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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 November 2011
The East India Company began to establish lending libraries for soldiers at its stations in India from about 1891 and, by the early 1830s, the majority of those responsible for the day-to-day operation of these institutions were keen to stress their beneficial effect upon the readers who frequented them. In a series of reports that were written at this time station chaplains and commanding officers emphasised that reading was having a positive effect upon the men's behaviour. What also emerges from these reports is evidence of a contemporary belief that the ‘setting’ in which reading took place determined the degree to which the activity was beneficial.
1 Probably the earliest list of books in relation to the libraries dates from 1819. See Military letter to Bengal [extract], 22 August 1821, containing extract from letter of 24 December 1819 entitled “List of Books sent to Bengal”, IOR/L/MIL/5/384, Collection 85A, f. 277. Dora Lockyer produced ground-breaking work in the late 1970s on the East India Company's involvement with libraries, while historians Linda Colley and Peter Stanley have more recently commented upon the reading of soldiers: see Dora Lockyer, “The Provision of Books and Libraries by the East India Company in India, 1611–1858” (thesis submitted for Fellowship of the Library Association, 1977); Colley, Linda, Captives: Britain, Empire and the World 1600–1850 (New York, 2002), p. 345Google Scholar; Stanley, Peter, White Mutiny: British Military Culture in India, 1825–1875 (London, 1998), especially pp. 36–63Google Scholar. For my analysis of the early history of the libraries, particularly in relation to their contents, see ‘Imperial Reading?: the East India Company's Lending Libraries for Soldiers, c. 1819–1834’ in Book History 12 (2009), pp. 74–99.
2 “Report upon the Soldiers Libraries, and recommendation that they should be formed into Regimental, instead of Station, Libraries, and that the number of Books be increased”, F/4/1486/58611, Collection No. 4, f. 43 (hereafter “Report upon the Soldiers Libraries”). As Richard Holmes points out, nineteenth-century India was “a world where almost all Europeans had time on their hands”, and where “there was a constant need for “entertainment”; see his Sahib: The British Soldier in India, 1750–1914 (London, 2005), p. 157.
3 Kelly, Gary, Women, Writing, and Revolution, 1790–1827 (Oxford, 1993), p. 184CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 Raven, James, “From promotion to proscription: arrangements for reading and eighteenth-century libraries”, in The Practice and Representation of Reading in England, (eds.) Raven, James, Small, Helen, and Tadmor, Naomi (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 179–181Google Scholar.
5 Ibid., p. 180.
6 Colclough, Stephen, “Readers: Books and Biography”, in A Companion to the History of the Book, (eds.) Eliot, Simon and Rose, Jonathan (Malden, MA., Oxford and Carlton, Australia, 2007), p. 59Google Scholar. Records relating to the libraries make it very clear that the institutions were intended for ‘European’ soldiers, and I have so far found no explicit mention of the vast number of native troops upon which the power of the British army in India so crucially depended. Holmes points out that there were some 232,000 Indians in the army by the time of the Mutiny in 1857, as opposed to a figure of 45,000 Europeans. This figure, he suggests, was probably roughly the same in 1835 (Sahib, p. 81). On the composition of the East India Company army, see also Keay, John, The Honourable Company: A History of the English East India Company (London, 1995), especially pp. 271–295Google Scholar; Callahan, Raymond, The East India Company and Army Reform, 1783–1798 (Cambridge, MA., 1972)Google Scholar.
7 The Company's three presidencies were Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta. For accounts of their establishment and development, see Lawson, Philip, The East India Company: A History (London and New York, 1993), pp. 46–48Google Scholar; Colley, Captives, pp. 246–248.
8 Minute by the President, IOR/L/Mil/5/384, Collection 85A, f. 283.
9 Military Letter from Fort St George [extract], 15 June 1830, F/4/1272/51087.
10 “Report upon the Soldiers Libraries”, f. 25.
11 IOR/L/Mil/5/384, Collection 85A, f. 278, 281.
12 Extract from Fort St George Military Correspondence, 18 August 1829, IOR/F/4/1243/40911, f. 13–17.
13 Hervey, Captain Albert, A Soldier of the Company: Life of an Indian Ensign, 1833–43, (ed.) Allen, Charles (London, 1988), p. 164Google Scholar.
14 “Proceedings of the Committee assembled . . . for the purpose of balancing the Books intended to be purchased for the use of the Station Library”, Madras Military Collection No. 20, F/4/1272/51087, f. 29.
15 Military letter from Bombay [extract], 29 January 1823, IOR/L/MIL/5/384, Collection 85A, f. 274. For more on this, see “Imperial Reading: the East India Company's Lending Libraries for Soldiers, c. 1819–1834” in Book History 12 (2009), pp. 74–99.
16 Brigadier Murray at Cawnpore was acutely conscious of these difficulties, stoutly declaring his opinion “that more harm than advantage accrues from such institutions”; see “Report upon the Soldiers Libraries”, f. 57.
17 Ibid., f. 24.
18 It was the danger of too-long exposure to the sun's rays that caused the colonel to favour the formation of Regimental Libraries over the further development of station libraries, “as from the immense size of Cawnpore and other larger stations, the expected benefit would in a great measure be counteracted by the exposure and other inconvenience attendant on quitting their own lines”; see “Report upon the Soldiers Libraries”, f. 59.
19 A “Godown” was “A Warehouse for goods and stores; an outbuilding used for stores; a store-room”. See Yule, Henry and Burnell, A.C., Hobson-Jobson: The Anglo-Indian Dictionary (1886; Ware, Hertfordshire, 1996), p. 381Google Scholar.
20 “Report upon the Soldiers Libraries”, f. 86–87.
21 “Report on Soldiers Libraries and Indent for Books”, Madras Military Collection No. 1, IOR/F/4/1428/56391, f. 25.
22 Other practical concerns raised by those responsible for the day-to-day running of the libraries include the difficulties of procuring paper for the use of the librarians, and the costs involved in attempting to repair or preserve books. At Bellary in 1833, for instance, the library committee wondered whether the costs of repairing books in future might be charged to a “contingent Bill”, while those similarly concerned at Secunderabad suggest “that the whole of the Books be covered with coarse red cloth for preservation which can be done at trifling Expense”. See “Report on Soldiers Libraries and Indent for Books”, f. 18, 27.
23 Darnton, Robert, The Kiss of Lamourette: Reflections in Cultural History (London and Boston, 1990), p. 167Google Scholar.
24 “Report upon the Soldiers Libraries”, f. 47.
25 Ibid., f. 61.
26 Ibid., f. 62–63.
27 Ibid., f. 64.
28 Ibid., f. 65.
29 Darnton, The Kiss of Lamourette, p. 167.