The Prinseps, Empire and Colonial Government in India and Australia
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'Imperial Family': The Prinseps, Empire and Colonial Government in India and Australia Author Allbrook, Malcolm Published 2009 Thesis Type Thesis (PhD Doctorate) School Centre for Public Cultures and Ideas DOI https://doi.org/10.25904/1912/3589 Copyright Statement The author owns the copyright in this thesis, unless stated otherwise. Downloaded from http://hdl.handle.net/10072/366264 Griffith Research Online https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au ‘Imperial Family’: The Prinseps, Empire and Colonial Government in India and Australia Malcolm Allbrook BA (Hons) University of Western Australia, B. Soc. Wk. University of Western Australia Centre for Public Culture and Ideas, School of Arts, Griffith University Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2008 Statement of Originality This work has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by any other person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself. Signed: Acknowledgments Preparation of a thesis is always a solitary process, and for me the experience has been no different. However, there are many people who have helped make it an enjoyable and stimulating project. I am supremely grateful to my supervisors at Griffith University, Dr. Bruce Buchan and Dr. Fiona Paisley. Their supervision has been exceptional and both have been unwavering in their support and belief in my research, the speed with which they have read and commented on numerous and wordy drafts, their generous, sensitive and inquiring advice and suggestions. So too has the support of my Associate Supervisor, Professor Anna Haebich been enormously appreciated, particularly her penetrating and insightful comments and suggestions on the chapters dealing with Aboriginal peoples. It was Anna who first suggested I consider Griffith as a postgraduate venue and that my residence in Western Australia was no barrier to enrolment. I would also like to record my appreciation to Griffith University, especially Dean of Arts Professor Kay Ferres, for providing me with a scholarship to pursue my studies. The University also provided the opportunity to give papers at a number of conferences which were of enormous value for my research and general academic experience, including the ‘Contact Zones’ RHD Conference in Brisbane in 2006, the ‘Australian Lives’ Conference in Cornwall in 2006, the ‘Victorian Beginnings’ Conference in Perth in 2007, and particularly the ANU and National Museum of Australia sponsored ‘Using Lives’ postgraduate workshop on biography in Canberra in September 2007. Those who assisted and supported me in various ways are of course too many to mention here. They include library staff members and archivists in Perth, Canberra and London, and historians from around the world who have taken the time to respond thoughtfully to my email inquiries and provide suggestions and references. I am particularly grateful for the initial support provided by Emeritus Professor Laksiri Jayasuriya and Professor Bob Reece who supported my initial application to Griffith. Many members of the extended Prinsep family have been eager to help. I am appreciative of my mother-in-law Mrs Ailsa Smith, who has shared not only her knowledge and ideas, but her library and collection of Prinsep letters, paintings and photographs. Phillip Reynolds from Dunsborough, Diana and Rory McLeod from London and Nora Naish from Bristol have also been generous in their hospitality and interest. And my many friends, who after their initial surprise at my unexpected change in career, have been unerringly supportive and interested in my progress and willing to put me up when I have visited London, Brisbane, Canberra and Tasmania. I am particularly grateful to Tim Lindholm, of Palo Alto, California, whose shared interests have been the subject of a chain of email correspondence without end. Patrick Bunbury’s support and generosity has been limitless; he has always been ready to share his unique combination of family history and peerless knowledge of the Prinsep archive in the Battye Library. Dr Om Prakesh Kejariwal generously provided me with a rare copy of Augustus Prinsep’s The Baboo which was of inestimable value for the chapters dealing with the Prinseps in India. My family of course, have been my closest and dearest supporters over the past three years, particularly my children and their spouses; Charlie Jebb, Bree Lipinski, Sarah Vincent and Nick Allbrook, my father David Allbrook, my siblings Roland, Bruce and Maryon, my brother-in-law Mike Woodcock and sisters-in-law Nicky Partridge and Kate Smith. My greatest supporter and confidante, however, has been my partner Mary Anne Jebb. She has shared my delights and agonies, constantly reassured and cajoled me, listened patiently to my meandering narratives, and provided me with the benefits of her own endlessly creative and original historical imagination. Malcolm Allbrook August 2008 Table of Contents Chapter One: Henry Prinsep: Legacies of colonial duty 1 Saying sorry 1 Prinsep’s Act 2 The Prinsep archive 12 Thesis overview 19 Chapter Two: Literature Review: the social body, race and colonialism 25 Introduction 25 Transnational and domestic historiographies 26 The Prinsep archive as historical narrative 29 The social body and Aboriginal people 32 The Prinseps and Anglo-Indian identities 36 Discourses on Indian orientalism 40 Orientalists and Anglicists: a discontinuity in colonial government 45 The Australian colonial adventure 50 Race and Aboriginal populations 56 Being British in the colonies 61 Conclusion 65 Chapter Three: Images of a colonizing family 68 Introduction 68 A novelised and memorialised India 69 Fortifying Britishness 74 Governing the others 88 Scholarliness and saintliness: James Prinsep 100 A place to make a fortune 110 Military might: the limits of violence 121 Conclusion 126 Chapter Four: An Anglo-Indian community in the metropole 129 Introduction 129 Exhibiting Indian-ness: Little Holland House 131 Influence and patronage: Indian government in the metropole 136 Family narratives on mid-century India 143 Popular narratives of Indian difference 148 Departure for a colonial outpost 155 Encounters with the others: ‘sights most curious’ 162 Conclusion 166 i Chapter Five: Indian Ocean connections 168 Introduction 168 Outposts of a subimperial empire 169 ‘Fate has been against you’: Failure of an Indian Ocean vision 175 Conclusion 191 Chapter Six: Henry Prinsep and Aboriginal people: colonial relationships in the south-west, 1866 – 1898 193 Introduction 193 The ‘solemn obligation’ of the colonizer 195 ‘Fear, fatigue and anxiety’: Early encounters in the colonization of the south-west 199 ‘This strange young Englishman’ 206 Imagining a colonial relationship: Coolbul and Prinsep 214 ‘Just primitive savages’: relationships on the family properties 221 Conclusion 231 Chapter Seven: ‘Stationed but not sedentary’: a colonial civil servant 233 Introduction 233 Webs of connection 234 ‘Received into the very best society’: an image of British social life 243 Politics laid bare 256 Images of harmony and savagery 259 Ideals and realities on the frontier: John Gribble and the Anglican Mission Committee 263 A colonial bull market: Prinsep, mining and internationalism 273 Conclusion 276 Chapter Eight: Chief Protector of Aborigines, 1898 – 1907 277 Introduction 277 Governing Aboriginal populations: a problem of management 279 Administering a department 288 ‘Move slowly in a difficult matter’: Advocating interventionist laws 292 ‘Complete separation from their old savage life’: Aboriginal children 296 ‘Like tribes of Arabs’: segregating Aboriginal populations 310 Limiting contagion: Venereal disease 314 A new Act: summoning ‘Aboriginal expertise’ 319 ‘Charges ancient and frivolous’: responding to criticism 329 Postscript 334 Conclusion 339 Bibliography Sources for images ii Table of Images Map of the south-west, by H.C. Prinsep 176 Chapter One Figure 1 Henry Charles Prinsep 3 Figure 2 Staff of the Aborigines Department 11 Figure 3 Henry and Josephine Prinsep 13 Figure 4 Prinsep at the easel 14 Chapter Three Figure 5 Augustus Prinsep 72 Figure 6 Augustus and Elizabeth Prinsep at home 73 Figure 7 William Prinsep 84 Figure 8 Mausoleum of Rammouhan Roy 86 Figure 9 John Prinsep 90 Figure 10 Thoby Prinsep 93 Figure 11 Rammouhan Roy 99 Figure 12 James Prinsep 101 Figure 13 Benares Illustrated 102 Figure 14 Water front at Benares 105 Figure 15 Numismatic drawings 105 Figure 16 Sir William Jones 106 Figure 17 James Prinsep 106 Figure 18 Prinsep’s Ghat, Calcutta 111 Figure 19 Europeans being entertained 111 Figure 20 Belvedere 113 Figure 21 John Zoffany painting 113 Figure 22 Sophie Prinsep née Auriol 115 Figure 23 ‘Studying for a doctor’ 119 Figure 24 Charles Prinsep 124 Figure 25 Louisa Prinsep née White 124 Chapter Four Figure 26 Henry Prinsep and his siblings 133 Figure 27 Little Holland House, Kensington 133 Figure 28 Sara Prinsep née Pattle 134 Figure 29 Sophia Dalrymple née Pattle 134 Figure 30 Thoby Prinsep by G.F. Watts 139 Figure 31 Val Prinsep 145 Figure 32 Augusta Becher 145 Figure 33 William Makepeace Thackeray 150 Figure 34 Julia Margaret Cameron and her daughter 154 Figure 35 Edward Eyre 154 Figure 36 Henry Prinsep and Monty White 156 Figure 37 ‘Cox and Box’ 156 Figure 38 A young Henry Prinsep 157 Figure 39 Annie Prinsep on the stage 157 iii Figure 40 May Prinsep 158 Figure 41 G.F. Watts and friends 158