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The Lives and Afterlives of Charlotte, Lady Canning(1817–1861): Gender, Commemoration, and Narrativesof LossTracy Anderson aa University of SussexPublished online: 23 Apr 2013.
To cite this article: Tracy Anderson (2013) The Lives and Afterlives of Charlotte, Lady Canning (1817–1861): Gender,Commemoration, and Narratives of Loss, South Asian Studies, 29:1, 31-49, DOI: 10.1080/02666030.2013.772813
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The Lives and Afterlives of Charlotte, Lady Canning(1817–1861): Gender, Commemoration, andNarratives of LossTracy Anderson*University of Sussex
This essay explores the themes of memory and memorial by scrutinizing the afterlives of two objects made in memoryofCharlotte, Lady Canning (1817–61). The first is an inlaid marble tomb monument by George Gilbert Scott and JohnBirnie Philip, which today stands outside St John’s Church, Kolkata. The second is the Lady Canning Memorial Album, aprivate album compiled in the 1860s and now housed in the British Library. Following the afterlives of these commem-orative objects will shed light on how they have shaped and continue to shape colonial and postcolonial identities.These objects emerge as sites of tension where gender, imperial ideologies, and expressions of personal loss intersect
and sometimes collide. As such, this study complicates, but does not efface, boundaries between the permanence ofmasculine public memorial art and feminine ephemeral or transitory memento. And it highlights particular ways that thecommemoration of the female body, even in death, could act as a boundary marker for the creation and ordering ofdifference.
Keywords: imperialism; monuments; memorial; gender; India; nineteenth-century
In 1856 Charlotte Canning (1817–61) travelled to Indiawith her husband Charles, the recently-appointedGovernor-General.1 Born in Paris the daughter of theBritish ambassador Charles Stuart (later Baron Stuartde Rothesay), she had also served as Lady of theBedchamber to Queen Victoria from 1842–55. Her fiveyears in India were turbulent: the Indian Rebellion of1857–8 and the Government of India Act (1858) whichfollowed dramatically and irrevocably changed thepolitical and cultural landscape of British India.2 Aspower was transferred from the East India Companyto the British crown, Charles Canning became the firstviceroy of India, the official and symbolic representativeof the crown.3 Two extensive viceregal tours of 1859–60and 1860–61manifested this new royal authority throughspectacle and secured political allegiance through thedistribution of rewards and honours for so-calledloyalty during the uprising.4
The vicereine had few official duties but fulfilledimportant social and, to a lesser extent, charitable andphilanthropic roles.5 She travelled widely indepen-dently of her husband, from Madras in the south to theborders of Tibet in the north. A keen, proficient amateurwatercolour artist and botanist, she amassed large port-folios of work, much of it still preserved in fine albums.6
She also wrote detailed accounts of her travels to her
family and to Queen Victoria.7 Whilst returning fromDarjeeling she contracted malaria and died, weeksbefore her scheduled departure for England. She wasforty-four years old.
This essay explores the themes of memory and mem-orial by scrutinizing the afterlives of two objects made inmemory of Charlotte, Lady Canning. Memorial objectsand rituals of death and commemoration are part ofcomplex imperial networks in which identities of nation,empire, and gender are deeply embedded. Meanings, ofcourse, do not reside in the objects but are constantlymade and remade by those who engage with the objectsor with representations of them and by their cultural andpolitical landscape. Following the afterlives of thesecommemorative objects will shed light on how theyhave shaped and continue to shape colonial and postco-lonial identities.8 There is a particular focus on gender.To consider gender in relation to commemoration doesmore than widen the aperture of the imperial lens toinclude women as well as men, though it does that too.Rather, it explores memory and memorial using sexualdifference as a key tool, not with the intention of reveal-ing an alternative historical ‘truth’, but as a strategy todeepen an understanding of the politics of imperial com-memoration.9 Elizabeth Buettner has argued that a cem-etery can act as a barometer that signals ‘how the ex-colonized and ex-colonizers alike not only approach the
South Asian Studies, 2013Vol. 29, No. 1, 31–49, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02666030.2013.772813
*Email: [email protected]
© 2013 The British Association for South Asian Studies
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physical relics and spaces of empire but also reassess thecolonial era more generally, imparting them with adiverse range of meanings specific to a historicalmoment.’10 The same might be said for the individualmonuments and memorials that are explored below.
The opening discussion compares the public monu-ments to the Governor-General to the more private mem-orials to his wife and it thereby introduces the key themesof public and private space, iconography, and gender.These objects emerge as sites of tension where gender,imperial ideologies, and expressions of personal lossintersect and sometimes collide. As such, this study com-plicates, but does not efface, boundaries between thepermanence of masculine public memorial art and fem-inine ephemeral or transitory memento. And it highlightsparticular ways that commemorating the female body,even in death, could act as boundary markers for thecreation and ordering of difference. It also argues thatthe language of female commemoration is tightly bound
up with how imperial history is read and reread in thenational imagination.11
The first object is Charlotte Canning’s inlaid marbletomb monument by George Gilbert Scott (1811–78)12
and John Birnie Philip (1824–75), which today standsoutside St John’s Church, Kolkata (Figure 1).13 CharlotteCanning died at Government House, Calcutta on theevening of 18 November 1861. On the instruction ofher husband, her body was transported overnight to thegovernor’s retreat at Barrackpore, 25 kilometres up-riverfrom Calcutta. The house and garden at Barrackpore hadbeen created by Lord Wellesley in 1801 as part of agrander, but ultimately unrealised, scheme to link it tothe newly built Government House in Calcutta.14 It hadcontinued to serve as a weekend retreat for governors,much favoured for the relative coolness of the climateand the beauty of the landscape.15 Charlotte Canning hadloved the garden and had redesigned significant parts ofit, so it had a particular personal resonance for her.
1. George Gilbert Scott, Tomb of Charlotte Canning, 1864–65, marble, St John’s Church, Kolkata (north portico). Photographby Jenny Bell.
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The body was laid to rest in the garden and a funeralservice took place at daybreak. A temporary brickvault was constructed to mark the grave. A large graveplot was enclosed by a wrought-iron fence in a designformed of Charlotte Canning’s interwoven initials(Figure 2). The fence was designed by Henry Yule, afriend and engineer in the Bengal Engineers who hadworked with Charlotte Canning on the design of thegarden and on other domestic building projects as wellas the Cawnpore memorial.16 In March 1862 the groundwas consecrated and Yule and Canning subsequentlyreturned to England. During their passage home Yuleand Canning discussed plans for a tomb monument andYule’s design sketch in pen-and-ink survives. CharlesCanning did not live to see the tomb, dying within sixmonths of his wife. The temporary vault at Barrackporewas strewn with flowers daily until the arrival of thetomb from England (Figure 3).
At the time of the commission in 1864 Scott was work-ing at Lady Waterford’s home at Ford, Northumberland ona fountain monument to honour her dead husband.17
Although no evidence has come to light, it seems highlyprobable that during this period Charlotte Canning’s tombdesign would have been discussed at length with LouisaWaterford and probably also in consultation with LordBurke.18 Once in situ, the tomb rapidly started to deterio-rate, particularly the fine marble inlays on the surface. A‘hideous shed’ was erected to protect the monument fromthe elements (Figure 2), replaced in 1873 by a ‘rusticcanopy’ with simple Gothic doorways and covered inpale purple creepers.19 This rustic canopy was short-lived,as later that year it was agreed to relocate the tomb to theinterior of St Paul’s Cathedral in Calcutta (Figure 4). In itsplace, a full-size copyof the tombwasmade for the garden,identical except for the detailed marble inlay. It remainsthere today (see Figure 10). In 1913 the other, original
2. John Edward Saché, Charlotte Canning’s Tomb and Enclosure Showing Temporary Hut, c. 1864–65. British Library Board,Mss Eur D661 (87).
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3. Unknown photographer, Lady Canning’s Grave at Barrackpore Showing Temporary Vault Strewn with Flowers, photograph, c.1862,Charlotte Canning Memorial Album. British Library Board, Mss Eur D661 (82).
4. W.G. Stretton, Tomb of Lady Canning at St John’s Church, Calcutta, photographer’s ref. 27, albumen print, 1870s, 203 � 281mm.The Alkazi Collection of Photography.
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tombwasmoved again fromSt Paul’s Cathedral to St John’sChurch, Calcutta, positioned outside in the northern por-tico where it still stands (see Figure 1).
Following the trajectories of these two tombs (theoriginal and the copy) will shed light on the ways thatindividual acts of remembrance interweave withinimperial networks that cross between metropole and col-ony. In particular, scrutiny of unpublished correspon-dence between Lord Northbrook and Louisa, LadyWaterford, Charlotte Canning’s sister, will highlight thecrucial but overlooked role that Louisa Waterford playedin the decisions about the relocation of the original tomband the commissioning of a replica, as well as drawingattention to the fine balance between satisfying the widerBritish community living in India and the private desiresof Charlotte Canning’s family.
The second object considered here is the LadyCanning Memorial Album, a private album compiled inthe 1860s and now housed in the British Library. Theoriginal creator of the album is unknown, but it waspossibly Colonel Hon. John Constantine Stanley (1837–78) of the Grenadier Guards, who served as one ofCharles Canning’s aides-de-camp while he wasGovernor-General.20 The album later came into thehands of Emily Anne Theophilia Bayley (1830–1911),a long-term Calcutta resident and friend of CharlotteCanning.21 As well as the written dedication, LadyBayley made other extensive written annotations aroundphotographs in the album.
Focusing on the part of the album dedicated to thedeath and commemoration of Charlotte Canning and, inparticular, on Emily Bayley’s later additions will providean illuminating contrast with Canning’s memorial tomband will highlight not only the complex relationshipbetween photography and memory, but also whether thecapacity of the photograph to act as a conduit to memorycan be enhanced by the addition of sensory objects suchas flowers or handwriting. It will be argued that thememorial album perpetuates and mythologizesCharlotte Canning’s memory in ways that both shareand depart from the language of commemoration of thetomb memorial.22
A concluding section discusses the legacy of thesememorial objects and argues that the memory ofCharlotte Canning is perpetuated today primarily throughher association with the land, predominantly the garden atBarrackpore. Though her memorials were intended to belargely private, they have been disseminated through thepress in a varietyof ways. The legacyof this is that they aremore well-known and loved today than the public statuaryof her Governor-General husband.
Charles Canning’s public monuments
Two public monuments commemorate the life andachievement of Charles Canning. Both were commissions
5. John Henry Foley, Charles Canning, 1865, Westminster Abbey.Dean and Chapter of Westminster.
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given to John Henry Foley (1818–74).23 One, an eques-trian monument, was made in London and shipped out toCalcutta in 1877 where it was placed at the south-westcorner of the grounds of Government House, overlookingthe Eden Gardens opposite a commemorative equestrianstatue of Lord Hardinge, a former Governor-General ofIndia.24 The other, a life-size standing figure, stands in thenorth transept of Westminster Abbey, London, popularlyknown as the statesmen’s aisle. Canning is one of a groupof three: his father the former Prime Minister GeorgeCanning (1770–1827) and his father’s cousin the ambas-sador Stratford Canning (1786–1880) stand alongside himon similar plinths. They are in the company of WilliamGladstone, Benjamin Disraeli, Robert Peel, and LordPalmerston, amongst many eminent others. In the ceremo-nial robes of an earl, the figure of Canning is a triumph ofunderstated classical elegance. His hands gather up thefabric of his robe, suggesting the folds of a Roman toga.Combined with the sober realism of his features and theabsence of any grand gesture or swagger, he represents anideal of masculinity appropriate to a public man of state.The inscription below reads:
In that high office, during the perilous crisis of the sepoymutiny he displayed with entire success such fortitude,judgment, and wise clemency as proved him worthy ofhis illustrious father and justly entitled him to the lastinggratitude of his country.
This glowing praise reversed earlier assessments ofhis governorship. Just a few years before, during therebellion, Canning had been deeply criticised for hispolicies and there had been strong demands for hisrecall.25 The controversy centred on the extent andkinds of punishment of the sepoy insurgents. After theinitial uprising, Canning hastily passed an act that hadmade the waging of war against the British punishable bydeath. So-called special commissions were set up by theBritish to try suspected rebels but these effectivelybecame vehicles for vengeful and indiscriminate acts ofretribution. Canning quickly passed an amendmentwhich severely restricted this power. This amendmentwas heartily resented by the British residents in Calcuttawho, panic-stricken by their sense of vulnerability,regarded it as an act of weakness on Canning’s part. Hewas heavily censured in London, too, where the pressgave him the mocking title of ‘Clemency Canning’(Figure 6). In this image, for example, in contrast to themartial masculinity of the British soldier poised on thebrink of piercing the sepoy with his bayonet, Canning inhis frock coat and Viscount’s coronet becomes emascu-lated by revealing an ‘effeminate’ compassion, his clem-ency portrayed as sentimental, foolish, and ‘feminised’,suggesting a flimsy authority. Yet five years later thisnotion of clemency on his tomb was re-written and asso-ciated with justice and moderation. Clemency was now
wise, seen as a sign of strength and evidence of a mascu-line independence and the rational presence of mindrequired of a governor to exercise his authority, his cer-emonial senator-like robes this time adding to hisgravitas.
The epitaph on his tomb functions in a three-fold way.It commemorates the loss of an individual; at the sametime it also helps to construct the national and genderidentity of that individual as it contextualizes (and thusimplicitly justifies) colonial domination through a lan-guage of ideal masculinity. Canning’s memorial signifiesthe loss of a loved one and a loss to the nation and theempire. The epitaph sets the tone for future assessmentsof his political career, where the decisions made duringthe rebellion define his character and achievements.Henry Stewart Cunningham, writing in 1891, spoke ofCanning’s ‘calm, inflexible justice’ in meeting the crisis‘in a manner of which every Englishman may beproud.’26
Charlotte Canning’s memorial tomb
In contrast to these public monuments to CharlesCanning in the city spaces of London and Calcutta, thebody of his wife was buried in the private part of thegarden of Barrackpore (Figure 7). The plot was severalhundred metres away from the house, screened from thepublic park by high trees. It was a spot Charles Canningwas sure ‘she would have chosen of all others’.27 From thegrave there was a clear view both of the walkway shecreated between the house and the river and of the terracewith its balustrades designed along the lines of her familyhome, Highcliffe Castle in Hampshire (Figure 8).
The tomb itself is a marble table form with a simplerope inlaid with coloured marbles in geometric patternsalong the edges and heraldic devices at the corners (seeFigure 4).28 The dos d’âne (donkey-back) slab on topcarries an elegant cross terminating in flowers and alow headstone from which a short celtic-style crossrises. The iconography of the tomb might best bedescribed as gothic revival.29 Angus Trumble has exam-ined in detail the similarities and differences between thefinal tomb and Yule’s design, and concludes that thesimilarities are so close that Scott must have taken intoaccount the family’s desire to pay tribute to the originalwishes of Lord Canning.30 On the front of the headstoneis an inscription written by her husband:
Honours and praises written on a tomb are at best butvain glory; but that her charity, humility, meekness, andwatchful faith in her Saviour will, for that Saviour’s sakebe accepted of God, and be to her a Glory everlasting, isthe firm trust of those who knew her best and most dearlyloved her in life, and who cherish the memory of her,departed.
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And on the back: ‘I will ransom them from the powerof the grave’, a biblical reference to Christ’s sacrifice,resurrection, and the possibility of redemption and ever-lasting life.31 Whereas Charles Canning’s epitaph con-structs a kind of ideal civic masculinity, CharlotteCanning’s draws on concepts of ideal feminine virtue,charity, humility, and Christian piety. In this, her commem-oration shares much with the many headstones of mothers,
wives, and daughters in Calcutta and other cemeteries ofBritish India. Their inscriptions collectively draw on attri-butes of ideal Victorian womanhood and fuel narratives oftragic loss, of collective female sacrifice, and of earlydeathin the harsh climate of India, a common thread in much ofthe literature on the subject.32
Not only are the language and images of Christianitycentral to building this myth of ideal womanhood, but so
6. ‘Too “Civil” by Half: The Governor-General Defending POOR Sepoy’, Punch, 7 November 1857.
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are the sacred spaces in which they are interred. To be sure,the creation of consecrated space helped the bereaved tofocus on life after death, but such spaces also served apurpose in this world as spaces of contemplation, mourn-ing, and remembrance. As well as personal and privatespaces, these sites were intimately bound up with the cul-ture and politics of imperialism; not politically neutral,they were often underpinned by strategies of exclusion.
Exclusion sustained through the construction ofsacred commemorative space had its most notoriousexpression in the Cawnpore Memorial in whichCharlotte Canning and Yule were both involved.33 TheAngel of Cawnpore, designed by Baron CarloMarochetti(1805–67), marked the site of the memorial where thebodies of European women and children slaughteredduring the uprising had been thrown into the well.34
The site, marked by an angel of the resurrection, not
only helped to sustain the myth of the inviolability ofwhite womanhood, but became a strategy for uncondi-tional exclusion. Wrought iron gates fashioned from amutineer’s cannon were kept locked and guarded by asoldier, and an octagonal gothic screen designed by Yulephysically marked the space. Indians were not allowedinto the compound until independence in 1947.
In the consecrated ground within the enclosure of thegarden at Barrackpore is an echo of the gothic screen inthe railing designed by Yule. As at Cawnpore, the railingmarks this both as a site of mourning and remembranceand as a Christian space. One aide-de-camp, laying-outLady Canning’s body, recorded:
It was a grievous duty to perform but we did not want hertouched by any of the natives. For the same reason nohearse was used, but a gun-carriage drawn by eight blackhorses was brought to carry the coffin.
7. John Edward Saché, Barrackpore Garden Terrace, albumen print, Charlotte Canning Memorial Album. British Library Board,Mss Eur D661 (70).
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The native bodyguards were halted outside the gar-den and barred from entry. Even in this private space ofthe garden, as at Cawnpore, the concept of ideal woman-hood, built on notions of sacred purity and Christianpiety, is used as a zone of exclusion to perpetuate racialboundaries through the language of Christianity.
The Indian bodyguards were not the only ones to beexcluded. It was a highly private funeral: apart frommembers of the household staff only Canning and Yulewere present. One of the attendants noted: ‘Everyone alsowished to attend the funeral, but it was especially desiredthat it should be quite private, and of course LordCanning’s wish was law.’35 Canning pointed out that ifall the people who ‘really wished to attend had beenallowed to do so, the numbers would have been far toolarge, and all quietness would have been destroyed’.36
It is impossible to know now what Canning’s motiveswere for such strict privacy. Of course, the climate in Indianecessitated a speedy burial, but the comments of theattendant above suggest that there were members of theBritish community who were aware of the death and whowished to attend the funeral but were denied the
opportunity. Rituals of death and burial can be sites oftension between the need tomourn in private and the desireof wider communities to express a shared sense of loss.Those who at other times readily embraced the notion ofpublic ceremony in order to foster a sense of national orimperial cohesiveness might find themselves strugglingbetween their sense of civic and imperial duty and theirprivate need to mourn those closest to them. When theDuke of Wellington (1769–1852), Queen Victoria’s closefriend and advisor, died in 1852, her keen sense of personalloss was bound up with an awareness that his death was ofsuch national significance that it needed the fullest stateexpression. She agreed with the Chancellor of theExchequer that there was a national need to be satisfied –‘England owes this great funeral, not so much toWellington [. . .] as to itself’37 – and ordered that thearmy should go into mourning as if for a member of theroyal family. Yet when Prince Albert (1819–61) died, inspite of her conviction of his importance as a nationalfigure, she strongly resisted pressure for a state funeral,and only a very limited number of private guests attendedthe funeral in St George’s Chapel, Windsor.38
8. Unknown photographer, Garden Terrace at Highcliffe, albumen print, Charlotte Canning Memorial Album. British Library Board,Mss Eur D661 (38b).
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Charles Canning, like Queen Victoria, fully recog-nized the importance of state ceremonial and imperialspectacle. Though aman naturally characterised by sobri-ety and restraint, he nevertheless took an active role inleading the extensive and spectacular post-rebelliontours, which were seen as a way of manifesting newcrown authority and as a necessary part of the re-establishment of political order.39 Yet, like QueenVictoria, when it came to his spouse he opted for a highlyprivate ceremony. Of course, Charlotte Canning was not apublic figure of the same national significance as PrinceAlbert, and Canning’s decision, no doubt, stemmed froma variety of motives including emotional shock, the needto carry out a swift burial of the body due to the climate,and his need to settle his affairs quickly because of hisimpending departure for England. But, as will be seenbelow, absent friends found their own ways of commem-orating her.
Though the site of Charlotte Canning’s burial is full ofpersonal association, a spot intimately associated withher feminine accomplishments, her sketching, botanicalart, and garden design, it seems that Charles Canning didhave an eye for posterity as he envisaged the site as afuture burial place for governors and their families.40
Though this never materialised, seen in the context ofthe increased visibility of the governing body in the post-rebellion period the idea of a separate site for the govern-ing elite, away from the rest of the European community,is a telling one. It offered the potential for a mediatedvisibility, a space that could be re-presented through themedium of photography or through engravings in theillustrated press, but at the same time would preservethe privacy of the site for the ruling elite.41
Relocating Charlotte Canning’s tomb
Canning’s untimely death in 1862 meant that responsi-bility for his wife’s tomb fell to his heir, Hubert George deBurgh, Viscount Burke (1832–1916). Probably becausehe was acting First Secretary at the British Embassy atTurin between 1863–64, the tomb project did not getunderway until 1864 and the completed tomb was sentto Barrackpore the following year.42 After only fouryears in situ the tomb had already begun to deterioratesignificantly, particularly the Sicilian marble inlays onthe upper table top. A temporary structure was erected toprotect it. A concerned resident from Barrackpore wroteto The Times (London) in 1869 reporting on the extent ofthe damage, suggesting that the tomb be ‘roofed overwith a suitable dome as a permanent shelter’ and thatthe estimated £900 might be raised by appealing to LordCanning’s English friends since Canning’s heir, LordBurke, had yet to respond to the appeal.43 ALieutenant-Colonel J. Gordon also offered to contribute
to any ensuing fund.44 This intervention by the Anglo-Indian community was not welcomed by the family, whothought that ‘quite unauthorized’ appeals made to thepublic via the press were inappropriate. A better courseof action, Lord Burke replied to The Times, would havebeen for Gordon to have written to him directly.45
Though Lord Burke said no more about his private inten-tions at that time, a letter written several years later byCharlotte Canning’s sister Louisa, Lady Waterford castssome light on what these may have been:
Long ago I suggested a plan to Lord Burke which he quiteapproved at the time. It was to expend his further dona-tion on a completely new tomb of the same form but ofdurable material (say polished granite or some Indianmarble impervious to weather), the elaborate ornamentscould be dispensed with (or added in bronze), but theform and size might be exactly adhered to, the alabastertomb to be removed and placed, as a memorial in thecathedral or in any other church in Calcutta. (Undercover). Lord Burke offered it to me to be put up atHighcliffe or Christ Church, but I do not think I oughtto accept it.46
Lord Burke had pledged £1000 towards the restora-tion works47 and the current viceroy, Lord Mayo, hadintended to carry out these plans, but his untimely deathprevented them from being brought to fruition.48 Itwasn’t until 1873, when Mayo’s successor, LordNorthbrook, received a further enquiry from LordGranville (1815–1891), a close friend of Canning andSecretary of State for Foreign Affairs, that the matterwas taken up again.49 Several plans for a proposed build-ing over the tomb had been drawn up. Not keen on any ofthem, Lord Northbrook sent them to Louisa Waterfordasking whether she might suggest a ‘better and moreappropriate design’.50 She also found them unsatisfac-tory because of the proposed cost, their ‘ugliness’, andthe lack of protection they afforded:51
I like none of them, and though I feel to have but little realknowledge of architecture, I should say that these designsare not very correct, but of many styles mixed, there iseven a little oriental leaven introduced, a thing Canningspecially disliked in connection with a Christian burialplace.52
Her preference was for her own original idea: a ‘simpleplan of the tomb in that beautiful spot under the trees andthe open sky’, which already had the family’s approval andwas the easiest, cheapest, and ‘most in accordance withCanning’s original intentions’.53 If this wasn’t possible thenthe best alternative would be a ‘simple, high roofed chapelof good, ecclesiastical architecture, “[e]arly English”’ overthe monument. If Northbrook intended to pursue thelatter, she suggested that he consult either the architect‘Mr Ferrey’ or George Gilbert Scott.54
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Lord Northbrook wrote back enclosing a plan of StPaul’s Cathedral in Calcutta which showed the proposedposition of the tomb, drawn to scale in the southerntransept. That part of the cathedral, he wrote, ‘teemswith memorial tablets of historical and personal interest’,including those of Lord Elgin, Bishop Heber, and BishopCotton. But he left the final decision to her: ‘Whateveryou may decide; it will be a pleasure and a duty to me tocarry out your wishes.’55 Her wishes were obeyed; theoriginal tombwas moved from the garden at Barrackporeinto the southern transept in the autumn of 1873 and afull-size copy of the original was made to mark the gravein the garden. The latter is a simple, uncovered marbletomb without intricate marble inlays. It is unclear whomade this copy.
The correspondence quoted here is valuable firstlybecause it provides clear and detailed evidence of theclose involvement of Louisa Waterford, and it revealsthat it was she who made the final decision about thestyle and siting of both the original tomb and its copy.56
Even more interesting is her alarm at the suggestedintroduction of ‘oriental leaven’ and her preference fora simple, ‘early English’ design. Her revelation thatCharles Canning particularly disliked any ‘oriental’ ele-ments in design would appear to make it highly unlikelythat the original tomb design discussed by Yule andCanning was ever intended to echo Mughal tomb archi-tecture, as subsequent writers have suggested. Wherethen did this idea come from? Lord Curzon seems to bethe first to mention it in his publication of 1925 on theviceroys of India, where he wrote of inlaid mosaic ‘in theAgra fashion’ on the tomb. Theon Wilkinson alsoreferred to its Mughal designs, probably by reference toCanning, and Angus Trumble opines that in spite of itsclear gothic and Celtic elements the idea of links toMughal tomb architecture ‘remains enticing’.57
It is not hard to imagine that the idea of Mughalprecedents would have been enticing to Lord Curzon.Curzon had shown his reverence for India’s Mughal pastby restoring many Mughal monuments and gardens,including the Taj Mahal. These were less restorations,perhaps, than re-creations, and, in the case of the TajMahal, a re-creation that fitted Curzon’s romantic andpicturesque notions of the grandeur and fallen majesty ofthe Mughal empire.58 Describing his reaction to the TajMahal, he wrote: ‘One feels the same sensation as ingazing at a beautiful woman, one who has that mixtureof loveliness and sadness which is essential to the highestbeauty.’59
Similarly, in the creation of a past for the British RajCurzon adapted Mughal cultural traditions and its lan-guage of architecture in order to visualise the imperialpolitical and military achievements of the British. Thefabric of empire was shaped by the invention of imperialtraditions that drew on the visual spectacle of Mughal
buildings and ceremonies.60 This cultural language wasalso highly gendered.61 When Curzon talks of the tombwith inlaid mosaic ‘in the Agra fashion’, this associationwith the decoration of the Taj Mahal invokes more than astylistic precedent. In stylistically linking CharlotteCanning’s tomb with that of Shah Jehan’s third wife,Mumtaz Muhal, Curzon implicitly evokes the similarnarratives of love, loss, and ideals of conjugal love of adevoted husband, however different the reality.62
Nowhere is this more apparent than in his descriptionof the funeral at Barrackpore, a highly romanticisedaccount which fuses gender, English national identity,and the Indian landscape into a narrative of loss.
In the breaking dawn [. . .] while the full moonwas setting[. . .] and the first rays of the sun struggled up the Easternsky and faintly flushed the silent stream, the body wascarried down the terrace walk [. . .] on the shoulders oftwelve English soldiers [. . .]. Lord Canning walkedimmediately after, the stricken figure of a doomed man[. . .] there the body of this beautiful and ill-fated womanwas laid to rest [. . .]. The afflicted husband [. . .] lockedhimself indoors [. . .]. Every morning at dawn and in thedarkness of night he would be at the graveside, where alight was kept burning [. . .] by the side of the mightyGanges in a distant land, far removed from her husbandand her people, Charlotte Canning sleeps her last sleep.63
Yet to give full emotional weight to this narrative oftragic loss and the silent suffering of imperial men, hedraws heavily on the visual language of the picturesquelandscape. And ultimately, as will be shown, it is in asense of place rather than in the language of the tombmonument that collective memory is located. In 1913Charlotte Canning’s tomb was moved again, from thecathedral to the north portico outside St John’s Church,where it stands today.64 The site is open to the public andanyone can wander into the churchyard to see the originalmarble tomb of Lady Canning, with its fine jewel-likeinlays of marble and detailed decoration. Yet, as a site ofmemory for the woman it memorializes, it receives scantattention. Rather, it is the images of the garden landscapeat Barrackpore where the body is interred and marked bythe replica tomb rather than the delicate and intricatelanguage of inlaid marble on Scott’s original tomb thatcontinue to carry the weight of collective memory andcolonial nostalgia.
The afterlives of the tomb monuments
There is little doubt that Charlotte Canning’s death had aprofound impact. At the time, her death was said to have‘cast a gloom over Calcutta’,65 with a deeper and moregeneral mourning, another observer remarked, than hehad ever seen in Europe.66 In England her death waswidely reported and, in the post-rebellion mood of
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moral indignation, it fuelled myths of fragile and tragicwomanhood paying the price of empire and stirring mento manly acts of derring-do.67 This strength of feeling,Angus Trumble argues, helped to construct CharlotteCanning as ‘a strong and enduring symbol of femininevirtue that spread to all corners of the empire’.68
The 1863 battle over copyright of the ownership oftwo portraits of Lord and Lady Canning taken by JosiahRowe but pirated in London by Henry Hering (photogra-pher to Queen Victoria) is testimony to the desirability ofthe Cannings’ image, at a time when the rapid growth ofcommercial photography and the popularity of carte-de-visite images of the ‘great and the good’ coincided withthe heightened interest in India that occurred after theuprising.69 At this stage Scott’s tomb commission had notyet been executed and there were few visual images ofthe burial site in the public domain, which must havemade these portraits even more desirable.
The first photographs of the grave site at Barrackporeto circulate in the public domain were by John EdwardSaché (1840–82), taken in 1865 (Figures 3 and 7). Someof these are preserved in the memorial album discussedbelow. In 1867 the photographer Samuel Bourne alsovisited. Barrackpore was already well-known in the cul-tural imagination as a picturesque spot laid out in themanner of an English country estate, as LouisaWaterfordimplied when she wrote to Lord Northbrook of the apt-ness of its open skies and trees as a site to lay to rest hersister’s body. Commercially astute, Bourne tapped intothe demand by Anglo-Indians and Britons for imageswhich combined historical interest with picturesquebeauty. His highly successful fusion between the idealand the real satisfied a demand for veracity and aestheticpleasure. His photographs of Barrackpore are steeped inthe language of the feminine picturesque, but they alsoevoke amood of serenity, quiet contemplation, and loss.70
Although he did not photograph Charlotte Canning’srecently installed tomb, he may well have had her inmind.71 He would certainly have been aware of the wide-spread interest which her death had generated and hencethe likely demand for these picturesque images.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, biogra-phies by Augustus Hare and Henry Stewart Cunninghamand the two-volume British Government of India by LordCurzon continued to romanticize her memory, represent-ing her ideal womanhood and the bonds of conjugal love,and dwelling on her tragic death and burial.72 Engravingsof her tomb at Barrackpore made from Saché’s albumenprints were reproduced in two of these publications andshow the site of burial, with a particular emphasis on thelanguage of the romantic and picturesque.
In the 1970s and 1980s, as attention turned to exca-vating the lives of women buried in grand historicalnarratives in the wake of second wave feminism, arenewed interest in the life of Charlotte Canning
emerged. The emphasis in biographies by VirginaSurtees, Charles Allen, Delia Millar, Pat Barr, andMarian Fowler was on Charlotte Canning’s roles as pain-ter, botanist, friend of Ruskin, lady-in-waiting, and latercorrespondent of Queen Victoria; her acts of charity andphilanthropy; as well as her social and ceremonial role asthe Vicereine. Rarely, though, is an imaginative recrea-tion of a picturesque burial site at Barrackpore omitted,often ending the narrative on a wistful note. A BBCprogramme entitled Watercolours, presented by SheilaHancock on the art of Charlotte Canning, was the mostrecent example of this, ending with a melancholy wan-dering about the faded elegance of the garden atBarrackpore. There was no mention of the originaltomb at St John’s Church.73
The Lady Canning Memorial Album
The Oriental and India Office Collections of the BritishLibrary not only hold the official archives of the IndiaOffice records, but also rich and varied collections ofprivate papers that relate to the British experience inIndia. Amongst these is a large, green leather-boundalbum dedicated to Charlotte Canning. In 1964 FélicitéFrances Hardcastle, a school teacher and local historianfrom Burley, a village close to Highcliffe in Hampshire,presented theMemorial Album to the British Library, butit is not known how it came into her hands in the firstplace.74 The album contains over eighty photographs aswell as letters and other ephemera.75 The initials CC anda crown in gilt adorn the front cover. An opening dedica-tion reads:
This book is dedicated to the cherished memory of mydearly beloved friend Charlotte Elizabeth CountessCanning who died at Calcutta Monday morning Nov18th 1861, from an attack of malarial fever caught inthe jungles below Darjeeling where she lingered on herjourney (returning to Calcutta) in order to paint someflowers and orchids. She arrived in Calcutta only 10 daysbefore her death.
Album-making had been popular since the late cen-tury, when amateur artistic pursuits, based in a culture ofdomesticity, emerged as one of the defining features ofgenteel femininity. Originally a space for all kinds ofobjects and images, poems, pictures, and material objectssuch as locks of hair, contributions were often made byloved ones as well as the creator and these albums wereusually viewed with family and friends. Thus, both in themaking and in the viewing, albums helped to cementsocial and familial bonds. In the early part of the centuryalbums had no overall organizing structure, but con-tained objects, images, and ephemera that marked sig-nificant moments in a life rather than attempting todocument the life itself. However, from the mid-
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nineteenth century albums underwent a gradual transfor-mation from commemorating significant moments withrandom personal objects to an emphasis on the documen-tation of lives, scenes, and events. By the 1860s the albumhad developed into a structured visual document orga-nized into sections.76 Chronologically the CharlotteCanning memorial album falls into the later period, butsignificantly it shares features of both the earlier and thelater forms of album. It is temporally structured intothree sections. The first concerns her lineage and herfamily connections, and her family home in England.There are formal family trees of husband and wife,reproductions of portraits in pastels and portrait busts,and photographs of the family home and garden inHampshire. The central section concentrates on docu-menting aspects of Charlotte Canning’s life in India, theviceregal tours and camps, social scenes in and aroundgovernors’ residences in Calcutta, Barrackpore, Simla,and Allahabad, and groups of friends, their offspring,and the aides-de-camp.77 The last section is commem-orative, recording her death and burial and acts of com-memoration, and is the primary focus here. There arephotographs of the tomb at various stages, from the brickvault strewn with flowers (Figure 3), the later temporarycanopy, and finally Scott’s tomb monument in situ beforeits removal to St Paul’s Cathedral.78 On another largesheet of paper are dried flowers, the flowers allegedlystrewn daily around the grave until the tomb arrived fromEngland (Figure 9).
It has been argued that memorial albums can beviewed as part of ‘a discourse of absence’ where the deadre-emerge, through portrait photographs, as a ‘form ofpresence’. The album can therefore act as form of protec-tion, a coping tool to deal with both geographical separa-tion and permanent separation through death.79 The powerof the photograph itself, as a physical trace of the subject’spresence, ‘literally an emanation of the referent’, is com-pelling.’80 This is what gives the photograph its affectivepower, its essence, what Barthes calls its noeme.Aswell asbeing valuable as a visual document, the photograph alsotherefore has an emotional value as a fetish that stands infor the deceased person and functions paradoxically asboth a representation of the absent body and protectionagainst the loss of that body.81
The link between the informational and emotionalfunction of the photograph, however, is a tense and com-plex one. Photographs are not simply conduits of mem-ory. Whilst a photograph might help the viewer to recallthe person who has been lost, it can also inhibit theinvoluntary and physically immediate aspects of mem-ory and replace themwith the ordered historical informa-tion contained in the image itself. The photograph thusconsidered becomes itself a counter-memory whichoverlays, or even erases, the more immediate intuitivememory.82
Geoffrey Batchen has suggested that in order for theviewer to experience the full emotional power of immedi-ate memory, the photographic imagemust be transformed,so that the subject of the image is not just seen but actuallyfelt: ‘something must be done to pull it (and us) out of thepast and into the present’.83 The addition of writing, flow-ers, and ephemera, he has argued, draws attention not onlyto the physical presence of the photograph but also to thecapacity of the photograph to conjure personal memory.Such practices enhance the memory capacities of thephotographic image.84
These insights can be usefully considered in relationto the section in the album on Charlotte Canning’s death.The amount of writing and additional information andthe insertion of flowers and sketches into the albumsuggest that for Emily Bayley, who made these lateradditions, the photographic image on its own was notenough. The photograph of the grave with a temporarybrick covering was taken shortly after the funeral. In herown hand, Lady Bayley writes around the borders of thephotograph: ‘the grave remained in this state, covereddaily with beautiful flowers till the sizeable tomb arrivedfrom England’, and ‘the ground was consecrated byBishop Cotton in 1862.’85
9. Dried Flowers from the Grave Pressed into the Album,Charlotte Canning Memorial Album. British Library Board,Mss Eur D661 (89).
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At one level this writing simply supplements thedocumentary power of the image. The identification ofpeople, places, and events within the photographs helpthe viewer to locate them historically and temporally. Butthe addition of handwriting also personalizes the image,not only drawing attention to the voice of the writer butalso adding sound to the senses of touch and sight.Through the addition of text, Emily Bayley is insertingherself into this history, claiming her links to CharlotteCanning and to their former life in India, and she speaksof a fear of being forgotten. She is not just rememberingCharlotte Canning, but also asking to be rememberedherself. Loss and the act of mourning are made into avisible and tactile form for posterity. For a friend deniedthe opportunity to attend the funeral, the photograph ofher grave strewn with flowers, with its indexical link tothe site of burial, must have provided a poignant connec-tion with Charlotte Canning’s death. Emily Bayley maynot have been there, but this image could help her ima-gine the moment and, in supplementing the image withher own handwriting, she makes a claim to being a part ofthe rite of mourning. On another page dried flowers arecarefully pressed (Figure 9). These are some of the flow-ers that were laid daily, in the form of a cross, until thetomb arrived from England.86 Like the flowers in thephotograph, the dried sample recalls the scene of burial,but also adds a tactile and sensory experience. Flowersare a poignant reminder of the process of death and dyingbecause, like memories, flowers fade in time, becomingpale shadows of their former selves, a powerful reminderof what once was and is no longer. They are also areminder of Charlotte Canning’s own love of flowers,her love of gardening, and her botanical art. The craftingof such an album, the pressing of the flowers, and theannotating of the photographs are all part of the processof mourning which helps to heal the bereft as well as tomemorialize both the author and the subject.
As well as its healing function, the album provides arecord of people and events missing from other accounts.Because of the speed with which Charlotte Canning wasburied, women, including Emily Bayley, who saw them-selves as friends of Charlotte Canning were denied theopportunity of attending the funeral. Emily Bayleyrecords in the album the desire to pay tribute toCharlotte Canning’s memory by establishing the LadyCanning Memorial Fund. The fund emerged from:
feelings of sorrow [. . .] whichmight appropriately expressnot only the regret of her country women, but also theaffectionate admiration in which her many noble qualitiesand Christian virtues are held by all classes in India.87
This fund would be devoted to ‘such objects of charityas she in her lifetime proposed’, and was intended toprovide accommodation and training for Europeannurses in Calcutta. In spite of the recognition that ‘all
classes’ in India mourned her, there was a consciousdecision not to open the fund to general subscription orto publicise it through any circular. Although it was‘wished to make the tribute as universal as possible’, itwas also important for the organisers of the fund that itshould be seen as a spontaneous gesture of ‘womanlycharity’ by a group of women united by their affectionfor Charlotte Canning, whom, as Lady Bayley recorded,‘we loved and mourn’. The act of setting up the fund wasthus both a performance of loss and an active expressionof that loss in a useful and highly visible form. Recordingthis act of a self-selecting group of elite colonial womenwithin the pages of the memorial album makes this moretangible still, and inscribes their close friendship forposterity.
Like the tomb monument, the album also perpetuatesan idealised notion of imperial womanhood. A dedicationinside the album reads: ‘A perfect woman, nobly planned,to guide, to comfort and command’ – a sentiment whichis largely indistinguishable from that on Canning’s tomb.Here, as elsewhere, the language of ideal femininity andChristian goodness plays a major part in sanctifying hermemory. But here too, this ‘spontaneous offering [. . .]made in the spirit of unobtrusive and womanly charity’was grounded in a culture of exclusion.88 Nursing train-ing was the almost exclusive preserve of Europeans andAnglo-Indians until the end of the century.89
Conclusion
In the past decade Romita Ray, Indhira Ghose, TracyAnderson, and Gary D. Sampson have opened up newquestions about the relationship between gender andlandscape through the scrutiny of Charlotte Canning’sart.90 Less concerned with the recovery of history andissues of artistic merit, these authors have sought indifferent ways to interrogate how women both contribu-ted to and resisted dominant forms of colonial knowl-edge.91 This essay has interrogated how gender andlandscape are also interwoven with narratives of deathand remembrance, asking how, if at all, the memory ofCharlotte Canning still figures in the national conscious-ness through the two objects considered here.
Pierre Nora has argued that, in the national context,living social memories can become, over time, externa-lized through objects, places, and concepts into ‘lieux dememoire’, or sites of memory.92 Sites here are places,objects, or concepts where both ‘objective’ history andsubjective memory converge and conflict to define rela-tionships between past, present, and future and to fabri-cate myths through which national identities cancohere.93
Analysis of the memorials in this paper has shownthat the site of memory resides both in the objects
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themselves and also as a physical site, the garden atBarrackpore. Though both the original tomb and thememorial album have an affective power, it has beenthe picturesque burial ground that has been the primarysite of memory in narratives of loss. These narrativeshave been told, overwhelmingly, through the printedword and image, at first through the press, then throughphotographs and engravings, written biographies, colo-nial histories, and – more recently – television pro-grammes. These accounts are steeped in the language ofthe picturesque and are a heady mixture of nostalgia,longing, and melancholy, where beauty is found in theruins and decay that evoke the sadness of a lost past.While this is true of most picturesque sites, the coloniallandscape as a site of longing and nostalgia is an uneasyone. The aim of this paper has been to think about howthe individual and collective memory are bound up withobjects and places. What is abundantly clear is that thepolitics of commemoration of women is not neutral, butsubtly embedded in the politics of empire in ways that are
different from their male counterparts, but no less com-pelling or enduring for that.
In spite of Charles Canning’s hope that the enclosureat Barrackpore would serve as a burial place for futuregovernors, only one other monument that ever found itsway there was of Canning (Figure 10) himself. Thisequestrian statue by Foley and Brock, until 1969, over-looked Eden Gardens in central Calcutta (Figure 10).This spot now occupied by a statue of DeshabanduChittaranjan Das.94 Its replacement was part of the sys-tematic removal of all but a handful of colonial statuesfrom the city centre to Barrackpore.95 While most of themonuments were placed close to the Temple of Famebuilt by Lord Minto to commemorate men who fell onthe Java and Mauritius campaigns, Canning was singledout to join his wife, several hundred yards away. Whoexactly thought it fitting that the Cannings should bereunited in death is unknown, but it is nevertheless anirony that themyth of conjugal love and ideal domesticityso deeply embedded in the culture of colonial India
10. Charlotte Canning and Charles Canning in the Former Governor-General’s Garden at Barrackpore, now Police Grounds. Author’sphotograph.
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should be perpetuated in postcolonial India by a nation-alist government.
The monuments make for an uneasy coupling; theyare not just stylistically different, but were intended tofunction differently and address different audiences. Butwhereas the public and political men of the British Raj,such as Charles Canning, have literally and metaphori-cally been taken off their pedestals and have largelyfaded from national memory and consciousness,Charlotte Canning refuses to be effaced.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My warm thanks to Deborah Cherry for inviting me tocontribute this article and to the readers and editors fortheir comments and suggestions. It is a pleasure to thankthose who have helped me, especially Tapati Guha-Thakurta for her invaluable help and guidance duringmy research trip to Kolkata and Barrackpore, MoumitaSen and Richard Barnes in Kolkata, and the staff atFlagstaff House, Barrackpore for their expert guidance.I am also grateful to the staff at the British Library fortheir assistance and for permissions to reproduce images.
NOTES
1. For biographical accounts of the life of CharlotteCanning see V. Surtees, Charlotte Canning: Lady-in-Waiting to Queen Victoria and Wife of the FirstViceroy of India 1817–1861 (London: John Murray,1975); A. Hare, The Story of Two Noble Lives, beingMemorials of Charlotte, Countess Canning, andLouisa, Marchioness of Waterford, 3 vols (London:George Allen, 1893); C. Allen, A Glimpse of theBurning Plain: Leaves from the Indian Journal ofCharlotte Canning (London: Michael Joseph,1986); M. Fowler, Below the Peacock Fan: FirstLadies of the Raj (Harmondsworth: Penguin,1987), pp. 93–164; P. Barr, The Memsahibs: TheWomen of Victorian India (London: Secker &Warburg, 1976), pp. 174–75.
2. S.Wolpert, ‘Crown Rule –ANewOrder’, in A NewHistory of India (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1997), pp. 239–49; T. Metcalf, Forging the Raj:Essays on British India in the Heydey of Empire(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
3. B. S. Cohn, ‘Representing Authority in VictorianIndia’, in The Invention of Tradition, ed. byE. Hobsbawn and T. Ranger (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 165–210.
4. D. Cannadine, Ornamentalism: How the British SawTheir Empire (London: Penguin, 2001).
5. P. Mowbray, Florence Nightingale and the Viceroys(London: Haus Publishing, 2008), pp. 11–24.
6. Charlotte Canning’s drawings and watercolourspassed to Lord Canning’s nephew, Lord Hubert deBurgh, after Charles Canning’s death. He left themto his distant relative the 6th Earl of Harewood, whohad all the paintings and drawings bound into eightlarge, handsome green leather albums where theyremain. These are located at Harewood House,Yorkshire. There are also two albums of loose draw-ings and watercolours. The Lady Bettine AbingdonCollection. Bequeathed by Mrs T. R. P. Hole.Victoria & Albert Museum, V&A: E 1266–1887.
7. The fifty letters Queen Victoria received fromCharlotte Canning were bound into a special folio.These are in the Royal Archive,Windsor, RAZ 502.The twenty-four letters from Queen Victoria toCharlotte Canning form part of the Canning papers,which are deposited in the archive at the WestYorkshire District Archive, Sheepscar, Leeds.
8. A. L. Stoler, ‘Bourgeois Bodies and Racial Selves’,in Cultures of Empire: Colonizers in Britain and theEmpire in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,ed. by Catherine Hall (Manchester: ManchesterUniversity Press, 2007), pp. 87–119.
9. P. Levine, ‘Introduction: Why Gender andEmpire?’, in Gender and Empire, ed. by P. Levine,Oxford History of the British Empire CompanionSeries: Gender and Empire (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 2004), pp. 1–13.
10. E. Buettner, ‘Cemeteries, Public Memory, and RajNostalgia in Postcolonial Britain and India’,History& Memory, 18.1 (2006), 5–42.
11. T. R. Metcalf, Ideologies of the Raj, The NewCambridge History of India, III.4 (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1995).
12. George Gilbert Scott was a prolific architect whodesigned over 800 buildings in England, includingthe Albert Memorial, the Foreign Office,Edinburgh Cathedral, and the University ofGlasgow. He worked on buildings all over theempire, including the University of Bombay,although apart from a small fountain in BombayCharlotte Canning’s monument is the only otherknown work in India. The Victorian, 37 (July2011), 10–13; J. Morris, Stones of Empire: TheBuildings of the Raj (Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 1983), pp. 105–07; T. Metcalf, An ImperialVision: Indian Architecture and Britain’s Raj (NewDelhi: Oxford University Press, 2002). A bronzebust of Charlotte Canning by J. B. Philip, madearound 1864, is in the Victoria Memorial,Calcutta. Its provenance is unknown. Birnie Philipalso executed the memorial to Lord Elgin in StPaul’s Cathedral. For more information see BritishSculpture in India, ed. by M. A. Steggles andR. Barnes (Norfolk: Frontier Publishing, 2011);
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M. A. Steggles, Statues of the Raj (London: BritishAssocation for Cemeteries in South Asia, 2000);Barbara Groseclose, British Sculpture and theCompany Raj (London: Associated UniversityPress, 1995).
13. The city of Calcutta changed its name to Kolkata in2001. In this essay Kolkata is used when referringto the period from 2001 and Calcutta is used in thenineteenth-century context.
14. E. W. Herbert, ‘The Gardens of Barrackpore’,Studies in the History of Gardens and DesignedLandscapes, 27.1 (2007), 31–60.
15. For a detailed account of the history of Barrackporeand reactions to it see G. N. Curzon, BritishGovernment in India: The Story of the Viceroys andGovernment Houses, 2 vols (London: Cassell, 1925).
16. Hare, I,168; A. Trumble, ‘Gilbert Scott’s “Bold andBeautiful Experiment”, Part II: The Tomb ofCharlotte, Lady Canning’, Burlington Magazine,142.1162 (January 2000), 20–28.
17. Ibid., p. 23.18. Scott and Birnie Philip had also designed the
Memorial Fountain at Ford. Letter from LadyWaterford to Mrs Bernal Osborne, Ford Cottage,22 September 1864 in Hare, I, 253; Letter fromLady Waterford to Mrs Bernal Osborne, FordCottage, 9 November 1864 in Hare, III, 254.
19. ‘From Our Own Correspondent’, The Times, 18March 1873, p. 7.
20. The entry in the British Library online cataloguementions that the compiler might have been one ofher aides-de-camp but does not name anyone.Stanley arrived in Calcutta in January 1858, havingbeen invalided out from the Crimea. In spring 1858he accompanied Charlotte Canning to the Nilgirihills and was with her in Allahabad from Augustuntil December 1858 and after that on the first ofthe viceregal tours. He is a named photographer ofsome of the images in the Lord and Lady CanningFamily Album, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NewYork. He remained in India until shortly before hertrip to Darjeeling. Their affection for one another isclear from the letters that they wrote separately tohis mother. Charlotte Canning saw herself as some-thing of a grandmother to Stanley, who, for his part,frequently comments on his affection for LadyCanning. Lord and Lady Canning MemorialAlbum, Metropolitan Museum of Art,2005.100.491.1; The Stanleys of Alderney: TheirLetters between the Years 1851 and 1865, ed. byN. Mitford (London: Chapman and Hall, 1939),letter 315, p. 204, letter 513, p. 330; Surtees, p.253; Letter 19 January 1858 in Hare, II, 412.
21. Emily Bayley was the eldest daughter of ThomasMetcalfe (1795–1853), who built Metcalfe house in
Delhi, and the wife of Edward Clive Bayley (1821–84), a colonial administrator. See E. Bayley andT. Metcalfe, The Golden Calm: An English Lady’sLife in Moghul Delhi: Reminiscences by Emily, LadyClive Bayley, and by her Father Sir ThomasMetcalfe,ed. by M. M. Kaye (Exeter: Webb & Bower, 1980).
22. The term was understood to mean someone ofEnglish origin who lived in India rather than thelater usage, which referred to a person born of oneEnglish and one Indian parent.
23. Permission for Charles Canning’s memorial statueto be placed alongside that of his father was grantedin 1865. ‘The Canning Testimonial’, Letters to theEditor, The Times, 3 June 1865. A memorial monu-ment to Stratford Canning (1786–1880), GeorgeCanning’s cousin, joined the group in 1880.
24. An albumen print of this statue in Trafalgar Squareprior to its departure for India is in the BritishLibrary, Mss Eur G91/(175c).
25. M. Maclagan, Clemency Canning (London:MacMillain, 1962); T. Metcalf, The Aftermath ofRevolt in India, 1857–80 (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1964); H. S. Cunningham, EarlCanning: Rulers of India (Oxford: ClarendonPress, 1891), pp.144–65.
26. Ibid., p.13.27. Earl Canning to his sister the marchioness of
Clanricarde, 19 November 1861 in Hare, III, 167.28. There is some confusion here about the material of
the original tomb monument. Though the replicamade in the 1870s is certainly from marble, LouisaWaterford asserted that the tomb was made of ala-baster with inlays in Sicilian marble. Later sourcestend to assume that both were made of marble,though the rapid rate of deterioration of the originaltombwould suggest that LouisaWaterfordmight becorrect. Certainly, the speed and extent of its dete-rioration make this highly plausible, and the com-paratively fine condition of the marble replicawhich replaced it would suggest that this may wellbe the case. Letter from Lady Waterford to LordNorthbrook, 14 March 1873, British Library (BL),Oriental and India Office Collections (OIOC), MssEur C144 21/1.
29. A detailed analysis of the iconography and com-missioning of this tomb by Angus Trumble consid-ers it primarily, though not exclusively, through thecontext of the debates around style that informedmuch of Scott’s practice during this decade. Bycontrast, this study focuses on the legacy of thetomb monument through its subsequent afterlives.See Trumble, pp. 20–28.
30. For a more detailed consideration of this see ibid.,p. 24.
31. Hosea 13.14.
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32. T. Wilkinson, Two Monsoons: The Life and Death ofEuropeans in India (London: Duckworth, 1987). Itmight seem surprising that there is no sculpturalimage of Charlotte Canning on the tomb. Though theheraldic devices signify her dynastic lineage and theinscription refers to her ideal femininity andChristian piety, the emotive response to seeing thetomb is less immediate and powerful than it arguablywould have been had it included a sculpted figure,particularly as the sculpted figure was the form ofchoice for high Anglicans during this period, espe-cially ecclesiastical figures. See, for example, therecommendations made by J. H. Markland, Remarkson English Churches, and on the Expediency ofRendering Sepulchral Memorials Subservient toPious and Christian Uses (Oxford: John HenryParker, 1842). Yet this was predominantly intendedas a private monument, and would not be seen byCanning’s surviving family in England but only thosevisiting Barrackpore periodically, that is, future gov-ernors and their families. Practical considerationssuch as the climate may also have influenced thedecision not to have an effigy.
33. S. Heathorn, ‘Angel of Empire: The CawnporeMemorial Well as a British Site of ImperialRememberance’, Journal of Colonialism andColonial History, 8.3 (2008).
34. For a consideration of strategies of representationof this event see A. Blunt, ‘EmbodyingWar: BritishWomen and Domestic Defilement in the IndianMutiny, 1857–8’, Journal of Historical Geography,26.3 (2000), 403–28.
35. From one of Lord Canning’s aides-de-camp. Hare,III, 169.
36. Earl Canning to (his sister) the marchioness ofClanricarde, 19 November 1861 in ibid., III, 169.
37. Quoted in J. Morley, Death, Heaven and theVictorians (London: Studio Vista, 1971), p. 80.
38. Letters of Queen Victoria: A Selection of HerMajesty’s Correspondence between the Years 1837and 1861, ed. by G. E. Buckle, 3 vols (London: JohnMurray, 1930), II.ii, 401 (‘Queen Victoria to theKing of the Belgians, 23 November 1852’);J. S. Curl, The Victorian Celebration of Death(Stroud: Sutton, 2001), pp. 210–18, 227–44.
39. F. Roberts, Forty-One Years in India (London:Macmillan, 1908), p. 254.
40. Earl Canning to the marchioness of Clanricarde,19November 1861 in Hare, III, 168–69. In a letter tohis sister, he records this as 70 x 30 yards.
41. Queen Victoria adopted a similar strategy. Thoughin the years after Prince Albert’s death she shiedaway from public appearances, there are neverthe-less many photographs of her in deepest, reclusivemourning and the wide dissemination of the
‘invisible’ widow through the visual image isparadoxical.
42. Trumble, p. 22.43. Letters to the Editor, The Times, 23 February 1869,
p. 10; Issue 26368; col. D.44. Letters to the Editor, The Times, 29 March 1869, p.
9; Issue 26397; col. B.45. Letters to the Editor, The Times, 27 February 1869,
p. 8; Issue 26372; col. C; Letters to the Editor, TheTimes, 30 March 1869, p. 5; Issue 26398; col. F.
46. Letter from Lady Waterford to Lord Northbrook,Mss Eur C144 21/1.
47. Letter from Lord Northbrook to Lord Granville, 24March 1873, BL, OIOC, Mss Eur C144 21/1.
48. Letter from Lord Granville to Lord Northbrook, 23February 1873, BL, OIOC, Mss Eur C144 21/1.
49. Ibid.50. I have not been able to trace this letter. However,
Lady Waterford makes reference to it (and LordNorthbrook’s request to know her opinions) in herwritten reply and informs him that she is sendingthe plans back to the India Office. Lady Waterfordto Lord Northbrook, Mss Eur C144 21/1. LordNorthbrook also mentions it in his correspondenceto Lord Granville on the matter. Letter from LordGranville to Lord Northbrook, Mss Eur C144 21/1.
51. The current whereabouts of the plans and sketchesof the proposed designs are unknown. In a letterNorthbrook records sending them to LadyWaterford. Letter from Lord Northbrook to LordGranville, Mss Eur C144 21/1. Louisa, LadyWaterford also stated her intention to return themto the India Office. Letter from Lady Waterford toLord Northbrook, Mss Eur C144 21/1. Whether thedesigns ever reached the India Office is unclear butthey are not currently listed in the Prints andDrawings Collection of the India Office.
52. Ibid.53. Ibid.54. This is almost certainly Benjamin Ferrey (1810–
80), an architect born in Christchurch, Hampshireand who studied under Augustus Charles Pugin.Ferrey worked mostly in the Gothic Revival Style.During 1873, when Lord Northbrook and LadyWaterford were corresponding, Ferrey was restor-ing two parish churches in Hampshire, close to thefamily home, Highcliffe Castle, and he was alsoinvolved in the extension of the parish church ofSt Mark’s, Highcliffe, built by Lady Canning andLady Waterford’s father, Lord Stuart de Rothesay.
55. Letter from Lord Northbrook to Lady Waterford,Umballa, 16 April 1873, BL, OIOC, Mss Eur C14421/1.
56. Trumble, pp. 20–28; ‘Lady Canning’s MemorialAlbum’, London, BL, OIOC, Mss Eur D.661, p. 88.
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57. Curzon, II, 39; Wilkinson, p. 23; Trumble, p. 25.58. Metcalf, An Imperial Vision, pp. 55–104.59. K. Rose, Superior Person (London: Weidenfeld &
Nicholson, 1969), p. 201.60. B. Cohn, ‘Representing Authority in Victorian
India’, in The Invention of Tradition, pp. 165–209.61. T. Metcalf, ‘Monuments and Memorials: Lord
Curzon’s Creation of a Past for the Raj’, inMetcalf, Forging the Raj, pp. 152–68.
62. For an alternative account of Charles Canning seeFowler, pp. 102–03.
63. Curzon, II, 38–39.64. This was because the southern transept of the cathe-
dral was to be used as a chapel and the tomb took uptoo much space. Ibid., II, 39.
65. Mrs Cox to Mrs Stuart, Plassy Gate, November1861 in Hare, III, 163.
66. Sir Bartle Frere to the marchioness of Clanricarde,Calcutta, 9 December 1861 in Hare, III, 184.
67. See for example The Lady’s Newspaper, London,783, 28 December 1861, p. 41.
68. Trumble, p. 20.69. C. Pinney, The Coming of Photography in India
(London: British Library, 2008), pp. 54–55.70. Published by Bourne and Shepherd as Photographic
Views in India (Simla and Calcutta: [n.p.], 1870).71. This suggestion is made by G. D. Sampson,
‘Unmasking the Colonial Picturesque: SamuelBourne’s Photographs of Barrackpore Park’, inColonialist Photography: Imag(in)ing Race andPlace, ed. by E. M. Hight and G. D. Sampson(London and New York: Routledge, 2002), pp. 84–106 (p. 98).
72. Curzon, II, 227. Although not published until 1925,Curzon himself was viceroy of India from 1898 to1905.
73. ‘Watercolours’, Broadcast, BBC1, 20 February2011, 20.00.
74. The album was presented to the British Library byMiss Félicité Harcastle, Burley, Ringwood, Hants,7May 1964, BL, OIOC, Mss Eur D661.
75. The album measures 25.5 x 34.5 cm.76. G. Sieberling, Amateurs, Photography and the Mid-
Victorian Imagination (Chicago and London:University of Chicago Press, 1986); L. Smith, ThePolitics of Focus: Women, Children and Nineteenth-Century Photography (Manchester: ManchesterUniversity Press), p. 68.
77. BL, OIOC, Mss Eur D661, 8b. A note fromCharlotte Canning pasted into the album reads:‘Here are a few photographs you might like to add
to your collection. I am afraid some of them arefading. CC They are all by Os Mallitte and others incamp.’
78. These silver albumen photographs are by JohnEdward Saché (1840–82).
79. Smith, p. 69.80. R. Barthes, Camera Lucida (London: Vintage,
2000), pp. 80–81.81. C.Metz, ‘Photography and Fetish’,October, 34 (Fall
1985), 81–90.82. Barthes, p. 91.83. G. Batchen, Forget-Me-Not: Photography and
Remembrance (New York: Princeton ArchitecturalPress, 2004), p. 94.
84. Ibid., pp. 96–97.85. BL, OIOC, MSS Eur D661, p. 82.86. Lady Frere, 22 January 1862 in Hare, III, p. 186.87. BL, OIOC, MSS Eur D661, p. 94.88. Ibid., p. 94.89. A. Wilkinson, A Brief History of Nursing in India
and Pakistan (Delhi: Trained Nurses’ Associationof India, 1958); The Queen’s Daughters: AnAnthology of Feminist Writings on India 1857–1900, ed. by P. Tuson (Reading: Ithaca Press,1995).
90. R. Roy, ‘“ADream of Beauty”: Inscribing the EnglishGarden in Victorian India’, in Intrepid Women:Victorian Artists Travel, ed. by J. Pomeroy(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), pp. 51–56; I. Ghose,Women Travellers in Colonial India: The Power ofthe Female Gaze (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1998); T. Anderson, The Crown and the Jewel: Imagesof Royalty and Viceroyalty in the Making of ImperialIndia and Britain (unpublished doctoral thesis,University of Sussex, 2006); Sampson, pp. 84–106.
91. N. Chaudhuri and M. Strobel, Western Women andImperialism: Complicity and Resistance (Indiana:Indiana University Press, 1992).
92. P. Nora, ‘Between Memory and History: Les lieuxde mémoire’, trans. by M. Rondebush,Representations, 26 (Spring 1989), 7–25.
93. N. Z. Davis and R. Starn, ‘Introduction’,Representations, 26 (1989), 1–6.
94. For a consideration of the tensions around thevisual language of colonial and postcolonial sculp-ture see T. Guha-Thakurta, ‘AView from Calcutta:The Nation’s Colonial and Postcolonial Sculpture’,in British Sculpture in India, pp. 79–86.
95. John Bacon’s Lord Cornwallis, RichardWestmacott’s Lord Bentinck and Warren Hastingsand John Foley’s equestrian statue of James Outramare examples of these.
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