Review: The Church in Madras (Rev Frank Penny) 1904-12

‘The Church in Madras’

A 3-volume red hardback set (I.88.1) housed in Gladstone’s Library, Hawarden, Wales.

Written by Rev Frank Penny from 1904. Final volume published in 1912.

Frontispiece: Presented by the Secretary of State for India (1905, Vol 1-2), Presented by the Secretary of State for India in Council (1912, Vol 3).

Vol 1    1640 – 1805     Inc. St Mary’s, Madras, page 81

Vol 2   1805 – 1835     Inc. St Stephen’s, Ooty, page 320

Vol 3    1835 – 1861     Inc. All Saint’s, Coonoor, page 169

It was thrilling to see on page 196, the word ‘should’ written in pencil in the margin by William Gladstone replacing ‘shall’, proving that Gladstone himself read these volumes!

The East India Company (EIC)

The EIC was neutral about Christianity and its work, but their Charter of 1698 (renewed in 1792 by William Wilberforce) required them to employ Chaplains. These, in turn, had to be approved by the Bishop of London and had to be from the Protestant Communion.

However, the EIC officially discouraged and sometimes prevented the work of missionaries and Christian mission. The Royal Danish Mission and the SPCK (mostly Germans) worked in the south of India for the ‘Great principle of the duty of promoting Christian Knowledge’. There was therefore a marked difference between the work of the EIC Chaplains and that of the SPCK missionaries.

Fifteen Churches were built within the bounds of the Madras Presidency by the Company and six or eight more were built privately.

By 1835-61, 41 Churches had been built in India.

See also – Bishop Stephen Neill, ‘The History of Christianity in India’.

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Travel: San Thome Basilica, Madras (now Chennai)

Just yards from the beach, south of Chennai, this Church is traditionally built near to or over the site where ‘Doubting’ Thomas, the Apostle to India, was reputedly martyred in AD72, having come to India in AD52.

This large white Roman Catholic Cathedral dates from 1896, and was given the status of Basilica in 1956.

It is one of only three churches worldwide said to contain the tomb of one of the twelve disciples of Jesus.

Marco Polo recorded a chapel on the seashore during his travels in Asia in 1293. The original small church was built by the Portuguese in 1523. The Prelates on this brass plaque in the Basilica date back to 1600.

Travel: All Saint’s Church, Coonoor, Tamil Nadu

Coonoor was one of three Hill stations established by the British Raj in the Nilgiri Hills in Southern India. Elevation 1720m.

The Church was dedicated in 1851 and opened in 1854. A distinctive cream-coloured English-style Church in India.

‘A charming and restful spot of great natural beauty’ (The Church in Madras). 

My journal entry (October 2014):

‘After lunch, we visited All Saints Church, next door to the Gateway Heritage Hotel. This was quite a revelation – a beautiful interior, well looked after and clearly still well used. It has a dark wood, vaulted roof space, lots of stained glass and is well painted both inside and out. Someone opened up for us. So glad that he did. The large and reasonably well tended graveyard contained the usual poignant memorials to those who died in India – from the military, the church and the planter community. All far from home’

Travel: St Stephen’s Church, Ooty, Tamil Nadu, India

Ooty or Ootacamund in the Nilgiri Hills was one of three Hill stations in the area favoured by the British Raj. Elevation 2240m.

Ootacamund became the summer headquarters of the Madras Presidency, nicknamed ‘Snooty Ooty’.

The Church was dedicated in 1829, opened at Eastertide 1831 and is the oldest church in the Nilgiris.

It has a beautiful dark wooden ceiling with huge beams hauled by elephant, following the capture of the city palace of the conquered and feared enemy of the British, Tipu Sultan, in Seringapatam over 100km away.

My journal entry (October 2014):

‘We arrived at St Stephen’s Church, a cream-coloured, somewhat squat building dating from 1831. Climbing the steps, we entered the Church after first removing our shoes. It had a gorgeous dark wood interior with white paint and the usual array of brass memorial plaques. Outside, I wandered through yet another unkempt Anglican, colonial graveyard full of decaying tombs and headstones, now in the hands of CSI but utterly uncared for and overgrown. How many relatives know anything about any of these graves? There must be thousands of such spots all across India, gradually fading away into the past’.

Travel: St Mary’s Church, Fort George, Madras (now Chennai)

This is the first English Church built in India. It is the oldest English Church east of Suez.

Clive of India was married in the church, as was Elihu Yale, an early founder of Yale University.

The barracks were built in 1687 but St Mary’s was begun in 1678. It was consecrated (controversially) by Richard Portman in October 1680. The organ was installed in 1687. The spire was added in 1710.

The walls are 4ft thick, it was built to withstand siege and cyclone and had a blast-proof roof of solid masonry. The brickwork is 2ft thick.

The building could accommodate 500 people. The distinctive black granite baptismal font dates from 1680.

My journal entry (October 2014):

‘St Mary’s – the oldest English church east of the Suez. So many similarities with St Andrew’s cathedral in Singapore, just not as big. So many brass memorial plaques to those who died, often of sickness and disease, many very young. We strolled in the heat of the beautiful sunlit church garden. A peaceful place. Butterflies. Odd how a mercantile and mercenary Raj took the Church with it as part and parcel of Empire. It was obvious you would think, wasn’t it? Well, as the years have unfolded, no – it was a bad idea!  Felt a little strange that Grandad would have known this church. Presumably as a bandsman, he may even have set foot inside. At the back of the building, I saw an old fading photo of George Town at the time (1905) he would have been there, so very different to today’s Chennai’.

The great Lutheran Pietist missionary, exemplar and intermediary, Christian Friedrich Schwartz (born 1726) arrived in India in 1750. He is remembered in India fondly and in the stirring epitaph at the base of the large white marble sculpture in St Mary’s (by John Bacon Jr, 1807).

Schwartz was truly the first Protestant missionary to India, not William Carey as often supposed. Carey arrived in India two years after Schwartz’s death at Tanjore in 1798. Schwartz died a rich man but he left all his wealth to the SPCK for its work in India.

Social History: George Olliffe at Fort St George, Madras, India

In 1905 (100 years ago) my grandfather George Olliffe was serving with the British army in Madras (now Chennai) at Fort St George in India. I have blogged his story here. He was a bandsman in the Leicestershire Regiment (1Bn) and was posted to British India in 1903 at a time when the Raj was at the height of its powers on the sub-continent. He left India in 1906.

Lt-Colonel Webb’s 1912 ‘ A History of the Services of the 17th (The Leicestershire) Regiment’ records, ‘The regiment sailed from Durban on the 7th November 1902 for Madras (from fighting in the South African Boer war), and arriving on the 30th, disembarked on the 1st December and proceeded to Fort George‘. Bandsman Olliffe arrived in Fort St George from Britain four months later on 6th March 1903.

In October 2014, I went to Chennai. One of the highlights of the trip to southern India was to visit the Fort St George military compound, some of which still houses units of the Indian military.

It was thrilling for me to walk through part of the Fort where Grandfather must have drilled, to view his old parade ground and perhaps even to look at one of his old barrack blocks.

This is a photo record of my visit to this evocative place within our own family history:

The Parade Ground and Drill Square at Fort St George

Some of the vast walls and ditches surrounding the Fort.

Another part of the compound adjacent to St Mary’s Anglican Church, the first English church built in India (1678-80).

The thought that Grandfather may have set foot, perhaps for a parade service, in this very same church was very moving.

Review – 18 Bookshops by Anne Scott (Sandstone Press)

Quirky, original, wonderful writing;  a celebration of 18 bookshops in the life of the author; half of them set in Scotland with the rest in London (5), Oxford (1) Ireland (2) and New York (1). However, this is a storybook, not a travelogue. Nor is it a bookshop guide, as I thought at first.  I bought 18 Bookshops supposing it to be a book about shops. I was wrong. Instead this is an adventure story – about all that is excellent in making good literature available and of its potential for massively widening our horizons.

The book is beautifully descriptive, and at times deeply insightful about what is of value in literature and bookselling. It also pays homage to that very good office of ‘Bookseller’ in hushed tones.

This volume is a pleasure to handle; a solid hardback beautifully produced and packaged, with orange and black leaves and end-covers, and a black and orange typeface. There are no page numbers but surprisingly it’s easy to find your way around the chapters. I do hope numbers are not added to any reprint as it would so spoil this delicious little book. Here are 18 short chapters to read and savour; it’s very difficult to read this book in a hurry. It’s a book clearly forged in Scotland with a Scottish slant and a Celtic view; and all the better for it.

If you love bookshops, you’ll love this book. It captures the essence and atmosphere of a good bookshop perfectly. We need to guard such treasure before it soon becomes a thing only of its past. You’ll have to buy the book to see which shops are selected and if you know any of them? However, be aware that several of them are from as far back as the 1500’s and many are long gone. Each chapter evokes the wonder and power of literature as seen through the eyes of owners and customers of these very diverse shops. Spanning many centuries and winsomely written, it has real emotional appeal to all lovers of physical books and physical bookshops. In an age of simply clicking a mouse to purchase a book, we need to be reminded of this pleasure.

Chapter 7 contains the delightful story of Robert Louis Stevenson, then aged 5, entering James Smith’s bookshop. Stevenson in his later memoir tells of the transforming effect that this Edinburgh bookshop had on his imagination; ‘the place smelt of Bibles and it was wonderfully dark’. In Chapter 9, another Edinburgh bookshop, the Grail Bookshop is the subject. Anne Scott writes, ‘This bookshop gave me more than just books’. Bookshops do that to you. The chapter evoked strong memories for me of a rather different bookshop, owned by the Church of Scotland and also in George Street where I too spent much of my time. Both these shops are now closed; ‘defeated chiefly by rising rents in George Street’.

Scott writes of ‘a Bookman’ in Chapter 10, not ‘bookseller’. Note that subtle distinction; good book people don’t just sell books. I like that description. I think I’d like to be known as such. She writes of one volume, ‘No-one closes this book unchanged for it releases dreams’.  In Chapter 11, the doorway to an Oxford bookshop is described thus; ‘The entry loudly and harmoniously belled’.  There seems a wistfulness and a longing running throughout the book.

I enjoyed Chapter 12 with its history of bookselling in London (and of Paternoster Row in particular) interwoven into the story of Thomas Davies, a Scot, an actor, a bookseller and quite a character it would seem. Davies was a friend and contemporary of both Dr Samuel Johnson and James Boswell. Johnson’s father had been a bookseller in Lichfield. His son had ‘seen the suffering caused by failing custom, broken orders, lost money, and the fickleness of the trade’. Quite an apt narrative for the book trade! An English Heritage blue plaque is now assigned to Tom Davies bookshop near Covent Garden.

Chapter 14 comes with a good description of a good bookseller: ‘Here is an owner who reads her visitors and leases out time to those who need it, who want it in this place’. For me, Chapter 15 is THE chapter in the book. It’s called ‘Leaving’. I read it twice – it’s beautiful, haunting and sad; a love story involving the author and a bookshop overlooking Waverley Station in Edinburgh. This is very personal writing indeed, with hidden depths in its language, hinting at a monochrome past but now a life transformed by all that’s best in British literature.

Chapter 17 on Kenny’s Bookshop, Galway contains a description of the perfect bookshop, ‘to sit somewhere out of the way and look: to read and buy, and read and leave, and return’.  This shop has now moved online. Anne Scott comments, ‘I send for books, pay in silence online: but the book comes in and is real then, though from whom and by whose hand, I can never know’.

The final chapter covers an occult bookshop in London. For me, this is the poorest of the chapters and sad to end such a delightful book on such an unsatisfactory note.

18 Bookshops is as much about good literature as it is about bookshops; the subversive impact of a well-written book on the mind and the imagination down through the ages. It contains the manifesto of why I personally have been involved with books all these years.

I think I must write my own ‘18 Bookshops’ before it’s too late. It’s not quite the same to describe 18 websites! If I did, I’d have to include a far-too-short visit to Maria Brothers in Shimla, Northern India – a musty, dusty shop full of old volumes and maps left over from when the British left India, where stock crumbled in your hand as you explored but which was a treasure house of old books in which to browse. I still vividly recall this shop as I write.

That’s what all bookshops can and should do – I commend 18 Bookshops to you as a celebration.

Final note – I do find it offensive – given the subject matter – that this book is advertised by Anne Scott’s publishers as available via Amazon of all places!

Social History: George Olliffe – Victorian army bandsman, British India

Just 100 years ago in 1912, my Grandfather was one year away from the end of 12 years with the Colours and his discharge from 1^st Battalion, Leicestershire Regiment (The Tigers).

This is Part 2 of his story …

I have looked up the 1901 and 1911 UK Census documents and found that my Grandfather is listed in both archives as part of the British army records of the day. 

1901 Census – at Glen Parva Barracks, Leicestershire

In the 1901 census, Grandad was at Glen Parva Barracks (Headquarters, 17^th Regimental District), nr Leicester. On the night of Sunday 31^st March 1901, he is listed (pg 12, Line 5) as George W Oliffe (note spelling) of Acton, London, (London then crossed out, Mdx added), Single, Age 16, Private, Leicestershire Regiment.

1911 Census – at Talavera Barracks, Aldershot, Hampshire

In the 1911 census, Grandad was based at Talavera Barracks (Part area 11C), Wellington Lines, Aldershot, nr Farnham. On the night of Sunday 2^nd April 1911, he is listed (pg 7, Line 27) as George Oliffe of Acton Middlesex, Single, Age 26, Private, 1^st Leicestershire Regiment, Occupation Musician. The commanding officer is recorded as Major General H M Lawson, GB.

The Leicestershire Regiment was formed as the county regiment on 1 July 1881. It had first been raised as the 17th Foot in 1688. The regimental depot was at Glen Parva, and the regiment consisted of: The 1st and 2nd Battalions (formerly the 1st and 2nd battalions of the 17th Foot), 3rd (Militia) Battalion (formerly the Leicestershire Militia) and 1st Leicestershire Rifle Volunteer Corps, redesignated as the 1st Volunteer Battalion in 1883.

Prior to 1881, the 17th Regiment of Foot did not have a depot in Leicestershire. Under the prevailing brigade system, regiments shared a brigade depot. However, with the army reforms of that year, the 17th became the Leicestershire Regiment and the 27th Brigade depot was abolished. The army was reorganised along territorial lines and each county regiment was to have its own depot. That of the Leicestershire Regiment was the newly built Glen Parva barracks near South Wigston. 

1^st Battalion Leicestershire Regiment deployment:

1899 South Africa (heavily involved in the Boer War)
1902 India: Madras
1904 India: Belgaum
1906 England: Shorncliffe, Kent
1910 England: Aldershot, Hampshire
1912 Ireland: Fermoy

I recently located Grandad’s Long Service Attestation in the National Archives at Kew. He signed up for 12 years, not the 21 years my father had previously suggested. His army record is fascinating and runs to four pages (I have the A3 photocopies of all four). I also found a George Olliffe (right spelling, wrong person) b. 1856 in Stow-on-the-Wold, who joined the Grenadier Guards!

1901 Long Service Attestation

British Army Service Records (also available on www.findmypast.co.uk)

1760 – 1915 (Held at National Archives, Kew)

Record Number – WO97 5621 5 (Chelsea Hospital)

Front page

Oliffe (note spelling) George William (not James as per his later marriage certificate).

Born: 1885 Acton, Middlesex (a Birth Certificate records his actual birth date as 11th November 1883)

Attestation: 4^th February 1901

Soldier Record Number: 6050

Grandad joined the Leicestershire Regiment (the Tigers) at Hounslow Recruiting Office. It’s clear that he was previously from the Brentford District Schools (Percy School) at the time of joining. He stayed for 12 years ‘with the Colours’, spending almost a third of his service in India. He left the Army on 5^th February 1913 (as a ‘time expired’ soldier, so was not called up for WW1).

The second page of the army record is telling and records his description:

Age: 15 years, 11 months

Height: 5 feet

Weight: 93 lbs (just 6 ½ stone which seems shockingly underweight?)

Chest: 31 / 32 inches

Complexion: Medium

Eyes: Blue

Hair: Brown

Religion: Church of England

Next of Kin: Father, William Oliffe. Brentford Union

This section of distinguishing marks also concerned me – does this record instances of workhouse abuse?

Tattooed on both forearms

Scars: back of right hand, knee, back of head, left elbow, right buttock, front of chest

Page three – ‘Statement of Services’ of 6050 George William Oliffe (italics mine)

Posted to Leicester Depot on 5^th February 1901 (for recruit training)

Attained 3^rd class Certificate of Education 16^th April 1901

Granted 1^st Good Conduct Badge 4^th February 1903

Attained 18 years old on 4^th March 1903 (date and age possibly suspect?)

Granted Messing Allowance (Bandsman) 4^th March 1903

Transferred to India 6^th March 1903 (probably to Fort George, Madras)

Appointed Bandsman 1^st November 1903

Elected Service Pay 1^st April 1904

Granted pay as a 1^st Class soldier 4^th March 1905

(1st Bn transferred from Madras to Belgaum on 16th January 1905)

Granted 2^nd Good Conduct Badge 4^th February 1906

Advanced to Senior Private 1^st March 1906

(Left India on HMT Dongola Thursday 17^th October 1906 (see details below)

(Arrived England 9^th November 1906 in ‘cold and very wet weather’)

Serving with ‘C’ Company, 1^st Bn in 1909

(In the UK – at Shorncliffe, Kent and Aldershot, Hants – through to February 1913)

Discharged on the termination of his first period of engagement 3^rd February 1913

Signed by: R.S Dyer-Bennett Lt for Captain Adjt Leicester Regs.

Footnote: ‘Troopship HMT Dongola was built for the P & O Shipping Company by Barclay, Curle and Coy in Glasgow. She was launched on 14th September 1905 and saw service on the company’s Far East services. From 1906 she was taken up for seasonal trooping by the War Office between England, India and Hong Kong. In 1915 she was requisitioned and used as a hospital ship at Gallipoli. She was sold for scrapping to T W Ward Ltd of Barrow in Furness, in June 1926′.

The fourth page – the dates of Grandad’s military service:

Home:  4/2/1901 to 5/3/1903 –  2 years in UK (presumably Glen Parva Barracks, Leicestershire)

India:     6/3/1903 to 9/11/1906 – 3 ¾ years in India (at Madras and Belgaum, south of Goa)

Home:  10/11/1906 to 3/2/1913 – 6 ¼ years in UK (first Shorncliffe, Kent and then Aldershot)

BELGAUM, a town and district of British India, in the southern division of Bombay. The town is situated nearly 2500 ft. above sea-level; it has a station on the Southern Mahratta railway, 245 m. S. of Poona. It has an ancient fortress, dating apparently from 1519, covering about I 00 acres, and surrounded by a ditch; within it are two interesting Jain temples. Belgaum contains a cantonment which is the headquarters of a brigade in the 6th division of the western army corps. It is also a considerable centre of trade and of cotton weaving. There are cotton mills. Pop. (1901) 36,878.

Grandad joined the British army in the same year that Field Marshall Frederick, 1^st Earl Roberts 1832-1914 (author of 41 Years in India: 2 vols) became the last Commander-in-Chief of the Forces. During Grandad’s time in the army, British power in India was at its height and as an Army Bandsman – a clarinetist – he would have been at the centre of its pomp and ceremony.

The regimental music of the Leicestershire Regiment, which my Grandfather would have played can be heard here.

To my mind, the British Army seems to have been the making of Grandad. Essentially he escaped to another world, but one which he presumably understood well; yet another institution as it so obviously was. Perhaps he simply swapped one set of known rules for another?

The garrisoning of India and the Colonies was a priority for the British Imperial army. Rudyard Kipling wrote ‘The Absent-minded Beggar (1899); a jingoistic poem about the role of the ordinary soldier in defending the Empire. Grandad came into the army in this same late Victorian period. My Father remembers him reminiscing happily about India; he obviously enjoyed his experience and talked about ‘having a servant and keeping a monkey’.

Barnes in History of Regiments and Uniforms of the British Army (Peacetime soldiering, p223) records something very similar:

In India, the private solder of the period lived a Gentleman’s life. He had native servants to do all the dirty work and could even get the ‘nappy’ with his little lamp and portable kit to come and shave him whilst he lay in bed. Various pets were kept. Barracks were spacious, the country itself was full of interest with fishing and shooting for all who desired it and there was sport, dances and the social life. From this period came the Hindustani words: Cushy, Blighty, Chit and Roti’.

Grandad’s Sporting Record 1907 – 1911

(Source: Green Tiger Journal)

The Green Tiger Journal contains many references to Pte. Oliffe playing Cricket and Hockey for the Regiment.

Playing Cricket for the Regiment in 1907 and 1909

P40: ‘The cricket season has now commenced, though no regimental match has yet been played. On the 11^th May the Band (Lewis 21, Hinch 20) beat a local team, Holy Trinity Church, by an innings and 34 runs, 95 to 21 and 40, Oliffe performing the hat-trick’.

Played 27^th May Shorncliffe, Kent – win for the Regiment by 19 runs: Pte. Oliffe. B Bush 6

Played 31^st May Shorncliffe – match abandoned due to heavy rain: Pte. Oliffe, not out 5

Played 10^th June Shorncliffe – met their first reverse at hands of Royal Scots: Pte. Oliffe, not out 1

1^st Royal Scots: Capt. Drysdale, c Challenor, b Oliffe 1

Played 14^th June Shorncliffe – win by Leicestershire Regt by 8 wickets:

Ptes.Wilkes,Daft and Oliffe did not bat

Played 17^th June Folkestone – lost by 4 wickets:

Pte. Oliffe, c Payne, b Goodsell 2

A.C. Edwards, c Nott, b Oliffe 31

Capt. A. I. Paine, c Oliffe, b Green 52

Played 26^th June Shorncliffe – the Regimental team were beaten by 80 runs:

Pte. Oliffe c. Tawney, b Audsley 0

May 8^th 1909 Played at Folkestone, won by 80 runs: Pte. Oliffe (batted last) not out 6

May 12^th Played on Garrison Ground v 11^th Hussars, won by 120 runs: Pte. Oliffe 2 for 7, did not bat

May 13^th Played on Garrison Ground v 5^th Battn K.R.R., won by 76 runs and 3 wickets:

Oliffe took 4 wickets for 37, did not bat

May 21^st Played on Garrison Ground v N. Staffordshire Regt, won by 186 runs: Pte. Oliffe, not out 7

Playing Hockey for the Regiment in 1909 and 1911

Army Hockey Tournament (Aldershot, March 1^st) Leicestershire Regt v Bedfordshire Regt

‘We started by pressing, and a good deal of loose play in front of the Bedfords’ goal resulted in shots from Oliffe and Cunningham which just went wide … our forwards were constantly pressing. The home team was: Daft, goal; Capt. Challenor and Nott, backs; Gandy, Richardson and Brookes, half-backs; Capt Creagh, Pepper, Cunningham, Lieut. Yalland, and Oliffe, forwards’.

Army Hockey Tournament (Aldershot, November 20^th) Leicestershire Regt 2 v Bedfordshire Regt 0

Bdsmn. Daft; Capt. E. L Challenor and Corpl. Nott; Lance-Corpl Brooks, Sergt. Richardson, and Capt. F. Le M. Gruchy; Lieut. E. S. Tidswell, Lieut. T. Prain, Sergt. Cunningham, Sergt. Pepper, Bdsmn. Oliffe.

Army Hockey Tournament (Aldershot, December 14th) Leicestershire Regt 5 v Lancs. Regt 2

Reserve: Pte. Oliffe

Reading Grandads’ army record and these numerous sporting entries in the Green Tiger Journals, I have the sense that his life significantly improved and that he never looked back. He spent 12 years in the army and whilst not rising in the ranks, (he remained a private to the end), kept his head down and was awarded several ‘Good Conduct’ badges. He had joined just after the Boer War (1899-1902) ended and when he left the army in 1913, aged 28 (or was he possibly 30?), he was a ‘time-expired’ solder and as such legitimately avoided being called up for the Great War.

I only wish that I’d had the chance to have heard more about his experiences from him when I was growing up in the 60’s. He died in 1969. My memories consist mainly of an elderly, blind man in a dark suit wearing spectacles. He was clearly so much more than that!

He’d had quite a life, not all of it pleasant but he had obviously made the most of the hand he’d been dealt.

George (and Ethel) Olliffe are buried in the Backwalls cemetery at Stow-on-the-Wold in Gloucestershire.

Footnote: For a very good history of the 17th Foot and the Leicestershire Regiment, I recommend the following volume: http://www.naval-military-press.com/history-of-the-services-of-the-17th-the-leicestershire-regiment.html The period of my Grandfather’s service is covered between p224-234.

Travel – Review of J.G. Farrell’s, The Hill Station (1981) : Shimla in India

I’ve just finished reading J G Farrell’s half-completed novel, The Hill Station.  Farrell, a past Booker prize winner (1973) for The Siege of Krishnapur; recently picked out by UK Broadcaster, Jeremy Paxman as one of the nine books which have made him who he is, calling it a ‘stunning novel’. Farrell died in 1979 aged 44 after being washed away by a freak wave in a beach fishing accident in Ireland.

Between 1970 and 1978, Farrell wrote his Empire Trilogy: Troubles, The Siege of Krishnapur and The Singapore Grip. The Hill Station was supposed to be the final book of a quartet (similar to those of Paul Scott) but remained unfinished due to his untimely death.

Farrell had said in an Observer Magazine article,

‘The really interesting thing that’s happened during my lifetime has been the decline of the British Empire’.

In his writings, an absorbing collection of post-colonial fiction, he explored the economics and ethics of empire doing much to dismantle the staple elements of the British imperial story. This particular story is excellent in pointing up the hypocrisy and double-standards of the Raj, especially in a place like Simla, a cultural pressure cooker which many of those living there found ultimately unbearable.

For me, having visited Shimla (note post-independence name change) in northern India by hill railway from Kalka last year, this book brought back some wonderful memories. For the first three chapters I was back on the train: such marvellous detail and excellent descriptions for the journey up to Kalka; which was then the railhead for Simla. Anyone who’s travelled on a hill train in India will recognise it from this book. The remainder of the journey to Simla in those days was simply punishing. The 58 miles up into the hills were covered by Landau or by Kabul ponies pulling a ‘Tonga’.  

The novel evocatively recreates the Simla of the British Raj, something it shares with Kipling’s Kim.  If you’ve been to Shimla, you’ll recognise many of the places in the novel although interestingly Farrell never visited. He was due to go there in the autumn of 1979. Sadly, Farrell’s book finishes in mid-stream after just 150 wonderful pages, leaving one feeling bereft and a little short-changed. It ends just as it is getting into its stride but, thankfully, one of the author’s acquaintances has attempted to fill in the gaps and make sense of Farrell’s silence by developing the story further using his detailed research notes.

Not only is the book set in the India of the Victorian era but is one with a fascinating religious theme; the heated 19^th century dispute between High Church Ritualism and Low Church Protestantism which led to the Public Worship Regulation Act 1874 (repealed in 1965).

The Hill Station is not kind to institutional Christianity. The Bishop of Simla goes not emerge from this very well, being as he is, more interested in maintaining the party line. However, Revd Kingston, the Anglican ritualist priest cast as the outsider, is given generous treatment by the author on account of the fact that his beliefs are actually central to the way he lives his life.

In the book, the arguments on both sides of this now ancient debate are superbly presented, predominately through the riveting dialogue given to the central characters. The characterisation is strong particularly in the case of the vaguely agnostic Scottish Doctor, McNabb. I loved the underlying tension developed by his longstanding attempt to write a treatise on Indian medicine when all along he was investigating the unexplained effects of religion on the human spirit.

These photographs of Shimla were taken on a visit to India in October 2011. The now fast fading Victorian architecture reflect something of Godalming High Street incongruously set 4,000 miles away in the Shivalik foothills of the Himalayas.

Photography – Iconic images of India

Iconic images of India from a visit to the Golden Triangle of Jaipur, Dehli and Agra plus Shimla in the Himalaya foothills.