring, he too had a cherished hobby. 

Joseph's was water-colour painting, which he taught to little boys in 

Calcutta schools to his and their great enjoyment. When his deafness 

excluded him from conversation he would gracefully set his hostess at ease 

by retiring to a corner with his sketch-book. The spiritual maturity 

expressed in such personal caring had attracted old and young alike. He 

and Katherine were 'real Christians ... if only there were more like them!' 7 

Ten years after they left Calcutta they were remembered with loving 

respect by Friends in Madras, a city they had never visited. 

For 'there zvere more like them'. All through the Taylors' years in 

( 'alcuita oilier Friends had been coming to India to 'live the Truth' in a 

'EMBASSIES OF THE CITY OF GOD' : 1919 TO 1927 205 

great variety of personal service, and in 1921 for the nrst nme the FFMA 

made mention of such Friends in its annual report. Two of them had been 

in India from before the war, Arthur Davies in the Law College in Madras 

and Percy Oddie Whitlock in the Indian Educational Service in Orissa. 

Little is known of Arthur Davies* public service except that it won him 

the Kaiser-i-Hind medal. Percy Oddie Whitlock however was Jack 

Hoyland's contemporary and in many ways his counterpart. 

Whitlock, like Hoyland, had graduated from Cambridge in 1910. He 

had spent the next three years teaching in Quaker schools, Kendal and 

Bootham. At Cambridge C. F Andrews had turned his thoughts towards 

India, and in 1914 he was appointed Professor of English in the 

Government Ravenshaw College at Cuttack, then the capital of Orissa. 

He brought with him a brilliant academic and athletic record, and he was 

soon playing cricket alongside his students in the College teams. His quiet 

competence and genial human friendliness shows up in an incident related 

by a student of a later generation who knew him as Principal. After one 

vacation the students had returned to a new hostel building, and happily 

prepared for entry by swilling the floors, Indian style, with several buckets 

of water. They discovered too late that no drainage outlet had been pro- 

vided. Laboriously they mopped up the floor, and then complained to the 

contractor, who reported them to Whitlock for 'impertinence'. Whitlock 

listened quietly to their story, dismissed them and said no more. A few 

days later he called the boys to his room and introduced them to the 

English Chief Engineer. 

I'm told [said the engineer with a smile] that you want to know why 

there are no water outlets in your rooms. The truth is that the engi- 

neering books were all written in England, and in England they 

don't wash floors that way. 

'Why not get a book written for India?' asked Whitlock drily. 

The students of course were politically alive, and during the non- 

cooperation movement of 1920 they boycotted their classes and picketed 

the college gates. Whitlock strolled along to talk with them. 'Is it true,' he 

asked, 'that Dr Rajendra Prasad is one of your leaders?' 'Yes sir/ they 

replied. 'In that case,' said Whitlock, 'your movement is to be respected. 

I know Dr Prasad; I know him to be a man of honour.' 8 Years later, when 

Whitlock was acting Principal, he rebuked another generation of students 

for walking out of their classes when the news of Lajpat Rai's death reached 

them. 'That was discourteous to your teachers,' he said. 'Why didn't you 

come to me? I would have suspended classes, and we could have held a 

proper memorial meeting.' But he bore them no grudge. 

In class, Whitlock endeared himself by his frank man-to-man 

approach. He was never afraid to say 'I don't know, I'll think that over, 

206 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

we'll come back to it tomorrow.' He was not afraid to say openly in class 

that if India had a leader of the stature of Garibaldi she would soon be 

free. An unusual style for a Government College in the 1920's! Whitlock 

devoted himself to the Ravenshaw College for 1 5 years, and for five years 

more to the Government College in Patna. Shortly before he retired in 

1935 he said of himself, what all his students knew to be true: 'It is pos- 

sible to be a Government servant and fair-minded.' 9 

Another fair-minded Government servant was Frederic Gravely. When 

he reached Madras from Calcutta at the beginning of 1920 some Friends 

were already there, and they were soon joined by others. Besides Arthur 

Davies there were Edward Barnes, teaching in the Madras Christian 

College, and William and Lavinia Hindle in the YMCA. Guy Jackson, an 

engineer in Government service, with his wife Emily, lived sometimes in 

the city and sometimes in some other southern town. In 1921 Reginald 

Dann was appointed Director of Town Planning, and he and his wife Freda 

joined the group. A Meeting for Worship was soon established, and as in 

Calcutta attracted Seekers' both Indian and foreign. In 1 925 came Dorothy 

Hersey, to teach music and English in an independent Indian school. 

All these Friends, in their several ways, 'witnessed to truth' in their 

daily work. Gravely contributed to the Government his scientific enthu- 

siasm and his concern for human relationships. Previous Superintendents 

had run it as a one-man show; under Gravely's unobtrusive leadership its 

staff became a team working together on a common task: to help the 

people of the city to respect and enjoy their natural environment and their 

cultural traditions. Gravely and his team created a fine archaeological 

gallery, where treasures of stone and bronze sculpture are displayed 'in a 

way which the ordinary interested visitor can readily understand'. 

To help people to enjoy their natural environment the Museum staff 

prepared a comprehensive record of The Flowering Plants of Madras City. 

Gravely, himself a biologist, found an enthusiastic helper in Edward (Ted) 

Barnes, who though a chemist by profession was a knowledgable amateur 

botanist. Ted used his scientific and practical skills with a kindliness for 

which nothing was too small. When Dorothy Hersey and her school chil- 

dren had tried unsuccessfully to save an injured kite, Ted helped her to 

stuff it so that she could use it for her drawing lessons. His greatest service 

to the Madras Christian College was not as Professor of Chemistry, com- 

petent and conscientious as that was; it was as creator of the beauty of 

the new campus to which the college moved from its cramped and noisy 

site in the centre of the city. During his years in Madras he had married, 

and he and his wife Alice became pioneer 'settlers' in the scrub jungle of 

the new location. It is to Ted that the college owes the hundreds of trees 

which line its shady roads; it was he who nurtured the seedlings, planted 

'embassies of the city of god' : 1919 to 1927 207 

and guarded them until they could stand alone. It was Ted also with accu- 

rate knowledge and many hours of patient labour turned patches of the 

original jungle into tangles of fragrant and lovely wilderness. (Of him it 

might truly be said: Si monumenium requiris> circumspice\) The Friends 

Meeting for Worship was greatly enriched by his quiet presence, for he 

combined a scrupulous intellectual honesty, a reverent agnosticism about 

ultimate mysteries, with a shy friendliness whose warmth touched all alike. 

Frederic Gravely continued to express his own friendliness in his 

scouting. In his first years in Madras he was still a bachelor, and the 

Superintendent's quarters at the museum became a regular scout camp, 

where Brahmin boys - the sons of his colleagues, and their friends - learned 

to water-proof their own ground-sheets and 'cook a tasty meal out of doors 

in a maximum of one hour'. Nor did he forget the poor and despised. His 

staff remembered how he once counted out before them the number of 

sticks in a box of matches; not one was to be wasted, he said, for they 

came from the taxes of the poor. That story would surely have pleased 

Gandhi! Gravely himself came to know and respect Gandhi's thought as 

he met the political prisoners in the Madras Penitentiary, where he was 

a regular visitor. Government servant though he was, he won their 

affectionate confidence, while at the same time he cared for and befriended 

the 'ordinary' criminals, so many of whom had never had a chance. In 

short he did directly and simply what he thought to be right. Wnen in 

1925 he met and married Laura Belling, she brought him into touch with 

another side of Gandhi's thought. Laura was a Dane, and had been helping 

one of her fellow-Danes in a school for Indian girls inspired by Gandhi. 

When after more than 20 years of service Frederic Gravely retired from 

the museum, his colleague Dr T N. Sadasivan put into words what his 

leadership there had meant to his whole staff: 'We have tried to emulate 

Dr Gravely in scientific ethics and in public relations. We know of no one 

we would rather resemble, as a man and as a scientist.' 10 

Reg and Freda Dann made another distinctive contribution, both pro- 

fessionally and personally. As Director of Town Planning Reg dreamed 

of helping to create a Madras Beautiful, preserving the loveliness of the 

city's natural setting and at the same time giving its citizens well-planned 

family homes and opportunities for education, recreation and public 

service. The dream was not realised, though it has never been entirely for- 

gotten, for there were too few members of the City Council who shared 

it. Reg's official work therefore brought many frustrations, but he found 

other outlets for his creative gifts. 

Dann the architect studied with admiration the traditions of South 

Indian domestic architecture, 'developed through centuries, with infinite 

patience and indomitable courage, to meet the challenge of climate and 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

available material'. He loved the quality of life in the traditional handmade 

ht lek and hand-worked stone. He himself was soon busy, outside his offi- 

tial duties, designing buildings which were 'the language of his soul'. 

Whether family homes, hospitals or universities, they embody his stan- 

dards of integrity: they must be useful for their purpose, and strong, and 

(mill with simplicity and truthfulness. Any lower standard would have 

been* lor him, an insult to the beauty of the world and the divine poten- 

lial in humanity. One of these buildings is the chapel of the Women's 

< christian College in Madras, built in 1923, a place 'whose very bricks 

iiikI mortar seem to have captured a spirit of worship. 11 

This professional work was not Dann's only service to his adopted city. 

I le nave personal service to a number of diverse but worthy causes - the 

YM( - A, the Olympic Association, the City Sanitary League, the Victoria 

Technical Institute for Indian handicrafts. He gave a patient, listening ear 

to troubled colleagues, petty clerks, impetuous students, struggling 

craftsmen. Always he was upheld by Freda, and by the happiness of the 

home he shared with her. One caller, being informed by the servant at 

the door that his master and mistress were at table, said: 'Then don't 

disturb them; your master would be angry.' He never forgot the servant's 

response: 'My master is never angry!' That home was a haven of peace to 

many, and not least to the young Friend Dorothy Hersey, whose adven- 

t urous spirit and eagerness to understand the India to which she had come 

exposed her to things that sometimes hurt her. Freda and she shared a 

deep love of animals; Freda always had dog-companions. 

In 1022, in the aftermath of the non-cooperation movement and of 

Mahaima Gandhi's trial and imprisonment, a thoughtful young Indian 

( Christian named A. A. Paul, who was living in Madras, started an 

'International Fellowship'. Paul had been inspired by Gandhi's principle 

that Indians, even when they rejected British rule, 'should regard English 

fuuiplc as our friends'. 12 The Fellowship was open to anyone of either race 

who accepted this principle; it brought together Indians and foreigners, 

( ioverninent servants and non-cooperators, Hindus, Muslims, Parsees, 

Christians. Meetings in the grounds of the YWCA began with 'multi- 

lingual volley-ball and intercommunal tennis' and went on after a 'cos- 

mopolitan' cup of tea to frank but good-tempered discussion of current 

topics. 4 Some say that it is unnecessary, others that it is impossible,' 

reported the founder-secretary, but the Madras Quakers, along with many 

others, thought it both necessary and possible, and gave it strong support. 

( hty and Hmily Jackson were of special service; transferred as they often 

were from one town to another they helped to start new local fellowships 

wherever they went. The idea spread rapidly; within a few years there 

were International Fellowships in places as distant from one another as 

I .ill n>re in the Punjab and Trivandrum by the southern ocean. In Lahore 

'embassies of the city of god' : 1919 to 1927 209 

one of the founders was another Friend, a young engineer named 

Theodore Burtt, whose interest in India had been stimulated by Nalin 

Ganguly when they were both students in Birmingham in 1919-21, and 

who now worked for the Government Irrigation Department. 

Through the International Fellowship Friends developed new con- 

tacts with Bombay. G. L. Narasimhan was already there, and in 1922 he 

had been chosen as President of the Indian Christian Association, even 

though he had never been baptised! He accepted, hoping that he might 

help to heal sectarian differences as Friends in Calcutta were doing, and 

to 'liberalise thought on religious matters'. He himself was long remem- 

bered for his generous kindliness and the radiance and peace of his spirit. 

He pleaded that a Quaker 'ambassador', preferably a woman, should be 

sent to Bombay. This did not happen, though a few years later women 

Friends such as Kathleen Whitby and Agnes Maclean were a welcome 

'unofficial' presence there. 

What did happen was that by 1 927 plans were being made to link the 

local International Fellowships in an all-India Federation. This was done 

at the end of the year, at a meeting held at Mahatma Gandhi's Sabarmati 

Ashram at Ahmedabad in which Gandhi himself took part. The chairman 

of the new Federation was a Bombay man, Professor Pestonjee Ardeshir 

Wadia, who was the son of one of Martin Wood's fellow-workers and 

descended from an Indian friend of -Charles Forbes. Professor Watlia 

himself was close to Friends in spirit, though he never formally joined the 

Society. His home in central Bombay was for many years the venue of a 

regular Friends Meeting for Worship, remembered with gratitude both 

by resident Friends and by those in transit through that 'gateway to India'. 

Other Friends came to India in 1919 whose 'ordinary business' was 

of a less 'professional' kind. They came, like Rachel Metcalfe long before 

them, to work with their hands. One of them was Hugh Maclean, who 

had been born in India, but had grown up to be a farmer in Scotland and 

had joined Friends there. He had spent some of the war years in 

Birmingham where he trained Friends' Ambulance Unit members for 

agricultural work, and where in 1916-17 he met Geoffrey and Mildred 

Maw. He reached India along with two of his FAU associates, George 

McCabe and William Pitt. George went to work on Sir Daniel Hamilton's 

cooperative farm in Bengal; Hugh and William went first to visit Geoffrey 

Maw at Itarsi, and shared for a few days in the experience of spiritual 

revival there. Then they set out, with the support of the FFMA, to learn 

what they could of other agricultural enterprises. The Addisons were on 

leave, so there was little to learn in Makoriya; in 1919 the Punjab was 

closed to them; they did visit among other places Sam Higginbottom's 

Agricultural Institute at Allahabad, for their purpose was to help to nurture 

210 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

an economically independent church which gave an honourable place to 

'common toil', as George Swan had longed to do. 

In the autumn of 1919, when they had made some progress in Hindi, 

they began to look for land in the Himalayan foothills in the neighbour- 

hood of Dehra Dun, and found that no land was to be had at a fair price. 

So for the time being they gave up the idea of farming, rented an empty 

shed and started a leather business. 'Christians' proved such unsatisfac- 

tory workmen that they turned instead to the traditional shoe-makers, 

Muslims and low-caste mochis, and soon felt that they had done the right 

thing. 

We work alongside our men from 8.30 to 5 [wrote Hugh], trying 

to live a Christian life at our daily work. The leather business has 

taught us not only the skills of the trade but much else that we 

needed to know of the Indian point of view. Our workers are 

becoming our friends ; they are hard-working and teachable, though 

some are notorious drunkards! One thing comes home to me very 

forcibly: there are many who are born of God outside the Christian 

community. 

Honest workmanship, fair prices, open straight dealing made the busi- 

ness popular with the poorer people of the town, both Indian and Eurasian. 

'Several shopkeepers have come after dark and told us that we have been 

a blessing - we do not know how. 5 On Sundays they held a little Meeting 

for Worship, of which some missionaries were critical because there was 

no preaching, no pressure for 'conversion'. 

We try to let our lives preach [they replied], but we are always ready 

to 'speak a word in season' . . . people like to hear a human voice, 

even though God does speak in the heart. 

The little business was beginning to pay its way. Maclean and Pitt did not 

want it to expand, 'lest the spiritual should be drowned in the commer- 

cial', but during the hot weather of 1920 they opened a 'branch' work- 

shop just up the hill at Masuri (Mussoorie), where Geoffrey Maw met 

them again and commented on their fine witness. 

That was a happy year, but before the end of it 'non-cooperators' in 

Dehra Dun were causing difficulty, in spite of the Friends' sympathy with 

India's desire for a national life. Their thoughts turned once more to 

farming, and in the spring of 1921 Maclean went prospecting for land in 

the Kumaon hills. He was much attracted by the skilled independent 

farmers of the region, who welcomed him and offered him land at a fair 

price. Hopes ran high, but were shattered by an unexpected blow. In 

August Maclean contracted typhoid fever and became dangerously ill. 

George McCabe came from Bengal to help, and together he and William 

'embassies of the city of god' : 1 9 1 9 to 1 927 2 1 1 

Pitt nursed Hugh through the crisis, but his recovery was very slow. 

Reluctantly they were forced to admit that independent farming in 

Kumaon was no longer feasible. 

Various alternatives offered; they chose Dr Graham's Homes for des- 

titute orphans at Kalimpong in the eastern Himalayas, where Pitt took 

charge of the workshops and Maclean of the estate. He found special sat- 

isfaction in building the chapel - of local stone, hand-dressed and carved 

by simple workmen who had never carved stone before. It was a lovely 

place of worship, 'revealing through human hands the beauty of the mind 

of God,' as Hugh wrote. Did Reg Dann, at work on the college chapel in 

far-away Madras, ever hear of this simple Quaker creation? 

So the little Quaker farm never came into being, but a few years later 

another Friend in India reflected creatively on the practice of agriculture. 

Joseph Hutchinson followed the great Sir Albert Howard at Indore, 1 3 and 

spent there what he said were 'the happiest and most fruitful years of his 

life' conducting research on the cotton plant along with Indian colleagues 

who became personal friends. 'To understand the evolution of the cottons,' 

he wrote, 'is to identify part of the pattern of life.' He went on to think 

about more complex patterns, and about the need for an education able 

to 'span the range of social, economic and practical wisdom which goes 

into the practice of agriculture'. 14 Hutchinson's thought was at a univer- 

sity level, but it has affinities with Gandhi's vision of a village education 

which should enable 'social, economic and practical wisdom' to be applied 

to the village farms of India. 

By the end of 1 924 after six years of courageous work in India, Maclean 

and Pitt were back in Britain (where Pitt married Maclean's sister 

Christine). In 1927 Maclean left the Society of Friends 'because the 

essential thing is Christ reproduced in the believer's life, something which 

transcends all sects'. So far, Joseph Taylor would have agreed; he too had 

refused to be 'bottled and labelled'. But Joseph regarded Friends as an 

'association of believers within the church' whose job, among others, was 

to provide continuity where it was needed, for a school, a hospital, a news- 

paper. His criticism was that Friends in India did not do that job prop- 

erly. He may have been right. 

212 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Notes to Chapter XVI 

1 The Friend* 22nd October 1920. 

2 The name Beadon commemorates a popular Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, 

who had declared that he would rather lose his right hand than be a party to any 

increase in the hated salt tax. 

3 In an article in Workers at Home and Abroad, November 1918. 

4 Copies of these pamphlets are in Friends House Library, London, annotated 

as having been received early February 1922. 

5 Henry T. Hodgkin, Lay Religion, 1919. 

6 The comments quoted are from J. Sinclair Stevenson, an Irish missionary much 

beloved for his humble saintly life. 

7 E.C.Dewick, tribute in The Guardian, Calcutta, 17th March 1927. 

8 Dr Rajendra Prasad (later to become the first President of independent India) 

was then a national leader in Bihar, which was administratively linked with Orissa. 

Ravenshaw College was therefore affiliated to the University of Patna, and it was 

there that Whitlock and Prasad had met. 

9 The Friend, 24th June 1 932. The author is indebted to Whitlock's former stu- 

dents Sri N.Kanungo of Cuttack and Sri A.N.Mukerji of Calcutta, for anecdotes 

included in this account. 

10 Centenary Souvenir, Madras Government Museum. Much of the material 

about Madras Friends is derived from personal knowledge. The author was res- 

ident in Madras 1928-1939. 

1 1 The description comes from Freda Dann. 

1 2 Gandhi's letter to Mahommed Ali, 7th February 1 924, quoted in R.M.Gray 

and M.C.Parikh, Mahatma Gandhi, Calcutta 1924, p.127. 

13 Joseph Hutchinson was still in 1980 remembered in Indore. Sir Albert 

I loward's seminal book, Agricultural Testament, 1940, has in later years had great 

influence upon Friends and others in India. 

14 Quotations are from Reflections on a Research Career, a lecture given in 

Cambridge after Hutchinson's retirement. 

CHAPTER XVII 

Cross Purposes : 1919 to 1935 

How to ensure continuity when continuity is needful? And when 

is it needful? The questions which had exercised Joseph Taylor in Calcutta 

were being raised, in one form or another, in the Friends' missions in 

Bundelkhand and Hoshangabad. They had failed, twice over, to main- 

tain continuity in the life of the High School at Hoshangabad; the hos- 

pital at Itarsi, although it had had no doctor available during the influenza 

epidemic in 1 9 1 8, had fared better. In Bundelkhand there was no mission 

High School, and at that time no hospital. Questions arose not over par- 

ticular institutions, but over the central purpose of both the missions, the 

preaching of the Gospel through life and word. Geoffrey Maw and Jack 

Hoyland had raised these questions in relation to the calling of xhtsadhu; 

the message was given, it found a welcome, but it had no lasting impact 

because after the sadhu moved on it was not followed up. Geoffrey had 

seen the same weakness in the usual wide-ranging preaching tours under- 

taken by missionaries during the cool season, and had tried a new approach 

at Borda at the end of 1919, when he made an extended stay in one place. 

Similar questions arose in Bundelkhand. Margaret Smith, like Delia 

Fistler before her, felt a great urge to carry the Gospel message to places 

where it had never been heard before. Some of the orphan boys, following 

Dalsaiya, had become devoted evangelists; mission reports record how 

many difficult miles they covered, and how many 'new' villages they 

reached. With them went Hiralal, who 20 years earlier, as a lame child of 

seven, had made his heroic jungle trek to Nowgong. Hiralal was still lame, 

so he rode a pony, carrying the party's supply of Gospels. One day, when 

they camped outside a 'new' village, Hiralal quietly disappeared. A little 

later he returned, bringing a young woman. The village was his own birth 

place, the woman his long-lost sister. 

So the seed was broadcast more and more widely, but harvest did not 

follow. When Alison and Inez Rogers reached Nowgong in 1921 they asked 

questions: how could a harvest be expected when the seed sown had not 

214 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

been watered, when there had been no nurture of those whose interest had 

been aroused? The Rogers spent at least one summer vacation with British 

Friends in Pachmarhi, and found that they were asking similar questions. 

Merrill and Anne Coffin, who arrived in Bundelkhand two years later, 

agreed that new methods ought to be tried. Together they discussed the 

matter with the Indian evangelists, one of whom, Motilal, listened eagerly. 

Three Bible students were in training with him, and he and they began to 

keep in touch with the individuals who responded to their message, and 

to 'water the seed'. The results seemed encouraging, but Esther Baird did 

not share their enthusiasm. She was by then in her mid-60s, and she could 

not easily accept changes in the established ways; most of the senior 

workers, who naturally revered her as a mother, followed her lead. 

There were other areas of questioning and divergence of opinion. 

Joseph and Katharine Taylor's concern for healthy national life was shared 

by a number of Friends in the Hoshangabad area. During the years when 

Joseph Taylor was struggling to get The Guardian re-started, Francis Kilbey 

was sending to England a regular newsletter about public events with sym- 

padietic but discriminating comments on the non-cooperation movement 

and Gandhi's strong moral leadership. Comments by Ratcliffe Addison 

and Henry Robson show that they too were following developments with 

interest. Others however, more aware of the continuing undercurrent of 

anti-British hostility, felt it their duty to 'uphold the cause of loyalty', and 

most Indian Friends did the same. They feared what might happen when 

they were no longer under the 'protection' of the British Raj. 

Nor did the Indian Friends as a whole share the concern for interna- 

tional peace and goodwill which had brought the Calcutta Settlement into 

being. 'A full understanding of the distinctive views of Friends' had not 

been considered necessary for them, and the peace testimony which had 

been so central for British Friends during the war was beyond the range 

of their thought. In 1920 a young English Friend named Roderic Clark, 

who had served a prison sentence as a conscientious objector, paid a busi- 

ness visit to India and took the opportunity to visit Hoshangabad Friends 

also. His talk astonished them: 'In prison, and not ashamed to own it? 

Could it ever be right to disobey the Government?' 

Esther Baird in Bundelkhand was of about the same age as Joseph 

Taylor, and had reached India, as Francis Kilbey did, in the years just 

preceding the great famines. But her attitude to 'non-cooperation' was 

very different from theirs. In her eyes Gandhi was merely 'a social and 

political agitator', a leader of sedition; the Christians of Bundelkhand 

should be protected from his influence at all costs. Her younger colleagues, 

both American and Indian, disagreed. Margaret Smith and Alison Rogers 

welcomed Gandhi's fight against 'the sin of untouchability', and his 

cross purposes : 1919 to 1935 

215 

declaration that India would never be truly free without justice for the 

outcaste and oppressed. Motilal was not prepared to condemn India's 

struggle for freedom; he believed like Joseph Taylor that liberty 'is a pro- 

foundly Christian thing'. 

These divergences of outlook were complicated by the fact that in both 

British and American missions there was serious misunderstanding at the 

'home base' of the real position in India. In America the misunderstanding 

arose from the way the mission was organised; it placed great authority 

in the hands of the 'Superintendent' in India, who was the only recog- 

nised channel of communication with the Board in Ohio. 

During the Rogers' first years in India Esther Baird was on leave in 

America, and they lived in Nowgong studying the situation and the lan- 

guage. She returned along with the Coffin family in 1 923, and the Rogers 

then moved to Harpalpur. They found much satisfaction in their work 

there; they helped the schools, supported William Parsad in his clinic, and 

made friends with the Christians, the townspeople and the well-disposed 

Rajah of Alipura. Esther however did not welcome their independence of 

outlook, and the reports of their work which reached the Board were at 

best lukewarm. At the end of their term of service however they met the 

Board in person, and made a different and very favourable impression. 

There was an intrinsically healthy rule that foreign workers should not 

be sent back to India unless the Indian church invited them to return. 

The invitation however had to be sent through the Superintendent and 

although the Harpalpur church was eager to have the Rogers back, no 

invitation ever reached the Board. Nothing, could be done, even though 

the Board was convinced of the value of their work. 

This concentration of authority in the Superintendent raised problems 

for the medical service, something very dear to Esther herself. Before she 

left for furlough in 1921 she had got the future doctor's bungalow at 

Chhatarpur completed, and when she returned in 1 923 she brought a doctor 

with her. Dr Ward was young and newly qualified, but the Board had been 

impressed by her potential. But from the outset things went wrong, and 

within a few weeks she had left, declaring that she 'would not be dictated 

to'. There was the root of the trouble. It is possible that, young and able as 

she was, Dr Ward was too impatient, too unwilling to listen to the older and 

more experienced woman. But did the Superintendent also fail to allow the 

doctor the necessary freedom to do her work in her own way? 

The next woman doctor arrived early in 1 925. Unlike Dr Ward, Mary 

Fleming was a mature woman with eight years experience of practice in 

tropical countries, including India. She settled into Chhatarpur with high 

ideals and high hopes, but soon felt frustrated. Ignoring the protocol she 

wrote direct to the Board, asking what use it was to appoint a doctor if 

216 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

nothing were done to provide basic equipment? In spite of these difficul- 

ties she stuck to her job for nearly three years and made a favourable 

impression on the Board when she met them. But the story of the Rogers 

was repeated; she received no invitation to return to India. It seems pos- 

sible that Pancham Singh was at the root of the trouble. After his coura- 

geous pioneering in Chhatarpur a dozen years earlier he had been Esther's 

right-hand man in the building work there; he had come to regard himself 

as indispensable, and to succumb to various temptations. Dr Fleming was 

aware of his weaknesses, and he seems to have retaliated by 'tale-bearing' 

to Hsther, who had a great affection for her 'orphan boy'. 

The misunderstanding between the Friends in the Hoshangabad area 

and the Board in London arose in a quite different way. On the one hand 

the strongly individualist ethos of late-Victorian England was expressed 

in the constantly recurring comment that one should not 'interfere' in a 

colleague's work. A Committee of Missionaries arranged where people 

should be posted to allow for the needs of furlough, etc., apart from which 

each of them did only 'what was right in their own eyes'. A Six-Month 

Meeting of the whole church, of which missionaries as individuals were 

a part, was the focus of church life. It chose its officers (often very wisely, 

as Henry Robson commented) and exercised oversight over the various 

local groups or 'Monthly Meetings'. 

On the other hand Friends in Britain, whose country was directly 

involved politically with India, saw India very largely through the eyes of 

Rabindranath Tagore (who paid an extended visit to the west in 1920-21) 

and of those thoughtful Indian Christians whose sympathies were with 

(he national aspirations. Two of these, G. C. Chatterji and K. T. Paul, 

spoke to the FFMA sessions at London Yearly Meeting in 1919. Indians, 

they said, did not want Christian sects, not even the Quaker one, but they 

did want the things which Friends stood for. India needed their 'practical 

mysticism', which enabled them both to share her sense of the 'imme- 

diacy of the supernatural' and at the same time to 'be friends' and help as 

equals with her present problems. After the war a new generation of Indian 

students was coming to Britain, among them some who had taken part 

in the striving for political and social reform. British Friends met them; 

two of them, Shoran S. Singha and Sucha Singh Khera, joined the Society. 

It was not surprising that young British Friends developed an image of 

'India' which was far removed from the realities of that 'rural backwater' 

I loshangabad. 'They think India is full of Tagores!' commented William 

Pitt. 

This was the background of the crisis which confronted the FFMA in 

I °20. It had been brewing for a long time, long before the difficulties of 

the First World War brought it into the open. During the first decade of 

cross purposes : 1919 to 1935 

217 

the century, under the leadership of such men as Henry T. Hodgkin, the 

FFMA had changed, and its attitude was far removed from mere prose- 

lytisation. But the name 'missionary' remained, and to the young Friends 

who met at Kingsmead in 1909 it suggested as Geoffrey Maw said, 'an 

arrogant person who told everyone else they were wrong, and threatened 

them with hell-fire if they did not take his advice'. He himself had accepted 

the missionary label only with great reluctance, 'because there was no 

other'. 1 The war focussed Friends' attention on their peace testimony. 

Under Carl Heath's leadership they formed the Council for International 

Service which sent the Taylors to Calcutta; plans were made for an All 

Friends Peace Conference in 1920. Those who thought in the older 'mis- 

sionary' terms were an ageing and diminishing group. Both money and 

recruits were in very short supply. 

Friends in Britain therefore decided to amalgamate the FFMA and 

the Council for International Services and create a new body, the Friends 

Service Council, which should carry on the 'publishing of Truth' and the 

service of peace as one integrated whole. During the next few years the 

details were worked out, and the new body came into being at the begin- 

ning of 1927. They also decided that they would respond to the Indian 

desire for self-government by handing over to Indian Friends (now 

organised in the Mid-India Yearly Meeting) the control of the work in the 

Hoshangabad area. British Friends would continue to provide an annual 

grant, but decisions about how it should be used, and for what purposes, 

would be made by the Indian Yearly Meeting.- 

When these proposals reached India towards the end of 1920 they were 

received not with enthusiasm but with near-panic. British Friends had com- 

pletely mis-read the situation, and were unaware that most Indian Friends 

dreaded the prospect of swaraj. Mission policies of earlier years had resulted 

in an almost total isolation from the larger community. They were cut off 

from the network of social obligation and social support provided both by 

Muslim tradition and by Hindu caste biradiri, and they therefore sought a 

substitute identity in 'the mission', whose missionaries were the leaders of 

the biradiri whose word was law. This attitude was understandable; it was 

the expression of a real need for psychological security. G. L. Narasimhan, 2 

the only Indian Friend with a different outlook did a great deal to allay the 

panic, and to get consideration of the whole matter postponed for nearly a 

year so that there was a chance for calmer reflection. 

Jack Hoyland, watching from Nagpur, had some wise comments, but 

they were not listened to, and the plan, brought into operation at the 

beginning of 1925, had serious defects. 'Too much, too soon,' Jack had 

said. It was too soon because Indian Friends had had no experience of 

common planning or common enterprise, and had little sense of corporate 

218 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

responsibility to God and for one another. How could they, given the indi- 

vidualist attitudes which had prevailed? Lack of practice in seeking together 

'the will of God' for their own situation was not something that could be 

remedied overnight. Jack also pointed out that the 'devolution scheme 5 , 

as it was called, gave too much control over money to those who were 

themselves paid workers. With regard to education, his own special 

interest, he suggested that once a decision had been taken about the total 

amount available, a representative committee should make allocations on 

an equitable basis to the various institutions. Instead of this the Sohagpur 

Girls' School was excluded from the devolution scheme and funded sep- 

arately, an arrangement which many people, including the experienced 

Geoffrey Maw, considered both unjust and unwise. 

Nevertheless, in spite of these difficulties and anxieties, some good 

work went on during those years. In 1920 Hilda Robson returned to the 

hospital, and Dr Stephen Jacob a one-time famine orphan who had qual- 

ified in India, came to work with her. New family wards were built, mainly 

for women and children; Dr Jacob held an out-patient clinic for all comers. 

No one 'preached at them'; the hospital witnessed to Truth by equal, fair 

and loving treatment for all comers whatsoever. Occasionally four-legged 

sufferers were brought; the most notable incident was when 'an exalted 

personage sent a royal command for treatment for an afflicted elephant'. 

In 1 925 the Robsons retired, and Robert and Eileen Gittins, who were 

both qualified doctors, took Hilda's place. Eleanor Burns became nursing 

sister, and the gentle Kampta Prasad became hospital clerk. The hospital 

was a happy place; Geoffrey Maw's children, playing with their Indian 

friends near by, could hear the cheerful music of the gramophone with 

which Eileen and Eleanor entertained their patients in the afternoons. 

Better staffing meant that a village medical service also became pos- 

sible, and Robert Gittins acquired a car for the purpose. A car was a 

novelty in the area, and the doctor's feats of driving were even more 

remarkable, for there were no roads to most villages, merely jungle tracks. 

An English visitor described the adventure of the journey, 'down precip- 

itous ravines, across streams twisting and climbing up impossible banks 

... all at a tip top speed that makes your hair stand on end'. 3 When a 

village was reached it might sometimes need other services besides medical 

ones. There was a cattle-lifting tiger around, a nuisance to the whole neigh- 

bourhood. Would the doctor please bring his gun and track it down? 

Robert Gittins enjoyed that kind of sport, and he and Eileen stayed in 

Itarsi for almost five years, much longer than they had originally planned. 

Eleanor Burns however had to withdraw in 1928 because of continued 

ill-health. The Independent Methodist Church, which had continued to 

support the hospital generously ever since Dr Robinson had retired, sent 

cross purposes : 1919 to 1935 

219 

Edith Bevan to take her place. When the Gittins left in 1 929 Gail Addison 

once more filled the doctors' place. 

The Mid-India Yearly Meeting had a number of fine Indian workers. 

Nathulal had died in 1921, but Fakir Ibrahim was still at work and much 

beloved, especially among the Seoni schoolboys. There were younger men 

who had been trained along with Khushilal in the Bible School at 

Hoshangabad, such as Shivlal of Sehore, a one-time famine waif who knew 

his Bhopal State intimately, and who like Khushilal was both competent 

and humorous. Dhan Singh was in charge of the Yearly Meeting's office, 

situated in Rachel Metcalfe's former home in Hoshangabad. There were 

outstanding teachers, Din Mohammed Dar who thanks to Jack Hoyland 

had benefited from experience in England, John Robert in Hoshangabad 

and his brother Matthew and Kalu Ram in Seoni Malwa. The Yearly 

Meeting was also equipped with books which made possible for its 

members that serious study of the origin and principles of Friends which 

had been lacking before. Jack Hoyland had made a Hindi translation of E. 

B. Emmott's Story of Quakerism, and Francis Kilbey had translated both 

Edward Grubb's What is Quakerism? and Henry Hodgkin's Lay Religion. 

Then there were the growing points. During the war years and after a 

number of Friends, many of whom had been trained at Rasulia, were 

employed at Jabalpur, the nearest big town. Some were in railway service, 

some worked in the Ordnance Factory - for they had never been encour- 

aged to study the Quaker testimony against 'fighting with outward 

weapons'. They started a Meeting for Worship among themselves, and 

from 1916 onwards they had a great deal of spiritual support from Ethel 

Sharman. Ethel was not a Friend; she was a young woman born and edu- 

cated in India, who had worked for the FFMA in Sehore from 1912 

onwards, and was gifted and knowledgeable in Bible study and Sunday 

school work. In 1916 she had resigned from Sehore because her parents, 

who were then living in Jabalpur, needed her help. Her services to the 

young Meeting there were remembered with deep gratitude, 4 and by 1 92 1 

it was so well established that the Mid-India Yearly Meeting recognised 

it as a regular Monthly Meeting. 

By 1921 Louise Walker had taken Priscilla Fowler's place in Bhopal, 

where Dr Johory still lived, and where other Friends were employed in 

the railway service. They attracted a remarkable man, Ganpat Lai Misra, 

who 20 years earlier had been dismissed from service by the Maharajah 

of Jeypore for the 'crime' of becoming a Christian. 5 He had since been a 

Judge in Agra, and in Bhopal he had won the respect of Hindus and 

Muslims alike. There were other Christians also who were very friendly 

particularly a bank manager called Blackman. Palace intrigue around the 

ageing Begum resulted in both Louise Walker and Prem Masih being 

220 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

turned out of their rented houses, and Blackman came to the rescue. Some 

months later Louise got her house back (to the great joy of her neigh- 

bours) but Prem Masih never did; he had to take another in a much less 

convenient place. There were many 'inquirers', but the usual practice was 

to arrange for them to go elsewhere and so escape the persecution which 

might be their lot at home. Geoffrey Maw questioned this policy. Would 

it not be better to stick it and risk it? he asked. 

In the older centres too there was life and growth. In Itarsi a Friend, 

Dr Mardan Singh, was doing an excellent job as the town's Health Officer; 

another, an old boy of the school, was starting an independent workshop. 

In Sohagpur not only did people help the Rachel Metcalfe Home by col- 

lecting and piercing the colourful jungle seeds used in Ann Kilbey's flour- 

ishing 'bead' industry; there was also friendly contact with the Anglican 

church. There was no longer any need for Friends to conduct their 

'railway' services in the station waiting room. The beautiful little church 

was at their disposal, with perfect freedom to plan the services as they 

wished. In Hoshangabad Shiv Ram's temperance campaigns in village 

schools were in full swing. Everywhere the mission's paid workers accepted 

the decision that there could be no rise in salaries, and though prices 

soared there was little grumbling. Only in Makoriya was there discour- 

agement. The Addisons had no sooner returned than Ratcliffe became 

critically ill; Gail's skill and devotion pulled him through, and in 1922 

they decided to adopt children. The children, a boy and two girls, gave 

them joy and interest, but throughout that period of service Ratcliffe was 

so dogged by ill health that had it not been for the hospital's need of Gail 

in 1929 they would not have returned to India at all. Watching the 

Makoriya farmers in their difficulties Ratcliffe asked a prophetic ques- 

tion: 'Will two or three of the stronger ones absorb the rest?' That was, 

by and large, what happened later. 

Yet even Makoriya had one fine achievement, the village school. Amy 

Montford visited on behalf of the new Friends Service Council in 1927. 

She had been one of the Young Friends who attended the conference in 

1909, but had spent much of the intervening years teaching the younger 

children in Friends' schools in Britain, and what she saw in Makoriya 

delighted her. 

I found the whole first class out of doors [she wrote], busy over a big 

ground plan of the village, marking houses, digging tiny wells, placing 

the school house and the dispensary. They knew what they were 

doing and were enjoying it. With the help of the master I told them 

I could only see two trees whose names I knew - what could they do? 

You should have seen them counting them up! There was a beau- 

tiful home-made history frieze round the schoolhouse wall, and when 

cross purposes : 1919 to 1935 

221 

the time came for games the master and his assistant played along- 

side the children. That master is greatly to be congratulated. 6 

And yet during a very few years nearly all of these living shoots had 

withered away. A moral rot set in; when Robert and Eileen Gittins reached 

Itarsi towards the end of 1924 they were shocked at what seemed to them 

to be the general moral collapse. In the Meeting cheating and embezzle- 

ment were rife, along with merciless bullying of those humble Friends 

who tried to remain honest. In 1 925 Mid-India Yearly Meeting took action 

and suspended Itarsi Monthly Meeting for its failure to maintain 

minimum ethical standards. There were failures elsewhere too, for fears 

and jealousies were beginning to poison the atmosphere, but the trouble 

came to a head first in Itarsi, and it is not difficult to see why. 

The other 'stations' of the mission were all ancient towns; 

Hoshangabad, Seoni Malwa, Sohagpur, and Bhopal and Sehore further 

north, all had some sense of identity and community. Their people felt 

that they 'belonged'. Itarsi was a mushroom growth, developed in the 

space of a few years because it was the site of a major junction. It had 

become more populous even than Hoshangabad the District headquar- 

ters; there were more Friends than in any other centre, but the Friends, 

like the rest of the population, were there simply to make a living, and to 

make the best living they could. There was no sense of common obliga- 

tion either as Friends or as citizens. 

In Itarsi too another factor came into play. A large number of the 

Friends there made their living in some form of railway service, and were 

therefore financially independent of the mission in a way that the evan- 

gelists, teachers and domestic servants were not. This in itself was an 

intrinsically healthy thing; in 1920-21 Khushilal and one or two other 

valiant spirits had voluntarily given up their mission pay and tried to earn 

their living by simple farm labour and to 'publish Truth' along with their 

daily work. The experiment did not succeed - the daily labour proved too 

onerous - but it was made from the highest motives. The 'railway 

Christians' in Itarsi however used their independence not to publish 

Truth, but to publicise what they regarded as the failures of the mission 

in a way that often lacked charity or compassion. From 1922 onwards 

they began to appear in mission reports as 'the discontented party'. 

On the other hand those who depended on mission employment were 

inevitably tempted to become 'yes men', unwilling to speak openly about 

mistakes or wrong doing. Inevitably too there was mutual suspicion and 

jealousy : why should X get more pay than I do? Did Y secure that scholar- 

ship by currying favour with the missionary? Was I passed over because 

I was merely a servant's son? Such suspicions may have been quite 

unfounded, but they were there, and one of the victims was Shiv Ram 

222 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Herring. He did good work among the boys, both in the hostel in 

Hoshangabad and in the villages, but he was sometimes tactless, and there 

was little mutual trust between him and his fellow-workers, who regarded 

him as 'an outsider'. When he and his wife were advised to seek employ- 

ment elsewhere 7 they considered that they had been unjustly dismissed. 

Jack Hoyland helped them to find work in Nagpur but they greatly dis- 

tressed him by their bitterness. 

Greed in fact was at the heart of this moral and spiritual weakness, 

greed fuelled by the fears of a rootless, insecure group. It led bom 'railway 

Christians' and mission employees to claim that all resources should be 

used for the benefit of 'Christians only'. Geoffrey Maw was living once 

more in Itarsi and knew the individuals concerned intimately. The leader 

of the discontent belonged to a family, originally from Bengal, which had 

settled there when the father became Headmaster of the first Friends High 

School in the 1 890's. They had acquired family land in Itarsi and the son 

had been chosen to represent Mid-India Friends at the All-Friends Peace 

Conference in 1 920. His contact there with seemingly prosperous English 

Friends made him 'unable to believe' that there could be any shortage of 

money, or any reason why it should not be available to Friends in India. 

There is no indication that the cause of peace, the central theme of the 

conference, meant anything to him, and when he returned it was not to 

work for Friends but to become Headmaster of a High School in a distant 

part of the Province. His interest in Itarsi was his land, and the 'discon- 

tented party'. 

Geoffrey Maw, in the midst of this sordid and sometimes 'venomous' 

abuse (his own adjective) patiently upheld the vision of a better way - and 

a better way might perhaps have been found. The initiative came from the 

vigorous group of Friends in Madras, who were in touch with The Christian 

Patriot and with the local branch of Gokhale's Servants of India Society. 

The Meetings for Worship were being attended by 'true seekers' among the 

members of the Ramakrishna Mission, and by Hindu 'disciples of Christ' 

who like those in Calcutta remained in the community of their birth. In 

1 924-25, just when the crisis in Itarsi was at its height, the Friends in Madras 

were feeling the need to look at the work in India as a whole; as a first step 

they arranged a conference in which V. Srinivasa Sastri, the distinguished 

Madras statesman who was then President of the Servants of India Society, 

also took part, and where a number of ideas were given an airing. 

One suggestion was that each local Meeting should aim at being an 

'embassy of goodwill' in its own neighbourhood, a centre of religious fel- 

lowship, study and service in which other like-minded people might share. 

Srinivasa Sastri agreed; all branches of the Servants of India Society, he 

said, would welcome Quaker participation in work for women and for 

cross purposes : 1919 to 1935 

223 

untouchables. What a breath of fresh air that might have brought into the 

stuffy, self-enclosed atmosphere of Mid-India! - and Jack Hoyland had 

already pointed the way. 

Another suggestion was that Madras or any similar group might be 

recognised as a Monthly Meeting, able to admit new members and to 

transfer them as need arose to and from other Monthly Meetings. A plan 

of this kind might have provided the framework within which Indians like 

Shoran Singha and Sucha Khera, and others in Lahore and Bombay, could 

have been linked with the Society in their native land. It might even had 

been the nucleus of a future Indian Yearly Meeting, able to accommo- 

date local Monthly Meetings of a variety of traditions. It did not happen, 

for two reasons. One was the British failure to understand the realities of 

the Indian situation. The London committee suggested a Monthly 

Meeting for the whole of south India, an area a good deal larger and more 

varied than all the British Isles put together! The other was that Madras 

hesitated because of possible 'lack of continuity' - in a field where, it could 

be argued, continuity was not essential! Patterns of organisation familiar 

to British Friends were not necessarily suited to the conditions of a sub- 

continent. 

A third proposal was to use the Rasulia compound for an 'Indian 

Woodbrooke' a centre of fellowship and study. Jack Hoyland supported 

the idea. Let there be simple, 'ashram-style' accommodation, he said, 

with a library and a book-centre; let there be summer schools, youth 

camps, retreats and study courses, dealing with the 'indivisible whole' of 

Quaker religious and social concern. Such a centre might even take over 

The Guardian (then struggling for its life in Calcutta) and make it the 

vehicle of Friendly scrutiny of Indian affairs which Joseph Taylor had 

always wanted it to be. Rasulia was the right place; the new rail link from 

Itarsi to Nagpur and the south was about to be completed, making it 

accessible from all sides, and situated as it was in the middle of 

Hoshangabad district it might bring the Friends of central India into 

contact with the city Meetings to their mutual benefit. 

Madras Friends hoped that these ideas might be considered at an all- 

India gathering, and a good opportunity occurred very soon, in February 

1926. A British Quaker delegation, representing both the FFMA and the 

Council for International Service, was on a visit to India, and the 

Mid-India Yearly Meeting arranged a special conference with them at 

Hoshangabad. All the finest and most thoughtful Friends were present, 

and they listened with sympathy when their guest-speaker, Manilal 

Parikh, 8 pleaded that the Quaker message had an all-India relevance and 

that their work should be seen in that wider perspective. When some one 

asked what such a small body as Friends could hope to do, it was the 

224 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

veteran Fakir Ibrahim who answered: 'A mosquito can move an elephant, 

if it gets in his ear!' 

Only the previous year Jack Hoyland and the Madras Friends had put 

forward a number of ideas for 'getting in the ear' of India. Why were they 

not invited to share them? Why was no one outside the membership of the 

Yearly Meeting asked to the conference? - probably because those who 

organised it were as yet scarcely aware of the presence of other Friends in 

India. g Geoffrey Maw might perhaps have got these 'scattered Friends' 

invited, for after Joseph Taylor left India it was he who maintained contact 

with them, but it was not in Geoffrey's retiring, self-effacing nature to thrust 

himself forward, even in a good cause. So the opportunity was lost, and the 

conference was felt to have been disappointing; 'over-long' speeches left no 

time for the real exchange of thought which might have taken place. 

The British delegation in 1925-26 represented a different and much 

less effective attempt by British Friends to get into India's ear. They 

arranged lecture tours in the major cities and universities, by Herbert 

C Watford in 1923, by Edmund Harvey, Percy Bigland and Catherine 

Albright in 1925-26, and by John W. Graham in 1927-28. They and their 

lectures were very well received, but as Joseph Taylor had commented 

from the first, such 'Quaker tourists' could make no lasting impact. 

Probably the most valuable result of the visits was the increased under- 

standing of India which they, particularly Edmund Harvey, acquired. 

Such lectures were no substitute for the network of quiet, local 'embassies 

of goodwill' which might have operated in Madras, Bombay, Lahore and 

elsewhere, or for a permanent 'powerhouse' such as an 'Indian 

Woodbrooke' at Rasulia might have provided. 

John W Graham's visit in 1927-28 however did spark off a significant 

response. More than 40 years earlier he had been a fellow-student in 

Cambridge of Theodore Beck and Philip Sturge, and he therefore had a 

specially warm welcome in Aligarh and in Hyderabad. Not long after- 

wards Ernest Ludlam, an ex-Cambridge Friend then working in 

Edinburgh University, was approached informally - could he find a 

Quaker teacher for the Aligarh Muslim University? That might have been 

u most valuable piece of service, but no one could be found. 10 The request 

was probably made because Graham's visit re-awakened memories of 

Beck's life-long devotion to the College. 

The need, both in Aligarh and elsewhere, was for more such long-term, 

quiet commitment. In Hoshangabad there were empty places and few 

recruits to fill them. Alfred and Florence Taylor retired; 'Uncle' Alfred 

I Icnry Smith had already done so in 1 92 1 ; he had had to undergo a serious 

and painful operation which seems to have decided him that the time had 

conic. He paid cheerful farewell visits to all the Friends' stations, and to 

CROSS purposes : 1919 to 1935 

225 

Pandita Ramabai's Home which he had helped, as auditor, for years; 

everywhere his plea was for mutual understanding and forbearance; 

'Let truth' he said, 'be presented in all its phases.' 1 1 Three or four years 

later the Kilbeys also withdrew. They should 'make room for younger 

workers,' they said, and they also wanted to make a home for their 

own sons and daughters. Younger workers however were not easily 

found; the first new recruit, Mary Allen, was already in her late 40 's 

when she took Ann Kilbey's place in the Rachel Metcalfe Home. 

Mary Allen had been born in 1880; she had lived in humble cir- 

cumstances in an English village, and had been trained in the care of 

children. When and where she became a Friend, and what took her 

to work with American Friends in Jamaica, is not known. Her name 

appears in 1900 as one of their first two women workers, and a year 

or two later she was in charge of an orphanage for 'East Indian' girls 

at the Happy Grove School; later she adopted one of them, Lucille 

Ananda Sibouy, as her own daughter. Few records are available, but 

one or two surviving contributions to mission reports show her 

humour, tough commonsense, and affectionate understanding of the 

needs of the children. Describing a controversy with bureaucratic 

officialdom over the welfare of the orphans, she comments: T did not 

give in; being English I wouldn't!' She won her battle, and stayed on 

in Happy Grove till 1922, when the school was reorganised. 

Mary then returned to England, taking with her the 1 5 year old 

Lucille. She found Lucille a happy home as a 'mother's help' in a 

Quaker family in Bristol, and she herself went off to Calcutta, prob- 

ably to visit one or more of her 'East Indian' charges at Happy Grove 

who had returned to the land of their origin. From Calcutta in 1924 

she paid a leisured happy visit to the American Friends in Nowgong. 

Charlotte Bai was then Hearing retirement, and it was arranged that 

the following year Mary should take her place in the orphanage. 

Accordingly in October 1925 after Lucille, now 18, had entered a 

Birmingham hospital to begin her training as a nurse, Mary went back 

to Nowgong. Only a few weeks later she had left. The reason is not 

clear; perhaps mature and experienced as she was, she found Esther 

Baird as difficult a colleague as did Mary Fleming in Chhatarpur. She 

returned to England, where in 1926 she was accepted by the FFMA 

for the Rachel Metcalfe Home at Sohagpur. 

Soon afterwards the widowed Elizabeth Butler, whose children 

were now grown up, was invited to Bhopal by the Indian Friends there, 

and settled there for the rest of her life. In 1928 a younger recruit was 

found; Olive Shepherd came to work in the Sohagpur School, where 

her enthusiasm for Girl Guides soon left its mark. The need for better 

226 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

provision for the growing boys was recognised, and in 1 93 1 a man was 

found. Stanley Ashton, who had been a lay worker for about a year in 

the Oxford Mission in Calcutta, was sent by the Friends Service 

Council to work among boys in Itarsi, and reached India in the spring 

of 1932. He was very popular with the boys, but he did not succeed 

in learning even elementary Hindi, and such serious misunderstand- 

ings arose that before the end of 1 933 his colleagues asked the London 

committee to withdraw him. 12 The Institute which he had opened in 

Itarsi was carried on during 1934 by Henry Robson, who had come 

back for a year's visit; he had always enjoyed the company of boys. 

A recruit of a different kind was Heinz vonTucher, a young German 

of a landed family who, seeking an opportunity for service in India, 

found it with Friends. They sent him first to Woodbrooke" where he 

met his Danish wife Karen, and then in 1930 to Makoriya - for the 

Addisons had gone to Itarsi. Like some of their British colleagues they 

had financial resources of their own. As for Geoffrey Maw, he was in 

Nagpur helping the Hislop College and the Friends' Hostel. 

In Bundelkhand also there were changes. Mary Fleming did not 

return, and in the summer of 1928 Margaret Smith died suddenly and 

unexpectedly. Walter Bolitho came to develop the agricultural work in 

which she had taken so much interest; his wife Geneva was a gifted 

minister whose service to the Meetings for Worship was much appre- 

ciated. Ruth Hull took Mary Fleming's place as the doctor in 

Chhatarpur; she brought with her much-needed equipment, a good 

deal of it provided out of her own pocket. Alena Calkins, a trained 

nurse, came to work with her, but before settling in Chhatarpur she 

took a course in midwifery in Madras. 13 Ruth Thurston the teacher 

spent a summer vacation at the India Sunday School Union in Coonoor 

to benefit from Edward Annett's courses there. Her fiance Robert Earle, 

and a second nurse Nell Lewis, followed. There was also another 

married couple, James and Judith Kinder, who (the Board hoped) might 

succeed Esther (now nearing 70) when she retired. It was a strong team. 

Esther herself had no thought of retiring until her long-cherished 

dream of a hospital at Chhatarpur was realised. There was already a 

dispensary, a chapel, and some houses for workers; in 1929 the 

Maharajah gave her land sufficient for a hospital building. That was a 

year of severe economic depression in America, but money was mys- 

teriously available, and Esther set to work. She strained every nerve to 

get the building finished and equipped by December 1930 when the 

Viceroy's wife, Lady Irwin, was to visit Bundelkhand. All her colleagues 

gave her their loyal support, and the job was done. Lady Irwin paid her 

visit, and at Christmas the Friends held a joyful dedication service. The 

cross purposes : 1919 to 1935 

227 

formal official opening took place in January 1931, and only then was 

the mystery of where the money had come from solved. A stone was 

set in place and unveiled; it recorded that the hospital was a memorial 

to Elizabeth Jane Bell Stephenson, and had been built by the gifts of 

her two daughters, one of whom was Treasurer to the Mission Board. 

Esther's dream was realised, and she went on leave to America. 

Before she left, however, she made the Board promise that in spite of 

her age they would send her back to India. Carrie Wood was appointed 

as Acting Superintendent, and had to deal with all the problems which 

had been pushed aside while energies were concentrated on com- 

pleting the hospital. 

Walter Bolitho had been keenly disappointed when his request for 

a modest capital investment for the farm was refused. Not knowing the 

secret of the separate funding, he asked whether a hospital was so much 

more important than life-sustaining farming? Esther did not regard 

such questions with favour, and Walter put aside his doubts and helped 

to complete the hospital buildings. While Esther was on leave he under- 

took oversight of these. On one occasion this meant spending the night 

there, and he innocently asked the nurse on night duty for a small 

service. She was missed and questioned, she panicked and lied, and 

people began to gossip - but not for long. The facts were soon known, 

Carrie Wood warned Walter to be more careful to avoid giving the 

smallest excuse for gossip, and that should have been the end of the 

matter. Carrie however, in writing to Esther Baird, happened to tell 

her the story. Suddenly Walter received from the Board a notice of 

summary dismissal 'for inexcusable indiscretion', and Carrie received 

a stern rebuke-for dealing with the matter without consultation! 

The expulsion of the Bolithos was a grievous shock to the Indian 

members of the church, who greatly loved them both, and had shared 

their sorrow when two of their babies had died in succession. There 

were other sources of discontent in addition to this. The cuts and 

arrears in salaries which had resulted from the depression were causing 

a good deal of hardship especially among the lower-paid mission 

employees. Moreover it was impossible that Bundelkhand should not 

be affected by the great upsurge of national feeling associated with the 

popular 'civil disobedience' movement of 1930. A proposal came 

before the Monthly Meeting that Indian workers should share with 

the missionaries in the planning of the work. It was a wise and rea- 

sonable request, but it called out no response. 

The general dissatisfaction was voiced by a former mission orphan 

who (like the 'railway Christians' of Itarsi) was in independent employ- 

ment. 

228 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

In the spring of 1932 this man ('Bram 5 or Brown) wrote direct to 

i he Board about the reasons for Indians' discontent. The Board sent 

his letter to Carrie Wood, and Brown was ordered to 'prove' his 

charges. Many of his criticisms were valid, .but all attention was fixed 

on some others which were exaggerated or distorted. Brown acknowl- 

edged that he had no 'right' to address the Board, he apologised in 

writing to those who felt wronged, but because it was 'the wish of the 

Board' he was disowned and though his faith was not in doubt he was 

never re-instated. It was a tragic business. If British Friends had erred 

by thrusting* responsibility too soon on to an unprepared group, the 

Americans erred by withholding it too long. 

Later in the same year, 1932, Esther Baird returned to India, and 

the long-brewing crisis came to a head. Situations arose which shocked 

the younger missionaries. Pancham Singh so openly disregarded 

mission rules that he 'resigned or was dismissed', but still went on 

working for Esther on a contract basis, and acted as a rakhwal 

(Elder/Overseer) in the Monthly Meeting. William Parsad was still 

running the dispensary in Harpalpur with the help of his son, but had 

become alcoholic. James Kinder, who was stationed there, had 

grounds for suspecting that in the schools under GorelaPs manage- 

ment the evaluation of examination results was not always wholly 

impartial. Both the Kinders and the Earles were distressed; it was 

surely unjust that such failings in senior workers should be ignored, 

while others were harshly disciplined for more venial faults. William 

Parsad certainly deserved compassion; he acknowledged his fault and 

promised to give up drink, but did not find it easy. He was in fact a 

very sick man, and in 1935 he died in Nowgong. 

Meanwhile in 1 933 James Kinder took steps to improve matters in 

the schools, and this led to a campaign against him by those who felt 

threatened. A meeting of the Mission Council took place at which he 

could not be present; led by Pancham Singh, it despatched to the 

Board a letter full of complaints against him. Motilal and his former 

Htudent Stuti Prakash protested strongly against this action but were 

unable to prevent it. The Board's reply reached Bundelkhand in 1 934, 

und was so ambiguous that it satisfied no one, The Kinder »» the E*rle» 

and Ruth Lewis all resigned (though they did not all leave immedi- 

ately) and Motilal and his wife Shanti did the same. Stuti Prakash after 

much agonised prayer, decided to remain; so did Shanti's sister Grace, 

who had recently qualified as a doctor and joined Ruth Hull in 

Chhatarpur. 14 Ruth and Alena both went on leave, and it was Grace 

who then kept the hospital open, almost single-handed. 

CROSS purposes : 1919 to 1935 

229 

The only foreigners then left in the mission were Esther Baird and 

Carrie Wood. The five young rebels compelled the Board to recognise 

the gravity of the situation by composing a 22-point critique which 

they called Do You Know?, and which they sent to every pastor of the 

Ohio Yearly Meeting. At long last the Board took action; they 

appointed Dr Walter R. Williams as Mission Superintendent for India 

and China, and sent him to India in the winter of 1935-36 empow- 

ered to deal with the crisis. He spent about five months in patient con- 

sultation with everyone concerned, including British Friends in 

Hoshangabad and concluded that the statements in Do You Know? 

were essentially justified. He told the Board that they were to blame 

for not listening to their younger missionaries, and for not making it 

clear to the Superintendent that she held authority not as an individual 

but as the mouthpiece of a team. He talked gently but plainly to Esther 

herself, which was not easy either for him or for her. 

Shortly afterwards Carrie Wood retired, and 1936 brought new 

faces and a new start - as 1934 brought new faces and a new start for 

the English Friends in Hoshangabad district. In 1937, just before her 

own retirement, Esther Baird received the gold Kaiser-i-Hind medal, 

in recognition of her service to Bundelkhand for more than 40 years. 

The final year had brought peace after the storm, contentment and 

renewed hope. 

Notes to Chapter XVII 

1 A later reluctant 'missionary' called himself instead 'a religious devotee'. 

2 Nalin Ganguly was not then in India. 

3 Letter from Amy Montford to Friends in the U.K., 12thDecember 1927,p.4. 

(Friends House Library, London.) 

4 Louise Walker described Ethel Sharman's influence in letters to the FFMA. 

5 The Indian Social Reformer printed a scathing comment on this incident. The 

Maharajah has no jurisdiction over souls', wrote the editor. 

6 See 3, above. Amy Montford had been among the young Friends at the 

Kingsmead Conference in 1909 and had spent many years teaching in the U.K. 

at the Mount School in York and elsewhere. 

7 By Alfred Taylor, who valued their services but saw the friction. 

8 Manilal Parikh was the co-author of a book on Gandhi published by the YMCA 

in Calcutta in 1924. 

230 AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

9 R.D.Priestman and H.Robson were present at the Madras gathering, but 

Robson had left India immediately afterwards and Priestman had only just 

returned after five years' absence. 

10 The incident is remembered clearly by Ernest Ludlam's son and daughter 

Martin and Pippa Ludlam. 

1 1 Alfred and Harriet Smith had twenty years of retirement in the Croydon area, 

where he was still 'Uncle'. 

1 2 In 1934 Ashton went to work for the YMCA in Kingston, Jamaica. 

1 3 Nursing courses in the USA did not then include midwifery. 

14 Shanti and Grace were daughters of Harbi Bai, granddaughters of Duoji Bai. 

CHAPTER XVIII 

Learning from India : 1920 to 1934 

Bind me, O Lord, to all my fellows - 

and set me free from bondage. 

May every act of mine 

throb with the pulses of Thy song, 

Rabindranath Tagore 

In 1912 the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to the Bengali poet 

Rabindranath Tagore, the first writer outside Europe to be so honoured. 

He visited England and was received in literary circles with great enthu- 

siasm; some of his poetry was published in English translation in Gitanjali 

(song-offerings) and other volumes. 

Only two years later such international friendliness was shattered by 

the national passions of the First World War. What might be done, asked 

Tagore, to restore the broken vision of a world-wide human family? His 

own answer was to create a Viswa-Bharati, a World University, in his edu- 

cational centre at Santiniketan in Bengal. A world university, in his eyes, 

should serve 'one single country which is this earth, where races no less 

than individuals must find both freedom for self-expression and bonds of 

federation'. Moreover it could only serve effectively if it were universal in 

another sense; it must not be an 'ivory tower' of learning, it must be 

involved in the daily life and work of its own neighbourhood. A Viswa- 

Bharati at Santiniketan must not only draw scholars from other lands, it 

must serve the villages around it. 

It was therefore part of Tagore 's plan that the old nil-kuti (indigo house) 

at Sural, two miles away, should become a Sriniketan, a centre of good 

and gracious village life. In 1920-1921 he visited Europe and America to 

seek fellow-workers in this enterprise; scholars responded, but only at the 

very end did he find, in New York, a man to help with Sriniketan. 

231 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

This was Leonard Elmhirst, who came of an old land-owning family 

in Yorkshire, and who had already been drawn to India by reading 

(iitanjali. One of his teachers at school had been Jack Hoyland's cousin 

I). C. Somervell, who made a never forgotten comment: 'People should 

not only read the Gospels, they should live them.' Not long afterwards, at 

Cambridge, Elmhirst had met another inspiring teacher, Goldsworthy 

Lowes Dickinson, who had visited India in 1912. He had completed his 

course, in spite of the war, because he was physically unfit for military 

service. It was then, in 1915, that he read Gitanjali and volunteered to 

serve in the YMCA in India. 

Two years later, still in India, Elmhirst met an older Englishman named 

Sam Higginbottom. Higginbottom, who had began life as a very poor boy 

from the slums of Manchester, had got himself an education by his own 

determined efforts, and had then volunteered for Christian service in India. 

He joined the staff of the Ewing Christian College at Allahabad to teach 

economics, and as he knew nothing of Indian conditions he took his stu- 

dents for observation in villages. The experience led him to make a prac- 

tical study of agriculture in the United States, and when Elmhirst met him 

he was building up an Agricultural Institute at Naini, across the Yamuna 

opposite Allahabad. Elmhirst joined him, acted as his secretary and worked 

on the farm; when the war was over he too went to the United States to 

study agriculture so that he might return to help Higginbottom at Naini. 

Higginbottom's Mission however did not approve, for Elmhirst had 

come to feel (like so many before him) that £ the old creeds do not reflect 

my experience or satisfy my reason'. He therefore had to look elsewhere. 

Higginbottom knew of Tagore's search for fellow-workers in Viswa- 

Bharati, so he wrote and suggested Elmhirst as a possible recruit for the 

rural wing. In March 1921 Tagore met him in New York. 

Tagore was then 60 years old, Elmhirst only 28, but the attraction was 

mutual. Elmhirst found Tagore to be 'a very human human being' full of 

humour and mischief, and Tagore enjoyed being treated as such. 'Would 

you come back with me to India tomorrow?' he asked. Elmhirst, taken 

by surprise, protested. £ Not tomorrowl Let me finish my course first! But 

then, I zvill come.' 

Elmhirst reached Santiniketan about six months later. The non- 

cooperation movement of 1920-21 had taken place during Tagore's 

absence from India, and the poet was unhappy about its development in 

Bengal. Students had left the Government colleges in Calcutta and come 

to Santiniketan, many of them interested only in political agitation. Not 

long before Elmhirst arrived Tagore met Gandhi, and talked with him 

about 'the cult of selfish nationalism' in India. He now spoke equally freely 

to Elmhirst: 

LEARNING FROM INDIA : 1920 TO 1934 

We dare not shut the west out: India has much to learn. She has 

also something to give, but in order to give, we ourselves must learn 

to work together. 

He and Elmhirst worked together, and Elmhirst was very happy in Surul, 

while the most 'undesirable' political agitators were got rid of. 

In May 1922 Viswa-Bharati was publicly inaugurated and its goal 

defined: 

... to bring the cultures of the East into relationship with one 

another ... to realise the meeting of East and West, and thereby 

to strengthen the conditions (for) human concord and world peace. 

Much was done towards this goal. A young Muslim scholar devoted 

himself to both Viswa-Bharati's 'wings', teaching Persian and Arabic, and 

also spending time on the farm and in the villages, making friends with 

Hindu and Muslim alike. 1 Elmhirst himself realised the importance both 

of the village school, and of adult education for ( the good life'. The people's 

material, cultural and social needs may all be met, he wrote, 'by contin- 

uous education in a community bound together by human kindness, free 

from fear and competition,' learning together 'from the cradle to the 

grave', as Gandhi put it later. 

In 1925 a Bengal government report commented on Viswa-Bharati's 

external simplicity, its standards of research 'attractive to men of high 

calibre in other lands', and its active cooperation with other centres of 

learning. Tts existence is an enrichment of the educational resources of 

the Province', the report concluded. By that time however Elmhirst was 

no longer there; Tagore had wanted him as companion on a journey to 

South America in 1924, and after that he did not return, but married. 

His wife Dorothy was a wealthy American whom he had first met in 1 920 

when an agriculture student. He and she continued to pioneer in educa- 

tion in England, at Dartington Hall in Devon. 

Early in 1926 Tagore's son-in-law Professor Ganguly, on a visit to 

London, met Muriel Lester. Muriel, like Leonard Elmhirst, was of good 

family, but for 1 5 years she had lived in voluntary poverty among the very 

poor in Bow. 2 She was also a convinced Christian pacifist and worked for 

international peace, along with many Friends, in the Fellowship of 

Reconciliation. She had already met the Indian Trade Union leader 

N. M. Joshi and had begun to read Gandhi's Young India. Ganguly invited 

her to visit India and to meet Tagore and Gandhi in person. She eagerly 

accepted, and spent the last three months of 1926, with her 18 year old 

nephew as her companion, travelling in India. She went first to Gandhi's 

ashram at Sabarmati, and soon found that most of the Indians she met 

there were as ignorant of England as most English people were of India. 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

I Ie had used his skill to help the poor, Hindu and Muslim alike. They all 

loved him, and Gandhi told the meeting that the best memorial to his life 

would be a lasting mutual goodwill between the two communities. There 

was a generous response, and a spirit of give-and-take which seemed to 

augur well for the future. 

Fenner Brockway had been chosen as a fraternal delegate to this 

meeting of the Congress, and had joined his sister in Madras a few days 

before it began. She suggested that they might visit some of the villages 

where her former students were working, and Fenner welcomed the 

chance to see something of rural India. The visit was paid, but on the way 

back their hired car met with an accident; Norah was badly bruised, 

Fenner seriously injured. When the Congress met he was in a Madras 

hospital, where Gandhi paid him a cheery visit. The upshot was what he 

called 'A Week in India - and Three Months in an Indian Hospital", 7 but 

the one week had taught him much, and on his return to Britain he became 

closely associated with Friends' Indian interests. 

While Fenner was in hospital a plan was carried out to bring together 

the score or so of International Fellowships which had been formed in 

various places, into an all-India federation. The inaugural meeting was 

held in Gandhi's Sabarmati ashram and at his invitation. He did not deal 

this time with the 'international' aspect of the Fellowships, but with the 

contribution they might make to that 'give-and-take' between religious 

communities for which he had appealed at the Madras Congress. 

Our prayer for others should be [he said], not that they should 

follow the same path as we do, but that they should find and follow 

the path which is best for themselves. 

One of those present at this meeting was a young member of the Pune 

International Fellowship named Verrier Elwin. Elwin was a brilliant 

Oxford scholar who in 1927 had joined the Christa Seva Sangha, 8 and 

hud at once begun to study Indian traditions of religious devotion and 

relate them to their Christian counterparts. His meeting with Gandhi in 

Sabarmati led him to study also 'Christ and Satyagraha', and a few years 

later to move on from Pune to serve the Gond people of the Satpura 

ranges, where his pathway crossed with Friends'. 

Horace Alexander met Gandhi a few weeks later. 9 It was not difficult 

for him to accept Gandhi's principle that 'true religion must show itself 

in the smallest details of life', but he felt challenged by the contrasting 

ways in which Sabarmati and Santiniketan approached those details. At 

Sabarmati there was strict routine and the discipline of ordered work; at 

Santiniketan an attempt to awaken the soul through aesthetic expression. 

Yet, Horace concluded, 'I think their goal is the same: the growth of a 

strong, enlightened people.' In the course of his travels he had met many 

LEARNING FROM INDIA : 1920 TO 1934 

237 

enlightened individuals; he had also seen aspects of British rule which 

enabled him to understand why these men and women were impatient to 

get rid of it. He carried back to England the message Gandhi gave him 

for his fellow-countrymen: 'We want you to get off our backs.' 

The meeting with Gandhi also taught Horace that this political aim, 

significant as it was, was for Gandhi one means to something deeper, 

growth in knowledge of Truth. East and West, thought Horace, tend to 

see different facets of Truth; might they not learn from one another? But 

if one is to learn, one must- be ready for genuine give-and-take. 

There are plenty of people in India as in the West [he wrote] who 

need to be turned from darkness to light, from fear to love, from 

self to service . . . Christ-like lives seem to be the only force that 

can save the world. 

What was needed, in fact, was people who could live as Christians without 

having to belong to a separate Christian community. That is very much 

what Charles Gayford and his friends had said, in Hoshangabad 50 years 

before. 

There were other less serious memories of Sabarmati - of Gandhi 

'marching briskly along, with half a dozen children dancing along beside 

him 5 on his evening walks. These and other children were fascinated by 

Horace's binoculars (which he always carried because of his passion for 

bird-study). He let them experiment, and they looked through the wrong 

end and chuckled to see each other so small and far away. 'I had no idea, 

he wrote, 'what a lot of delight my binoculars would give.' His own delight 

in the children was another bond with Gandhi. 

In 1919, after the First World War ended, there was a renewed influx of 

Indian students into British universities. Indian Student Associations were 

formed, the YMCA opened special hostels to meet their needs, and a 

number of them came into contact with Friends, some of whom took a 

special interest in the YMCA hostel at Edinburgh. One of the students 

there, Shoran S. Singha, felt so much in unity with Quaker principles that 

he applied for membership, and was admitted to the Society in July 1921. 

One of the things which drew him to Friends was their witness against selfish 

materialist nationalism, for his outlook was that of Tagore. After he had 

completed his studies he joined the staff of the YMCA, and was posted in 

the London area. Percy Home, who in pre-war days had edited the Bombay 

Guardian, gave him a warm welcome to Kingston Monthly Meeting. 

Another Indian student, Sucha Singh Khera, became a member of the 

Friends House Meeting in London. There was a lively Young Friends 

group, whose interest in India had been kindled by Tagore 's visit in 1 920. 

Sucha married one of them, Veida Greer. He himself had been accepted 

238 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

for the Indian Civil Service, and in 1925 he was appointed to Sitapur, 50 

miles north of Lucknow. There he and Veida had good neighbours in Dr 

and Mrs Stanley Jones, who had known and admired Joseph and Katherine 

Taylor and were firm friends of the Calcutta Guardian. Stanley Jones 1 own 

book, The Christ of the Indian Road, reflected a spirit of intellectual and 

spiritual adventure akin to that of Samuel Stokes in Kotgarh and Jack 

Hoyland in Nagpur. 

When Horace Alexander returned to England in the spring of 1928 

with Gandhi's message to Britain, many people were urging Gandhi to 

lead a campaign for an Indian-made constitution embodying full Dominion 

status. Gandhi, who believed (as he had told Muriel Lester) in giving his 

opponents a chance, persuaded Congress to give Britain 'a year of grace' 

in which to meet India's claims. During that year, 1929, a Labour gov- 

ernment took office in London, and the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, went to confer 

with the new cabinet. He returned with proposals for a Round Table 

Conference in 1930 at which the future pattern of Indian government 

would be framed in consultation with Indian representatives. This was a 

welcome move, but the Labour leaders were not themselves politically 

secure, and in the face of powerful opposition in Britain they were unable 

to give clear assurance that the pattern would be one of Dominion status, 

and without that assurance the Congress refused to attend. 

In the autumn of 1929 another English Friend, Reginald Reynolds, 

reached India. He was a young man of 24; after leaving school in his late 

'teens he had spent two years studying international affairs with Horace 

Alexander in Woodbrooke. While he was there, he was impressed by 

college performances of some of Laurence Housman's Little Plays of St 

Francis. Housman, poet and dramatist, friend of Henry Fawcett and 

admirer of Tagore, lived in Somerset, and when Reynolds went to work 

for a Quaker business firm there he sought him out and valued his guid- 

ance. But Reynolds was not a success in business; he knew it, and in 1929 

decided to give up his job. What next? 

His Woodbrooke teacher Horace Alexander suggested a visit to India 

and got him an invitation from Gandhi; an unexpected financial 'wind- 

fall' covered expenses, and off he went. He visited the Kheras, and was 

shocked to see an Englishman stride into Sucha's court and interrupt an 

important case with an arrogant demand for a gun-licence which he could 

easily have got through regular channels. Such incidents made him long 

to be 'an ambassador of repentance', and in that mood he attended the 

Congress meeting at Lahore in December 1929. There for the first time 

he saw Gandhi and recorded his impression: ' Such a dear old man (Gandhi 

then was 60), with the same mixture of sense and sobriety, and shrewd 

economical humour', as an Elder in a Quaker Meeting! But he also saw 

LEARNING FROM INDIA : 1920 TO 1934 

239 

that 'what draws people is that simplest and rarest of things, his absolute 

sincerity'. 

At that Congress meeting the historic resolution on independence was 

adopted and 26th January 1930 declared 'Independence Day'; Gandhi 

was authorised to launch a new non-cooperation movement as and when 

he saw fit. Once more Gandhi wrote to the Viceroy, stating the conditions 

on which conflict could be avoided. He asked Reg Reynolds to deliver his 

letter, and told him what it contained. It made no political demands, but 

asked for measures to relieve the burdens on the poor. Lord Irwin did not 

respond, and in March 1930 Gandhi left Sabarmati to start his campaign. 

To the surprise of many Congressmen it took the form of a 'salt march' 

to the sea-coast, a direct challenge to the unpopular and controversial salt 

monopoly against which Friends and others had been protesting for over 

100 years! Reg Reynolds wanted to march also, but Gandhi would not 

allow it, so after helping for a time to edit Gandhi's paper Young India he 

returned to England to watch events from there. 

The Salt March reached the sea at Dandi in the first days of April. 

Gandhi formally disobeyed the law by scraping up a handful of salt from 

the beach; the action was the signal for 'the most spontaneous, widespread 

and intense' 10 of all the public campaigns. All round the coast, from the 

Salt Lakes of Calcutta to the salt creeks north of Bombay, people came 

out in thousands to make illegal salt. Volunteers blockaded a government 

salt depot; remaining quietly non-violent under the blows of the police. 

Women came out of their seclusion to picket drinkshops and the merchants 

who sold foreign cloth. Richard Gregg cameback to India to witness what 

he called, in the book he wrote later, The Power of Non- Violence. 

Politically-minded students took little part; many of them sympathised 

with the terrorists who raided the government armoury at Chittagong at 

the end of April. Up to then the Government had watched and waited; 

now it struck both at secret terrorists and at open, non-violent salt-makers. 

Gandhi was arrested at the beginning of May, with a show of armed force 

which led Indian newspapers, remembering Gandhi's reverence for Jesus, 

to quote from the Gospel: 'Are you come with swords and staves to take 

me, as if I were a thief?' 1 1 

A week or two later British Friends held their Yearly Meeting in London. 

Rabindranath Tagore was again in England, and spoke to them. 'We 

Indians,' he said, 'want the privilege of serving our own country in our own 

way,' and he asked for Friends' help in realising 'that greatest of human 

rights, freedom.' The following day Young Friends devoted the whole of 

their special meeting to considering what he had said, and chose Myrtle 

Aldren Wright, who had been working for international understanding 

ever since she was a student at Cambridge in the mid-20's, to place their 

240 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

concern before the whole Yearly Meeting. There were some, she said, who 

' feared the consequences of freedom because of their love for India'; could 

they not take the risks of freedom, if that were the leading of God? The 

minute of the Yearly Meeting echoed her words: 'Our Quaker belief inspires 

us lo take the risks of freedom rather than maintain tutelage.' 

Action followed. Five Friends, among them Carl Heath and T 

I'dmund Harvey, were chosen to form a 'Committee for Indian Affairs'. 

They sought interviews with the Prime Minister and the Secretary of 

State, and voiced Friends' desire for reconciliation. In the course of the 

Yearly Meeting Shoran Singha had reminded Friends of what Indian del- 

egates had said to the Edinburgh conference 20 years before: 'We ask for 

love; give us friends'. The Committee sent Horace Alexander back to India, 

carrying a letter from Tagore, to be & friend. 

I lorace set to work 'to show each side the better nature of the other'. 

I .ord Irwin welcomed him, and readily made it possible for him to see the 

imprisoned Gandhi and other Indian leaders. Horace also met many 

Indian government officials who (as Irwin well knew) shared the national 

aspiration to freedom, and regarded their work as a way to prepare them- 

selves to give free India an honest and competent civil service. 'True reli- 

gion/ said a High Court judge to Horace, 'is not a matter of labels, but 

of consecrated service to one's fellows. This judge and others, disregarding 

their Hindu or Muslim 'labels', joined him at their own request in a 

Quaker-like time of worship. 

When Horace returned to Britain the first Round Table Conference 

hud begun. The Congress was not represented, but among the Indian 

t nembers were 'men of true religion' honoured by their fellow-countrymen : 

Tej Bahadur Sapru, V. Srinivasa Sastri, K. T. Paul. They worked hard for 

decisions which would be acceptable to the Congress, and equally hard to 

explain the purpose of the Conference to the British public. Friends helped; 

hundreds of them attended a special Quaker conference in November at 

which Sastri, Paul, and Shoran Singha all spoke. By the time the Round 

'lfcble Conference ended in December the Indians were convinced that the 

British government really meant business. The Prime Minister Ramsay 

Mncdonald publicly voiced his hope that the Indian National Congress 

would take part in a second conference the following year. 

I .ord Irwin therefore released his political prisoners unconditionally - 

on the anniversary of Independence Day in January 1931! Then came 

long personal talks between him and Gandhi; these two 'men of true 

religion' found that they could trust one another, and the Gandhi-Irwin 

Pad opened a way. 

When Tagore spoke in Friends House in May 1930 his links with the 

Society of Friends had already become closer. As a result of Horace's visit 

LEARNING FROM INDIA : 1920 TO 1934 

241 

to him in 1927 it had been agreed that Nalin Ganguly, with Friends' 

support, should join the Viswa-Bharati staff; he became Principal of the 

college department in 1928. During the followingyear 1929 two American 

Friends were recruited for work in Sriniketan. 

For Harry Garland Timbres and his wife Rebecca this was a totally unex- 

pected adventure. Harry had joined Friends during the First World War, 

when he was a university student; in 1920 he volunteered for relief work in 

war -devastated Europe, and the AFSC sent him to Poland. Rebecca Janney, 

the daughter of a well-known Quaker doctor, had also volunteered, and 

after training in nursing she too was sent to Poland. In 1921 they met in 

Warsaw, and were married there in March 1922. Then they were sent to a 

famine-stricken part of Russia, where they learned to respect and admire 

the Russian people and to enjoy their stories and folk dances. 

This experience led Harry to decide to become a doctor. During the 

years of study which followed, the Timbres' little girls were born and cared 

for, and in 1928-29 the AFSC made a plan to send the family back to 

Russia; they were to live at Tolstoy's former home, Yasnaya Polyana, to 

train Russians as male health workers and women nurses. All was ready, 

visas secured, boxes packed; before sailing, they visited friends in Chicago. 

Suddenly there came a telegram, from Clarence Pickett of the AFSC 

'Russian visas revoked; see Dr Andrews.', and naming the Chicago church 

where c Dr Andrews' was to be found. The name meant nothing to the 

Timbres, but they went to the service. 'How shabby he looks!' thought 

Rebecca, but when C. F. Andrews began to speak of Tagore and Viswa- 

Bharati she listened spellbound - for Tagore's name was familiar. She had 

once visited London with her parents, in 1913, and seen a performance 

of Tagore's play The Post Office. Later she had discovered and treasured 

Gitanjali, and she and Harry had read it together during their courtship. 

They talked with Andrews, who told them that Tagore needed a doctor 

and a nurse for Sriniketan, to develop public health work and build up 

Health Cooperatives. Here was a fascinating alternative to Russia I 

The first step was to consult Leonard Elmhirst, and by September 

1929, with the support of the AFSC, the family had sailed for England 

to do so. Leonard advised Harry to go to India alone in the first place and 

see the situation for himself. An English member of the former Friends 

Relief Service in Warsaw was in Birmingham, and suggested that during 

Harry's absence Rebecca and the children should stay in the Missionary 

Guest House not far from Woodbrooke. 

In Santiniketan Harry talked at length with Tagore and others, made 

a beginning on Bengali, and began to plan a possible hospital. He also 

attended the Congress meeting in Lahore (though there is no evidence 

that he met Reg Reynolds in the crowd) and was invited to Chhatarpur 

242 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

by the new doctor there, Ruth Hull. Returning to England full of enthu- 

siasm, he took a course in tropical diseases in London, leaving Rebecca 

still in the Guest House in Birmingham. 

Rebecca met Tagore when he visited Woodbrooke in the spring of 

1930, and he greeted her warmly for Harry's sake. Harry was then 30, 

Tagore nearly 70, but they were on the same terms of easy equality as 

Tagore had been with Elmhirst. Later that year \ic asked Harry to go with 

him to Russia, and then to the United States, just as he had earlier got 

Elmhirst to accompany him to South America. Meanwhile Rebecca in 

Birmingham found life rewarding. Horace and Olive Alexander were 'like 

family', for Olive's father, J. W. Graham, knew her own father well; Jack 

and Jessie Hoyland were there with their knowledge of India, and Henry 

T Hodgkin, who had just been helping to start Tendle Hill' in Pennsylvania 

as an American counterpart of Woodbrooke. She herself was in great 

demand for Russian dances and stories, and American 'spirituals'. 

Early in 1931 Rebecca joined Harry in the States for a 'whirl' of com- 

mittees and consultations (Dorothy Elmhirst paying for her journey). 

Then she and Harry returned to Britain, where they joined Housman, 

Andrews, Elmhirst and others in founding a Tagore Association. Finally 

they spent a month (on Leonard Elmhirst's advice and at Dorothy's 

expense) in studying pioneer medical cooperatives in Yugoslavia. And so 

at last they landed at Bombay, and travelled eastward across India. They 

visited Gail and Ratcliffe Addison, the rural doctor and the farmer, at 

Itarsi: they visited Elmhirst's friend and guide Sam Higginbottom at 

Naini, and then they settled into Sriniketan. 

During the years that followed hard work was happily combined with 

youthful fun, in which Tagore himself joined with as much zest as did the 

Timbres' little girls, while their Russian folk-dancing added to the com- 

munity's enjoyment. Their chief medical interest was to prevent sickness 

rather than cure it, and Harry soon became aware of the toll exacted by 

constantly recurring malaria, sapping energy and undermining health. He 

undertook a thorough survey of the incidence of malaria in the region, 

thus providing the factual basis for programmes of control His critical 

objective study was a major contribution to the welfare of West Bengal. 

At the same time he and Rebecca were working out how to apply the 

knowledge of Health Cooperatives which they had gained in Yugoslavia 

to the conditions of village life around Surul. Their plans worked, and the 

cooperatives made a good start, helped on by the intelligent cooperation 

of the village children in the Sriniketan school which Elmhirst had 

founded. They kept in friendly touch with the Addisons in Itarsi, and not 

many years later Friends from Itarsi were visiting Sriniketan to study the 

Health Cooperative there. 

LEARNING FROM INDIA : 1920 TO 1934 

243 

Tagore was delighted with it all. Harry was impressed by his reminder 

to students that 'this place (Santiniketan) is meant for those who will give 

their best, forgetting themselves.' 12 The Timbres did just that, but three 

years of giving his best in the difficult climate of Bengal played havoc with 

Harry's own health. In 1934 he became a very sick man, and the family 

was obliged to withdraw. Two years later, when his health was restored, 

the way opened for them to return to Russia, to that region of their first 

love, the forests of the Volga. They were made welcome, and once more 

they gave their best; but less than a year later, in 1937, Harry died there 

of typhus, in his 38th year. 

The contribution made by Nalin Ganguly during the same period is 

much more difficult to assess. Some of the difficulty stems from his own 

character and circumstances. He* was excitable, and easily swayed by those 

he admired. One of the many Bengali Brahmins who staffed the High 

Schools of central India, he had joined Friends in Hoshangabad when he 

was working with Jack Hoyland there, but he did not stay long enough to 

feel part of the group in mid-India. He went back to Calcutta and helped 

Joseph and Katherine Taylor when they arrived, but left after a short time 

for study in England. When he returned two years or more later he worked 

for the YMCA, but the attitude of some of its officers to his 'unbaptised' 

condition was a constant irritant. He fell into the habit, understandable 

but unfortunate, of being continually on the defensive. 

Ganguly was a strong advocate of the principle of co-education, and 

in applying it to the college department at Santiniketan he had the backing 

of Tagore. During his first two years the college was 'too successful', in 

that it attracted- too many students for the Calcutta University degree 

which was offered as an alternative to the Viswa-Bharati diploma. The 

balance was upset, and Tagore was troubled, but before he and Ganguly 

could take steps to put it right he left for his prolonged 1930 absence in 

Europe and the United States. From then on Ganguly's surviving letters 

to Friends House in London are full of references to factions and Vested 

interests' which were working against him. In 1 93 1 there was a crisis con- 

nected with the co-educational principles of the College, and Ganguly 

sent in his resignation. Then, the poet came to the rescue with his great 

heart and vision and the resignation was withdrawn. 'He is the only man 

in Santiniketan,' wrote Ganguly admiringly, 'who has the courage to own 

a mistake.' 13 For a time things were happier, but before the end of 1932 

some whom Tagore trusted were making things difficult for Ganguly, 

whose own rather prickly defensiveness made him an easy target. In 1933 

he finally withdrew, and returned to his own Calcutta home, where his 

Brahmin family had long accepted him. 

244 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Notes to Chapter XVIII 

1 This unnamed helper was succeeded, not long afterwards, by the agricultural 

economist Dr Amir Ali, who as a little boy on the streets of Hyderabad had once 

enjoyed Philip Sturge's jokes (see chap.9, above). 

2 For details of the life of Muriel Lester see the biography Mother of World Peace, 

1993, by Jill Wallis. 

3 For J.G.Alexander's work in India see Horace Alexander's biography of his 

father, chap.4. 

4 The meeting was held in the hall of the Women's Christian College, whose 

students were permitted to listen from the gallery. They wrote a vivid account in 

the college magazine. 

5 A Parliamentary Commission could formally include only Members of 

Parliament, but there was no attempt to circumvent the limitation. 

6 Willie Pearson had died in 1923, being fatally injured in a railway accident in 

Italy. 

7 The title of a short book ( 1 928) describing his experience on that visit to India. 

8 The Christa Seva Sangha (Society for Service of Christ) was founded and led 

by Jack Winslow; its members took Indian names. 

9 Quotations are from Horace Alexander's book The Indian Ferment, which 

describes his experience during this visit, especially pp.228-9 and 236. 

1 0 Phrase used by Nirad Chaudhuri, who in general was critical of Gandhi. See 

Thy Hand, Great Anarch, 1987, p.275. 

11 Gospel according to St Luke 22.52. 

1 2 The words are reported by Harry Timbres himself. 

IT Nalin Ganguly's letters to H.Catford dated September 1931 are preserved 

in Friends House Library, London. 

CHAPTER XIX 

Indian Politics : 1931 to 1935 

Governments, like clocks, go by the motion men give them. 

William penn 

The Gandi-Irwin Pact ended civil disobediences, and Gandhi pre- 

pared to represent the Congress when the next conference opened in 

September 193 1 . In England Andrews too prepared; he wrote a series of 

books about Gandhi designed to introduce him and his ideas to the British 

public. 

Nevertheless Gandhi hesitated. The spring of 1931 had brought polit- 

ical changes. In England the Labour governme-nt was replaced by a coali- 

tion less friendly to India's aspirations, though Ramsay Macdonald and 

Lord Sankey the chairman of the Round Table Conference were still part 

of it. In India Lord Irwin was replaced by Lord Willingdon who was less 

ready to listen to 'unofficial' voices, whether Indian or British. Mutual 

suspicions raised their heads again, hopes of 'freedom in cooperation' 

were dimmed. But for Gandhi that was only part of the problem, there 

was something deeper. He believed that before the conference met Hindus 

and Muslims should unite to claim the substance of self government, and 

he urged his fellow-Hindus to make this possible by listening to Muslim 

wishes and allaying their fears. He did not succeed, but in the end he 

decided to attend the conference. 

Gandhi was welcomed to London in a public meeting at Friends 

House, organised jointly with Indians in London and with Laurence 

Housman and Fenner Brockway. Gandhi said that he felt in unity with 

Friends in 'the common cause of peace'. 

I expect Quakers [he said] to represent the Indian cause - and this 

will mean study, thorough study, followed by corporate action based 

on truth. That is what satyagraha means - insistence on truth. 

245 

246 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

He told [hum that he had found that spirit in a bouk which many Friends 

before him had treasured, The Imitation of Christ. 1 

During the period of the Round Table Conference regular mid -week 

Meetings for Worship were held in Friends House, Gandhi attended die 

first, with Lord Sankey find others. It was completely silent, and so deep 

and powerful that Gandhi was eager to attend subsequent Meetings and 

did so whenever he could. The Woodbrooke ^Council released Horace 

Alexander to assise Gandhi at his Londun office near the conference site, 3 

where along with Andrews and Reg Reynolds he did his best to shield 

Gandhi from the idly curious j sometimes he accompanied Gandhi on the 

long drive back to Kings ley Hull, where he was staying with Muriel Lester 

among the poor of Bow, Friends also helped Andrews to arrange for 

Gandhi to spend weekends out of London in order to meet people in the 

Universities and die Churchy as well as the unemployed workers of the 

cotton mills of Lancashire^ where he stayed in the home of a Quaker mill 

owner. There was a memorable weekend at Woodbrooke., during which 

Gandhi talked long with the Bishop of Birmingham, Dr Barnes. 3 Happily 

there were also one or two weekends of pure relaxation with Muriel 

Lester's friends in the quiet of the English countryside. 

At the conference itself tilings did not go well. Gandhi's was often a 

lonely voice i he had Htde support except from S, K, Datia who had taken 

K. T. Paul's place. 3 " The rival interests did not agree about vital matters, 

which were left to the decision of the British government. When the con- 

ference ended in December, Gandhi had seemingly been able to accom- 

plish nothing. Before he left he met his Quaker friends once more in Carl 

Heath's room at Friends House. There would continue to be a needj he 

said* for someone to present the Indian point of view ? dearly and truth- 

fully, to the British government and people. Could not Horace do it? 

Horace did not feel that he could, but Agatha Harrison, who had been 

an assistant lu the Whitley Commission's inquiry into industrial labour 

in India, agreed to undertake the work with modest financial support 

found in India. This w r as the seedbed of the India Conciliation Group 

which began its work in \932 and in which Friends worked alongside 

other friends of India. 

This network of goodwill was not confined to Britain, Both Gandhi 

Hind Tagore found a response also on the continent of Hurope where Tagore 

had travelled widely, In December 1931 on his way back to Tndia Gandhi 

went to Switzerland to meet that great advocate of L a larger human tty', 

Roma in Rolland, A few days later a Swiss Quaker couple, Edmond and 

Yvonne Privat, joined him and travelled with him to India. They did not 

stay there long, but for many years afterwards they kept the issues of "truth 

and nonviolence' before the French-speaking world in the pages of their 

]NP1AU toutics : 1931 to 1935 

247 v 

Mdrjork Syktf and Mary Burr jfi 1968. 

magazine UEsser, a kind of independent counterpart of the Indian 

Guardian . 

That voyage to India in December 1931 was significant for a number 

of people and had its impact upon Friends other than the Privats. There 

was a young Maratha passenger named Shyamrao Hi vale. He had become 

Verricr Elwirfs close friend at the ashram at Pune s and then had gone to 

England for theological studies, Blwin himself, after three or four years' 

'apprenticeship' in the ashram, had decided that the time had come for 

independent work, and wrote to invite Hi vale to join him, and Hi vale broke 

off his studies and came. s by the same ship as Gandhi. Before die end of 

1932 he and Elwin, at the suggestion of Gandhi's friend Jamnalal Bajaj, 

had set up a simple ashram of service among the Good people at Karanji 

in the Maikal Range, at the far eastern extremity of the Satpura hills. 

Another passenger was Mary Barr, who had been working as a mis- 

sionary in Hyderabad State since 1 920, When she heard of Gandhi during 

her first years m India she had thought him L a fanatical extremist*. Dun fit; 

1931 she had been on leave in England and had read Andrews' books 

248 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

about him, and they had so impressed her that she decided that when she 

got back to India she would study his movement seriously. Then unex- 

pectedly she found Gandhi himself on board the ship on which she trav- 

elled, and when they reached Bombay He invited her to his own 

headquarters in Laburnum Road. There she met Anna Maria Petersen, 

the Dane whose girls' school in South India had been inspired by Gandhi; 

there too for the first time in her life she ate an Indian meal served in 

Indian style. She decided to throw in her lot with Gandhi 'to serve the 

India that he is trying to save'. She went back to Hyderabad to send in 

her resignation to the mission, although she did not leave until, later in 

1932, a replacement had been found. 

Gandhi himself, when he reached Bombay, was confronted by dis- 

turbing news: Jawaharlal Nehru and others of his fellow-workers were 

again in jail. Once more trouble had arisen over the land-tax; there had 

been an increase whose justice was disputed. The Congress leaders had 

begun to negotiate with the government on the peasants' behalf but instead 

of suspending collection until the matter was settled, local officials had 

demanded payment at the disputed rate. The peasants refused to comply, 

and their leaders were under arrest. It was not long before Gandhi himself 

was arrested as a potential disturber of the peace. 

There was widespread bitterness in India; it seemed that the incipient 

belief in British sincerity had after all been misplaced. In England the 

Friends were much distressed; they recorded their hope that 'we may as 

a Society, and through individual Friends, take our full share in the service 

of progress through reconciliation'. The first to act were three individual 

Friends, Percy Bartlett and Eric Hayman of the International Fellowship 

of Reconciliation, and Hilda Cashmore who had lived among the poor 

for many years in the slums of Bristol and Manchester. They left for India 

at the end of January 1932, and there sought the help of Tagore who like 

them longed to see 'generosity of spirit' shown on both sides. 

They found hysteria in the air. Unlike Horace Alexander in 1930, 

they were not allowed to visit Gandhi in jail. Westerners who showed 

sympathy with India's desire for freedom were under suspicion; 

Gordon Halstead, a graduate of the Friends College at Haverford PA, 

had been asked to resign from his college post in Lucknow; 

Christopher Ackroyd in Calcutta was harassed by the European 

Association for similar reasons; Dr Forrester Paton, co-founder with 

an Indian friend of a Christian ashram, who wore the homespun cotton 

'livery of freedom', was struck by the batons of the police as they dis- 

persed a peaceful crowd in Madras. Percy Bartlett sadly recorded his 

impression that the government wanted 'victory more than peace'. 

INDIAN politics : 1931 to 1935 

249 

When the three travellers returned to Britain there was much to be 

done. Even within the Society of Friends too little heed had been given 

to Gandhi's appeal for 'study, thorough study 9 . Quaker reactions to 

the freedom movement ranged from unrealistic enthusiasm to unrea- 

soning suspicion; the vision so widely shared in 1930 had begun to 

fade. Even Percy Whitlock in India, who had so well understood his 

students' reactions to the boycott of 1920 and the death of Lajpat Rai 

in 1928, failed to understand why, steeped in Bengali political tradi- 

tion as they were, they had not responded to Gandhi's call in 1930. 4 

The India Conciliation Group set to work, with Agatha Harrison as 

honorary secretary and Henry Polak, Gandhi's old friend from South 

Africa, a valuable member. One useful channel of communication with 

India was The Guardian, which had been transferred from Calcutta to 

Madras early in 1932. Its value as an independent commentary on 

public affairs was recognised both in India and in Britain. The Quaker 

Trust which backed it included along with Horace Alexander some of 

the wisest of those who had once worked for Friends in Hoshangabad 

- Basil Backhouse, Douglas Maynard, 'Uncle' Alfred Smith. 

Then came the dramatic events of the autumn of 1932. Gandhi 

had warned the Round Table Conference that he would 'resist with 

his life' any political plan which would perpetuate the shameful status 

of 'untouchable'. The British government's 'communal award' gave 

these 'scheduled castes' separate electoral^ representation, and he 

believed that this in effect endorsed the wrong. Prisoner as he was, he 

announced a 'fast unto death' against the award. An alternative plan, 

acceptable to 'untouchables' and 'higher-caste' Hindus alike, was the 

only thing to save his life. Strenuous efforts made by Tagore and others 

in India and by Andrews in England enabled agreement to be reached. 

Gandhi broke his fast and was released, to devote all his energies over 

the next few years to the welfare of those whom he re-named Harijan, 

'the people of God'. 5 

The work of the India Conciliation Group went on. Samuel Hoare, 

Secretary of State for India, who had issued a prompt and generous 

apology for the treatment of Forrester Paton by the police, listened 

courteously and carefully to the Friends who visited him, though his 

own power was limited by the fact that any reform had to win the 

support of an unsympathetic Parliament. 

In January 1934 a serious earthquake occurred in Bihar, and emer- 

gency action on a large scale became necessary. The Indian National 

Congress raised a relief fund; the chairman of the committee which 

administered it was the distinguished Bihari Dr Rajendra Prasad, the 

chief executive was J. C. Kumarappa, secretary of the All India Village 

250 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Industry Association. Both men were known to be of the highest 

integrity, so that an accusation in a government report that the AIVIA 

was a political set-up and was misusing the relief fund naturally caused 

much ill-feeling. Then came an independent body, known in England 

as the International Voluntary Service for Peace (IVSP), which ever 

since the First World War had been getting young men and women of 

formerly enemy nations to join together in direct personal service 

through manual labour for sufferers from warfare or other disaster. 

The Swiss founder, Pierre Ceresole, now led a team to Bihar. 

Government and Congress both alike welcomed and supported them; 

Rajendra Prasad appealed for Indian volunteers to help them. The 

work attracted Quakers: Jack Hoyland's younger brother William 

Frazer Hoyland 6 was a member of the team, and Jack himself followed 

its work with the deepest interest. 

Meanwhile a new Government of India Act, based upon the work 

of the Round Table Conferences, was being drafted by Samuel Hoare 

and his associates at the India Office. In view of the failure of the major 

communities, Hindu and Muslim, to agree on a common plan, it 

embodied a pattern of separate 'communal electorates', and offered 

no opportunity to Indians to modify the pattern later by mutual 

consent. 

It means [wrote Andrews prophetically] a cat-and-dog fight 

between Muslims and Hindus . . . extremists on both sides would 

be elected and try to stir things up. 7 

Hoare replied sadly that he could do no more; the Act became law in 

1935. 

In the summer of that year came another disastrous earthquake 

which struck the city of Quetta in the extreme northwest. 8 L>nlike 

remote and rural Bihar, Quetta was an important government civil 

and military centre. The published reports were blatantly racist, in 

that they contained information about every British resident known 

and practically none about the fate of Indian inhabitants. To make 

things worse, Gandhi was refused entry to the stricken city. There was 

no IVSP team as in Bihar to work alongside the common folk as 

'brothers' to reclaim their devastated homes and lands. England had 

failed once more to touch India's heart. 

INDIAN politics : 1931 to 1935 

251 

Notes to Chapter XIX 

1 See The Friend, 1931, p.l 150. The Imitation of Christ continues to 'speak to 

the condition' both of Friends and of Indian devotees. 

2 The office was at 88 Knightsbridge (the building was later destroyed in an air 

raid). Horace wrote a lively account of experiences there for the Woodbrooke 

Tog'. 

3 E.W.Barnes (1874-1953) was well known for his emphasis on personal com- 

mitment and integrity and his indifference to ritual. Tm not sure whether I agree 

with him/ said one of his young clergy, 'but I know he's a saint.' One of the 

Stevenson family, Muriel Lester's. friends, who had lived many years in India, was 

also looked upon as a 'saint', and Muriel arranged for Gandhi to spend an unpub- 

licised week-end in their family home at Gerrards Cross in the Chiltern Hills, The 

visit is unrecorded (being politically unimportant?) but is clearly remembered still 

(1993) by an old inhabitant who was a young man at the time. 

3a K.T.Paul died a few weeks after the Quaker conference in November 1 930. 

Horace Alexander described him as a 'faithful architect' of Indian freedom 

{Gandhi Through Western Eyes, Philadelphia 1984, p.67). 

4 Letter to The Friend, 24th June 1932, p.560. 

5 The thought of God as Friend of the lowly and Helper of the helpless is voiced 

in many of the India hymns referred to in chap.l, above, 

6 William Frazer Hoyland was the son of Josephine Taylor who had worked as 

a nurse in Hoshangabad 1901-5 and became John William Hoyland's second wife 

in 1906. 

7 B.Chaturvedi and M.Sykes, Charles Freer Andrews, 1949, p.280. 

8 The whole stretch of the Himalayan foothills from east to west is geologically 

unstable and earthquake-prone. 

CHAPTER XX 

A Vision to Pursue : 1934 to 1937 

lb hold together faith and workSj the sense of adoration and the 

obligation of 'service, is an essentia! and practicable task. 

Charlies E, Raven 1 

Whhn H]LDa Cashmori- joined Percy Bartlettand Eric Hay man on the 

visit to India in 19,32, she was 56 years old- Going up to Oxford at 23/ an 

exceptionally mature student, she had read modern history and then spent 

some years in reaching, first in the Derbyshire town of Chesterfield, and 

Llien in Bristol, where she joined Friends. A] 3 duo ugh these years she had 

been haunted by die contrast between the open spaces and natural beauty 

which had surrounded her own childhood., and the mean cramped drea- 

riness of the town slums. Her indignation had led her first to try to sdrup 

a puzzled Chesterfield^ and then to envisage., create and direct the Bristol 

University Settlement, from which eventually she moved on to Manchester 

to revitalise the almost derelict University Settlement there] while at 

Manchester she took a short leave in 1932 for the visit to India, 

Hilda had taken leave from Bristol much earlier, in order to share in 

I-riends 1 relief service in France and in Poland during and after the First 

World War. And whether at home or abroad her interests were in the 

people she met, the individual men, women and children with their varied 

gifts, struggles and potentialities. No one was ever just *a case\ It is not 

surprising that she should he described as 'a born nurse 1 - but she was a 

nurse with powerful intellectual interests besides practical skills. 

While in India in 1932 Hilda found time to visit Friends in the 

Hnshangabad Districts and saw the Rasuiia compound, unused by Friends 

siilce the Industrial Works were closed in 1 9 1 S. A trusted teacher, 

Matthew Robert, was living in the former office building and acting as a 

general overseer. Other buildings had been rented to local people who 

had originally come to escape from visitations of plague in the town; two 

232 

A VISION TO PSJRSUF.I 1934 TO 1937 

253 

Hilda Ctishmorc. 

families, a Goan railway official and a 

local lawyer, MrChattcrji, divided the 

bungalow between them, and the 

Headmaster of the Government High 

School occupied the Meeting House. 

But the whole place looked shabby 

and neglected; the oniy liveliness was 

in die children wbo ? 'venerable old 

lady' as they thought her, quickly 

became Hilda's friend** 

When the three observers re- 

turned to England Hilda continued to 

pursue her own thoughts. She was 

convinced that s a real partnership 

between England and India is of the 

utmost importance for the true devel- 

opment of India's task of self-govern- 

ment', 3 and that Friends had a duty 

to contribute to such a partnership. 

Might they not provide , she asked 

herself, d a place to which young edu- 

cated Indians and English, from 

different parts, may come for study, meditation, thinking together a bom 

the main social problems"? She also read T. Edmund Harvey's bonk A 

Wfayfar$r 7 s Faith, in which he proposed that every human community 

should have L a House of peace and prayer 1 , whose members would under- 

take s boih trained spiritual and intellectual effort and personal service with 

their hands. In India, would not such a House fit India's ancient concept 

of an ashram?* Could there be a Quaker ashram in the Hoshangahad 

District, linked to the Quaker past there yet offering something new? 

These two ideas, for a partnership in reflection, and for a House of 

peace and prayer, interacted with one another in Hilda's mind. In the 

terms with which she was familiar they suggested a 'settlement', not one 

like Bristol but one 'on the Woo dbrooke model'. The need had been seen 

for years; Jack Hoy I and had talked of an 'Indian Woodbrooke' in 1925 1 

and two or three years later Horace Alexander and Amy Montford had 

pointed to the need for Indian Friends to be 'in touch with the best life 

and thought of their own country'. But nothing had been done, and Hilda 

felt that the dme had come for acdon. 

During 1933, the matter had to wait, for Hilda herself had much ill- 

health. Early in 1934 however she went to C. F. Andrews, who was then 

a Fellow at Woodbrooke. His spiritual autobiography VFitai f Owe U7 Christ 

254 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

had been well received, and he was writing another book of testimony, 

Christ in the Silence. 

No one mind [wrote Hilda later] was more responsible than 

Andrews for the original shaping of the little Friends' Ashram - it 

was as though he had foreseen the very situation. 

He advised that it should be accessible, not too -far from a railway station, 

and near a road. She decided to look for a site somewhere near Itarsi 

which would fulfil these conditions. 

That year 1934 brought changes among Friends in the Itarsi area. In 

the spring Roland Priestman was once more due for furlough. Friendly 

and attractive as he was in many ways (he and Elsie befriended the 

prisoners in Hoshangabad jail in truly Quakerly fashion) he had always 

been something of an enfant terrible. 5 Like Esther Baird in Nowgong he 

was a good builder, but (like her) he did not get on easily with those who 

disagreed with him. Things became so difficult that his colleagues told 

the London committee that he should not return unless he could over- 

come 'his strong spirit of self-assertion'. 

Meanwhile came the welcome news that doctors had been found for 

the hospital. They were a newly-married couple, William (Bill) and 

Molly Tandy, who had come to Friends through the Student Christian 

Movement, and had been married at Friends House early in the year. Bill 

had had some years' experience, Molly was more recently qualified. They 

reached Itarsi in October 1934, but Gail Addison agreed to carry on the 

hospital until the spring of 1935, so that they might have time for lan- 

guage study and for visits to other hospitals. 

At the beginning of November came Hilda Cashmore, with Dorothy 

Hersey as her companion. After returning from her work in Madras 

Dorothy had spent part of 1932 in Woodbrooke and there met her future 

husband John Turtle. By 1934 John was working in the Friends School 

at Brummana in Lebanon, and Dorothy came to help Hilda for a few 

months before going to Brummana to be married. They arrived in time 

for Mid-India Yearly Meeting, and Indian Friends listened with interest 

as Geoffrey Maw introduced them and explained what Hilda was hoping 

to do. Yes, the Meeting said, an ashram settlement would be 'a source of 

strength'; but it would take time, whatever site was decided, to get hold 

of the land, and meanwhile she would be welcome to take the Rasulia 

compound for a year and begin her work from there. With Geoffrey Maw's 

help Hilda bought £ a hearty old motor car named Prudence' in which, 

during the first weeks, she and Dorothy went about the district getting to 

know their colleagues and their surroundings. 

A VISION to pursue : 1934 to 1937 

255 

They quickly pinpointed two possible sites for the ashram. One was 

Makoriya, linked as it was with the Quaker past, the other a tiny place 

called Jamai in the forest south of Itarsi, beneath 'Itarsi Peak'. Heinz von 

Tucher was then in Makoriya. For about four years he had represented 

the FFMA Trust, which owned the village, as its lambardar or headman; 

he collected the land-cess, gave loans to farmers at his discretion, settled 

disputes. His family background made this authority natural to him, and 

he used it to good purpose. He built a series of small dams on the local 

stream, which controlled floodwater and provided irrigation. But being 

human he sometimes made mistakes, and when his Indian colleagues felt 

he had acted harshly or unwisely, they were unable to argue the point as 

equals because he was 'the boss'. Hilda Cashmore, seeing the situation, 

soon decided that for her 'Jamai would be better than Makoriya'. But the 

Mid-India Friends were right, the formalities of purchase took a full year 

to complete. 

Meanwhile there had come an unexpected blow. Whe 3ill Tandy 

arrived he at once noticed Geoffrey Maw's painful limp, and insisted on 

a proper check-up. This was done in Bhopal, and the verdict was that 

Geoffrey should go to England at once for expert treatment. The Maws 

left, speeded affectionately on their way by 'most of the population of 

Itarsi'. They were greatly missed, not least by Hilda who knew how much 

Geoffrey might have been able to guide her. Mary Allen also was about 

to leave; after nearly 10 years of wise and acceptable service she had 

reached the age of retirement, but before leaving India she spent time in 

Nagpur with her American friend Irene Boise, 6 who cared as much as she 

did for the welfare of the poor. Through Mary, Hilda also got to know 

and value Irene. 

At the very end of the year Hilda and Dorothy travelled to Karachi to 

attend the annual meeting of the All-India Women's Conference, where 

outstanding Indian women came together from every part of the country 

and from every religious group - Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Parsee, Sikh. 

A leading figure was Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, destined to be the first 

Minister of Health in independent India. Hilda herself took an active part, 

she read a paper on George Fox and his attitude to women. 

Back in the Hoshangabad District after these two crowded months, 

Hilda and Dorothy settled in Rasulia early in January 1935. They made 

their home in the little house near the south gate where formerly the clerk 

of the Industrial Works had lived. People at once took notice: here were 

foreigners who did not want a 'bungalow'! The compound looked much 

as it had done in 1932, and seemed more depressing than ever. Nothing 

could be done about a 'settlement' until the main buildings had been 

vacated; Hilda made friends with the tenants, told them of her plans, and 

256 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

asked them to find other accommodation during the approaching hot 

weather. Her personal warmth and understanding was such that they not 

only did so, but that Shyamsunder Lai the High School Headmaster, 

Chatterji the Bengali lawyer and their families continued to be her close 

friends. 

During most of that February Hilda was living alone; Dorothy had 

fallen ill, and spent the month recuperating in Madras with her old friends 

the Danns. But Hilda had her motor car 'Prudence'; she visited the Itarsi 

hospital and made friends with the Addison family, especially with the 

Addisons' 12-year-old son Thomas, 7 and with an Indian boy of the same 

age. She was impressed too by Edith Bevan's care for her Indian nurses. 

Most of them were Christian girls from the Sohagpur school; they knew 

no English, so Edith had got the current nursing text books translated 

into Hindi for them and earned their delighted gratitude. There were 

other Christian hospitals at Nagpur to the south and Nimach to the north, 

and all their nurses, as Edith believed, needed something more than 

knowledge, they needed vision. She therefore arranged conferences at 

Itarsi, the central place, where a vision of their profession as a vocation, 

divine call, was laid before them. 

The conscientious hard-working Edith deserved a treat, decided Hilda, 

and one day carried her off in Trudence' to the river confluence at 

Bandrabhan to play in the water with Hilda's little dog Patrick. Then at 

the end of the month Dorothy Hersey returned, but for her Hilda was not 

such an easy companion, 'you tell me not to think so much,' she wrote 

ruefully to her fiance, 'but Hilda wants me to think all the time!' They 

lived together at very close quarters, and Dorothy was often irritated by 

Hilda's sprawling untidiness. It speaks well for both women however that 

they regularly spent a morning time of quiet together and so found healing 

of the spirit. 

Then Dorothy left India to be married, and Hilda took refuge from 

the increasing heat of Rasulia at YWCA conferences in the cool Nilgiri 

Hills, passing through Madras and meeting the Friends there on her way. 

At the conferences she listened to young Indian women who lamented 

the western emphasis on organisation and longed for a more relaxed per- 

sonal approach. Over 50 years earlier the same issue had distinguished 

Samuel Baker's organised mission from Charles Gayford's leisured ways. 

In the Nilgiri Hills Hilda also met the Macleans from Bombay, and on 

her way back to Hoshangabad she travelled through Mysore and 

Bangalore, where she renewed the links she had made at Karachi with 

Indian women from that area. An all-India network of friendship was 

begun. 

A VISION TO PURSUE : 1934 TO 1937 

257 

In Rasulia the rains of July had brought relief from heat and Hilda set 

to work to prepare the vacated buildings for their future use. She soon 

began to feel that although she had been given the use of the compound 

as a temporary measure, 'it might be worth keeping'. Buildings were there 

and could be used - the one-time office of the Works as the library, the 

bungalow and workshop for house conferences and other guests, the 

Meeting House as once more a place of prayer. And there were not only 

buildings, there were also people, 'an intelligently literate group', who 

lived in the cottages which had once housed the apprentices of the Works. 

There was Kampta Prasad, now a semi-invalid, with his musical gifts, and 

Gauriyaba, 'a sweet young teacher fully trained'. Hilda's own driver was 

an educated young man. Among other helpers were the Tandys' cook and 

his family; the Tandys had had to return to England when Bill was found 

to have polio; it was successfully treated, but they were away about six 

months. Then there was a waterman-gardener from Khera, and an ayah 

named Binyabai. 

Binyabai had a little girl named Sumati, who some years earlier had 

been adopted at birth by Mary Allen. Mary had retired and left India 

earlier that year, and had given Sumati to Binyabai so that she might grow 

up naturally among her own people. She was a friendly little soul, and 

accustomed as she had been to a white 'mother', she had at first sight put 

her arms around Hilda in a way that Hilda could not resist. So she and 

Binyabai joined the group, and Binyabai ran a simple dispensary and 

turned her skilful hands to many other tasks. Soon afterwards came 

another young English companion to take Dorothy Hersey's place, 

Ermyntrude Malet, gay, adaptable, variously gifted, a skilled nurse with 

a lovely singing voice. 

The group pooled their gifts and resources and set to work. Buildings 

were scrubbed clean and given new coats of paint and whitewash; gardens 

began to grow; ingenious bazaar artisans fashioned curtain hooks, watering 

cans and much else from odd bits of wire and scrap. Special attention was 

given to the beautifully proportioned Meeting House. The western half, 

looking out across the river valley to the Vindhya Hills, was curtained off 

as the Quiet Room with long curtains of soft dark blue; the eastern half, 

with its fireplace and wall-cupboards, formed the entrance lobby. Orioles 

sang round it by day, fireflies danced by night. When it was ready, Kampta 

Prasad would sit there of an evening, singing from time to time his devo- 

tional songs, and Hilda rejoiced to see how naturally people were attracted 

to worship. 

Then there was the library. In 1934, before Hilda left England, she 

and her friend Katherine Lloyd had made a careful selection of books, 

including a good collection of source books on Christian mysticism, but 

258 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

she had not attempted to bring the books to India until the situation was 

clearer. Now in October 1935 they arrived, brought by Roland and Elsie 

Priestman (who had been allowed to return to India after all). It was just 

the right time, the building was ready, the Ashram activities were about 

to begin. Within a few weeks there was a 'Library Society' attracting edu- 

cated people from the town and organising talks and discussions. 

Hilda had meanwhile invited the Mid-India Yearly Meeting, which 

had made it possible for her to use Rasulia, to hold its 1935 session in the 

refurbished compound. When it met the 'trial year' was drawing to a close, 

and everyone was eager that the work should continue. Soon afterwards 

came the first 'outside' guests, students from Hislop College, Nagpur, led 

by Professor D. G. Moses. As the first Indian Principal of trie College he 

was a 'friend of Friends' for many years. 

In December 1935 some of those who had been absent in England 

came back. The Tandys returned, and Geoffrey Maw, though Mildred 

remained in England with their children. 'What a change ! ' wrote Geoffrey 

when he saw what had been done. 'Rasulia is transformed beyond belief. 

Between Rasulia and Jamai, all Friends' concerns might be expressed.' 

For despite all the activity in Rasulia, Jamai had not been forgotten. Back 

in July, during the rains, Hilda had gone with Henry Robson to see the 

hoped-for site, and found it well-drained and in good shape, A local well- 

wisher, Rudra Lodha 8 of Bagra village, had given her money to buy the 

land, she had the friendly interest of the District Collector, and step by 

step the owners of the site were persuaded to part with about 10 acres for 

a reasonable sum. At the beginning of January 1936 the sale was com- 

pleted and registered. 

1935 ended in a happy Christmas party, to which Hilda and Ermyn 

welcomed guests from many places. Harold Loukes, who had joined 

Friends in Oxford two years earlier, came from St Stephen's College, 

Delhi; Verrier Elwin came from his ashram at Karanjia near the source 

of the Narmada, Elizabeth Booth from Santiniketan, Frederic and Laura 

Gravely from Madras. From Punjab came Ranjit Chetsingh, who 'helped 

very much'. On Christmas Eve Shyamsunder Lai (the Hoshangabad 

Headmaster) and his wife sent a delicious meal for the whole party, and 

later they had all gathered in the Meeting House for Christmas midnight 

worship. 

1936 was a year of achievement, when all the hard work of the pre- 

vious 12 months began to show results. During the first part of the year 

Hilda and Ermyn concentrated on Jamai. The first need was a water 

supply, and in February with customary local ceremony, the first sod was 

cut for a well. Ermyn sketched plans for very simple housing, which was 

then built by the local Gond people themselves, using almost wholly local 

A vision to pursue : 1934 to 1937 

259 

material, and with traditional Gond wood-carving in a little Quiet Room. 

The only inputs from outside were the corrugated iron sheets which lined 

the roofs, and were covered with tiles or thatch, waterproof and cool. 

Roland Priestman happily helped in the building. 

Within easy reach of the Jamai site were three little Gond villages, 

Jamai, Nagpur and Pondikheri. Near Nagpur there was clay, and a brick- 

works which employed many of the people, who needed the kind of simple 

medical service which the ashram there could offer. Hilda explored the 

possibilities through her network of local contacts. Among these was a 

young Hoshangabad Brahmin studying for BA, who came to her in Rasulia 

for coaching in English. This boy had a friend, a member of the family 

which owned the brickworks, who had studied at Indore Christian College 

and imbibed its ideals of service. Through him the interest of the family 

was won; there was medical help for the brickyard workers all through 

the unhealthy rainy season. In the autumn Mary Allen came back to help 

as in independent worker, and in December the Provincial Red Cross 

appointed a health visitor who was a native of the District. 

She js a great success [wrote Hilda]. She harangues the women 

with humour and rhetoric in a hearty Indian village voice. (Don't 

talk to me of India's dumb millions, they don't exist!) She and Mary 

Allen do very good health teaching. 

The owners of the brickworks decided to provide a clinic building, which 

was ceremonially opened in February 1937 .by an old friend of Hilda's, 

Lady Bhore, who with her husband had befriended the three Quaker vis- 

itors to Delhi in 1932. They were now stationed nearer, in Bhopal State. 

When the hot weather of 1936 began Ermyntrude Malet returned 

home, and Hilda again spent the summer with the YWCA, this time at 

Naini Tal in the Himalayan foothills. Stanley Jones, who had long been 

associated with Friends in supporting the Calcutta Guardian^ had his 

summer centre at Seit Tal not far away, and Hilda visited him there. In 

his other base at Sitapur he was in touch with Friends in the Lucknow 

area, Sucha and Veida Khera and Charles Revis. Sucha was making a fine 

Quaker witness as a District Collector, doing his utmost to help discharge 

prisoners to start life afresh, while he firmly used his authority to ensure 

that owners of sugar factories paid a fair price, cash down, to the farmers 

from whom they bought their cane. Charles Revis, on the staff of the 

Lucknow Christian College, had joined Friends while in England in 1 935. 

He felt as happily at home in India as James Strachan in Nagpur: his 

'excellent' reports from Lucknow were shared with Friends. 

Now that the Rasulia buildings were in good order it was possible to 

have meetings there even during the rains. Students were not free to come 

then, so Hilda concentrated on helping local Friends to widen their 

260 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

horizons. She invited a missionary named Donald McGavran, 9 who had 

recently conducted a survey of the 'mass movements' into the Christian 

church which were taking place in various parts of India. Many of his 

hearers, missionary and Indian alike, were moved by his account of these 

happenings; apart from Hilda herself hardly anyone realised that in view 

of the 'communal' electorates embodied in the Government of India Act 

of 1935, 'conversion' on such a large scale from one religious community 

to another was bound to be a sensitive political issue. The meeting with 

McGavran at least opened the matter for discussion. - 

A second gathering discussed Christian education, something in which 

Friends had been involved since Rachel Metcalfe started her schools for 

little children, and Jack Hoyland pioneered a Quaker High School. The 

quality of schools, like the quality of nursing, depended much on that 

sense of divine vocation which Rachel and Jack had both known. 

Hilda herself, teacher as she was, continued to contribute in her own 

way. Verrier Elwin, after his visit the previous Christmas, had sent a young 

Brahmin-Christian sadhu named Yesudas Tiwari to benefit from her guid- 

ance. Tiwari had become ' Yesu-das' (servant to Jesus) as a result of reading 

Andrews' Christ in the Silence^ and Hilda found pleasure in helping him 

to study western mysticism, while he in his turn helped her in the library. 

And at the other end of the educational scale the people of the three vil- 

lages around Jamai had begun to ask for a school. 

This was not surprising. Each conference naturally lasted only a few 

days, and in all the intervening periods, throughout that year, Hilda spent 

the greater part of each week at Jamai, going to Rasulia for the weekends 

to maintain all the contacts with the town which the Library Society gave 

her, and to help the young people who, like Yesudas Tiwari, sought her 

out. But her deepest satisfactions were in Jamai, in the humble manual 

service to the needy for which way opened so naturally. There, she found 

a friendless old Gond woman dying of cancer, took her to hospital, and 

when Bill Tandy said that nothing could be done> sheltered and nursed 

her to the end. 10 

Bill Tandy himself began to pay regular visits s both to Jamai and to the 

villages beyond it along the road to Betul. The hospital car was the old 

'Chev' which Dr Gittins had driven so dramatically about the district 10 

years earlier, and which was now on its last legs. Chhotelal the driver kept 

it going somehow, but it could carry only limited equipment. Needy crowds 

waited at every halt, and Bill longed for something better. Unexpectedly, 

he got it. One day Dame Elizabeth Cadbury arrived at the hospital. She 

had been taken ill during a train journey across India, and as she knew 

there was a Friends hospital at Itarsi, she had stopped off there for treat- 

ment. Bill found an ear infection and dealt with it successfully, so that after 

A VISION to pursue : 1934 to 1937 

261 

a few days' care she was ready to resume her journey. 'What can I give the 

hospital,' she asked gratefully, £ as a small token of appreciation?' 

I thought [Bill recalled] that on her lips the word small might 

be generously interpreted, so I told her that what we really needed 

was a travelling dispensary van. 'Get what you need,' she said, 'and 

send the bill to me.' I designed something that would serve both as 

dispensary and as ambulance, and in due course it arrived by rail 

from Calcutta. Chhotelal was enraptured; he cared for it with devo- 

tion. He did much more; when we visited villages together he 

explained their customs to me, and taught me the proper terms of 

respect to be used towards village elders and others. 

Bill, thus willing to listen and learn, shared with Hilda a number of 

other stimulating ideas. Why, for example, should allopathic and ayurvedic 

medical traditions be regarded as opposed? Should not each learn what 

the other has to teach? He would have liked to invite a qualified ayurvedic 

doctor to work with him for a year, but could not find even the very modest 

sum required. 

Another idea had been planted in his mind by a village woman named 

Sukani. Her husband was a forest guard who had been brought to hos- 

pital seriously injured. His life was saved, and as he recovered Sukani 

stayed in the hospital with him and learned all she could of basic medical 

skills, which she used to help her neighbour's when she returned home. 

Might not other village women be encouraged and helped to do the same? 

Hilda meanwhile read Jawaharlal Nehru's new Autobiography; she kept 

in touch with other Friends who, like Mary Barr, were working under 

Gandhi's direction. One of these was a young Canadian Friend, Mary 

Chesley, who had reached India in 1934 about the same time as Hilda 

herself. Gandhi sent her to live for a time with Mary Barr, and later she had 

joined the Mahila Ashram (women's ashram) at Wardha and taken an Indian 

name, Tara. Although she had private means, she kept nothing for herself; 

she gave all her income away with a reckless devotion which made Hilda 

feel rather anxious about her. In the summer of 1936 she set out along 

with others from Mahila Ashram, on the traditional pilgrimage to the 

Himalayan shrine of Badrinath. She never reached it, she fell ill and died 

on the way, Hilda grieved, as did many others, when the news reached her. 

In the autumn new companions arrived. One was Hilda's old friend 

Katherine Lloyd, who brought more books and tools, and her own 

'leisured mind' and lovely voice. Along with her came a young Swiss 

Friend, Madeleine Jequier, who was a merry and most skilful hostess, and 

Anne Caton of the Indian Village Welfare Association, who planned to 

stay until March. They were all there to help with the two student 

262 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

A vision to pursue : 1934 to 1937 

263 

conferences which succeeded one another during the Diwali 12 holidays 

in October-November. 

The first conference was organised by the Hislop College Social Service 

League, but included students of other colleges also. Two young partici- 

pants from the Agricultural College, Banwa Lai Choudhury and Dwarka 

Prasad Persai, belonged to villages in the Hoshangabad District, and for 

both of them that conference was a turning-point in life. A few years later 

both were helping to carry out Gandhi's educational programme at 

Sevagram; both became connected with Friends' work in India, and 

understood its spiritual roots, although neither became formally a Friend. 

A second group of students came from the Christian College at Indore, 

and was led by Professor S. G. Patil, who became as close a friend as Dr 

Moses of Nagpur. Hilda challenged these students to work out from 

scratch c a five-year plan for meeting the human needs of a village'. (Five- 

year plans at Government level had not then been thought of!) As always, 

her enthusiasm roped everybody in. Her young secretary, she discovered, 

had once been 'mess-master' in his college hostel - he could be mess- 

master for the conferences too! She took a personal interest in each one 

of the students who came; she would take little groups, two or three 

together, for an evening stroll across the fields between Rasulia and 'the 

Rocks', making friends and talking individually in a way they never forgot. 

Afterwards as darkness fell, they would gather in the Meeting House for 

a period of worship which was memorable too. 

The last day of the second conference was memorable in a special way. 

In the very early morning C. R Andrews reached Itarsi by an overnight 

train. Hilda met him there, taking with her Yesudas Tiwari, to whom 

Christ in the Silence had meant so much, and they went to breakfast with 

the little group at Jamai. 'There in unhurried quiet he sat and taught us,' 

wrote Hilda. He talked appropriately of the meaning of 'conversion 5 , and 

advised Tiwari to remain at Rasulia for a full year. Later in the day Hilda 

took Andrews to Rasulia, where students and others were all eager to meet 

him. 'He sat among them in our own Quiet Room, an aged man ripe in 

his wisdom. Peace was his signature on that day, his benediction on this 

tiny enterprise for which he had worked and prayed.' 13 

Then came Christmas 1936, and guests to share it. Ranjit Chetsingh 

came again, with his wife and his little son Rajan; Carl Heath, who was 

visiting India on behalf of the Friends Service Council, came with his wife 

Effie. So did Joan Clapham of the YWCA in Bombay. A few years earlier 

she had been a junior assistant at Friends House in London, and then 

spent time at Woodbrooke, partly as a student, partly as secretary-typist 

to C. F. Andrews as he worked on Christ in the Silence and prepared it for 

the press. Early in 1936 another English Friend, Kathleen Whitby, had 

C. E Andrews and 

Ranjit Chetsingh. 

also arrived in Bombay; her husband was a business man in the city, and 

her home soon became a place where for years to come visiting Friends 

found a warm welcome and Quakerly fellowship. She did not visit Rasulia 

that Christmas, but two months later, when the Jamai brickyard clinic 

was opened, she sent Hilda a generous gift towards the cost of medicines. 

In February 1937 Yesudas Tiwari completed his year of study and 

went to seek out Sadhu Sunder Singh on the road to Tibet. Katherine 

Lloyd went back to England, and during the summer Hilda herself fol- 

lowed her, to share her hopes for the future of her Ashram-Settlement 

with Friends there. She was in vigorous health, and full of enthusiasm, 

but the finance department of the Friends Service Council asked in vain 

for clear accounts of the cost of the work. She had no interest in accounts. 

'Money is one of the most cracked things on earth,' she once wrote. 'It 

seems so chancy, and a full life depends on it so little.' Did discrepancies 

in accounts really matter? 

What mattered, in Hilda's eyes, was the right development of the work 

she had begun. She was over 60, and she was clear that she should not 

stay on in India indefinitely; there should be Indian Quaker leadership of 

a quality able to serve 'the neighbourhood, the Province and India' in 

linked and widening circles. She had sought such leadership from the 

264 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

beginning; when in 1934 Dorothy Hersey's friend Grace Jivanandan paid 

a visit Hilda recognised her quality and invited her to join them. Grace 

had felt however that her own right place was in the Punjab, and she con- 

tinued to make her home with her family in Lahore. 

Ranjit Chetsingh on the other hand had been strongly attracted by 

what he had seen when he visited at Christmas 1935. He had kept in 

touch, and in December 1936 brought his wife to see Rasulia and Jamai. 

There, along with the merriment which Madeleine provided under the 

twinkling lamps of a 'Christmas Diwali 5 there had been serious consul- 

tations with Hilda and with Carl Heath about the possibility of the 

Chetsinghs being Hilda's successors, although Ranjit made it clear that 

he could not be free for the work until November 1937. 

When Hilda visited England that summer there was further thinking 

and planning with Carl Heath and others. She eagerly looked forward to 

'a chance for a real Woodbrooke-in-India 5 , and she was clear not only 

about the importance of having Indians to direct it, but also that it should 

be completely independent of the Friends Mission. 

It is impossible [she wrote], that the heads of the Ashram, Indian 

or English, should be labelled missionaries. A centre of study and 

service for the whole neighbourhood, and for students from all over 

India, open to all who care to serve, of whatever religious or polit- 

ical bias, cannot be a missionary institution. 

It might of course cooperate with the Mission wherever possible, as she 

herself had done, but it must remain distinct. 

While Hilda was discussing these matters in England needs were arising 

in India at a very basic level. Some time earlier Bill Tandy, following a sug- 

gestion made by Heinz von Tucher, had taken on a Makoriya boy named 

Wycliffe, who had completed High School, and trained him as a much- 

needed laboratory technician. That autumn his competence and devotion 

were tested by a widespread epidemic of cholera. Patients poured into the 

hospital, many of them suffering from the serious dehydration caused by 

the disease, and each needing several pints of sterilised solution to replace 

the fluid they had lost and save their lives. 

For several weeks [wrote Bill], Dr Jacob and I worked in alterna- 

tive six hour shifts, and, watched patients come back to life as the 

solution ran into their veins. It was WyclinVs job to keep us sup- 

plied, and he did it. When he ate and slept I do not know; he never 

left the laboratory. 

There were not enough beds; the sick lay on the floor, and doctors 

and nurses knelt beside them to do their work. Then one day a local village 

farmer brought a gift of eight cots from the bazaar - he had seen the need 

A VISION to pursue : 1934 to 1937 

265 

and done what he could, and his generous kindness raised the spirits of 

the whole staff, exhausted as they all were. 

This was the situation when Hilda Cashmore returned in October 

1937. She threw herself into the task of nursing the many patients in 

Rasulia and Jamai, and her intrepidity put new heart into everyone. When 

the Chetsinghs arrived in November they too set to work, with generous 

help from the Hoshangabad Government Hospital. This gave Hilda more 

time for Jamai, where she had other things to attend to. The well must 

have a proper parapet, and a good drainage channel; a local friend gave 

the money, the villagers themselves happily did the work. And all the while 

visitors came and went - Frederic Gravely from Madras, S. G. Patil from 

Indore, some Hislop College boys, Dr Mardan Singh of Itarsi, who had 

been one of the delegates from India to a Friends World Conference in 

USA, and had been Hilda's fellow-traveller on the return journey to India. 

On 1 5th December Hilda left Ranjit in charge and slipped away, though 

she remained for a time within reach. The All India Women's Conference 

held its annual session at Nagpur, and Hilda renewed many old friend- 

ships there. She visited Anne Caton at Indore, and explored western India, 

and at the end of February 1938 came back for a final party before she 

sailed for England. 'It was/ wrote Ranjit, 'just the kind of informal, unos- 

tentatious gathering she likes. 5 

When Hilda Cashmore died in 1943 the friends who had known her 

in the various phases of her life spoke of her achievement as 'a clear syn- 

thesis of prayer and work, of intellectual effort and much practical action'. 

In India the practical action had not all been on a high level of serious- 

ness; part of it, in Rasulia, was 'a children's club 5 . It was entirely in char- 

acter that the Venerable old lady 5 who in 1932 had made friends with the 

children of 'Rasulia depressed 5 should provide a club for the children of 

'Rasulia transformed 5 . But apart from a brief reference in one of her own 

letters, nothing is known of it. 

266 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Notes to Chapter XX 

1 The quotation is from Charles Raven's book The Theological Basis of Christian 

Pacifism. 

2 Material about Hilda Cashmore's life is derived chiefly from a memorial 

volume privately printed in 1944 (she died in 1943) to which friends who had 

worked with her at various periods contributed accounts of her work, and in which 

a number of her own letters from India are quoted verbatim. 

3 Letter quoted in note 2, above. 

4 The word ashram is made up of two components: shram = work, amd the inten- 

sive prefix a This intensive work was to be carried on in spiritual, intellectual and 

physical ways. 

5 See for example his insistence on regulations in 1909-10. 

6 Irene, the daughter of the 'missionary statesman' J.R.Mott, had married a dis- 

tinguished Indian Christian Justice Vivian Bose. 

7 Thomas Addison, now living in England, has been a source of information 

which the writer gratefully acknowledges. 

8 He was the owner of a well-known tile works. Bagra tiles were locally famous. 

9 See chap.21, below. 

1 0 This piece of humble caring service was described by Joan Clapham, who 

visited at Christmas 1936. 

1 1 This story, with many others, is told in Bill Tandy's book of reminiscences 

The Ever-Rolling Stream, 1985. 

12 Diwali, meaning literally a row of lamps, is the great Indian festival of 

October/November which celebrates the end of the rainy season and the return 

of clear starry nights. 

1 3 Journal letter from Hilda Cashmore. 

CHAPTER XXI 

The Vision Fades : 1937 to 1941 

Let us confound their language, that they may not understand 

one another's speech. 

Genesis XI : 7 

At the end of 1937 the vision of Woodbrooke-in-India seemed within 

reach. There were western-Indian Quaker groups in many places. In 

Bombay were P. A. Wadia and Kathleen Whitby, and attenders such as 

J. K. Mehta and the Macleans. Nalin Ganguly was in Calcutta, so now 

was Joan Clapham. In Lucknow and its neighbourhood were Charles 

Revis, Sucha and Veida Khera, and Stanley Jones. Harold Loukes, now 

happily married, was in Delhi, along with Bill .and Eleanor Hindle, who 

had a wide range of contacts both there and in Simla. 

In Indore were'Hilda Cashmore's friends in the Christian college, and 

also Joseph Hutchinson, who was engaged in basic cotton research which 

took him sometimes to Coimbatore in the cotton region of the south, 

where there were other Friends, Irene Howe of the Madras Educational 

Service, and Catherine Karunakar. Catherine, born in Jamaica, had been 

one of Mary Allen's 'East Indian' schoolgirls there and had gone to the 

United States for college education. There she met K. T. Paul's son P. D. 

Karunakar; they married, and he was now on the staff of the Coimbatore 

College of Agriculture. Over the border in Kerala was Sally Coey, now 

teaching in the Christava Mabilalaya, the women's educational centre at 

Alwaye. And not far from Coimbatore was another small but living point 

of sympathy. E. S. Sambayya, who had been one of the regular attenders 

of the Lahore Meeting, was himself from the south, and had married a 

Tamil girl named Padma. Her father, T. Narasimhan, was devoting himself 

to the welfare of the 'criminal tribes' of the Salem district, adjacent to 

Coimbatore, with merry commonsense and a simple personal faith which 

brought him, like his son-in-law, close to Friends in spirit. 

267 

268 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

The group in Madras had lost the Danns, who had retired to England 

that year, but had some new members. Audrey Wilson had joined the staff 

of the YWCA, and Grace Gibb had taken Doris Chetsingh's place at 

Women's Christian College. There was an Indian Friend A. K. Sharma, 

who had joined the Society in Britain, and Marjorie Sykes, a teacher at 

the Bentinck High School for Indian girls, who had been an attender for 

several years, had also become a Friend in 1936. 

In Nagpur there were close links with Hislop College, and the Indian 

Principal Dr D. G. Moses was eager that Friends should share even more 

directly in the life of the college, while an Indian Friend Dr Santoshlal 

Robert was working at the Mayo Hospital. He, along with Dr Mardan 

Singh, had attended the Friends World Conference earlier in the year. 

In Bhopal there were other Indian Friends, led by Dr J. P. Johory and 

including his revered father. They had invited Elizabeth Butler to come 

and live in the city, and she had made many friends, ranging from Sir 

Joseph and Lady Bhore to the young Muslim who gave her electric lighting 

free of charge 'in memory of the little boy he used to be'. (Louise Walker 

had been very good to that little boy, and later when he became a student 

in Toronto she had introduced him to the Friends there.) In Itarsi the 

Friends Institute flourished, its young members studied Quakerism with 

Geoffrey Maw, and D. M. Dar's son Stanley and Mardan Singh's son Paul 

were eager helpers. 

Most of these groups originated in British-Indian connections, but 

there was a good deal of informal participation by those connected with 

the American Friends mission also. The Quaker-led India Sunday School 

Union attracted American, British and Indian Friends alike; friendly per- 

sonal intervisitation took place, and the two nurses, Edith Bevan and 

Alena Calkins, became good friends. 

There were therefore many potential growing-points of Quaker life 

which might have been nurtured and linked by a 'Woodbrooke in India', 

so that an Indian fellowship of Friends might have come into being. It did 

not happen. The vision faded, and some of the links were broken. 

No one was to blame. Ranjit Chetsingh, to whom Hilda Cashmore 

had entrusted her vision, was a deeply-concerned Friend, but his back- 

ground and experience had given him different priorities. Provision for 

Quaker fellowship in study, the essence of the 'Woodbrooke in India' idea, 

did not come first with him. 

One of Ranjit's priorities was education, and in 1937, just before he 

began his work at Rasulia, Gandhi raised the whole question of what edu- 

cation meant, by laying before the nation his proposals for 'basic national 

education'. Children, he said, learn not by listening but by doing; let them 

THE VISION FADES *. 1937 TO 1941 

269 

therefore do some useful piece of work together, work which would help to 

meet their basic needs of food, clothing or shelter, and in the process draw 

out the full potential of each child, physical, intellectual and spiritual. 1 

Ranjit followed the development of this programme with great interest. 

E. W. Aryanayakam, who was carrying it out on Gandhi's behalf, was a 

man he had known for years. Formerly they had both been Travelling 

Secretaries of the Student Christian Movement, and they had both 

exchanged their original western 'Christian' names for Indian ones 

derived from their family history. Now Aryanayakam was conducting a 

training course for Basic School teachers at a centre in Wardha, the town 

near which Gandhi's Sevagram ashram was situated. 

By April 1938 Ranjit had got Aryanayakam to speak about Basic 

Education at a public meeting in Itarsi, and was planning to get one of 

Aryanayakam's students, when they finished their course in October, to 

start a Basic School in some village near Rasulia. 'If Basic Education suc- 

ceeds,' he wrote, 'it will work a silent revolution and bring the disciplined 

outlook needed for democracy,' 

Another interest was naturally the Adult Education for which Ranjit 

had had special training in England in 1930. He had already taken up this 

work while in Punjab, and in 1938 he took part in an all-India consulta- 

tion in Delhi. This resulted in the formation of an all-India Adult 

Education Association, and he was chosen as one of the four Vice- 

Presidents. The other three represented the special interests of women, 

industrial labour and the Muslim community and Ranjit became respon- 

sible for editing and publishing the Association's periodical. He also, with 

the cooperation of the Vice-Chancellor of Nagpur University, started an 

Adult Education Union for the Central Provinces and became its 

Secretary . 

Ranjit also realised the value of village industries both in Basic and 

Adult Education, and got a number of people from Rasulia and Jamai 

trained by the All-India Village Industry Association at Wardha in such 

skills as bee-keeping, soap-making and paper-making. Rasulia's reports, 

in his later years there, were printed on Rasulia's own hand-made paper. 

And when the school for the three little Jamai-area villages was opened, 

it was a teacher/bee-keeper who took charge. 

Meanwhile, in the Diwali holidays of 1938, Ranjit did as Hilda 

Cashmore had done and invited students for a conference. Most came 

from Hislop College but there were one or two local lads also. The theme 

was 'Rural Reconstruction', and there were two leaders, both Indian 

graduates of the London School of Economics. One came from Wilson 

College, Bombay, and presented an 'orthodox' view, but the other, J. C. 

Kumarappa, was the leader of Gandhi's Village Industries Association. 

270 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Like Ranjit himself and E. W. Aryanayakam, he was an indian Christian 

who had discarded a 'westernised 5 name for an Indian one. Discussions 

were animated, and Hilda's old friend Rudra Lodha of Bagra allowed the 

students to make a survey of labour conditions in his tileworks and in the 

village. The conference was a success, but it was the last of its kind, for 

with Ranjit's other interests there was too much to do. 

Ranjit had in fact sought for help. The Quaker group in Lahore to 

which he had once belonged had disintegrated - Theodore and Winifred 

Burn had gone back to England and others had left the city. There 

remained Grace Jivanandan, working in Aitchison College, and Dr Pars 

Ram, who had been a regular attender and was Ranjit's close friend. He 

was Professor of Psychology at Forman Christian College, and he fully 

shared Hilda Cashmore's longing to give humble manual service to the 

lowliest, to learn to feel as they did. He had not formally become a Friend, 

but Ranjit thought him 'the nearest approach to an Indian Quaker' whom 

he knew. He tried hard, with the backing of Shoran Singha and other 

Friends in London, to persuade the college to release him for work at 

Rasulia, but without success. 

During this first year at Rasulia Ranjit and Doris were living in the 

bungalow which had originally been built for the Taylors. They were 

accustomed to 'western' housing, they had their little boy, and a second 

boy was born in October. Ranjit then proposed to build a new bungalow 

for his family on the rising ground near the big well. Paul Sturge of the 

Friends Service Council, who had visited the Chetsinghs earlier in the 

year, approved the proposal but queried some features of the plan, in par- 

ticular the blocking of the southern aspect of the house, which Indian 

tradition wisely leaves open, by a line of bathrooms. Paul was right, but 

Ranjit like most people had his little foibles. He could be slow to take 

advice - particularly from a foreigner! - and he went ahead with his orig- 

inal plan. The building was sound and strong, but succeeding occupants 

of the house have wished that he had shown himself a better architect* 

At the end of the year a large international missionary conference was 

held at Tambaram near Madras. Among the handful of Quakers present 

were Herbert G. Wood from England and Ranjit from India. Another 

member was a man whom Ranjit and other Friends greatly respected, 

C. F. Andrews. Listening to the discussions, Ranjit felt that there were 

some matters, particularly those involving relationships between 

Christians and other religions, on which Friends were likely to differ from 

the majority. Could there not be some provision for consultation with one 

another about these? 

One of these matters was the large-scale 'mass movement' into the 

Christian community which had been taking place in parts of India. Most 

THE VISION FADES : 1937 TO 1941 

271 

missionaries welcomed this warmly; few saw, as Hilda Cashmore did, the 

political repercussions likely to follow in the context of 'communal' elec- 

torates. In 1934 Bishop J. Wascom Pickett of the Methodist Episcopal 

Church asked a missionary, Donald McGavran, to make a survey of the 

situation in central India, in the area where both American and British 

Friends' missions were working. The survey was followed in 1935-36 by 

a series of conferences with Christian leaders, in one of which the senior 

American Friend Esther Baird was present. She returned to Nowgong 

full of enthusiasm, and got her American and Indian colleagues to renew 

their efforts to win over the chamar (leatherworker) community there. 

At about the same time Geoffrey Maw and Heinz von Tucher went to 

see a mass movement area round Maheshwar, further west down the river. 

On their return Geoffrey and his friend Khushilal made intensive efforts 

over some years to persuade the Gond communities around Sohagpur to 

become Christian. Neither they nor the Americans succeeded; both 

Chamars and Gonds made the same response, rooted in their sense of 

identity and their pride in their traditional skills. 'We honour Christ,' they 

said, c we will pray in his name, but we will not break our bonds of loyalty 

to our caste.' 

In November 1938 Donald McGavran himself, with his fellow-evan- 

gelist Bhakt Singh, paid a visit to Bundelkhand. The Friends there were 

shaken. The deed by which they held their land in Chhatarpur included 

a promise 'not to baptise'. Were they keeping that promise in the spirit 

intended, by merely refraining from outward water-baptism? McGavran 

urged that there should be no more compromise, and called for what he 

called a 'show-down'. The Bundelkhand Church Council accepted this 

position; it was agreed that 

the new convert must acknowledge Jesus publicly as the only 

incarnation of God, the Bible as the only scripture, and the church 

as a brotherhood which every believer must join. 

This decision marks the beginning of a period of alienation between 

the Bundelkhand mission and the British Friends in Hoshangabad, many 

of whom were as eager to proclaim the Gospel as they were. British Friends 

however tended to believe with Joseph Taylor that their task was 'to bring 

men to Christ and leave them there', in the faith that the Light of Christ 

would guide each one in the path that was right for him. During the years 

that followed, the years of the Second World War, Bundelkhand Friends 

were isolated from the other Quaker groups and went their separate ways. 

It was of course natural that British Friends should be more aware than 

the American of the political environment of their work. At the end of 1 938 

articles appeared in a widely-read Christian review named World Dominion, 

dealing with Gandhi's attitude to the 'untouchable' castes from which the 

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mass movement into Christianty emanated. The articles suggested that 

Gandhi's championship of 'untouchables' was merely a shrewd political 

move to prevent them from becoming Christians. One article, written by 

McGavran and offensively phrased, purported to describe a meeting 

between Gandhi, Bishop Pickett and V. S. Azariah, who was by then Bishop 

of Dornakal in South India. 2 Azariah at once condemned the article as 'a 

cruel fabrication with no justification direct or indirect in fact', but his 

accusers gave Gandhi no opportunity to meet or answer them, and many 

British Friends who knew from personal contact Gandhi's standards of 

truth, felt disgusted. By that time in fact a number of British officials them- 

selves shared their attitude. One of them was the British Resident in 

Bundelkhand, Walter Campbell. 'It is a tragedy,' he wrote, e thatwe [British] 

have been so long in realising how absolutely sincere Gandhi is.' 

During the same years another freedom struggle was having an impact 

on India. This was the civil war being waged in Spain by the would-be 

dictator General Franco against the legitimate government of the country. 

A young German named Herbert Fischer, who had left his own country 

because of his strong opposition to the dictator Adolf Hitler, was working 

in France and doing all he could to help sufferers in Spain. Then with an 

introduction to Mahatma Gandhi he started overland for India, and when 

he reached Basra, Indian residents there helped him in Gandhi's name 

with a passage to Bombay. By 1937 he was living in Gandhi's ashram. 

British Friends also organised a Spanish Relief Committee headed by 

that friend of India Horace Alexander, and one of Friends' new recruits 

to India, Donald Groom, had his interest in India and in Gandhi kindled 

in the course of his work for the victims of the Spanish Civil War. These 

new recruits however did not reach India until 1940. One of Herbert 

Fischer's fellow-workers in Spanish relief had arrived two years earlier, in 

1938, with an introduction to Bill Tandy, ready to help wherever he could. 

His name was George Jones; his fiancee Margaret joined him in January 

1939, and after they were married she began to help in the hospital. George 

was obsessed by the poverty of the Gond villages; he would spend all his 

time there, refused to eat because others were hungry, and visited 

Margaret occasionally only to disappear again. Margaret was troubled, so 

were others, and in September came tragedy. George died of exhaustion 

in a Gond village; Margaret seven months' pregnant, was delivered of a 

still-born baby. She turned to Gandhi, and on his advice took a two-year 

training for nurse-midwives at the Wadia Maternity Hospital in Bombay. 

By 1941 she had found her field of service among Friends in India. 

Meanwhile in the summer of 1939 Ranjit Chetsingh paid a short visit 

to England to keep in touch with Paul Sturge and others. This was pos- 

sible because Pars Ram was able to spend his own summer vacation in 

the vision fades : 1937 to 1941 

273 

Rasulia, and to see some of Ranjit's work during the last 18 months bear 

fruit. Two schools were opened, one at Jamai and one at Phepartal near 

Rasulia, with a local teacher Yohan Mohandal in Jamai and one of 

Aryanayakam's basic-trained teachers at Phepartal, At both the opening 

ceremonies there was a crowd of approving village parents, and Pars Ram 

described both schools as 'excellent'. 

Soon afterwards, at the beginning of September, Britain declared war 

on Germany, and the Viceroy of India declared India to be at war also. 

But for two full years the people of India took almost no notice; their 

leaders had not been consulted, and they remained largely absorbed in 

their own concerns. Ranjit felt nevertheless that the war was a matter on 

which 'Friendly exchange of thought' was needed, and he invited Friends 

from all over India to meet at Rasulia at the end of the year. Many came, 

and an agreed statement was drawn up, sent to the heads of Christian 

bodies in India and printed in a number of Indian newspapers. 

Violence cannot be removed by further violence [it read]. The 

freedom destroyed by the German government cannot be won 

again by a war against the German people. We declare our faith in 

the power of unarmed love. That faith, shown in practice, may be 

India's greatest gift to the world, for we rejoice to know that it is 

shared by men of influence including Mahatma Gandhi. 

One of the Friends present was Marjorie Sykes. By that time she was 

no longer in Madras. From 1935 onwards, when 'Communal electorates' 

were dividing religious 'communities' into mutually suspicious groups, 

even the friendly relationships in Bentinck School had been affected, and 

she had begun to look for an opening for educational work in India outside 

any sectarian context. In 1937 she was much attracted by Gandhi's Basic 

Education plan; earlier still her interest in Tagore had been aroused by 

an Indian colleague who visited Santiniketan. 

In 1938j on his way to the International Missionary Conference in 

Madras, the English Friend Herbert G. Wood went to renew Quaker links 

with Tagore, who greatly enjoyed his visit and expressed his desire for 

another Quaker colleague. The upshot was that by July 1939, with the 

backing of Friends, Marjorie had joined the staff at Santiniketan. In 

December therefore, when the Friends' statement on the war was pub- 

lished, she was able to bring it to the notice of Tagore, who at once issued 

a vigorous statement of his own in support. Both statements helped to 

stimulate the formation of a peace group in Calcutta led by Horace Collins 

and Mary Greenwell. Horace, nearly 20 years earlier, had been inspired 

by Joseph Taylor in the Friends Settlement; he was now a Baptist min- 

ister in the city. Mary was a YWCA worker from New Zealand who had 

met Friends in Woodbrooke. By mid- 1941 the group numbered over 30 

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and included not only Indian or other Christians, but Hindu, Brahmo, 

Muslim and humanist members also. Marjorie, in Santiniketan, helped 

when she could. 

Ranjit also, who had signed the Friends' statement as Clerk of the 

meeting, was invited by other Indian Christians to undertake delicate and 

difficult tasks of reconciliation, and in particular ,to attempt to bring about 

better understanding between Gandhi and the Muslim leader Mahomed 

Ali Jinnah. Ranjit believed that Friends were specially called to such work, 

and during 1941 he gave much time to it. 

Then at the end of the year he convened a second all-India Friends 

Conference, to which he also invited Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi was unable 

to come, but sent his wise and trusted secretary Mahadev Desai in his place. 

'The war which will end all wars,' said Mahadev, £ is that between violence 

and non-violence, and all the forces of non-violence must stand together.' 

About 30 Friends were present, and the statement which embodied their 

reflections was very different from that of two years earlier. The war with 

Germany was in a critical phase but they did not mention it. 

We find ourselves at one [they wrote] with those of other faiths who 

are working for a righteous social order . . . silence in the face of 

social injustice and oppression is a denial of Christ. 

The statement pointed forward to much that was to come in the post-war 

period, while Friends' immediate concerns were expressed in the appoint- 

ment of a continuation committee to promote action towards resolving 

intercommunal conflict. 

So, between 1938 and 1941, the vision of a Woodbrooke-in-India had 

been obscured by other valid Quakerly concerns. Yet the misunder- 

standings and conflicts among Friends themselves, which came to a head 

in Itarsi during those same years, underlined the need for just that patient 

long-term mutual interpretation which a Woodbrooke-in-India might 

have provided. Part of the loneliness which Ranjit often felt in Rasulia was 

due to his awareness of the unhappy situation in Itarsi. 

In 1937 things seemed to be going well. True, the hospital buildings 

were in bad condition, but the London committee had agreed to replace 

them and had sought the help of the architect Reg Dann, who had drawn 

up an excellent plan. Bill Tandy, who was troubled that caste custom and 

prejudice often prevented him from dieting patients as he wished, wrote 

to Gandhi for his advice, and Gandhi invited him to come and talk over 

the problem in person 

He looked at me with piercing eyes [Bill recalled], then smiled and 

spoke of his Quaker friends. He was full of commonsense and 

puckish humour, asked practical questions about the hospital, and 

THE VISION FADES : 1937 TO 1941 

275 

said he would like to help me. He gave me a letter written in Hindi, 

which we hung up in the verandah of the Outpatients block; groups 

of patients and their friends could often be seen clustered around 

it in animated argument. 

During this visit to Gandhi's ashram Bill met Herbert Fischer, who 

had made friends with a young Assamese, Jugneshwar Gogoi, through 

their shared enthusiasm for the cooperative movement. With Gandhi's 

consent Herbert and ( Jug' (as he was called) joined Bill at Itarsi. They 

first travelled together to see the medical cooperatives Harry Timbres had 

organised at Sriniketan, and the farming cooperatives at Gosaba, and 

when they got back Herbert started a cooperative society among the Itarsi 

weavers, with Geoffrey Maw's warm approval. This was quickly successful 

and others followed. In 1934, when septic tanks were first becoming 

known, Ratcliffe Addison had got Khushilal trained in their construction, 

and began to install them in the hospital. Herbert and Jug now got unem- 

ployed Christian youths to form a cooperative sanitation society and build 

septic tanks for customers elsewhere. That too was a success, and then 

came a cooperative shop, managed by a committee drawn from all the 

religious communities in the town. 

The government had recently made additional land available for the 

hospital, for it recognised the value of its work. On this land Jug built three 

simple 'model houses 5 where patients' relatives might stay. The cost was 

met by local subscription, and the idea was to encourage those who used 

them to build similar improved houses in their villages. Jug would sit with 

these visitors in the evenings and talk about how Gandhi's 'constructive 

programme' might make their village community happier. 

In 1938 however things began to go wrong - first, in the matter of 

buildings. Geoffrey Maw wrote a lively description of the Itarsi bungalow 

where he then lived and worked : 

All the floors are saucer-shaped. I have a special office chair with 

long legs at the back, so that I can sit level at my table, which slopes 

towards me like a schoolboy's desk. 

The 'saucer-shaped' floors were due to the failure of builders to master 

the special skills required for the unstable local 'black cotton soil'. Geoffrey 

joked about his discomforts, but it was no laughing matter when good 

nurses refused to stay in the hospital because of similar troubles. 

The architect Reg Dann, in failing health, had been obliged to leave 

India in 1937, and the hospital building programme was delayed, month 

after month, in a way that made Bill Tandy increasingly irritable. But other 

problems, more intractable than those of buildings, arose from Bill's own 

professional outlook. He was a brilliant doctor and surgeon, and his many 

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successes during the early years of his service made him less ready to listen 

and learn than he had once been. He concentrated on the physical, and 

ignored the mental and spiritual elements in health and wholeness, of 

which Geoffrey Maw had a profound understanding. A patient suffering 

in mind and body came to this Christian hospital seeking sympathy and 

healing; after a few days' observation Bill declared that there was nothing 

wrong with him, that he was in effect an idler, and that what he needed 

was WORK. Shocked, the patient walked out of the hospital, and Edith 

Be van who had seen the incident told Geoffrey what had happened. 

Geoffrey tracked the man to the railway station, but too Late; he had left 

for Badrinath, said someone. 'I more than most,' lamented Geoffrey, 

'could have told him that peace of soul would not be found in Badrinath/ 

Edith Bevan herself was due for leave towards the end of 1 938. In 1 937 

therefore the Tandys urged that a fully qualified State Registered Nurse 

should be appointed as a permanent addition to the hospital staff, and 

the London committee chose Lucille Sibouy, whom Mary Allen had 

adopted from the East Indian community in Jamaica, and who had had 

her professional training in Britain. 

Lucille had had a chequered history. Her family origins were in Punjab, 

where during the famine of 1896 the government had encouraged whole 

village populations to emigrate to the sugar plantations of Jamaica. One 

such village was that of Lucille's grandfather Shiv Ram in West Punjab, 

where a French mission had been at work. The French influence showed 

in personal names; Lucille's grandfather became Sibouy, his wife her 

grandmother was another Lucille. They went to Jamaica with the rest of 

the village, and when their daughter Marie grew to womanhood she was 

raped by the son of the plantation owner, a young man named Kenneth 

Pringle. The labourers, the old village community, confronted him in a 

body, he acknowledged his responsibility, and the child born of the union 

was named Lucille Ananda Pringle - the Ananda Qoy) possibly because 

she was a 'child of love'. 

When little Lucille was seven her mother died, and it was then that 

Mary Allen adopted her. A few years later, as an intelligent girl of 1 1 or 

1 2, she was ready to enter a secondary school. The school required a birth 

certificate, but Kenneth Pringle's family would not allow their name to 

be used in such an official record, and the certificate was therefore issued 

in the mother's name, Sibouy. For Lucille it meant the destruction of her 

identity, a psychological insecurity which was reflected later in the way- 

wardness and insistence on status which marked her first years in India. 

Lucille reached Itarsi towards the end of 1937, and Molly Tandy was 

troubled that she was so slow to begin work in the hospital, where Edith, 

tired and ill, badly needed help. The level-headed Molly saw, better than 

THE VISION FADES : 1937 TO 1941 

277 

anyone, the possible difficulties ahead; why, she asked, should Edith not 

take the SRN examination in India, as some American nurses did? She 

was qualified in all but name to take the lead. But this sensible sugges- 

tion was not followed up and Lucille used the 'authority' of her own SRN 

to make changes in hospital routine which Edith disliked and resented. 

When Herbert Fischer returned from his visit to Bengal he and Lucille 

met, and by April 1938 they were engaged to be married. The wedding 

took place in June at Pachmarhi, a civil ceremony followed by a Meeting 

for Worship at which the only Friends present were Mary Allen and the 

Tandys. Within a month there was such open hostility between Tandys 

and Fischers on one side and Mid-India Friends on the other that Geoffrey 

Maw and Shivlal spent hours trying in vain to restore the goodwill which 

had prevailed when Herbert first arrived. By October there was open con- 

frontation. Harry Mirchulal, the able son of the Rasulia watchman, had 

in 1936 completed his training as a Christian pastor and was happily 

married to an educated wife. The Church Council appointed him to Itarsi 

where he became much interested in the various cooperative enterprises, 

and was the valued and trusted secretary of the cooperative shop. So when 

he was transferred to Hoshangabad and the shop lost his help, Bill Tandy 

protested strongly and a violent dispute ensued. 

Both sides behaved unreasonably. Bill wrote to the India Committee 

in London: 'We want non-violent social change, you want us to please first 

the spoiled children of the mission; Amy Montford pleaded with him to 

realise that his own violent reactions were part of the problem, and that 

while he might rightly query policies he should not wound persons. Some 

older missionaries on the other side were suspicious of anything the 

Fischers did, however innocent, even questioning their right to entertain 

their own guests in a 'mission' bungalow! 

When Edith Bevan left for furlough at the end of the year the hospital 

urgently needed a second nursing sister, for Lucille now had undefined 

health problems and it was clear she could not carry on alone. A friend 

of Mary Barr named Barbara Hartland came to the rescue. She was an 

SRN, and that December she visited Amy Montford at Friends House 

and offered a year's service which was gratefully accepted. She sailed at 

once, and the Tandys and Fischers welcomed her, for she fully shared 

their admiration for Gandhi, and she did much-needed and valuable work 

in the hospital. 

The underlying tensions remained, and early in 1939 they came to a 

head. Myrtle Aldren Wright, who had in 1930 been Young Friends' 

spokesman in their concern for India, and had since worked closely with 

Amy Montford, reached India towards the end of 1938 for a visit which 

extended into the first months of 1939 and included a long stay in the 

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AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Itarsi area. She was a perceptive observer, and she concluded that Bill 

Tandy and Lucille were mainly responsible for the continuing tensions. 

Herbert was generally liked, but Herbert loved Lucille and supported her, 

no matter what she did. That spring she wrote to Edith in England, and 

sent a copy of her letter to the India Committee. The letter hurt Edith so 

deeply that she felt she could work with Lucille no longer. By June, the 

Committee decided that both the Tandys and the Fischers must go. 

The decision did not take effect immediately, and two months later 

came the war with Germany. Herbert and his fellow-German Heinz von 

Tucher were at once interned by the government, while their non-German 

wives were left free. It was however common knowledge that many of the 

Germans in India had no sympathy with Hitler, and after a time family 

camps were arranged where wives and children joined them. Heinz was 

soon playing the organ for all the religious services in his camp, Jewish 

and Christian, Catholic and Protestant alike! Early in 1940 Lucille too 

joined Herbert in internment, along with their first baby Karl. There they 

remained for the duration of the war. If the local Friends Mission had 

been willing to vouch for them they might have been released earlier, but 

memories of the former tensions were too strong. Nevertheless things 

became happier; Lucille had found a new inner security as a beloved wife 

and mother. When the war ended the family went with Herbert to his 

home in the eastern part of divided Germany. 

Geoffrey Maw had been obliged to leave India at about the same time 

as Edith Bevan, at the end of 1938, for further treatment for his persis- 

tently troublesome hip, and could not return till 1941. Edith however was 

back by the beginning of 1940. The Tandys had left, and a well-qualified 

Indian woman, Dr Matthew, had taken Bill's place. She was friendly and 

popular, and also had musical gifts, and she revived the English services 

at the Friends Institute, which had lapsed after Geoffrey left, and for which 

many railway people were grateful. In April the long-delayed hospital 

building was ready at last, and was occupied with prayer and rejoicing, 

although it was not * officially' opened till later. Edith wrote joyfully of the 

light, airy, well-planned wards, with their wide verandahs open to the 

south, and the careful provision for the nurses' needs. When the Governor 

of the Province performed the opening ceremony in October a new English 

Quaker doctor, Martin Ludlam, had just arrived. He made a good impres- 

sion, but Dr Matthew remained in charge till the following year, so that 

he could study the language and have some Indian hospital experience. 

So, it would seem, the difficult years were over. Martin had brought 

his wife Janet and their first child, little Amy, and they had travelled to 

India with another young Quaker couple, Donald and Erica Groom. 

During Donald's childhood his father had endured obloquy as a 

THE VISION FADES : 1937 TO 1941 

279 

conscientious objector in the First 

World War, and Donald shared his 

faith. As a Cooperative accountant in 

Reading he joined the Peace Pledge 

Union, and attracted many by his 

'delightful smile, earnestness, com- 

monsense and humour'. Then during 

the Spanish Civil War he worked for 

the British Friends' Relief Committee 

in Barcelona. By 1938 however nearly 

half a million people had fled from 

Spain to southern France, where they 

were in urgent need, and he went to 

Paris to arrange relief for them. He 

lived at the Quaker Centre, and there 

in the student club met an Indian 

student, B. V. Keskar, who talked 

about India and about Gandhi in a 

way that powerfully attracted him. 

, „ 0 ~ Dr Mary Mammen. 

When war broke out in 1939 

Donald spent a term in Woodbrooke 

under the guidance of Horace Alexander, whom he already knew as 

chairman of Friends' Spanish relief committee. The following year he and 

his newly-married wife Erica Hodgkin were appointed to Hoshangabad 

to take the place ofthePriestmans. In 1941 another young Friend, Joseph 

Short, followed them. Joe came from New Zealand, and during the years 

before the war had studied horticulture in Germany, There he was drawn 

to Friends, and after more study at Kew he went on to Woodbrooke where 

in 1940 he met his future wife Phyllis Dodwell. Friends were glad to send 

him to Makoriya while the von Tuchers were interned, and he too was 

delighted with the opportunity he saw, both there and in Lahi, for the 

service he was qualified to give. 

The agricultural and economic problem must be tackled right from 

the bottom, the soil itself [he wrote], and not only with Christians 

but with all. 

'Not only with Christians but with all' - that phrase describes an 

attitude which all these newcomers shared. Their interest was in serving 

with their various skills the whole local community. The hospital had 

always done so, and the Grooms began to explore ways of doing so at 

Hoshangabad. This should have brought them close to Ranjit Chetsingh, 

whose work for education and for reconciliation, inspired though it was 

by his Christian-Quaker faith, was carried out among members of all com- 

munities. Yet sadly this did not happen. It soon became clear that Ranjit 

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found it difficult to get on personally with these young foreigners; he 

remained as isolated and restless as before, and by 1942 he was seeking 

an opening for Quaker service in a different context. 

Before Joe Short arrived Martin Ludlam had taken charge of the Itarsi 

hospital. Dr Matthew had left, and there was a new woman doctor Mary 

Mammen, who proved a valuable colleague. She cared for women 

patients, partnered Martin in surgery, and sometimes went out with him 

in the ambulance-van. She also helped to teach Edith Bevan's nurses, 

whose results continued to be excellent. The hospital was full to 

overflowing, for she was very popular both with the poor villagers and 

with the richer private patients. She lived happily in one of the houses Jug 

had built - 'a small beautiful cottage,' she called it. They were too busy 

to think of the war. 

Notes to Chapter XXI 

1 See Harijan, 8th May, 31st July, 9th and 30th October 1937, and 

E.W.Aryanayakam, 'The naitalim (Basic Education) movement', in The Economics 

of Peace, ed. S.K.George, Wardha 1952. 

2 World Dominion, vol. 16 no.3 (July 1938) pp.255-261. 

CHAPTER XXII 

India at War : Flood, Famine, Fire 

1942 to 1945 

When giants fight, it is the grass beneath their feet 

that is trampled down. 

During the first months of 1942 Japanese armies overran Burma, 

and Indian refugees in thousands fled by the 'Burma Road' through 

Manipur and Nagaland into India. Japanese forces also occupied the 

Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal and thus had a base for possible 

air raids on Calcutta. The defence of India became an important part of 

war strategy, and the British War Cabinet therefore sent its left-wing 

member, Sir Stafford Cripps, to India with proposals for political con- 

cessions which, it was hoped, would give Britain the full and active support 

of the Indian people. 

Before he left England, Cripps discussed these proposals in confidence 

with the Quaker-led India Conciliation Group. Its secretary, Agatha 

Harrison, with her finger on the pulse of India, said that she feared they 

came too late. She was right. By 1942 distrust had become too profound, 

and the proposals were rejected by the national leaders. 

Friends themselves made quite a different proposal. By that time the 

Friends' Ambulance Unit had had wide experience of the measures 

needed to help the civilian population during the massive air raids on 

Britain. They thought their experience of welfare work and protective 

measures in London and other English cities might be of service to the 

people of India, and accordingly offered to send a small, carefully selected 

team of men and women to work in Indian cities. 

At the beginning of 1942 Horace's much-loved wife Olive died, and 

in his loneliness he welcomed the opportunity to return to India in person. 

281 

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In the middle of June he and the FAU's young team-leader Richard 

Symonds reached India in advance of the others, who followed by sea. 

They went first to consult with Friends in the Itarsi area. Not many 

seniors were available. One was Geoffrey Maw, who had returned to India 

alone in 1941, leaving his wife with his now grown-up family in England. 

Another was Edith Backhouse, staunch and faithful after 40 years in India. 

Ranjit Chetsingh was still in Rasulia, glad to have Horace back in India. 

But the Addisons were gone. After their leave in 1935-36 Gail had found 

openings for service in India through the British Medical Association, first 

in Bastar state and then in Kalimpong, where Ratcliffe too had scope for 

his own skills, and during the years 1941-46 they were in Kalimpong. 

The consultations in Itarsi ended dramatically as the first monsoon 

storm burst over the town. The new hospital building, so well planned, 

had not been so skilfully built; already in 1941 there had been cracks and 

leaks, and now the storm took off the whole roof. Leaving the local people 

to cope with the wreckage, Horace and Richard moved on to Sevagram 

to see Gandhi. Gandhi welcomed Horace warmly. 

I want you [he said] to do for me what Andrews used to do. Since 

he died two years ago I have had no one to tell me when what I 

propose to do might alienate British people. I don't want to do that, 

I want to win them. You must take Andrews' place. 

'No one can take Andrews' place,' replied Horace, 'but I will do my best.' 

As for the Friends' Ambulance Unit (FAU), Gandhi readily gave it his 

blessing, and showed generous understanding of the problems that might 

arise. 

If you find it necessary to avoid me for the sake of your work [he 

said], I shall not misunderstand you. But if you do want to consult 

me you are always welcome, and Symonds too. 

By the end of July the rest of the FAU team had arrived. They spent 

August acclimatising (not an easy matter in the unhealthy monsoon 

season) and making friends in Calcutta. Some were already there. Horace 

had known Geoffrey and Kathleen Lowe as neighbours in Birmingham, 

where they were 'attenders' at Bournville Friends Meeting. Now Geoffrey 

was the Calcutta representative of his Birmingham business firm, and they 

had a quiet welcoming home outside the city. There was also Sudhir 

Ghosh. As a student in Cambridge in the years before the war Sudhir had 

been in close touch with the Indian Conciliation Group, and when he 

returned to Calcutta in 1940 he had built up a similar group there, which 

included Bishop Westcott and Arthur Moore of The Statesman newspaper. 

INDIA AT war: FLOOD, FAMINE, FIRE : 1942 TO 1945 283 

At first the team had to live in a hotel, but by the beginning of 

September they had rented a house, No. 1 Upper Wood Street, as home 

and headquarters. In his first letter to English Friends from there, Horace 

made it clear that in his eyes the FAU was something more than a group 

of experts in civil defence. It was also, he wrote, 'a link between the spir- 

itual traditions of the East and our little mystical Society in the West,' and 

as 'Warden' of the household he did all he could to strengthen the link. 

Amiya Chakravarty of Santiniketan was teaching at Calcutta University, 

and introduced the team to the cultural life of the city, while his Danish 

wife Haimanti helped with the housekeeping. Ramananda Chatterji, the 

distinguished editor of The Modern Review, became a good friend, and 

his lively daughters ran in and out like members of the family. 

Horace watched with pleasure that month as the team set about its 

work. 

I am impressed [he wrote] by the way the Unit members have all 

identified themselves with the people of India while keeping on 

perfectly good terms with officials. It is an almost miraculous 

achievement. 

That may seem exaggerated language, but in the light of the events of 

August 1 942, in which Horace himself had been involved, it was not really 

so. 

Gandhi had always recognised that Stafford Cripps himself was a 

sincere friend, though the proposals he had brought from the British 

Government were unacceptable. He recognised too the suffering of Britain 

under air attacks. 'I feel as if my own home were being bombed,' he said. 

In mid-July, 'from an agonised heart/ he called on Britain to 'Quit India,' 

to entrust the government of India to her own chosen leaders - and as a 

result to win her whole-hearted support in the struggle against the dicta- 

torships. 

This call was published in the form of a resolution of the Indian 

National Congress. The last paragraph of the resolution (which Horace 

felt should not have been published so soon) carried a warning that if the 

demand were not granted civil disobedience would follow. Horace went 

at once to Gandhi and told him that British readers would inevitably focus 

their attention on this last paragraph, and regard it as 'a stab in the back'. 

Gandhi responded, and stated publicly that there was no question of 

immediate civil disobedience; the first step was to discuss the whole matter 

with the Viceroy. He was given no chance to do so; early in August he 

and all his fellow- workers were arrested and imprisoned. The news of 

the arrests caused an outburst of public anger throughout India; there 

were strikes, acts of sabotage, the destruction of anything regarded as 

'government' property. 

2 M A S t M JI AN I APHK ['RY 

The FAU in Calcutta f 1 942. 

From iiij) to right standing: Homee Alexander, Pamela Bankan, Bob Savery, 

Glatl Dalies, Afcc HorscfinhU Jean duffa Sndhir Ghosh, Brian Graves; 

Stain/*: d LmTj?, Richard Symoitd^ Ken Griffin. 

It was in this atmosphere of sullen resentment that che small FAU team 

he^an iis work. It had two women members 5 p tuple remarked thai it was 

(he only war-relief agency which 1 found work for women and women for 

I he work*. Ai first, naturally, there were unexpected difficulties. Richard 

Symonds for example began organising fire-fighting teams, and recruited 

Home of the 'country stalwarts from Rihar who formed so much of the 

labour force of Calcutta. But with the first airraid these Stalwarts' ran 

jiwsiy To their village homes, 'carrying iheir possesions in our fire-buckets !' 

Richard soon found thai the people really to be relied upon were the pros- 

titutes, present and alert at all hours. They became good friends. 'Long 

live our Command erf they would cheer as he appeared. 'Women for the 

work 1 in a sense not originally intended. J 

Another member, Brian Groves , developed an emergency Informa- 

lion Service which proved so useful that it was later extended to other 

ilinvn^ited titles such as Dacca. Boh Savery concentrated on the needs 

vi' the Indian refugees who had come into Manipur from Burma. He id en- 

titled himself with their life, wearing the same kind of clothes, eating the 

INDIA At" WAK: 1- LOO 11, FAMINE:, UEK.E- 1042 TO 1945 283 

FAU members planning rehabiluatt'Qn of avida/p (Harlibiya) deiwtetad by }942 

cyclone. Stephen Lee and Sujaia Duties arc on the righh 

same kind of food, fit and happy. Pamela Rankart organised a Women's 

Emergency Volunteer service and was able to get many strongly nation- 

alist women to cooperate in making it a success. Two more, Glan Da vies 

and Jean Cottle* soon had to turn their attention not to war- time needs 

but 10 rhe demands of natural disaster. 

In mid-October, barely a month after the Unit had begun work, a 

violent cyclonic storm struck the Midnapur District in south-west Bengal, 

a district whose people were strongly nationalist and suspicious of * gov- 

ernment \ There was a Song coastal strip, where fertile rieelands had been 

built up from the silt of the Ganges estuary, and were protected from the 

sea by a dyke, A tidal wave broke the dyke, so that the whole strip, aboui 

(0 miles wide, was submerged under the sea, and the entire rice crop, 

near to harvest, was destroyed. Many villages were obliterated, over 1 1 ,000 

people lost their lives, the cattle were drowned, the soil impregnated with 

salt. 

The FAU contributed its mite, and filled what gaps it could in the 

massive rehabilitation plans. Glan Da vies organised milk canteens using 

powdered milk, for cows could not be imported when there was no fodder, 

286 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

and fed as many needy children as could be reached. Martin Ludlam sent 

the ambulance-van from Itarsi, feeling that it was more urgently needed 

in Midnapur, but even so transport was often inadequate, and it was not 

easy to ensure a regular supply of volunteer helpers. But somehow the 

milk distribution went on, and about 3,000 child-lives were saved. 

Jean Cottle, after a campaign of inoculation against the real danger of 

cholera, organised an emergency hospital for some of the worst cases 

among the starving babies. This was situated at the local market town, 

Contai, where officials gladly found her a building, and more volunteers 

helped to care for the babies. But finding a building could not have been 

easy, Contai stands on slightly higher ground and the sea had not reached 

it, only the wind. But to the FAU workers who had seen the blitzed towns 

of England it looked as though it had been thoroughly 'blitzed', and some 

of its strongest houses lay in ruins. Yet such was the general goodwill felt 

towards the FAU that a hospital building was somehow provided. 

Some of the volunteers who came to help were Friends and others 

from outside the area. One of them was Marjorie Sykes, who for the time 

being was no longer in Santiniketan. The year 1 94 1 had been one of excep- 

tional stress, when the death of an old friend Edward Barnes was followed 

two or three months later by that of Rabindranath Tagore, At the end of 

the year she therefore took six months' leave in India, and spent the first 

half of 1942 among old friends in the south. While there she agreed, with 

the approval of her Santiniketan colleagues, to fill the vacancy for a 

Professor of English in the Women's Christian College in Madras, as a 

temporary measure, seeing that no one could be recruited from Britain 

during the war. She lived through August 1942 among students who felt 

impelled to strike, while the best of them desired to do nothing unworthy 

of the spirit of Christ. It was a moving experience when the strike ended 

in a 'National Service Committee' which planned active construction 

work for all 

Marjorie then promised Horace Alexander to do what she could during 

her Christmas vacation to help in Midnapur. 

It was strange [she wrote], to travel through that blighted land. The 

fields were a stretch of grey stubble where the dried sea salt glit- 

tered like hoar-frost. Nearly every tree was down, the few that still 

stood were cruelly mutilated, and festooned with the wreckage of 

the straw thatch of village homes. Yet among the people the beggar's 

whine was absent; the worse the conditions the greater were the 

patient cheerful courage and readiness to cooperate. 

She could stay little more than a fortnight, but the time coincided with 

a period when volunteers were scarce, and not long afterwards she was 

able to send another helper. Sylvia Farr's husband had been a tea-planter, 

INDIA AT WAR: FLOOD, FAMINE, FIRE : 1942 TO 1945 287 

unusual in the simplicity of his life and the humanity of his dealings with 

his workers. In 1942 he had died suddenly, and early in 1943 Sylvia, a 

'friend of Friends', went to help the hard-pressed Friends in Midnapur. 

Meanwhile the numbers in the FAU team had grown. By the summer 

of 1943 there were a full dozen with more on their way. The team began 

to make plans for long-term rehabilitation of the victims of the disaster. 

The old Quaker links with Santiniketan and Sriniketan meant that a group 

of rural reconstruction workers from there came to assess the scope for 

developing village industries. Another group with long-standing Quaker 

connections, the Servants of India Society, was carrying on relief work, 

parallel to that of the Friends, in the adjacent area of northern Orissa 

which had suffered in the same way at Midnapur. One of the recently 

arrived Friends, Leslie Cross, arranged a little piece of practical cooper- 

ation. The Servants could guarantee fodder by then for a dozen cows, 

Friends provided the cows, and more children benefited. 

In 1943 changes were taking place elsewhere in India. Ranjit and Doris 

Chetsingh started a new Quaker Centre in Delhi. The need for 'some- 

thing wholesome', some oasis of peace and sanity amid the constant polit- 

ical turmoil of the capital, had been felt for a long time. From 1939 

onwards Bill and Eleanor Hindle, who were posted to Delhi by the YMC A, 

had done all they could to keep peace-loving people in touch with one 

another. Now they were no longer there, and Ranjit stepped into the gap. 

Delhi is of strategic importance [he wrote]. The population is in 

the ratio of three Muslims to four Hindus, with a considerable Sikh 

element and some Christian, 

The Quaker Centre, as he envisaged it, had a double aim. On the one 

hand it should provide a meeting-place, permeated by Christian-Quaker 

values, for all who desired mutual understanding and were ready to 

combat inter-communal and international hatred. On the other hand it 

should 'hold together all in India who are drawn to the Quaker way of 

life'. On the personal level he hoped to continue his work for adult edu- 

cation. A modest house was found in Karol Bagh, and the Centre came 

into being. 

At the same time Horace was once more involved in Gandhi's affairs. 

Gandhi was accused in official circles of being responsible for the violence 

which had followed his arrest. Prisoner as he was, he registered his protest 

by a 21-day fast, during which Horace was allowed to visit him. As usual, 

Gandhi joked. He had no intention of risking his life, he said, and this 

was a 'fraudulent' fast - he was 'cheating' by taking lime juice in his 

drinking water! With the help of Gandhi's son Devadas, Horace suggested 

an arrangement which would allow Gandhi to study the 'evidence' against 

him, but the Viceroy would not consider it. Horace felt he could do no 

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AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

more. The FAU was well established, his successors as Wardens at Upper 

Wood Street, John and Mary Burtt, were already on their way, and he 

returned to England. 

Before the Burtts arrived there was a fresh disaster, the Bengal famine, 

many factors contributed to it: the Japanese occupation of Burma cut off 

supplies of rice from there, the military threat to eastern India meant that 

many thousands of troops were concentrated in the area and had to be 

fed, the provincial government was weak just when strength and wisdom 

were needed. Prices rose fantastically, village farmers were tempted by 

what seemed unbelievable good fortune to sell the grain reserves they 

would normally have stored, and then found too late that there was none 

to be had. Starving people poured into Calcutta to die on the streets. 

The Friends' Ambulance Unit did what it could. Details are unim- 

portant, any famine anywhere demands the same kind of action. But in 

the 'administrative breakdown' which afflicted Bengal, Quaker honesty 

and efficiency were conspicuous, the Governor, R. G. Casey, took matters 

into his own hands and invited Richard Symonds to join the government 

and coordinate relief and rehabilitation work throughout the province. By 

that time 1943 had given place to 1944 and Gandhi had been released. 

He was a sick and lonely man; his wife had died in jail, and so had his 

trusted secretary Mahadev Desai. But he was accessible, and Richard 

remembered the invitation he had given in 1942, and sought his advice 

about the major decision which Casey's offer entailed, taking Glan Davies 

with him. 

Gandhi got his two visitors to sing one of his favourite hymns, Lead 

Kindly Light, He told Richard that he must follow his own conscience but 

that he would not find it easy to be a Government official. 2 In the event, 

Richard accepted Casey's invitation and began to tackle his gigantic job. 

Step by step the crisis was dealt with, and life in Bengal slowly returned 

to normal. The tide of war turned, and the Japanese invasion of India was 

halted at Kohima in Nagaland. 

In 1 943 some of the troubles of Bengal were repeated on a smaller 

scale in Madras, where the former vigorous Friends Meeting no longer 

existed. By 1941 not only the Danns and Dorothy Hersey, but almost all 

the other foreign members had left, Edward Barnes had died, and Audrey 

Wilson and Grace Gabb, both married to Methodist ministers, shared 

the life of their husbands' churches. The Indian members and attenders 

had no satisfactory meeting place. 

Early in the year, after she had returned from Midnapur, Marjorie 

Sykes began living in a little three-roomed house in an area called 

'Mahommedan's Gardens', within easy walking distance of the College. 

In former times it had been the spacious compound of a 'garden house' 

INDIA AT WAR: FLOOD, FAMINE, FIRE : 1942 TO 1945 289 

on the outskirts of the city. Now it was leased in tiny plots to the many 

who needed a home, and had become a kind of village-in-the-city, not 

really a slum, but a community of low caste, low-income people. Parties 

of students from the College used to visit once a week for 'social service', 

washing some of the children and playing games with them. Marjorie's 

landlady, who lived in an adjacent part of the same building, was friendly 

with them and ready to rent her rooms. Soon one of the little rooms had 

become on Sundays the place for the Madras Friends Meeting. Friends 

sat in a circle on the floor and the little Quaker bookshelf stood in a corner. 

The College National Service Committee wanted to offer the com- 

munity some more constructive service. One possibility was a day nursery 

school for smaller children, whose parents both went out to work. The 

students raised the modest sum needed for a year's trial, a house nearby 

was rented for the school, and a trained nursery-school teacher Jayamani 

came to live with Marjorie in her little house. 

Then in October came the Great Madras Floods. The NE monsoon 

came early and heavily. 

After some days of it [wrote Marjorie at the time] we in the village 

were sodden with water, and my mud verandah twice awash. Then 

a good number of the water storage lakes in the district burst their 

banks and poured their water into our two over-full rivers. Whole 

areas of the city were submerged, thousands of poor people have 

had all their possessions swept away. It reminded me altogether too 

vividly of the Midnapur district after the flood last year. Our own 

village was fortunate, we had our feet in the water, and my court- 

yard was full of it, but the river did not come indoors - by about 

quarter of an inch! The nursery school building became an emer- 

gency refuge for a number of homeless families, and the ARP organ- 

ised feeding centres. The skies cleared, and we had brilliant 

moonlight - greatly appreciated as there was no electric power. 

In the middle of all this came our first air raid. For some nights 

before, people had been unable to sleep properly because of anxiety 

about flooding. The Japanese chose the first night on which we 

could sleep, and we did, aided by the absence of a siren. Those who 

did wake and hear a few explosions thought it was probably gun 

practice. 

For the ordinary people of the city there were things of more impor- 

tance than raids. Madras like Bengal had imported rice from Burma, and 

by 1943 there were severe shortages, but no famine, for the Madras gov- 

ernment organised a family rationing system for essential commodities. 

Rice rationing worked fairly well, but rationing of firewood was done in 

a way that caused hardship. The poor got least, both in quantity and 

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AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

quality. Its defects contributed to the next crisis in Mahommedan's 

Gardens, the fire of September 1944. 

That weekend several travelling Friends were in Madras, Ranjit and 

Doris Chetsingh for an All-India Sunday School Conference, Christopher 

Taylor on his way to take charge at the FAU headquarters in Calcutta, 

Clem Alexandre beginning a well-earned holiday. Meeting on Sunday 

would be too big for Marjorie's little room, so she arranged for it to be 

held in the Quaker-built college chapel, for it was the school holiday season 

and both Jayamani and the students had gone away. A new companion, 

the schoolgirl Rani, stayed at home to cook a simple midday meal, and 

after Meeting Marjorie cycled back from college, leaving her four guests 

to follow at leisure on foot. 

She had scarcely reached the house when 

there came simultaneously a great shout, a smell of burning, and 

Rani's frightened cry, 'Fire!' The thatched roofs just outside our 

courtyard wall were aflame, our own house seemed in danger. We 

hurried our boxes into the street, while local young men rushed in, 

formed a bucket chain from the nearest public tap, jumped on our 

bathroom roof, and flung the water at the burning huts, while our 

succulent banana plants quenched many sparks. Fire engines 

arrived quickly and dealt with the rest, and in a few minutes it was 

all over. But in those few minutes the homes of 31 families had 

become a wreck of blackened slippery mud, and 110 people were 

left with nothing but what they stood up in. Luckily the animals 

were all out grazing, as it was the middle of the day. As was found 

later, a burst of sparks from the bad firewood had started the whole 

thing. 

So when our guests arrived for the 'quiet meal' and the talk 

about Delhi Centre which we had planned, the whole area of which 

our house is one corner was cordoned off and soused with water, 

Rani was sitting on our boxes by the roadside, and I giving some 

primitive first aid to a man with a burnt arm. But we were soon 

allowed to go into the house, where Rani had finished cooking rice 

and greens, and covered them, before the fire began. The sauce, 

simmering forgotten in the kitchen, was overcooked but edible. We 

sat down and ate, sharing what we had with some of the hungry 

children whose own meal had disappeared under the ruins, and 

then retired to my 'sitting-room' (less full of burnt thatch than the 

rest of the house) to talk abou t the Delhi Centre, while Rani happily 

helped the homeless to cook meals in our vessels in our kitchen 

with rice and pulses from our store. 

INDIA at war: flood, famine, fire : 1942 to 1945 291 

Then the Headman and I held a meeting and got list of the suf- 

ferers by families (really wonderfully accurate) so that we could cal- 

culate what was needed to give everyone one garment. By that time 

the day was over, and every mat, groundsheet, old sari, etc., we 

possessed was lent out to sleep on - luckily it was a fine night and 

people slept in the open field near by. But the second night about 

midnight came a pathetic procession, it was beginning to rain! We 

opened the door, and somehow our tiny house was made to hold 

three dozen extra people of both sexes and all ages. 

For the clothing distribution we had a few saries and a little 

money left over from last year's flood, and many friends helped. 

When the distribution began there were comic moments. 'What's 

your name? . . . your husband's name? But an Indian woman cannot 

bring herself to speak of her husband by name - that would be too 

shameless ! - so we had to guess, and the young ARP man who was 

helping me joined in the game with zest: 'Is it Ponnuswami . . . 

Munuswami? . . . Perumal? . . . Kandappan? . . until only the 

knowledge that no one would see the joke prevented me from 

inquiring 'Is it Rumpel-stiltskin?' It slows down the proceedings, 

but it puts everyone in a good humour. And how cheerful and 

patient they are! During the last two weeks I have sometimes been 

very weary but this experience alone fully justifies me in choosing 

to live right among the ordinary folk. 

Every family had kept its rice ration card tucked into the thatch of the 

roof, out of reach of children, and the replacement of the lost cards was 

another tragi-comedy. The Headman got application forms, but it was a 

major operation to get them completed. The Rationing Officer had 

promised to send new cards as soon as he received the applications. He 

was most helpful, but when Marjorie's messenger reached the office he- 

happened to be out. The messenger was one of the poor sufferers who 

(like Gandhi) was wearing a loincloth only, and the clerk who had been 

left in charge scornfully drove him away empty-handed. 

When he came back [wrote Marjorie], patient and uncom- 

plaining after nearly four miles walk in the scorching sun, I just 

blazed up. A hot telephone call from college ensued, and a promise 

that the missing cards should be sent by special messenger. An hour 

later they were in my hands, and as I waved them triumphantly at 

my colleagues a voice spoke within me in the words of the Book of 

Jonah: 'Doest thou well to be angry?' I answered with conviction 

£ YES ! - being angry gets things done ! ' - and then began to wonder 

whether it was altogether well? 

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AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

For Marjorie herself, as she had written a year earlier, was seeing more 

and more clearly that the real business of living was friendliness - friend- 

liness with a heterogeneous crowd which included students, villagers, col- 

leagues, all sorts and conditions. The external routine of 'getting things 

done' was only a necessary frame work. She was not the only one to feel 

the tension. As an Indian fellow-worker once asked in another context: 

'Why do all you westerners wear yourselves out trying to reform us. Sit 

down and make friends^ like the Chetsinghs!' 

Notes to Chapter XXII 

1 Richard Symonds, 'Recollections of Horace Alexander and Gandhi', Indo 

British Review, Madras, vol. XIX no.2, 1993, pp. 10-1 1. 

2 Ibid., p.ll. 

CHAPTER XXIII 

Partition and After 

by Geoffrey Carnall 

'Making friends' continues to be a helpful clue in reflecting on Quaker 

activities in India in the later part of the war and in the period leading up 

to independence in 1947. The Calcutta and Delhi Centres in particular 

proved to be effective means of bringing together people whose estab- 

lished routines would have kept them firmly apart. Richard Symonds 

recalls thatitwas at dinner in 1 Upper Wood Street that the Chief Secretary 

to the Government of Bengal, J. R. Blair, was first introduced to Shyama 

Prasad Mookherjee, leader of the Hindu Mahasabha in the Bengal 

Legislative Assembly, and to Kiron Shankar Roy, leader of the Congress 

group there. This happened in the winter of 1942-3, and he had held 

important posts in the Government of Bengal since 1935. 

Quakers were only a very small group in a vast and bewildering scene, 

and in trying to interpret what they actually achieved in this period, it is 

essential to appreciate just how bewildering the situation was. As the war 

was ending, the leaders of Congress were released from the detention 

imposed on them because of the 'Quit India' campaign in 1 942 . This meant 

that they were once again in a position to oppose the increasing strength 

of the Muslim League's demand for Pakistan, a Muslim homeland free of 

Hindu domination. Congress, for its part denied that it was a Hindu party, 

and gave great prominence to the theme of 'communal unity', underlining 

the point by having Maulana Azad as its President, and with other Muslims 

occupying prominent positions in the organisation. The Muslim League 

was led by the austere and unbending M. A. Jinnah, who refused to recog- 

nise the political significance of any Muslims who were not members of 

the League. Compromise was emphatically not the prevailing mode at this 

time, and it is hard not to feel sympathy with the Viceroy, Lord Wavell, 

who in the Simla Conference in 1945 and during the Cabinet Mission the 

293 

294 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

following year, obviously tried very hard to find formulae that would be 

acceptable to League and Congress alike. The situation was further com- 

plicated by a fairly basic mistrust among the Indians generally towards 

Britain, doubting even now whether she really would willingly withdraw 

from her imperial role. Although the newly elected Labour Government 

was committed to Indian independence, the machinery of British rule was 

still firmly in place, and who could tell what mischief that arch-antagonist 

of Indian aspirations, Winston Churchill, might be up to? 

The atmosphere in the period between the Simla Conference and the 

Cabinet Mission is vividly conveyed in an unusually depressed report by 

Horace Alexander in The Friend for 1 st March 1 946. He had last been in 

India with the FAU in 1942-3, and had now returned and been there for 

a month. The demand for Pakistan was the result of Muslim fears, he 

said, and he had to concede that Congress did little to allay those fears. 

In the cyclone and famine disasters during the war it was possible for gov- 

ernment and nationalists to work together. This was no longer the case: 

The depths of suspicion and mistrust and defeatism are inde- 

scribable and seemingly incurable. ... It seems as if no human 

wisdom, none of the actors of this last scene of the drama, is great 

enough to find the way to the goal which, I believe, nearly all gen- 

uinely desire. How, one asks, are we to learn the divine wisdom 

that can destroy fear, suspicion and arrogance? Nothing but the 

piercing light of truth can release Indian and Briton alike from the 

chains that bind them. 1 

This sombre mood was transient. In a stirring report Horace sent to 

the Friends' Service Council on the 4th March, he foresaw a continuing 

period of revolutionary happenings, disfigured by animosity and violence. 

Hui th ere was a peculiar value in having a group, even a tiny group like 

the Friends' Ambulance Unit, with a reputation for integrity and quiet 

competence, 

welcoming the revolution, living so to speak right in the heart of it, 

and striving all the time to witness through their work and bearing 

to a universal spirit that may finally tire out the evil passions which 

every revolution brings to the surface. 

There was a special point to the Unit's work in India, where social and 

economic crises arc endemic, making those who live there for any length 

of time feel that nothing can be done. 

I think [said Horace], it is good to have one agency that says 'No: 

we shall do what we can; and we shall go on doing it even if you 

can demonstrate to us that we are only postponing the evil day'. 

PARTITION AND AFTER 

295 

The buoyant mood of the young people working with Friends at this 

time is vividly apparent in Hallam Tennyson's autobiography, The Haunted 

Mind. Hallam with his wife Margot started a village rehabilitation project 

in the Bengal countryside, some 50 miles east of Calcutta, at Pifa and 

Raghabpur. After a rather shaky start, they soon found themselves 

accepted as Elder Brother and Elder Sister, objects of a 'torrent of affec- 

tion'. Unusually for new arrivals, they had quickly become fluent in 

Bengali: after two months, Hallam claimed, 

Bengali's gerunds and verbal nouns and its use of word order instead 

of inflection to establish meaning, came to seem more natural and 

expressive than most western European speech. 

His fluency once almost cost him his life. During some riots in Calcutta 

he was in charge of an ambulance, and intervened to defend three Muslims 

who were being attacked by a crowd of Hindus. His eloquence in Bengali 

convinced them that he was a Muslim too, and he only escaped by throwing 

the ambulance's china hot-water bottle at them. They appeared to think 

it was a petrol bomb, and scattered: evidently a 20th-century version of 

the 'Quaker gunnery' mentioned in chapter III. 2 

But this adventure was an unimportant episode in Hallam Tennyson's 

narrative. The overwhelming impression he leaves is one of passionate 

sympathy and respect, a delight particularly in the children of the villages 

where he and Margot worked. 

They radiated a sense of dignity and pride, they were not servile . 

we quickly had the sense that they belonged to an ancient and secure 

culture: give them a lump of clay and they sat down and moulded 

it into figurines which were exact replicas of those found in the 

ruined city of Mohenjodaro. . . . 3 

Reports to Quaker head offices in London and Philadelphia are 

inevitably more concerned with disasters than with the heartening sur- 

vival of India's heritage in adverse circumstances. Adversity could cer- 

tainly be relied on at this time. Thus, in July 1946 there were destructive 

floods on a huge scale in the eastern part of Bengal, and Unit members 

went off to help with inoculation against cholera and typhoid. Those 

remaining in Calcutta soon had to cope with a man-made tragedy engen- 

dered by the stresses and manoeuvrings inseparable from any major 

transfer of power. Bengal's population was about equally divided between 

Hindus and Muslims, but the ruling administration was in the hands of 

the Muslim League, with H. S. Suhrawardy as chief minister. Jinnah had 

declared 16th August to be a 'Direct Action' day in support of the claim 

to Pakistan, and the direct action in Calcutta proved to be a ferocious out- 

break of killing and burning. A member of the FAU recalled that the day 

began as usual with the squealing sound of the first trams moving out on 

296 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

to the streets., but that this was soon silenced as mobs embarked on the 

serious business of attacking members of the 'enemy' community. 

Although there were many splendid instances of Hindus protecting 

their Muslim neighbours and Muslims protecting their Hindu neighbours 

against rioters of their own community, the only organised counter-action 

at first came from the Bengal Red Cross, whose staff included two British 

Friends, Leslie and Kathleen Cross. Their ambulances saved the lives of 

many victims. Horace Alexander and Mae Alexandre from the FAU 

toured the city in a jeep to collect families who were in danger. All kinds 

of people who were acquainted with the Quaker Centre came in to vol- 

unteer for ambulance work, milk distribution and other kinds of relief. 

They brought in food supplies, and organised rescue operations. An 

American Friend, Mary Rogers, who presided over the rather chaotic 

household at 1 Upper Wood Street, reported how one of the Hindu staff 

owned buffalos that were stranded in one of the city's Muslim areas. They 

were brought to 'our respectable street' and tethered safely to the railings. 

Thus we had milk through our milkless days, our bearer's property 

was saved, and a barnyard atmosphere has tempered our urban 

existence ever since. 4 

After a time British troops were called out, but too late to efface the 

sense of devastating paralysis in high places, a nightmarish incapacity in 

the authorities to protect innocent people. But the soldiers proved to be 

useful in unexpected ways. Joan Court, a Friend working as a midwife in 

the Calcutta slums, did not allow the riots to interfere with her routine, 

and was given a lift by a truck loaded with soldiers armed with bayoneted 

rifles. 

She pressed them into service on her arrival, and had one of the 

dazed Tommies holding a new-born baby in one hand as he 

clutched his rifle in the other. 5 

The Muslim League Ministry was criticised for not being sufficiently 

impartial between the warring communities. The Viceroy recorded com- 

plaints from his own officials about Suhrawardy's evident 'communal 

bias', although this does not necessarily suggest the active instigation of 

violence of which most Hindus suspected him. 6 Inevitably the troubles in 

Calcutta generated retaliation elsewhere: Muslims suffered in Bihar, 

Hindus in the Muslim-majority area of East Bengal. As time went on, 

though, it became possible to organise projects to rehabilitate refugees 

back in the villages from which they had fled. The Indian Red Cross and 

the Friends' Service Unit (as the FAU had now become) worked on this 

in the Noakhali area. Abdul Khalique, a Muslim official of the Red Cross, 

was able to establish good relations with Muslim community leaders, while 

his Hindu colleague Niloo Das contacted Hindu families in the refugee 

PARTITION AND AFTER 

297 

camps. The team was constantly approached about the supply of rations, 

clothing, household utensils, grants for home-building, and so on; they 

prompted the organisation of an intercommunal peace committee, and 

established a dispensary valued as much by Muslims as Hindus. 

We feel [said a report sent to Friends House in London] that our 

strength has always been in the fact that our workers are of all com- 

munities and nationalities: Indians, British, and American, 

Hindus, Scheduled Caste and Muslims, all living and working 

together happily. 7 

The group had to cope with intense suspicions and some active opposition, 

but they were helped by the timely endorsement of Gandhi himself in the 

course of his famous pilgrimage to Noakhali in the winter of 1946-7. 8 

There, for a few days, Horace Alexander joined him to support his witness, 

and it was on this visit that the idea of the Fellowship of Friends of Truth 

was conceived: of which more later. 

Although H. S. Suhrawardy's role in the Calcutta killings was at best 

equivocal, he had shown himself to be a politician of genuine goodwill 

during the famine period to which Horace looked back with some nos- 

talgia so far as Indo-British cooperation went. In a late interview, he 

recalled that Suhrawardy was then Minister for Civil Supplies, 'and was 

a great help in getting us supplies so that we could get milk for the chil- 

dren in the villages and this sort of thing'. 9 Richard Symonds recalls that 

he was 'a man of great imagination with whom we would sit up until all 

hours building castles in the air for a better, juster society in Bengal'. 10 

He was also given to making dismissive remarks about Gandhi, saying 

that he was an old rogue who deceived simple-minded foreigners. Horace 

listened to it all,* but made no attempt to argue. He was, after all, much 

esteemed by Suhrawardy, who said to Richard Symonds at about this time 

that £ no praise can be too high for that man. You have no idea how much 

we all admire him'. 11 Richard put this down to his 'gentleness, almost 

saintiiness, which in India means infinitely more than executive ability', 

and was unexpected in an Englishman. Horace continued to feel good- 

will towards Suhrawardy, and when Gandhi said that the Chief Minister 

was a bad man, Horace reminded him that like most people he was good 

and bad in parts. 'Like Jekyll and Hyde?' was Gandhi's response, agreeing 

that Stevenson's fiction had some relevance here. 

Suhrawardy entreated Gandhi to stay in Calcutta at the time of the 

transfer of power from the British, so that he could help restrain the Hindus 

who were looking forward to exacting vengeance on the Muslims, held 

responsible for the killings of the previous August. Gandhi agreed, though 

he felt his duty was really with the Hindus in Noakhali. Horace himself 

was present at one of the most dangerous moments in this astonishing 

298 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

cooperation between Mahatma and Muslim Leaguer. The three men 

spent the eve of independence in a deserted Muslim house in a Hindu 

quarter of Calcutta, where Gandhi persuaded a fiercely hostile crowd to 

accept Suhrawardy as someone who had turned his back on his communal 

past and was working to ensure that Hindus and Muslims, and the two 

newly independent states, could live in peace. Suhrawardy expressed 

shame for what had happened a year earlier, and this confession was one 

element in the process that enabled Calcutta to embark on its new life in 

an atmosphere of celebration. 

It was not the only element, of course. Joan Court's trainee midwives 

- all Hindus - reflected the change that had taken place between 1946 

and 1947. During the August 1946 killings they had all been very anti- 

Muslim, and Joan had had to be cautious in the expression of her views. 

In the summer of 1947, on the other hand, the young women took the 

initiative in starting a peace committee. Not that it was particularly suc- 

cessful: at the only meeting held, people 'spent the time shouting at each 

other and bringing up old grievances'. Some of the Muslims did indeed 

volunteer for a peace patrol, provided that an equal number of Hindus 

would volunteer also. There was no response, and, Joan wrote to a friend, 

her women were 'furiously angry'. 

It was at this meeting that Sharima stopped what might have devel- 

oped into an ugly situation by standing up and appealing for reason 

and sanity. I really felt very proud to see her do this. It was an 

assembly of men, with only the four girls from this [midwifery] 

centre to represent the women. Her little speech had the effect of 

temporarily calming the whole room. You, knowing how shy 

Sharima is normally, will appreciate her courage in speaking at all. 12 

Clearly the Sharimas of the city had as much to do with the happy outcome 

of the August troubles as Gandhi and Suhrawardy themselves. And in the 

surrounding countryside there was a precarious but enduring peace, 

which helped to sustain the enthusiastic truce in the city. 

In the village rehabilitation project started by Hallam and Margot 

Tennyson, the 15th August was anticipated with deep anxiety, as it was 

not clear until 1 1 o'clock at night on the 14th whether the area would be 

awarded to India or to Pakistan. The fear was that whichever turned out 

to be the ruling community would try to drive out the 'minority'. An 

American Friend, Stuart Wright, with Jibon Banerjee and another Indian 

project-worker, went into the sub-divisional town of Basirhat on the eve 

of independence to keep in touch with community leaders, whom they 

had got to know well. Jibon was racked with anxiety about the safety of 

his wife and daughter in Dacca, which was certain to be in Pakistan, but 

PARTITION AND AFTER 

299 

was reassured by the fact that in Basirhat, at least, everything proved to 

be peaceful and euphoric. 

When the sun showed in the morning we felt that we have got new 

lives. We were smiling and cutting jokes with each other. On 15th 

morning we saw both communities were celebrating the indepen- 

dence day with their heart. Then we felt we should go back to 

Calcutta and see what is happening there The street cars and 

the buses were free for that day. People were riding on the top of 

the street cars. In all the parts of the city every body was enjoying 

the first Independence Day. They felt that new life and new light 

was coming to them. I myself also felt we really will reach to pros- 

perity and freedom from all anxieties. Our people will get two square 

meals a day. Children will get education. The hospitals will be open 

for all. 13 

The euphoria passed, of course, and the underlying tensions remained. 

In Calcutta itself there was a large-scale recurrence of rioting at the end 

of August, but Gandhi embarked on an unlimited fast, which served to 

concentrate minds wonderfully. No one could bear the thought of being 

the occasion of the Mahatma's death. Within a few days community 

leaders were able to assure him that peace was again restored, and that 

they would never again allow communal strife to recur in the city. 1 4 Gandhi 

now felt free to travel to Delhi and the Punjab, where communal violence 

on, a scale vaster than anyone could have previously imagined was 

engulfing the newly-partitioned province. 

The bloody upheavals that accompanied the achievement of inde- 

pendence were a harrowing disappointment to people like Horace 

Alexander and Agatha Harrison who had been intimately associated for 

many years with efforts to keep the British Government in touch with 

Indian aspirations, and had done so much to keep lines of communica- 

tion open. In spite of the anguish, though, there must have been an 

enduring satisfaction in the part played by the India Conciliation Group, 

not least in its final burst of activity in the background of the Cabinet 

Mission to India in the early summer of 1946. Agatha and Horace knew 

two members of the Mission very well - Sir Stafford Cripps and Lord 

Pethick-Lawrence - and were able to encourage trust in a distinctly 

untrusting atmosphere. They knew that Jinnah's agreement to a loose 

union of provinces was perceived by Congress as 'worse than Pakistan'; 

300 

AX T INDIAN" TAPRSTUY 

Preparing for ifo Cdbr'tmi Mission, 1946, From itifi to righi: Rajkutnari Amrii Kaur t 

Hprace Aitxandir, Mahatwa Gandhi, Agatha Harrison, Pyarelai Nayyar, 

they also knew that the Mission felt that from oho League's point of view, 

Jin nali had made a very big concession. The Congress belief that the 

Ministers spent iheir whole lime making concessions no the League was, 

Horace ch ought, 'a thoroughly jaundiced view of die proceedings*, and 

he evidently said so [o Gandhi and his colleagues.^ The two British 

Friends worked closely with Sudhir Ghosh, whose bridge-building efforts 

in Calcutta have been noted in the previous chapter. He was panic lilarJy 

trusted by Gandhi as an emissary in the Cabinet Mission negotiations, 

where some progress was indeed made. 16 But the two parties remained 

daunting]y far apart, On the crucial issue of the League's difficult insis- 

tence on parity with Congress in die proposed Interim Government, 

Horace and Agatha's instincts would clearly have warmed to the Viceroy's 

argument that 1 if both parties were determined to work together for the 

good of India in the interim period, parity had no real meaning', But that 

was emphatically not how Congress saw it, 

The most public intervention by Friends in the Cabinet Mission's pro- 

ceedings were the meetings for worship in the New Delhi YWC A arranged 

by Agatha Harrison to support the Mission's work. Gandhi attended along 

with the three British Ministers, although the third member of the mission, 

A. V, Alexander^ felt that + that sort of thing did not suit him. He wanted 

a hymn or some tiling to liven things up'. 17 

PARITT ION A KI1 AFTlIft 

301 

The Cabinet Mission failed in its task of breaking die deadlock between 

Congress and League. Jawaha rial Nehru made an indiscreet speech which 

seemed to withdraw the terms on which the League had reluctantly agreed 

to cooperate with die Cabinet Mission. The Viceroy felt that Horace and 

Agatha themselves were not altogether helpful in their privileged access 

both to Gandhi and the Cabinet Mission: it was natural for Jinn ah to be 

suspicious of these unofficial contacts, 'I wonder whether I should have 

been more vigorous about it.' 1 * 

Neither Jinnah nor the Viceroy perhaps appreciated how diligently 

these two weighty Friends had worked to further an understanding 

between the parties, but the sad fact remains that mistrust had become 

so intense that it was probably beyond anyone 1 * power to overcome it. 

Waveir& successor as Viceroy, Louis Mountbatten, accepted that the 

partition of the subcontinent was now inevitable, and the few months in 

which he held the office were spent in hastening the reorganisation of gov- 

ernment into a new Jndia and Pakistan. 

Independence and partition duly came on 1 5th August 1947. While 

Gandhi, Suhrawardy and some courageous citizens had managed to keep 

the peace in Bengal, in the Punjab there was a peculiarly ferocious civil 

war, with the slaughter of people belonging to whatever happened to be 

the minority community on each side of the new frontier. Huge numbers 

of refugees trekked to relative safety on the other side. 

In this appalling situation, Friends were among those who converged 

on Delhi and the Punjab to try to bring some help to the victims. In Delhi 

itself, the city's Muslims took refuge in a massive, relic of the Moghul 

emperors, the old Fort, Purana Qila, Writing to Ran] it Chetsmgh on 19th 

September, Horace Alexander described how refugees kept pouring into 

the 'camp', 'a hideous congestion of suffering humanity today, horribly 

filthy*. The two or three Quaker workers available scl up a ' welfare tent', 

together with other volunteers who included Arthur Moore, former Editor 

utThe Statesman newspaper. Although they performed a variety of q small 

disorganised errands or favours', 3 * their most useful service proved to be 

the running of an unofficial post office and communications centre, getting 

such letters as came through delivered, putting separate members of fam- 

ilies in touch with each other, and helping people to collect salaries due 

to them, 

By the end of October 1947 most refugees in Purana QiJa had been 

evacuated to Pakistan, but tackling the enormous problems generated by 

the millions of uprooted people had hardly begun. There were still huge 

numbers of refugees living in makeshift camps in th^ir new homelands, 

without work and with little hope for the future. VThilc rhs governs en:"- 

^02 

AN" IS'L-JtAN ' ] APESTRY 

were gradual Ey getting die situation in hand with work centres and rehabili- 

tation loans, 2CI many individuals were carrying forward small -scale pro- 

jects which, taken together, had an encouraging effect. A British Friend, 

Gladys Owen, organised knitting in the enormous camp at Kurukshetra, 

100 miles north of Delhi. She took a large bak of wool with her, but there 

were few knitting needles, Someone in the camp solved this problem by 

a visit to Simla j where knitting needles abounded, Rut then they ran out 

of wool. More negotiations, more journey ings : eventually the Government 

sent 28 bales, and* since over 11,000 women were now knitting away, 

Kurukshctra was sufficiently provided with warm pullovers before the 

winter came, 

Someone observing Gladys and her enthusiastic team of women 

helpers remarked that he hoped he would not be misunderstood if he said 

that she seemed to be 'absolutely in her element*, being 'one of those 

people who seem to enjoy misery and discomfort as long as they are doing 

something for others*. 21 Her own reports, certain Jy, are remarkably 

buoyant and hopeful. 

Daunting though the situation remained, one immense disaster atJeast 

was averted. In the aftermath of partition there had been some talk of war 

between India and Pakistan: even Gandhi seemed to endorse the idea for 

a time. Towards the end of September Horace Alexander saw Gandhi 

almost daily, and on one occasion 'pleaded and argued with him to be 

Jess ^belligerent^ for nearly 2 Q minutes'. 22 The crisis passed, and Horace 

Alexander and Richard Symonds helped to keep the peace by serving as 

liaison officers for the Hast and West Punjab Governments on both sides 

o f the front ie r to pro v j deauth entic informati on and to counter corners ti ous 

stories. 

Not that it was necessarily easy for anyone perceived as an outsider to 

be helpful A young American doctor working with the FSU> Bob 

Pittenger, sent in confidential reports to the American Friends' Service 

Committee which give a particularly vivid picture of the difficulties in 

relief work. He had been sent to one of the outlying refugee camps near 

Amritsar with the blessing of the new East Punjab Govern men t^ but was 

deeply frustrated by what he saw as the inadequacy of organisation by the 

medical staff on the spot, It was not for him to take charge, but he feh 

compelled, as he put it, to 'protrude himself. They needed a bigger team 

to do inoculations, but suggestions were not forthcoming about where to 

get them, q So I pop out with a few ideas. How about the medical students 

of their local medical school?' - No, not likely. Then - 

This morning, they have the expectancy of five med students who 

will help with inoculations. 

P.VRTTTION VStt AFTER 

Score one for the home team! but it h a very disagreeable posi- 

tion to have to organise by being che gad-fly in people's ointment. 

. , . I have tried to be tactful and was very pleased when one of the 

ideas we had discussed yesterday came out as a development of his 

Own thinking. 2 * 

Perhaps Bob's tact was not always quite tactful enough, hut he was 

working under enormous stress j and his reports on the whole show 

someone desperately trying to make sense of a chaotic situation, parallel, 

he believed, to that in the war-ravaged countries of Europe, He learnt 

much from the many friends of the FSLTs Punjabi worker, Swarn Sarin, 

a Hindu from Lahore - invaluable contacts for relief work, and repre- 

sentative in their feelings and attitudes: 

Young people who were eager for the independence and many inter- 

ested in the greater development of India (and Pakistan), men who 

were strongly socialistic and progressive in their thinking, most of 

them with high hopes for this new period - al! of them arc very 

depressed by the occurrences of these past few weeks. . . . They 

have lost friends and find themselves in abnormal atmosphere 

which is all one religious group without a chance for the free 

exchange of ideas. Minds are so prejudiced now that a man can 

scarcely defend what he feels or knows to be true if it is antago- 

nistic to the prevailing prejudice. 

"This*, he concluded, q is a real opportunity for the Friendly spirit.'* 4 

Jibwi Bartttrjee (second from left) and Svwrn Shrift (righO uttid^tdfied official 

near Pare Ganning, 1946. 

304 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Swarn Sarin herself was a remarkable example of those who found 

working with Quakers congenial and productive. She came from the same 

background as Jawaharlal Nehru - her father knew his father - and she 

had the knack of coping with the most stressful situations with a supreme 

self-assurance: emphatically a woman in the tradition of Queen Ahalyabai 

(see Chapter III). Hallam Tennyson, who was particularly struck by her 

ability to 'masticate a large red chilli while continuing to talk about the 

problems of the jute industry', describes her outstanding rehabilitation 

work (in 1946) in the flooded area between Port Canning and Diamond 

Harbour, south of Calcutta. 

It was she who had surveyed the area, bullied the Government into 

providing rice and rehabilitation, and persuaded the appropriate 

Ministry that it should take the repair of the embankment out of 

the incompetent and uncaring hands of private enterprise. 25 

The then Government wanted to award him a Star of India (Second Class) 

for what was actually Swarn 's work. He very properly declined : apart from 

anything else, there was nothing second-class about Swarn. 

This spiritual descendant of Queen Ahalyabai brought all her powers 

to bear on the crisis in the Punjab. Always beautifully dressed, she was 

tireless in her efforts to do what could be done, getting permission for 

army barracks to be used as refugee camps, distributing inadequate sup- 

plies of milk to expectant mothers and young children, and eventually 

organising training centres for destitute women and women who had been 

'abducted' from their families. In order to develop this last enterprise, it 

was important for her to go to Delhi to consult the Government's 

Rehabilitation Department and to see working training centres and 

industrial schools. But she was held up in Amritsar: no aircraft, trains or 

other transport were available to take her to the capital. Frustrated in this, 

she spent her time helping one of her old friends, the overworked Pakistani 

liaison officer in a local Muslim refugee camp. Then Lady Mountbatten 

paid a visit to Amritsar: 'I was fortunate enough', Swarn reported 

smoothly, 'to get a seat in their plane.' No one who knew Swarn will be 

particularly surprised, 26 

Swarn Sarin was decidedly and proudly a Hindu of good family, and 

had little patience with the idea of a Christian mission. She was happy to 

work with Friends because they valued her as she was, and because she 

and they had shared the searing experience of maintaining a competent 

witness of humaneness in the midst of horrifying communal upheavals. 

It was of course Gandhi himself who was the outstanding witness in this 

trial, and paradoxically his assassination by a fellow-Hindu on the 30th 

January 1948 marked the beginning of a more hopeful period of recovery 

PARTITION AND AFTER 

305 

from the communal fever. It was then that Horace Alexander took forward 

two projects in which Gandhi had been interested, a meeting in India of 

pacifists from all over the world, and the establishment of what came to 

be known as a Fellowship of Friends of Truth. 

The World Pacifist Meeting, held in the winter of 1 949-1950, was of 

some symbolic importance. It was held in two sessions, one at Tagore's 

ashram at Santiniketan in Bengal, the other at Gandhi's ashram at 

Sevagram in central India, thus emphasising India's position as home to 

men identified with the transcendence of 'narrow domestic walls' and of 

violence. It was a rallying point for the rather dispirited pacifist movement 

that had survived the Second World War. The German novelist Thomas 

Mann, in a message to those taking part, saw the occasion as one that 

marked a 'historical moment' when the Utopian suddenly became a prac- 

tical necessity; 'peace has become the supreme commandment.' He hoped 

and believed that 

the message which will reach us from the primeval home of human 

wisdom will make a deep and beneficial impression upon all the 

rest of the world' 27 

The Meeting can hardly be said to have achieved anything like this, but 

it certainly pointed the way to India's foreign policy of non-alignment that 

played such a significant and constructive role in the most dangerous years 

of the Cold War between the USA and the USSR. 

In Horace Alexander's correspondence, preparations for the World 

Pacifist Meeting figure alongside a much more modest concern, the fos- 

tering of a fellowship that carried forward the heart-unity achieved during 

the struggle for independence and peace in the sub-continent. The idea 

had been first mooted when Horace Alexander visited Gandhi during his 

Noakhali mission, and suggested that perhaps the Society of Friends might 

be the means of bringing together people of different faiths in a way that 

would strengthen their commitment to service of God and humanity. 

Gandhi was receptive to the idea, provided it could be accepted that it 

was as natural for a Hindu or a Muslim to grow into a Friend as it was 

for a Christian. 28 

This was fine so far as Horace was concerned, and with those, like 

Donald Groom, who shared his outlook. They felt able to accept that 

silent waiting on God, gathering in humble expectation to find unity and 

strength, might lead them into unknown territory, way beyond anything 

that was recognisably Quaker. 'It must be free to grow in the Spirit.' Such 

speculations were not acceptable to most Friends in Mid-India Yearly 

Meeting, and even as ecumenically-minded a Friend as Ranjit Chetsingh 

regarded the enterprise with some suspicion as vague and 'theosophicaP, 

Correspondence with weighty British Friends showed considerable 

AX INDIAN TAPESTRY 

anxiety about the matter. In August 1949, a Woodbrooke-based group - 

Robert Davis, Hugh Doncaster, Margaret Hobling and J. Philip Wragge 

felt constrained to point out that 'a fully Quaker fellowship' could not 

be established except on the basis of acknowledging 'the unique place of 

Jesus Christ in the spiritual and religious life of mankind'. Horace was 

annoyed by this letter, feeling that it was erecting a credal barrier. He 

couldn't imagine anyone entering the Fellowship who had not had the 

experience we would describe as Christian, 'but it does not in the least 

f ollow that they will all call it that'. He was baffled by the suggestion that 

k this venture somehow hampers us from expressing our full religious con- 

victions. It does not do so in the least'. 29 

Horace was the more insistent on the importance of the Fellowship 

because of what he perceived as fresh life in the groups in India that had 

drawn inspiration from Gandhi, people determined to work for peace 

among the religious communities and social classes and for the uplift of 

the poverty-stricken millions. It was, he felt, 'a wonderful time to be alive 

in India'. 10 

The Fellowship had its first general meeting in Hyderabad in 

December 1950, and continued to provide helpful networks for people 

like the saintly Hindu Quaker Gurdial Mallik, or Donald Groom in his 

later association with Vinoba Bhave and his land-gift mission. But it is 

lair to say that the role glimpsed by a hopeful Horace Alexander in the 

summer of 1949 was not achieved. The letters of such Quaker mission- 

aries as Geoffrey Maw in mid-India suggest a more intimate connection 

with the life of the country than ever quite emerges from the files of the 

Fellowship. How splendidly part of the community he seems when 

describing the doings of the Girls' Boarding School in Sohagpurl The 

school gave an entertainment as part of the town's celebrations of Gandhi's 

birthday, 2nd October 1947. 

All the elite of Sohagpur were invited, and all the un-elite gate- 

crashed in the most embarrassing manner, but the whole thing was 

reckoned a great success. 31 

Geoffrey Maw's interest in Hindu spirituality, which led him on his pil- 

grimages, co-existed comfortably with his Christian commitment. He was 

«n uninhibited explorer of the spiritual world. One atory will sufficiently 

illustrate his temperament. He once saw at a religious festival a huge image 

of a boar representing the boar incarnation of Vishnu. Those who could 

crawl under it successfully would know that their sins had been forgiven. 

Geoffrey was interested, 'having met the same teaching in connection with 

other kinds of squeezes'. He had a shot himself, mainly for the sake of a 

photograph, but got stuck, much to the amusement of the onlookers, who 

assured him that his sins were evidently not forgiven. 32 

PARTITION AND AFTER 

307 

Geoffrey Maw's cheerful witness was made in conditions that must 

often have seemed vexatious and discouraging. This history has suffi- 

ciently illustrated the many disturbing conflicts and stresses of Friends' 

work in mid-India. It seems right, none the less, in bringing the story to 

a close on the threshold of India's independence, to do so in Rasulia. In 

the spring of 1950, Donald Groom had been in Bengal, where there had 

been a disturbing renewal of communal violence which had brought India 

and Pakistan to the brink of war. He returned to find that Dr B. V. Keskar, 

the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, had been invited to address the 

local Sarvodaya group in Rasulia. The minister was emphatic that war 

with Pakistan was out of the question, and that India's task was to ensure 

peace between the communities and the removal of caste barriers. Thus, 

within the space of a few weeks, Donald had experienced both the 

depressing recrudescence of the destructive spirit that had raged in the 

Punjab less than three years before, and on the other hand, evidence in 

the Government of a firm and confident commitment to peace. He 

reflected that Dr Keskar had come to Rasulia partly because he had been 

sheltered there when he was on the run from the police after the arrests 

of Congress leaders in the 'Quit India' crisis of 1942. Donald recalled 

how in Paris in 1 939 he had learnt from him about Gandhi's campaigning, 

'not through hatred and bloodshed but through raising up and strength- 

ening the good in man'. 33 He was greatly moved by Dr Keskar's reaffir- 

mation of this commitment at a meeting that took place 'largely because 

of friendships I made nine or ten years ago'. He added: 'One never knows 

the full significance of what is happening at any moment.' 34 

Many Quakers in India since the 17th century could have said 'Amen' 

to that. 

Notes to Chapter XXIII 

I am much indebted to the AFSC archivist, Jack Sutters, for his help 

and advice in finding material for this chapter. 

1 Pp. 165-6. 

2 Hallam Tennyson, The Haunted Mind, 1 984, p. 1 02. 

3 Ibid., p. 101. 

4 Report on 1 Upper Wood Street Activities, August/December 1 964 (London 

4613/12). 

5 Julia Abrahamson, report to AFSC, 21st August 1946. 

308 AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

6 Wavell: The Viceroy's Journal, ed. Penderel Moon, 1973, p.339. 

7 North Hamchadi Project, November/December 1946 (London 4612/16). 

8 Mae Alexandre and Niloo Das reported to Gandhi in Srirampur on 19th 

December 1946. See Mae's report to the AFSC dated 20th December. 

9 Interview with Raj Kothari, c. 1984. 

1 0 Richard Symonds, Recollections of Horace Alexander and Gandhi. 

1 1 Letter to Brandon Cadbury, 18th January 1943. * 

12 AFSC Program in India, Color and Background Material No. 10, July 1947, 

13 Jibon Banerjee, letter to Geoffrey Carnall, 17th August 1958. 

14 Manubehn Gandhi, The Miracle ofCalcutta, Ahmedabad 1959, pp.94-95. Cp. 

M. K. Gandhi, Communal Unity, Ahmedabad 1949,pp.742-750, reprinting mate- 

rial from Harijan, 14th September 1947. 

1 5 MS paper by Horace Alexander, 16th-18th May 1946. 

16 See Sudhir Ghosh, Gandhi's Emissary, 1967. 

17 Horace Alexander, as above. 

18 Wavell. the Viceroy's Journal, ed. P. Moon, 1973, p.311. 

1 9 Report to AFSC by Russ Curtis, 7th September-1 8th October 1 947, received 

Philadelphia 13th November. 

20 See Horace Alexander, New Citizens of India, Bombay, 1951. 

21 FSU report, 13th December 1947. 

22 Letter to Paul Sturge, 26th September 1947. 

23 Report to AFSC by Bob Pittenger, 21st September 1947. 

24 Ibid., 18th September 1947. 

25 Hallam Tennyson, The Haunted Mind, 1984, p.99. 

26 Report on conditions in Amritsar by Swarn Sarin, September-October 1947, 

received AFSC 13th November 1947. 

27 The Task of Peace-Making. Reports of the World Pacifist Meeting, Santiniketan 

and Sevagram, Calcutta, 1951, p.3. 

28 Horace Alexander's first glimpse of the idea is perhaps expressed in Chapter 

12 of 77*c Indian Ferment (1929), where he rejects the assumption that 'the true 

disciple of Christ in the East today ought to be seeking for "converts"'. It is 'Christ- 

like lives' that are 'the only force that can save the world' (p.236). See Chapter 

xix, above. 

29 Friends House Temp. MSS. 577/26, 1st August 1949, 10th August 1949. 

30 Ibid., 577/27, 11th May 1949. 

31 Friends Service Council, IN 10, letter to Roderick Ede, 7th October 1947. 

32 Ibid., 20th January 1948. 

33 The Friend, 18th August 1972. 

34 The Friendly Way 6, July 1950. 

Index 

Ackroyd, Christopher, 248. 

Ackworth School, 52, 56f, 60, 82, 

85. 

Acts of the Apostles, 179. 

Adangarh, 106. 

Addison, Dr Gail, 167, 209, 219f, 

226, 242, 254f, 282. 

Addison, T.Ratcliffe, 162, 167, 209, 

214, 220, 226, 242, 256, 275, 

282. 

Addison, Thomas, 256. 

Advices and Queries, 7 1 . 

Agra, 2, 67, 69, 92, 164,219. 

~ See also St John's College. 

Ahalyabai, Queen, 21, 27n.8, 304. 

Ahmedabad, 116. 

Ajmer, 88. 

Akbar, 2, 8, 

Albright, Catherine, 224. 

Aleppo, 2. 

Alexander, A.V., 300. 

Alexander, Elizabeth Rebecca, 67. 

Alexander, Horace Gundry, 156n.ll, 

160, 234f, 240, 242, 246, 249, 

253, 272, 279, 294, 296, 299f. 

— Indian Ferment, The, 244n.9, 

308n.28. 

— Joseph Gundry Alexander, 244n.3. 

Alexander, Joseph Gundry, 149f, 

160, 197, 234, 244n.3. 

Alexander, Olive, nee Graham, 242. 

Alexander, William, 94. 

Alexandre, Clem, 290. 

Alexandre, Mae, 296, 308n.8. 

Alexandria (Egypt), 28. 

Ali, Dr Amir, 244n.l. 

Ali, Mahommad, 193, 212n.l2. 

Aligarh, 132f, 158, 176, 191, 224. 

— Muslim Anglo-Oriental College, 

132f, 191, 224. 

Alipura, 125, 215. 

All-India Adult Education 

Association, 269. 

All-India Sunday School Conference. 

See India Sunday School 

Union. 

All-India Village Industry 

Association (AIVIA), 249f, 269. 

All-India Women's Conference, 255, 

265. 

Allahabad, 62, 64, 84f, 90, 109, 

133f, 142, 165, 183. 

— Agricultural Institute, 209, 232. 

-- Ewing Christian College, 232. 

Allen, -Basil Coplestone, 140. 

Allen, Eva, 126. 

Allen, Mary, -225, 235, 255, 257, 

259, 267, 276f. 

Allen, Percy Stafford, 140. 

Allen, William, 22f, 25, 44, 46. 

Allnutt, S.S., 158f. 

Alwaye (Kerala) 

— Christava Mabilalaya, 267. 

Amarnath, 183. 

Amboyna, 3. 

American Friends' Service 

Committee (AFSC), 241, 302. 

Amritsar, 186, 200, 302f. 

Andrews, Charles Freer, 159, 163f, 

174f, 184, 189, 197, 205, 234, 

241f, 245f, 249, 253f, 262, 270, 

282. 

— Christ in the Silence, 254, 260, 

262. 

-- What I owe to Christ, 253. 

309 

310 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Anson, George, 12. 

Annett, Edith, 1 6 1 f. 

Annett, Edward, 161f, 226. 

Anti-Slavery Society, 23, 131. * 

'Apostles', Cambridge, 133f, 144n.3. 5 

162. 

Appamani, 80. 

Appar, 4. 

Arnold, Mary, nee Hickson, 139. 

Arnold, Dr Thomas, 35. 

Arnold, Thomas W, 139, 141, 158f. 

Arnold, William Delafield, 35, 150. 

Arya Samaj, 163, 195. 

Aryanayakam, E.W., 269, 273. 

Ashburner, Luke, 24. 

Ashton, Stanley, 226, 230n.l2. 

Aurangzeb, 8. 

Aurobindo, Sri, 184. 

Azad, Abul Kalam, Maulana, 293. 

A/ariah, V.S., Bishop, 272. 

Babington, Thomas, 19, 23. 

Backhouse, Basil, 160, 235, 249. 

Backhouse, Edith, 282. 

Backhouse, Jonathan, 25, 29f. 

Badrinath, 181f, 193, 261, 276. 

Baghi, 187. 

Bagra, 258, 270. 

Bagtra, 178, 180. 

Bai, Charlotte, 113, 126, 225. 

Bai, Duoji, 114, 154, 230n.l4. 

Bai, Grace, 228, 230n.l4. 

Baird, Esther, 112f, , 122, 125, 129, 

154, 170,214f, 225f, 254, 271. 

Bajaj, Jamnalal, 247. 

Baker, Anna, nee O'Brien, 77, 79f, 

100, 108, 117f. 

Baker, Samuel, 76f, 95, 96n.l3, 97, 

99f, 105, 106f, 110, 117f, 123, 

126, 130n.2, 131, 158, 256. 

Baksh, Ali, 78, 99. 

Baksh, S.Pir, 108f. 

Balaganj, school, 70, 78, 83, 125, 

166. 

Balaghat, 116. 

Balasore, 4. 

Bamangaon, 1 17. 

Bandrabhan, 118, 130n.5, 181, 256. 

Banerjee, Jibon, 298f. 

Banerji, Kalicharan, 109, 122. 

Bangalore, 59, 256. 

Bankart, Pamela, 285. 

Bankheri, 115, 180. 

Baptism, 41, 44, 49n.9, 65, 81f, 86, 

107. 

Baptist Missionary Society, 45. 

Barber, Martha, 113f. 

Barcelona, 279. 

Barclays of Ury, 25. 

Barclay, Robert, 4 If. 

Bardha, 179f. 

Barman Ghat, 66, 175. 

Barnes, Alice, 206. 

Barnes, Edward, 206, 286, 288. 

Barnes, Ernest William, Bishop, 246, 

251n3. 

Barnett, Samuel Augustus, Canon, 

137. 

Barr, Mary, 247f, 261, 277. 

Bartlett, Percy, 248, 252. 

'Basic Education', 268f, 273, 280n.l. 

Basirhat, 298f. 

Basra, 23, 272. 

Bastar, 282. 

Bates, Mrs, of Bhareri, 174f. 

Bauls, 5. 

Beard, Elkanah, 62f, 66f, 72f, 

74n.21,75n.36, 82, 92, 112, 

157, 164f, 199. 

Beard, Irene, 62f, 

Beck, Hannah, 140. 

Beck, Horace, 139. 

Beck, Jessie (Theodore's sister), 136f, 

139. 

Beck, Jessie, nee Raleigh, 137, 141. 

Beck, Joseph, 131, 136f. 

Beck, Theodore, 131f, 148, 159f, 

170, 224. 

Belfast, 79f. 

Bellers, John, 168f. 

Benares (Varanasi), 60f, 67, 82, 112, 

164f. 

— Government College, 133. 

Bengal Merchant^ ship, 3f . 

Bengal, The, ship, 23, 27n.l7. 

Bengal Red Cross, 296. 

INDEX 

311 

Bentinck, William Cavendish, Lord, 

22, 29. 

Betul, 177, 260. 

Bevan, Edith, 219, 256, 268, 276f. 

Bevan, Silvanus, lOf. 

Bhagavad Gita, 6, 22, 151. 

Bhagwana, 123. 

Bhantna, 102. 

Bhareri, 174f. 

Bhavani, river, 95. 

Bhilsa, 66, 161. 

Bhave, Vinoba, 306. 

Bhopal, 83, 99f, 112, 120, 134, 139, 

161, 164, 169, 177f, 219, 225, 

255, 259, 268. 

-- Shajahan Begum Sahiba, ruler of 

Bhopal, 99f, 139f. 

Bhore, Sir Joseph, 268. 

Bhore, Margaret, Lady, 259, 268. 

Bigland, Percy, 224. 

Bihar earthquake, 249f. 

Bijapur, 3, 8. 

Binyabai, 257. 

Bird, William Wilberforce, 26, 30. 

Birmingham, 35, 91, 159, 209, 225, 

241f, 282. 

See also Kingsmead College, 

Woodbrooke College. 

Blackheath, 87. 

Blackman, Mr, 219f. 

Blair, J.R., 293. 

Boaz, Thomas, 26, 39. 

Bolitho, Geneva, 224f. 

Bolitho, Walter, 224f. 

Bollington (Cheshire), 140. 

Bombay, 8, 22, 25, 28, 34f, 5 If, 62f, 

79, 93, 97f, 128, 143, 149, 194, 

201, 209, 224, 237, 239, 242, 

248, 256, 263, 267, 272. 

Wadia Maternity Hospital, 272. 

- Wilson College, 269. 

Bombay Association, 35. 

Bombay Chronicle, The, 195n2a. 

Bombay Review, The, 135. 

Bombay Times, The, 28, 34f, 51. 

Booth, Catherine, 92f. 

Booth, Elizabeth, 258. 

Booth, Lucy, Colonel, lOlf. 

Booth, William, General, 92, lOlf. 

Booth-Tucker, Emma, 102. 

Bootham School, York, 76, 94, 99f, 

205. 

Borda, 213. 

Bose, Irene, nee Mott, 255, 266n.6. 

Bose, Vivian, 266n.6. 

Bow (London), 233f, 246. 

Bowen, George, 97, 99. 

Brahmo Samaj, 40, 63, 109, 148, 

150. 

Brewin, William, 43. 

Bridgwater, 94. 

Brighouse, 57, 60. 

Briggs, John, 30. 

Bright, John, 30f, 33f, 45, 50f, 53f, 

99, 131f, 147f, 155n.4a. 

Bristol, 3, 225, 248, 252. 

British Friend, The, 47, 57, 60. 

British India Society, 30f, 36f, 53f, 

91, 94, 121. 

British Medical Association, 282. 

Brockway, Fenner, 235f, 245. 

Brockway, Norah, 234f. 

Brohier, James, 13f. 

Brougham, Henry, Lord, 30, 54. 

Brown, Francis Carnac, 30f. 

Brown ('Bram'), 228. 

Browne, Sir Thomas, 2, 4. 

Brummana 

- Friends' School, 254. 

Buckingham, James Silk, 23f, 

27n.20, 30, 33,41, 91. 

Budni, Hoshangabad, 85. 

Bundelkhand, 76n.27, 112f, 122f, 

126, 134, 139, 154f, 165, 169f, 

213f, 226f, 27 If. 

Burns, Eleanor, 218.. 

Burrough, Edward, 4. 

Burn, Theodore, 209, 270. 

Burtt, Winifred, 270. 

Bushahr, 189. 

Butler, Edward (Staff-Captain 

Santosham), 98, 102, 115, 122, 

123. 

Butler, Elizabeth (Captain Kristina), 

nee McLaren, 98, 102, 115f, 

123, 225, 268. 

312 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Butler, James, 152. 

Buxton, Thomas Fowell, 19, 29, 33. 

Cabinet Mission, 1946, 293f, 299f. 

Cadbury, Dame Elizabeth, 260f. 

Calcutta (Fort William), 8f, 13, 23f, 

26, 28, 39f (Chap, v, passim), 

52,61,93, 99, 108f, 122, 148, 

150f, 158, 163, 186, 188, 220, 

223, 225, 235, 239, 243, 248, 

261, 273, 281f, 295f, 300. 

~ Benevolent Institution, 39f. 

— Botanical Gardens, 22. 

- Old Mission Church, 39, 41, 

198. 

— Quaker Settlement (Centre), 

198f, 214, 273, 283, 293, 296. 

- University, 135, 232, 243, 283. 

See also Oxford Mission. 

Calcutta Journal^ The, 24. 

Calkins, Alena, 226, 228, 268. 

Call, John, 13. 

Cambridge, 19, 54, 66, 92, 131, 

133f, 138f, 141, 162, 177, 205, 

224, 234, 239, 282. 

Cambridge Mission, 1 58f. 

See also Christ's College, Pembroke 

College. 

Campbell, Walter, 272. 

Canning, Charles John, Earl, 35. 

Cape Town, 1 52. 

Carey, William, 22, 45, 17 In. 7. 

Carleton, Dr, 174. 

Casey, R.G., 288. 

Cashmore, Hilda, 248, 252f 

(chap.xx, passim), 267f. 

Catford, Herbert, 224, 244n.l3. 

Cato, 146. 

Caton, Anne, 261, 265. 

Cecil, Lord Eustace, 147. 

Ceresole, Pierre, 250. 

Chakravarty, Amiya, 283. 

Chakravarty, Haimanti, 283. 

Chakravarty, Professor J.C., 136. 

Champion, Walter, 65, 67, 89n2. 

Chandavarkar, N.G., 148, 155n.4, 

165, 184. 

Chandernagore, 4 1 . 

Chatter ji, Mr (Hoshangabad lawyer), 

253, 256. 

Chatterji, G.C., 159, 216. 

Chaudhuri, Nirad 

— Thy Hand } Great Anarch., 

244n,10. 

Chelmsford, Frederick J.N.Thesiger, 

Viscount, 187. 

Chesley, Mary, 261. 

Chester House, London, 158. 

Chesterfield, 150. 

Chetsingh, Doris, nee Hitchcock, 

262, 269, 290, 292. 

Chetsingh, Rajan, 262. 

Chetsingh, Ranjit M., 258; 262f, 

268f, 272, 274, 279, 282, 290, 

292, 301, 305. 

Chhatarpur, 112, 116, 122, 215f, 

225, 241f, 27L 

— Maharajah of, 1 69f . 

Chhotelal, 260f. 

Chhotu, 129. 

Chicago, 241. 

Chinsurah, 42, 109. 

Chittagong, 239. 

Choudhury, Banwa Lai, 262. 

Choudhury, Kalidas, 118. 

Christ's College, Cambridge, 1 59, 

162, 164. 

Christa Seva Sangha, 236, 244n.8. 

Christian Patriot, The, 192, 201, 203f, 

222. 

Church Missionary Society, 45, 60f, 

65, 67, 87. 

Churchill, Winston Spencer, 294. 

Cirencester, 94. 

Clapham, Joan, 262, 266n.l0, 267. 

'Clapham sect', 19. 

Clark, George, 119, 122, 127, 153f. 

Clark, Roderic, 214. 

Clarke, Jack, 200. 

Clarkson, Thomas, 19, 30, 42. 

Clive, Robert, Lord, 17, 41. 

Cobden, Richard, 33. 

Coey, Sally, 267. 

Coffin, Anne, 21 4f. 

Coffin, Merrill, 214f. 

Coimbatore 

— College of Agriculture, 267. 

INDEX 

313 

Collins, Horace, 200, 273. 

Contai, 286. 

Cookworthy, William, 10. 

Coonoor, 94f 5 108, 161, 226. 

Co-operatives, in Itarsi, 275. 

Medical, 242. 

Corbett, Jim, 185n.l0. 

'Corn laws', 33, 38. 

Cottle, Jean, 285f. 

Cotton. See Textiles. 

Cotton, Sir Arthur, 53. 

Council for International Service 

(London), 217, 223. 

Court, Joan, 296, 298. 

Cox, Harold, 134. 

Cripps, Sir Stafford, 281, 283, 299. 

Cromwell, Oliver, 3. 

Cropper, James, 23f, 26, 31, 41, 45. 

Crosfleld, A.J., 84, 152, 155, 163. 

Cross, Kathleen, 296. 

Cross, Leslie, 287, 296. 

Croydon, 57f. 

-Friends' School, 152. 

Cuddalore (Fort St David), 8, 12f, 

17,99. 

Cullen, Dr (Hoshangabad), 67f. 

Cuttack, 205f. 

— Ravenshaw College, 20 5f. 

Dacca (Dhaka), 284, 298. 

Daily Bread, 85/ 

Dalsaiya, 123, 213. 

Dandi, 239. 

Dann, Freda, 206, 207f, 256, 268, 

288. 

Dann, Reginald, 206, 207f, 256, 

268, 274f, 288. 

Dar, Din Mohammed, 219, 268. 

Dar, Stanley, 268. 

Dara Shikoh, 8. 

Darjeeling, 164. 

Darlington, 1896 Conference, 157f. 

Dartington Hall, 233. 

Darwin, Charles, 46f. 

Das, Mangalwadi, 155. 

Das, Niloo. 296, 308n.8. 

Das, Prem, 154f. 

Datt, Prem Masih, 161. 

Datta, S.K., 166, 246. 

David and Dorcas, Sohagpur, 70. 

Davies, Arthur, 20 5f. 

Davies, Glan, 285, 288. 

Davis, Robert, 306. 

Davy, Joshua, 5 Of. 

Dayal Masih, Pandit, 78. 

Dayal, Shiv, 105f, 127f. 

De Aar, 152. 

Deccan Education Society, 146. 

Dearmer, Percy, 87. 

De Cruz, Alexander, 65, 108f. 

Dehra Dun, 21 Of. 

Delhi, 132, 158f, 162, 164, 194, 235, 

259, 267, 299f, 304. 

-- Purana Qila camp, 301. 

-- Quaker Centre, 184, 290, 293. 

-- See also St Stephen's College. 

Desai, Mahadev, 274, 288. 

Devidayal, 68f. 

Devlal, 179. 

Dharmadhikari, 'Dada', 167. 

Dharmasevak, 179f. 

Diamond Harbour, 304. 

Dickinson, Goldsworthy Lowes, 162, 

170, 232, 234. 

Dinapore, 109. 

Dixon, Dr John, 84, 108, 110. 

Dixon, Katherine, 103, 106, 113, 

115, 119, 126, 128, 163. 

Doncaster, Hugh, 306, 

Dornakal, 272. 

D'Ortez, Cecilia, 42f. 

D'Ortez, Mariano, 42f, 49n.l 1, 108f. 

Douglas, John, 171. 

Dublin, 76, 79. 

Duncan, David, 47. 

Duncan, Jonathan. 22. 

Durban, 152. 

Dyer, Alfred, 97f, 149. 

Dyer, Helen, 97f, 149. 

314 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Earle, Robert, 226, 228. 

Earlc, Ruth, nee Thurston, 226, 228. 

Hast and the West, The, 159. 

East India Company, 2f, 8f (chap ii, 

passim), 17f, 20f, 28, 30f, 34, 

35f, 58, 93, 132, 150. 

East Indian Railway, 44. 

Eden, Emily, 34, 40. 

Edinburgh, 237. 

— Edinburgh Missionary 

Conference (1910), 162, 240. 

Edwards, Shanti, I30n.l2. 

Elliott, Ebenczer, 25, 51, 132. 

Ellis, John Edward, 150. 

Elmhirst, Dorothy, 233, 242. 

Elmhirst, Leonard, 232f, 24 If. 

Elphinstone, Mountstuart, 21, 25, 

34. 

Elwin, Verrier, 236, 247, 258, 260. 

Emmott, E.B. 

— Story of Quakerism, 219. 

Erskine, William, 22f. 

Hssays and Reviews, 47, 60. 

Bsar, L\ 247. 

Euphrates, river, 2. 

Evans, Anna, 174. 

livens, Anna, 82f, 100, 103f, 116, 

119f, 124, 152. 

Famine, 29, 36f, 55, 87, 1 1 3f 

(chap.x, passim), 170, 172n.ll. 

-- In Bengal, 288. 

-- In Deccan, 71, 121. 

Farquhar, J.N., 203. 

Parr, Sylvia, 286f. 

Farrington, Frank Berry, 152f. 

Faweett, Henry, 53f, 147, 238. 

Ixll, Margaret, 4, 9. 

Fellowship of Friends of Truth, 297, 

305f, 308n.28. 

Fellowship of Reconciliation, 233f. 

-- International Fellowship of 

Reconciliation, 248. 

Fischer, Herbert, 272, 275, 277f. 

Fischer, Karl, 278. 

Fischer, Lucille Ananda, nee Sibouy, 

225, 276f. 

Fistler, Delia, 112f, 122f, 126, 154, 

( 213. 

Fitch, Ralph, 2. 

Fleming, Dr Mary, 215f, 225f. 

Forbes, Charles, 25f, 28f, 31, 51, 54, 

209. 

Forests, 55. 

Forster, W.E., 3(3, 34f, 45, 57. 

Fowler, Priscilla, 219. 

Fox, Dr C.Tregelles, 84f, 158, 160. 

Fox, George, If, 4f, 9, 14, 18, 39, 

45, 92, 168, 192, 201, 255. 

Francis of Assisi, 174f. 

Franco, Francisco, General, 272. 

Frankland, Eliza, 98, 108, 113, 126, 

154, 161. 

Frankland, Thomas, 30, 94. 

French, Thomas Valpy, 92, 175. 

Friend of India, Calcutta, 22, 203. 

Friend, The, London, 47, 109, 294. 

Friends' Ambulance Unit, 167, 200, 

209, 28 If (chap.xxii, passim), 

294f. 

Friends' Foreign Mission Association 

(FFMA), 47, 6 If, 64, 67f, 7 If, 

75, 81f, 97, 99f, 105, 108, 

llln.7, 124, 152, 153, 158f, 

165, 167, 198, 205, 209, 216f, 

223, 225, 255. 

Friends' Service Council, 217, 220, 

226, 262, 270, 294. 

Friends' Service Unit, 296f, 302. 

Fry, Elizabeth, 58. 

Fryer, Charles, 57. 

Fryer, Sarah, 57, 60. 

Gabb, Grace, 288. 

Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand, 

147f, 164, 167f, 181, 184, 186f, 

191, 193f, 197, 200f, 207f, 214, 

229n.8, 232f, 245f, 262, 268f, 

271f, 282f, 297f, 300f. 

Gandhi-Irwin Pact, 240, 245. 

INDEX 

315 

Ganga (Ganges) river, 90, 181f, 

185n.8, 285. 

Gangotri, 181. 

Ganguly, Alin, 1 56n. 1 1 . 

Ganguly, Nagendra Nath, Professor, 

233. 

Ganguly, Nalin, 156n.ll, 164, 199f, 

209, 241, 243, 267. 

Garibaldi, G., 206. 

Gateshead-on-Tyne, 40.- 

Gaumisse, William, 4 If. 

Gauriyaba, 257. 

Gayford, Charles, 64f, 75f, 82f, 

96n.l3, 109, 118, 126, 158, 

165, 175, 237, 256. 

Gayford, Harriet, nee Mendes, 67f, 

72, 75, 83f, 130n.l4. 

George, Thomas, 116, 129. 

Ghosh, Sudhir, 282, 300. 

Gibb, Grace, 268. 

Gittins, Dr Eileen, 218f, 221. 

Gittins, Dr Robert, 218f, 221, 260. 

Goa, 2. 

Goddard, Dr Abigail, 125. 

Gogoi, Jugneshwar, 275, 280. 

Gokhale, Gopal Krishna, 145f, 160, 

164, 186, 193f, 222. 

Gonds, 102, 105, 129, 130n.l2, 178, 

236, 247, 258, 260, 271f. 

Good Words, 63f, 65f, 73. 

Gorelal, 115, 169f, 228. 

Gosaba, 275. 

Government of India Act (1935), 

250, 260, 273. 

Govind Ram, Pandit, 7 If, 103, 1 18. 

Graham, John William, 131, 139, 

224, 242. 

Granth Sahib, 92. 

Gravely, Frederic, 198f, 202, 206f, 

258, 265. 

Gravely, Laura, nee Belling, 207, 

258. 

Greene, Jane F., 60. 

Greenwell, Mary, 273. 

Gregg, Richard B., 192. 

— The Power of Non-violence, 239. 

Groom, Donald, 272, 278f, 305f. 

Groom, Erica, nee Hodgkin, 278f. 

Groves, Brian, 284. 

Grubb, Edward 

— What is Quakerism? 219. 

Guardian, The, 91 f, 149, 201, 214, 

223, 237f, 247, 249, 259. 

Guns, Quaker, 23, 27n.l8, 295. 

Gurney, Joseph John, 19, 42, 46, 86. 

Gwalior, 161. 

Hastings, Francis Rawdon, Lord, 24. 

Hastings, Warren, 17f, 20, 22. 

Haverford College, 248. 

Hayllar, Benjamin, 44, 61. 

Hayllar, William, 44. 

Hayman, Eric, 248, 252. 

Heath, Carl, 197f, 240, 246, 262f. 

Heath, Effie, 262. 

Herring, Percy B. (Shiv Ram), 163, 

189, 220f. 

Hersey, Dorothy, 206f, 234, 254f, 

264, 288. 

Hicks, Elias, 46. 

Hickson, Arthur, 142. 

Hickson, Eric, 140f. 

Hickson, Frederick, 137, 139f. 

Hickson, Lizzie, nee Beck, 140f. 

Hickson, Philippa, 142f. 

Higginbottom, Sam, 209, 232, 264. 

Highbury, 141. 

Hindle, Lavinia Eleanor, 206, 267. 

Hindu Mahasabha, 293. 

Hipsley, Henry, 43, 47. 

Hiralal, 115,213. 

Hitler, Adolf, 271,278. 

Hivale, Shyamrao, 247. 

Hoare, Sir Samuel, 250. 

Hobling, Margaret, 306. 

Hodgkin, Henry T, 153f, 160, 165, 

198, 201,217, 242. 

Lay Religion, 219. 

Hodgkin, Thomas, 29, 43, 51. 

Hodgkin, Thomas B„ 157f, 171n.2. 

Hormuz, 2. 

Home, Alice, 149. 

316 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Home, Percy, 149, 237. 

Hoshangabad, 62, 64f, 76f, 95, 99, 

104f, 113, 115f, 122, 127f, 

151f, 161f, 177, 189f, 197f, 

20 If, 213f, 216f, 223f, 229, 

243, 252f, 259, 262, 265, 271, 

273, 279. 

— Friends' High School, 106, 123, 

160, 162, 164f, 169, 173, 178, 

191, 213. 

Housman, Laurence, 242, 245. 

— Little Plays of St Francis, 238. 

Howard, Sir Albert, 211. 

Howatson family, 42. 

Howe, Irene, 267. 

Howgill, Francis, 4. 

Howitt, William, 29, 51. 

Hoyland, Helen, nee Doncaster, 

163f, 167f, 190. 

Hoyland, Jessie, nee Marais, 190, 

195, 242. 

Hoyland, John Somervell Jack), 

159f, 171n.8, 173, 176f, 189f, 

197, 200, 202f, 213, 217f, 222f, 

232, 238, 242f, 250, 253, 260. 

— Christ and National Reconstruction, 

167. 

— Prayers for Use in an Indian 

College, 191. 

Hoyland, John William, 158f, 195, 

251n.6. 

Hoyland, William Frazer, 250, 

251n.6. 

Hull, 152. 

Hull, Ruth, 226, 229, 242. 

Hume, Alan Octavian, 97, 132, 135f. 

Hume, Joseph, 30, 132. 

Hutchinson, Joseph, 211, 

212n.l3,n.l4, 267. 

Hyderabad, 134, 138, 224, 247, 306. 

— Nizam's College, 138f. 

Ibrahim, Fakir, 123, 152, 175, 219, 

224. 

•Ilbert Bill' (1883), 80, 95, 133, 135. 

Imitation of Christy The, 90f, 137, 

175, 246, 251n.l. 

Indentured labour, 25f, 164, 186. 

Independent Labour Party, 235. 

India Conciliation Group, 246, 249, 

281f, 299. 

India Office Library, 139. 

India Sunday School Union, 161, 

226, 268, 290. 

Indian Christian Association, 209. 

Indian Civil Service, 142, 238. 

Indian Daily News (Calcutta), 52, 54. 

Indian Information Service, 235. 

Indian Midland Railway, 70, 

Indian National Congress, 132, 135f, 

147f, 186, 188, 190, 217f, 238f, 

249, 283, 293f, 299f, 307. 

Indian Reform Society, 36, 235. 

Indian Social Reformer The, 166, 189, 

194, 229n.5, 235. 

Indian Village Welfare Association, 

261. 

Indian War Cry, The, 98. 

Indigo, 31, 36, 37n.6, 150. 

Indore, 211, 235, 265. 

-- Indore Christian College, 259, 

262, 267. 

Indus River Steam Flotilla, 53. 

Insurrection of 1857, 35, 43f, 62, 80, 

132, 142. 

International Fellowship, 208f, 234. 

- All-India Federation, 209, 236. 

International Voluntary Service for 

Peace (IVSP), 250. 

Irwin, Edward Wood, Lord, after- 

wards Viscount Halifax, 238f, 

245, 

Irwin, Lady, 226. 

Islington, 141. 

Itarsi, 102f, 116, 120, 124f, 177, 

179, 183, 209, 220f, 223, 226, 

242f, 254f, 262, 265, 268f, 

274f, 282, 286. 

-- Boys' High School, 169, 222. 

- Hospital, 125, 168, 213, 218, 

256, 260, 264f, 275f. 

Jabalpur, 62, 64f, 66f, 82, 126, 128, 

219. 

Jacob, Henry and Elizabeth, 73n.3. 

Jackson, Emily, 206, 208. 

INDEX 

317 

Jackson, Guy, 206, 208. 

Jacob, Dr Stephen, 218. 

Jagannath, 177f. 

Jagraj, 102. 

Jallianwala Bagh, 186, 200. 

Jamai, 255, 258, 260, 262f, 269, 

273. 

Jamaica, 225, 267, 276. 

Jayamani, 289. 

Jeffrey, Russell, 43f, 47f, 49n.9, 60f, 

72, 105. 

Jenkins, William, 10. 

Jequier, Madeleine, 261, 264. 

Jesus of Nazareth, passim. 

Jeypore (Jaipur), 219. 

Jinnah, Mahomed Ali, 274, 293, 

295, 299f. 

Jivanandam, Grace, 234, 264, 270. 

Jodhpur, 119. 

Johannesburg, 152. 

Johory, Dr, senior, 128, 161, 164f, 

219, 268. 

Johory, DrJ.R, 268. 

Jonah, 291. 

Jones, George, 272. 

Jones, Margaret, 272. 

Jones, Rufus, 162. 

Jones, Dr Stanley, 238, 259, 267. 

— The Christ of the Indian Road, 238. 

Jones, Sir William, 29. 

Joshi, N.M., 233, 235. 

Jumerati, Hoshangabad, 78, 82, 85, 

120, 124. 

Kabir, 5, 92, 148. 

Kalimpong, 282. 

- Dr Graham's Homes, 211. 

Kangra, 175. 

Kanjarpur, 154. 

Kanjars, 154f. 

Kanungo, S., 212n.9. 

Karachi, 53, 255f. 

Karanjia, 247, 258. 

Karkus, 102, 129. 

Karmarkar family, 201 . 

Karunakar, Catherine, 267. 

Karunakar, P.D., 267. 

Kashmir, 48. 

Kaur, Rajkumari Amrit, 255. 

Kedarnath, 181. 

Kelly, Thomas, 193. 

Keskar, Dr B.V., 279, 307. 

Kew, 279. 

Khajarao, 170. 

Khalique, Abdul, 296. 

Khan, Abdul Ghaffar, 193. 

Khan, Hakim Ajmal, 235f. 

Khan, Mahmud, 133. 

Khan, Syed Ahmed, 34, 74n.l8, 

121, 132f, 150, 166. 

Khandwa, 67. 

Kharraghat, 106, 116, 165, 167, 178, 

191. 

Khasis, 140. 

Khedgaon, 180. 

Khera, 101, 104, 116, 127, 168, 

177f, 223, 257. 

Khera, Sucha Singh, 216, 237f, 259, 

267. 

Khera, Veida, nee Greer, 237f, 259, 

267. 

Khojanpur, 68. 

Khushilal, 177f, 201, 219, 221, 271, 

275. 

Kilbey, Francis, 100, 122, 129, 160, 

J66f, 171, 189, 204, 214, 219, 

225. 

Kilbey, Mary Ann, 100, 129, 160, 

166f, 171, 220. 

Kilchipur, 119. 

Kinder, James, 226, 228. 

Kinder, Judith, 226, 228. 

Kingsley, Charles, 107. 

Kingsley Hall, 246. 

Kingsmead College, 158, 163. 

-- Kingsmead Conference (1909), 

160, 217, 220, 229n.6. 

Kingston-upon-Thames, 237. 

Kishore, Bal, 82. 

Knox, Edmund, 9 If. 

Knox, Ellen, nee French, 92. 

Knox, Frances Mary, nee Reynolds, 

58f, 86, 9 If. 

Knox, George, 58. 

Kodulal, 121, 128, 130n.9. 

Kodulal, Titus, 130n.9. 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Kohima, 288. 

Kotgarh, 174f s 186f, 192f, 238. 

Kumaon, 210. 

Kumarappa, J.C., 249, 269f. 

Kumbh mela, 183. 

Kurukshetra camp, 302. 

Lahi, 129, 162, 178f, 279. 

Lahore, 22, 92, 138, 208, 224, 238, 

241, 264, 267, 270, 303. 

- Aitchison College, 270. 

- Forman Christian College, 270. 

- Government College, 140. 

-- Oriental College, 139. 

Lai, Shyamsunder, [253], 256, 258. 

Lai Bazaar Baptist Church, 39, 41. 

Lampard, John, 98, 102, 115, 119, 

129, 130n.l6. 

I ,ancaster, Joseph, 39. 

Lancaster Guardian, The, 51. 

Landour, 88f. 

Lawrence, Sir Henry, 21, 58. 

Lazarus, Dr and Mrs, 61, 63. 

League of Nations, 224. 

Lcfroy, George Alfred, Bishop, 175f. 

Lester, Muriel, 233f, 238, 246. 

Lcupolt, Charles B., 61. 

Leupolt, Jane, 60f. 

Lewis, Nell, 226. 

Lidbetter, Thomas, 52f, 55. 

Lightfoot, Joseph Barber, 107. 

Liverpool, 18, 23, 41, 94. 

Lloyd, Abraham, 3. 

Lloyd, Katherine, 257, 26 If. 

Lodha, Rudra, 258, 266n.8, 270. 

London, 3, 29f, 40, 42f, 62, 73, 83, 

86f, 93f, 134, 136, 147, 151, 

197f, 203f, 237, 239, 295. 

— London School of Economics, 

269. 

- London School of Oriental 

Studies, 139. 

-- National Indian Association, 139. 

Loukes, Harold, 258, 267. 

Lowe, Geoffrey, 282. 

Lowe, Kathleen, 282. 

Loyola, Ignatius, 183. 

Lucan, 146. 

Lucknow, 63, 1 12f, 136, 238, 248, 

267. 

— Lucknow Christian College, 259. 

Ludfem, Amy, 278. 

Ludlam, Ernest, 224, 230n.l0. 

Ludlam, James, 278. 

Ludlam, Dr Martin, 230n.l0, 278f, 

286. 

Ludlam, Dr Pippa, 230n.l0. 

Ludlow, J.M., 91. - 

Lukey, Mr., 102. 

Lytton, Victor, Lord, 234. 

Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 26, 

41,49n.4. 

Macaulay, Zachary, 19f, 22. 

McCabe, George, 209f. 

Macclesfield, 56. 

Macdonald, J.Ramsay, 240, 245. 

McGavran, Donald, 260, 27 If. 

Mackie, Frederick, 43, 108. 

Maclean, Agnes, 209, 256, 267. 

Maclean, Hugh, 209, 256, 267. 

Madras (Fort St George), 8, 12f, 17, 

58f,93, 98, 164, 194, 201,202, 

204, 222f, 226, 234f, 248, 254, 

256, 258, 270, 288f. 

- Bentinck High School, 268, 273, 

- Christian College, 206. 

- floods of 1943, 289. 

- Women's Christian College, 208, 

244n.4, 269, 286, 288. 

Madura, 98. 

Mahabharata, 6, 22. 

Maharsi, Sri Ramana, 184. 

Mahommedan Educational 

Conference, 135f, 138. 

Maikal Range, 247. 

Makoriya, 162, 167, 177, 190, 195, 

209, 220, 226, 255, 264, 279. 

Malabar, 30. 

Malaviya, Pandit Madan Mohan, 

189. 

Malcolm, John, 21, 30f. 

Malet, Ermyntrude, 257f. 

Mallik, Gurdial, 184, 306. 

Mammen, Dr Mary, 280. 

INDEX 

319 

Manchester, 33, 47, 60, 232, 248, 

252. 

-- 1895 Conference, 157. 

Manchester Guardian, 235. 

Mandla, 65. 

Manasseh, Antonius, 158. 

Manipur, 281, 284. 

Mann, Thomas, 305. 

Marshman, Dr Joshua, 45. 

Masih, Prem, 123, 166, 179, 219f. 

Masulipatam, 3. 

Matthew, Dr, 278. 

Maurice, Frederick Denison, 25, 30, 

58, 91f, 107, 133, 141. 

Mauritius, 25f. 

Maw, Geoffrey Waring, 160f, 168, 

173, 176f, 193, 201, 209f, 213, 

217f, 220, 222, 224, 226, 254f, 

269, 271,275f, 282, 306f. 

Maw, Mildred, nee Brison, 160f, 

173, 177, 182, 209,258. 

May, Edward, 43, 108. 

Maynard, Douglas, 106f, 123, 141, 

161, 249. 

Mayo, Katherine 

— Mother India, 235. 

Meerut, 142. 

Mehta, J.K., 267. 

Mehta, Phirozeshah, 53. 

Mendes, Dr Lewis, 65, 83. 

Metcalfe, Charles, 21. 

Metcalfe, Joseph John, 56f, 85. 

Metcalfe, Rachel, 55f, 59f, 66f, 70, 

72, 74n.l6,n.l9, 77f, 82f, 

89n.7, 103, 107, 126, 3 58, 

176f, 209, 219, 260. 

Metcalfe, William, 55f, 85. 

Methodists, 124, 130, 218, 271. 

Mid-India Yearly Meeting, 217, 219, 

221,223, 254,258, 305. 

Midnapur, 285f. 

Milton, John, 1, 134. 

Mirchulal, Harry, 277. 

Misra, Ganpat Lai, 219. 

Misra, Prabhu Dayal, 108f, 175, 

184. 

Modern Review, The, 283. 

Mohandal, Yohan, 273. 

Mohenjodaro, 295, 

Montagu-Chelmsford Report, 167, 

186. 

Montagu, Edwin, 167, 186. 

Montford, Amy, 185n.5, 220f, 

229n.3,n.6, 253, 277. 

Moore, Arthur, 282, 301. 

Moorestown, New Jersey, 175f. 

Morison, Theodore, 139, 170. 

Morris, Clinton, 154. 

Moses, Professor D.G., 258, 262, 

268. 

Motilal, 214f, 228. 

Motilal, Shanti, 228, 230n.l4. 

Mountbatten, Edwin a, Countess, 

304. 

Mountbatten, Louis, Earl, 301. 

Mrigannath hill, 106. 

Mukand Naik, Bal, 68f, 74n.32, 78f, 

81f, 87f, 89n.2, 90, 99, 109. 

Mukand, Pushpavati, 88, 89n.l2. 

Mukand Naik, Ruth, 70, 83, 88. 

Mukerji, A.N., 212n.9. 

Munro, Sir Thomas, 2 If, 25, 30. 

Munnings, Ernest, lOOf, 104, 116, 

. 160. 

Munnings, Sarah, 101. 

Murshidabad, 18. 

Muslim Anglo-Oriental College, 

Aligarh, 132f, 191,224. 

Muslim League, 293f. 

Mussoorie (Masuri), 210. 

'Mutiny' of 1857. See Insurrection. 

Myers, Frederick, 9 If. 

Mysore, 59, 256. 

Nagas, Nagaland, 140, 281, 288. 

Nagpur, 62, 127, 165, 188f, 194, 

200, 217, 222f, 235, 238, 255f, 

259. 

-- Agricultural College, 262. 

- Hislop College, 190f, 226, 258, 

262f, 265, 268f. 

- Mayo Hospital, 268. 

- University, 269. 

Nagpur, near Jamai, 259. 

Nainby, Ellen, 82f, 121, 130n.l0. 

Naini, 232, 242. 

320 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Naini Tal, 259. 

Naoroji, Dadabhai, 35, 53f, 92, 135. 

Narasimhan, G.L., 20 If, 209, 217. 

Narasimhan, T., 267. 

Narmada river, 65, 105, 134, 165, 

177f, 258. 

Narsinghpur, 66f. 

Nasik, 142f. 

Natarajan, K., 235. 

Nathulal, 106f, 123, 152f, 161, 219. 

National Christian Council, 191. 

National Mahommedan Association. 

135. 

National Peace Council, London, 197. 

Nehru, Jawaharlal, 248, 304. 

— Autobiography, 26 1 . 

New York, 23 If. 

Newman, Henry Stanley, 76f, 97, 

101. 

Newton, Sir Isaac, 1 1, 14. 

Newton, John, 18f. 

Nilgiri Hills, 59, 94f, 98, 113, 161, 

256. 

Nimach, 256. 

Nizam of Hyderabad, 140. 

Noakhali, 296f, 305. 

Nowgong, 112f, 122f, 154, 170f, 

178, 213, 215, 225, 228, 254, 

271. 

O'Brien, George, 106f, 123. 

Ohio Mission Board, 1 12, 215, 227f. 

Ohio Yearly Meeting, 229. 

Ojhas, 102, 110n.3. 

Oldfeld School, Swanage, 14 If, 

145n.l3. 

Ootacamund, 59. 

Opium, 97, 149f, 234f. 

- 'Opium War', 56. 

-- Society for the Suppression of the 

Opium Trade, 149. 

Oriental News, The, 25. 

Owen, Gladys, 302. 

Oxford, 91f, 140, 236, 252, 258. 

Oxford Mission to Calcutta, 202, 226. 

Pachmarhi, 88, 107f, 181, 214, 277. 

Pakistan, 293f, 299f. 

Palmer, John, 24. 

Panchayats, 21, 30, 55, 103, 142, 

188. 

Panruti, 99, 108. 

Parikh, Manilal, 195, 223, 229n.8. 

Paris, 197, 279, 307. 

Parsad, William, 125, 215, 228. 

Patil, Professor S.G., 262, 265. 

Patna, 2, 40, 206. 

« Government College, 206. 

Paton, Dr Forrester, 248f. 

Paul, A.A., 208. 

Paul, K.T., 203f, 216, 235, 240, 246, 

251n.3a, 267. 

Paul the Apostle, 184. 

Peace Pledge Union, 279. 

Pearson, William Winstanley, 163, 

234f, 244n.6. 

Pease, Henry Fell, 48. 

Pease, Joseph, 29f, 37, 48, 57, 91, 

94, 97, 121, 149. 

Pease, Joseph Beaumont, 48, 50. 

Pemberton, Henry, lOf. 

Pembroke College, Cambridge, 159. 

Penington, Isaac, 151. 

Penn, Giles, 3. 

Penn, William, Admiral, 3. 

Penn, William, 6, 10, 18, 91, 168, 

Penney, James, 39f, 135, 166. 

Persai, Dwarka Prasad, 262. 

Petersen, Anna Maria, 248. 

Peterson, Harold, 189, 193. 

Pethick-Lawrence, Lord, 299. 

Phepartal, 106, 273. 

Philadelphia, 295. 

— Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 46. 

Pickett, Clarence E., 241. 

Pickett, J.Wascom, Bishop, 27 If. 

Pifa, 295. 

Pirn, Howard, 152. 

Pinn, Fred, 202. 

Pitt, William (FAU), 209f, 216. 

Pitt, William (Prime Minister), 20f. 

Pittenger, Dr Bob, 302f. 

Plassey, battle, 17. 

Plowden, Sir William, 142, 150, 186. 

Polak, Henry, 249. 

INDEX 

321 

Pondicherry, 9, 184. 

Pondikheri, 259. 

Poornachandra, see Sarkar, 

Poornachandra. 

Pope, Alexander, 14f. 

Port Canning, 304. 

Prahlad Ghat, Benares, 62f. 

Prakash, Stuti, 228. 

Prarthana Samaj, 54. 

Prasad, Kampta, 178, 189, 218, 

257f. 

Prasad, Rajendra, 205, 212n.8, 249. 

Pratapgarh, 87. 

Premchand, 150. 

Priestman, Elsie, 254, 258, 279. - 

Priestman, Leonard, 152. 

Priestman, Roland, 152, 154, 

230n.9, 254, 258f, 279. 

Pring, Martin, 3. 

Pringle, Kenneth, 276. 

Privat, Edmond, 246f, 

Privat, Yvonne, 246f. 

Pryce, Perry, 171, 189. 

Pumphrey, Caroline, nee Newman, 

101. 

Pune (Poona), 93, 122,146, 236, 

247. 

- Fergusson College, 146. 

Pyarelal, 177. 

Quare, Daniel, 10. 

Quetta earthquake, 250. 

'Quit India' campaign, 283, 286, 293, 

307. 

Radhakrishnan, Dr S., 194. 

Raghabpur, 295. 

Rai, Lala Lajpat, 44, 205, 249. 

Railways, 53, 62, 67f, 95. 

Raleigh, Professor Walter, 131, 134, 

139. 

Ram, Kalu, 161, 168,219. 

Ram, Mahatma Munshi (Swami 

Shraddhananda), 163, 194. 

Ram, Dr Pars, 270, 272f. 

Ram, Shiv, 276. 

Ramabai Medhavi, Pandita, 12 If, 

145, 149,225,235. 

Ramakrishna Paramahansa, 109f. 

-- Ramakrishna Mission, 222. 

Ramayana, 5f, 22, 92, 134, 164. 

Ramcharan, Pandit, 106. 

Ranade, Mahadev Govind, 54f, 92, 

145. 

Rani, 290. 

Raniganj, 48. 

Rao, Madhu, 80. 

Rasulia, 105f, 110n.5, 116, 119, 124, 

127f, 152f, 168, 171, 219, 223f, 

252f (chap, xx, passim), 268f, 

273f, 307. 

- Children's club, 265. 

- Library, 257f, 260. 

Reading, Rufus Isaacs, Marquess of, 

189. 

Revis, Charles, 259, 267. 

Reynolds, Frances, nee Daniell, 57f. 

Reynolds, George, 13. 

Reynolds, Reginald, 238f, 241, 246. 

Reynolds, Thomas Forbes, 57. 

Reynolds, Thomas, 57. 

Richardson, George, 45f. 

'Richmond Declaration' (1887), 94. 

Rig Veda, 188. 

Ripon, Lord, 80, 93. 

Robert, John, 219. 

Robert, Matthew, 219, 252. 

Robert, Dr Santoshlal, 268. 

Robins, Benjamin, lOf (chap.2, 

passim), 17. 

Robinson, Dr Joseph, 124, 152, 218, 

Robson, Henry, 124, 153f, 160f, 

177, 214, 216, 226, 230n.9, 

258. 

Robson, Dr Hilda, nee Rowntrcc, 

124f, 168, 177, 218. 

Rogay, Mahomed Ali, 53. 

Roe, Sir Thomas, 3. 

Rogers, Alison, 213f, 216. 

Rogers, Inez, 21 3f, 216. 

Rogers, Mary, 296. 

Rolland, Romain, 246. 

Round Table Conference (1930), 

238, 240. 

Round Table Conference (1931), 

245f, 249. 

322 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Rowlatt Acts, 186. 

Rowntree, John Wilhelm, 157. 

Roy, Kiron Shankar, 293. 

Roy, Rammohun, 24f, 40f, 52, 62f, 

121, 132, 148. 

Royal Society of London, lOf, 57. 

Rudra, Sudhir, 163. 

Rudra, Sushil Kumar, 159, 163. 

Rudraprayag, 182. 

Sabarmati ashram, 209, 233, 235f, 

239. 

Sabathu, 174. 

Sadasivan, Dr T.N., 207. 

Sagar, 66. 

St Dalmas, Henry and Susan, 84, 

106, 122. 

St John's College, Agra, 92, 164. 

St Stephen's College, Delhi, 158f, 

258. 

Salem, 267. 

Sali, 102f. 

'Salt March', 239. 

Salvation Army, 92f, 98, lOlf. 

Sambayya, E.S., 267. 

Sambayya, Padma, nee Narasimhan, 

267. 

Sankey, John, Viscount, 245f. 

Santal Parganas, 60. 

Santiniketan, 148, 163, 231f, 234, 

236, 241, 243, 258, 273f, 283, 

286, 305. 

Sapru, Tej Bahadur, 240. 

Sarin, Swarn, nee Talwar, 303f. 

Sarkar, Poornachandra, 109f, 150f, 

158, 199. 

Sastri, VSrinavasa, 222, 240. 

Siitpura ranges, 65, 102, 1 17, 120, 

155, 168, 236, 247. 

Sauds, 5, 7n.l0, 40, 42. 

Suvcry, Robert, 284f. 

Scarborough, 50. 

Scott, CP., 235. 

Si-cU-v, I.R.,92, 133, 138. 

Sohore, <)0f, 112, 119, 122, 126, 

157, 168, 179, 219. 

Sen Till, 250. 

Sen, Keshab Chandra, 52, 62, 92f, 

109, 139. 

Seoni Malwa, 67, 83, 99, 101, 102f, 

106, 115, 119f, 126f, 175, 177, 

219. 

-- Friends' Boys' School, 161, 168. 

Servant of India, 195n.2a. 

Servants of India Society, 146f, 204, 

222, 287. 

Sessions, Frederick, 105. 

Seth, Jagannath Shankar, 34f. 

Sevagram, 262, 269, 282, 305. 

Shahjahan Begum Sahiba, 99f, 139f. 

Shah Jehan, 3, 8. 

Sharima, 298. 

Sharma, A.K., 268. 

Sharman, Ethel, 219, 229n.4. 

Sharp, Isaac, 108, 110. 

Sharpe, Arthur J., 149. 

Sheffield, 50f. 

Shepherd, Olive, 225. 

Sherwood, 177, 185n.4. 

Shivlal, 219, 277. 

Shivaji, 148. 

Shobhapur, 178. 

Short, Joseph, 279f. 

Short, Phyllis, nee Dodwell, 279. 

Sibouy, Marie, 276. 

Sidcot School, 10. 

Sidgwick, Henry, 133. 

Simla, 138, 163f, 174, 187f, 267, 

307. 

- Simla Conference (1945), 293f. 

Simon, Sir John, 235. 

Singh, Bhakt, 271. 

Singh, Dhan, 219. 

Singh, Kapur, 189. 

Singh, Dr Mardan, 220, 265, 268. 

Singh, Pancham,154, 169f, 216 5 218. 

Singh, Paul, 268. 

Singh, Ram Sarikh, 182f. 

Singh, Ranjit, King of Punjab, 22. 

Singh, Sunder, 174f, 201, 263. 

Singha, Shoran S., 216, 223, 237, 

240, 270. 

Sitapur, 238, 259. 

Slavery, slave trade, 18f, 24, 29f, 45. 

INDEX 

323 

Smith, Alfred, 98, 102, 115, 129, 

162, 171,224, 229n.ll, 249. 

Smith, Bertha, 98. 

Smith, Margaret, 154, 170, 213f, 

226. 

Sohagpur, 66f, 79, 83f, 106f, 115, 

122f, 175, 177, 180, 220, 271. 

- Girls' High School, 126, 163, 

169, 218, 225,256, 306. 

- Rachel Metcalfe Home, 177, 220, 

225. 

Somerset, 238. 

Somervell, D.C., 232. 

South London Times, 87. 

Southampton, 60. 

Squire, Frank, 199f. 

Sriniketan, 231, 233, 241, 275, 287. 

Stanes, Leonard, 161. 

Stanes, tea merchants, 94f, 99, 161. 

Statesman, The, 282, 301. 

Stephenson, Elizabeth Jane Bell, 227. 

Stephenson, J.Sinclair, 212n.6. 

Stevenson, Robert Louis 

-Drjekyll and Mr Hyde, 297. 

Stoke Newington, 131, 140, 160. 

Stokes, Agnes, 176, 192. 

Stokes, Samuel Evans, 173f, 179, 

184, 186f, 192f, 201, 238. 

- The Love of God, 173, 175f. 

— The Failure of European 

Civilisation, 195n.2a. 

Stokes, Thomas, 187. 

Storrs, Sarah, 61. 

Storrs, Townsend, 61. 

Strachan, James, 259. 

Strachey, Arthur, 133. 

Strachey, Sir John, 133. 

Stramongate School, Kendal, 98, 

205. 

Student Christian Movement, 254, 

269. 

Student Movement, The, 159. 

Sturge, Joseph, 26, 138. 

Sturge, Paul, 270, 272. 

Sturge, Philip Henry, 138f, 159, 224, 

244n.l. 

Sudarisanam, A.N., 203f. 

Suez Canal, 28. 

Sugar trade, 23, 28, 30, 164, 259. 

Suhrawardy,H.S., 295f, 301. 

Sukani, 261. 

Sumati, 257. 

Sunderlal (Samuel Harry), 178. 

Sunth Rampur, 119. 

Surat, 3. 

Surul, 231, 242. 

Swan, Alice, nee Weston, then 

Lukey, 102, 115, 117, 123, 152, 

161, 171. 

Swan, George, lOOf, 103f, 112, 116f, 

119f, 127f, 155, 160, 181, 210. 

Swanage, 141. 

Sykes, Marjorie, 268, 273f, 286f, 

327. 

Symonds, Richard, 282, 284, 288, 

293, 297, 302. 

Tagore Association, 242. 

Tagore, Dwarkanath, 25, 43, 148. 

Tagore, Devendranath, 43f. 

Tagore, Rabindranath, 148, 155n.4a, 

160, 163, 167f, 184, 185n.3, 

194, 216,235, 237f, 24 If, 246, 

249,273, 286, 305. 

- at- London Yearly Meeting 

(1930), 239f 

- Gitanjali, 23 If, 241. 

- Nationalism, 194. 

- Nobel Prize, 231. 

-Post Office, The, 241. 

Tait, Archibald Campbell, 

Archbishop of Canterbury, 93. 

Tambaram 

- Missionary Conference (1938), 

270, 273. 

Tandy, Molly, 254, 258, 276f. 

Tandy, William, 254f, 258, 260f, 

264, 272f. 

~ The Ever-Rolling Stream, 266n. 1 1 v 

Tawa river, 130n.5, 181, 185n.7. 

Taxes 

- land, 29f, 248. 

- salt, 29, 66, 107, 143, 212n.2, 

239. 

Taylor, Alfred, 105f, 117, 110, 122, 

190, 204, 224, 229n.7. 

324 

AN INDIAN TAPESTRY 

Taylor, Florence, 106, 119, 168, 

224. 

Taylor, Joseph, 99f, 106f, 119f, 127, 

151, 153f, 158, 160f, 167, 198f, 

213f, 217, 223f, 243, 270f, 273. 

Taylor, Josephine, 25 In. 6. 

Taylor, Katherine, nee Murphy, 99, 

106, 121, 198f, 214, 217, 243, 

270. 

Tennyson, Hallam, 295, 298, 304. 

Tennyson, Margot, 295, 298. 

Terrell, Charles, 99f, 119, 157. 

Terrell, Mabel, 99f, 119. 

Textiles, 28f, 31, 33f, 51. 

Thane, 142f. 

Thoburn, Bishop, 112. 

Thompson, Annie, nee Frankland, 

94f,98, 108, 113. 

Thompson, George, 30. 

Thompson, Philip, 94f, 96n.l2, 

n.14, 98f, 108, 113, 161. 

Thoreau, Henry D., 147. 

Tikar, 114. 

Timbres, Harry Garland, 241f, 275. 

Timbres, Rebecca, nee Janney, 24 If. 

Times of India, The, 5 1 f . 

Tiruvannamalai, 184. 

Tiwari, Yesudas, 260, 263. 

Tolstoy, Leo, 241. 

Toronto, 268. 

Trivandrum. 208. 

Tucher, Heinz von, 226, 255, 264, 

271, 278f. 

Tucher, Karen von, 226, 279. 

Tucker, Frederick, 93. 

Tukaram, 5, 54, 148, 192. 

Turner, Ralph Lilley, 164. 

Turtle, John, 254. 

Tyger, The, ship, 2. 

Ujjain, 181, 183. 

Universal Spiritual Religion of God on 

Earth, The, 150f, 158. 

University College, London, 51, 94, 

132. 

Untouchability, 249, 27 If. 

Urquhart, J.S., 34. 

Vairagya ascetics, 66. 

Varanasi. See Benares. 

Vedas, 63. 

Vellore, 49,n.9. 

Versailles, Treaty of, 200. 

Vindhya hills, 65, 177, 257. 

Virgo, Stanley, 200. 

Viswa-Bharati, 23 If, 234f, 241. 

Vizianagram, 61, 201. 

Volga river, 243. 

Waddon, Surrey, 59. 

Wadia, Professor Pestonjee Ardeshir, 

209, 267. 

Walker, Louise, 177f, 219f, 229n.4, 

268. 

Walker, Saunderson, 40f, 45. 

Wallis, Jill 

» Mother of World Peace, 244n.2. 

War Victims Relief Committee, 131. 

War Cry, The, 102. 

Ward, Dr,215. 

Wardha, 269. 

— Mahila Ashram, 261. 

Warsaw, 241. 

Waterford School, Ireland, 76. 

Wavell, Archibald Percival, Viscount, 

293f, 300f. 

Wedderburn, William, 55, 101. 

Weldon's Weekly Journal, 5 If. 

Westcott, Brooke Foss, Bishop 

(1825-1901), 107, 157f, 162, 

197. 

Westcott, Foss, Bishop (1863-1949), 

282. 

Western, F.J., 175f, 185n.l. 

Whichcote, Benjamin, 2, 4, 7n,2. 

Whitby, Kathleen, 209, 262, 267. 

Whitefield, George, 18, 45. 

Whitley Commission, 246. 

Whitlock, Percy Oddie, 205f, 

212n8,n.9, 249. 

Wilberforce, William, 19f, 33. 

Wilkins, Charles, 22. 

Willingdon, Lord, 245. 

Wilson, James, 51f, 54. 

Williams, Effie, 77. 

INDEX 

325 

Williams, John, 76f, 79, 83f, 106f. 

Williams, Dr Walter R., 229. 

Wilson, Audrey, 268, 288. 

Wilson, W.E., 152. 

Winslow, Jack, 244n,8. 

Wood, Agnes C, nee Plowden, 142f. 

Wood, Arthur Lidbetter, 55, 142f, 

159. 

— Essays on Indian Topics, 143f, 146. 

Wood, Carrie, 126, 170, 227f. 

Wood, Herbert G., 270, 273. 

Wood, Lydia, nee Milner, 52. 

Wood, William Martin, 50f, 92, 97, 

101, 131f, 135f, 146f, 157, 

186f, 197,209. 

Woodbrooke College, 157f, 226, 

234, 238, 241f, 246, 251n.2, 

253f, 262, 273, 279, 306. 

Woolman, John, 19,201. 

World Dominion, 27 If. 

Worcester, South Africa, 152. 

Wragge, J.Philip, 306. 

Wright, Myrtle Aldren, 239, 277f. 

Wright, Stuart, 298. 

Wycliffe (laboratory technician), 264. 

Wylie, Colonel, 99f. 

Yamuna (Jumna) river, 91, 232. 

Yasnaya Polyana, 241. 

Yesodha, Bhuriya, 80, 85. 

York, 60. 

Young India, 187, 233, 239. 

Young Men's Christian Association 

(YMCA), 167, 189, 194, 199f, 

203, 208, 229n.8, 232, 237, 

243, 287. 

Young Women's Christian 

Association (YWCA), 208, 256, 

259, 262, 268, 273, 300. 

Zacharias, Dr H.C., 204. 

Zambezi river, 102. 

Zanzibar, 24. 

Marjorie Sykes 

MARJORIE SYKES was born in 1 905 in England and grew up in a coal- 

mining area in South Yorkshire where her father was headmaster of the 

local school. She graduated with first class Honours in English from 

Cambridge University and in 1928 went to India to teach at the Bentinck 

School for girls in Madras and very soon became Principal. It was during 

those years that she became a Quaker. 

In 1939, she was invited by Rabindranath Tagore to be Representative of 

English Culture in his innovative university at Santiniketan in Bengal and 

worked closely with him during the last years of his life. She became fluent 

in Bengali and translated many of his works into English. It was then that 

she came to know Charles Freer Andrews well and after his death she held 

the C. F. Andrews Memorial Chair while she worked on his biography. 

Marjorie knew Gandhi very well and was active- in his non-violent movement 

for Indian independence. After independence was achieved, she was 

Principal of his Basic Education programme at Sevagram, training teachers 

in Gandhi's social reforms. She later extended this programme to her own 

home in the Nilgiri Hills of South India. She was invited to come to the 

United States and Canada as a consultant to the non-violent Civil Rights 

Movement in 1964 and on her return to India, was a member of the 

Peacekeeping Team monitoring the ceasefire between the Indian 

Government and the Nagaland Independence fighters. 

Marjorie became increasingly active among Quakers in India and else- 

where - often at Rasulia, the Friends Centre in mid-India. She travelled 

around the Pacific Rim at the invitation of Pacific and North Pacific Yearly 

Meetings in the United States as their Friend-from-the Orient. There 

followed periods as Friend-in-Residence at Quaker Study Centres - 

Pendle Hill in the United States and Woodbrooke in England. 

Throughout her life, Marjorie found time to write books, articles and 

letters and to give talks to large audiences and small groups in many coun- 

tries, thus being a bridge between people within and without India. 

Although Marjorie died on 17th August 1995, her life will continue to be 

an inspiration for years to come. 

327 

-» yTARJOEJE SYKES in her retirement 

l\ / 1 Buckinghamshire, working on the beautiful m; 

XV A script of this book in 1994, at 

■ : ■ 'y'i \ . 

GEOFFREY CAEN ALL first met J^aijorie Syk . . 

Friends' Service Unit in India in.1948-50. He * one of ibft ^^ 

people who helped he* Jtt'ner researched on her: death glad Jy. 

agreed to edit her manuscript for publication, : arid : : wntr a • fiiM^ u - 1 

which brings thfi narrative up to Indian Jnd€- ! " 1 °" 7 

for many years Reader in - - T 

undertook this task wl" 

Commit 1 

v Literature afc 

:k of Quaker 

a biography of Horace Ale 

781850"7Z1 

352 

mm