Rosie Llewellyn-Jones – författare

This book includes curious stories of the people who inhabited the exotic and vanished world of Nawabi Lucknow, especially the many rogues and villains, some of them British. Using material not used before and containing a number of previousy unpublished illustrations, it takes a look at the undiscovered side of Nawabi Lucknow.

'Empire Building' is a new account of the East India Company's impact on India, focussing on how it changed the sub-continent's built environment in the context of defence, urbanisation, and infrastructural development. Rosie Llewellyn-Jones examines these initiatives through a lens of 'political building' (using Indian contractors and labourers). Railways, docks, municipal buildings, freemasons' lodges, hotels, race-courses, barracks, cemeteries, statues, canals--everything the British erected made a political statement, even if unconsciously; hence this book is concerned less with architectural styles, more with subtle infiltration into the minds of those who saw and used these structures. It assesses, in turn, Indian responses to the changing landscape. Indians often reacted favourably to new manufacturing technologies from Britain, like minting and gunpowder, while the British learnt from and adapted local methods. From military engineers and cartography to imported raw metals and steam power, Llewellyn-Jones considers the social and environmental changes wrought by colonialism. This period was marked by a shift from formerly private, Indian-controlled functions, like education, entertainment, trading and healing, to British public institutions like universities, theatres, chambers of commerce and hospitals.

'Empire Building' is a new account of the East India Company's impact on India, focussing on how it changed the sub-continent's built environment in the context of defence, urbanisation, and infrastructural development. Rosie Llewellyn-Jones examines these initiatives through a lens of 'political building' (using Indian contractors and labourers). Railways, docks, municipal buildings, freemasons' lodges, hotels, race-courses, barracks, cemeteries, statues, canals--everything the British erected made a political statement, even if unconsciously; hence this book is concerned less with architectural styles, more with subtle infiltration into the minds of those who saw and used these structures. It assesses, in turn, Indian responses to the changing landscape. Indians often reacted favourably to new manufacturing technologies from Britain, like minting and gunpowder, while the British learnt from and adapted local methods. From military engineers and cartography to imported raw metals and steam power, Llewellyn-Jones considers the social and environmental changes wrought by colonialism. This period was marked by a shift from formerly private, Indian-controlled functions, like education, entertainment, trading and healing, to British public institutions like universities, theatres, chambers of commerce and hospitals.

The events of the 1857-8 uprising in India as seen through the eyes of British and Indian eye-witnesses, giving a vivid picture of life in the midst of what one called 'the wind of madness.'A volume in the Worlds of the East India Company series, edited by Huw BowenThe events of 1857-58 in India are seen here through a series of untold stories which show that they were much more complex than hitherto thought.Drawing on sources in Britain and India, including contemporary East India Company records, together with oral memories from India illustrated with a number of nineteenth century photographs, the author tells of the murder of the British Resident in the princely state of Kotah; of Indians who opposed the Mutiny, and suffered at the hands of the "mutineers"; of a small, but significant, number of Europeans who fought with the Indians against the British;and of the infamous "prize agents" of the East India Company - licensed looters whose rapacity seemed limitless. The book conveys vividly what it was like for different kinds of participants to live through these traumatic events, bringing to life their anxiety and desperation, the grisly bloodshed, and the vast devastation - illustrating overall, as one Indian soldier who served in the East India Company's army put it, "the wind of madness". Dr ROSIE LLEWELLYN-JONES is author and editor of numerous books on India, the most recent being 'Empire Building: The Construction of British India 1690 to 1860' published in 2023 by Penguin/Viking India. She is the editor of 'Chowkidar' the Journal of the British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia (BACSA) and was awarded an MBE in 2015 for British Indian Studies

During the darkest days of the Second World War a select group of people gathered together in Mayfair to listen to a series of secret lectures organised by the Royal Central Asian Society (now the Royal Society for Asian Affairs). Lecturers and their hand-picked audience examined fast-moving events in the Middle East, Persia and Russia with the intention to propose strategies for Britain's post-war international role. The lecturers were chosen for their inside knowledge of these countries: a British General who had visited Russia's front-line held against the German invasion; an RAF officer who was in Iraq during the pro-German coup by Rashid Ali, and the subsequent defence of the Habbaniya air base; a Persian-speaking British diplomat stationed in Teheran; a Mancunian of Lebanese descent who spoke frankly about Arab hopes and fears; a Home Officer advisor sent to Moscow to inspect its fire-watching arrangements; and a Polish countess forcibly transported to a collective farm in Siberia, among others. Secrecy surrounded these lectures many of the scripts were marked 'Secret' or 'Confidential'; they were not published in the Society's Journal, and the audience was warned not to reveal the topics discussed outside the Clarges Street premises. The discussions which followed the lectures were held in the knowledge that frank views could be freely expressed, and are included in this volume. Although so much has changed in the international arena, these seventy-year old lectures, only recently rediscovered in the Society's Archives, have a peculiar poignancy and relevance in understanding today's unquiet Middle East and how war-time events and strategies were to shape post-war policy with regard to Arab nationalism and Arab unity.

During the darkest days of the Second World War a select group of people gathered together in Mayfair to listen to a series of secret lectures organised by the Royal Central Asian Society (now the Royal Society for Asian Affairs). Lecturers and their hand-picked audience examined fast-moving events in the Middle East, Persia and Russia with the intention to propose strategies for Britain's post-war international role. The lecturers were chosen for their inside knowledge of these countries: a British General who had visited Russia's front-line held against the German invasion; an RAF officer who was in Iraq during the pro-German coup by Rashid Ali, and the subsequent defence of the Habbaniya air base; a Persian-speaking British diplomat stationed in Teheran; a Mancunian of Lebanese descent who spoke frankly about Arab hopes and fears; a Home Officer advisor sent to Moscow to inspect its fire-watching arrangements; and a Polish countess forcibly transported to a collective farm in Siberia, among others. Secrecy surrounded these lectures many of the scripts were marked 'Secret' or 'Confidential'; they were not published in the Society's Journal, and the audience was warned not to reveal the topics discussed outside the Clarges Street premises. The discussions which followed the lectures were held in the knowledge that frank views could be freely expressed, and are included in this volume. Although so much has changed in the international arena, these seventy-year old lectures, only recently rediscovered in the Society's Archives, have a peculiar poignancy and relevance in understanding today's unquiet Middle East and how war-time events and strategies were to shape post-war policy with regard to Arab nationalism and Arab unity.

The Last King in India is the story of an extraordinary man whose memory still divides opinion sharply today. Was he, as the British described him, a debauched ruler who spent his time with "fiddlers, eunuchs and women'' instead of running the kingdom? Or, as most Indians believe, a gifted poet whose works are still quoted today, and who was robbed of his throne by the East India Company?Somewhere in between the two extremes lies a complex character: a man who married over 350 women, directed theatrical events lasting a month, and built a fairytale palace in Lucknow. Wajid Ali Shah was written out of the history books after his kingdom was annexed in 1856. Some even thought he had been killed during the mutiny the following year. But he lived on in Calcutta where he spent the last thirty years of his life trying to recreate his lost paradise. He remained a constant problem for the government of India, with his extravagance, his menagerie and his wives-in that order. For the first time his story is told here using original documents from Indian and British archives and meetings with his descendants.

The Last King in India is the story of an extraordinary man whose memory still divides opinion sharply today. Was he, as the British described him, a debauched ruler who spent his time with "fiddlers, eunuchs and women'' instead of running the kingdom? Or, as most Indians believe, a gifted poet whose works are still quoted today, and who was robbed of his throne by the East India Company?Somewhere in between the two extremes lies a complex character: a man who married over 350 women, directed theatrical events lasting a month, and built a fairytale palace in Lucknow. Wajid Ali Shah was written out of the history books after his kingdom was annexed in 1856. Some even thought he had been killed during the mutiny the following year. But he lived on in Calcutta where he spent the last thirty years of his life trying to recreate his lost paradise. He remained a constant problem for the government of India, with his extravagance, his menagerie and his wives-in that order. For the first time his story is told here using original documents from Indian and British archives and meetings with his descendants.

BEGAM HAZRAT MAHAL (c. 1820-1879) is an elusive figure in Indian history - her origins and destiny have remained shrouded in ambiguity. The daughter of a slave - likely of African ancestry - and a domestic servant, her birth name is unknown. What is known is that she entered Prince Wajid Ali Shah's Pari Khana as a courtesan and was renamed thrice before emerging as Hazrat Mahal, one of his many wives. She gave birth to the prince's son Birjis Qadr in 1844 and, after Wajid Ali inherited the throne, briefly enjoyed the position of a favourite. By the end of the decade, however, the two were divorced.In 1856, the East India Company annexed Awadh and deposed Wajid Ali Shah. The takeover was sudden and brutal, igniting fear and dissatisfaction among the people. At the same time, the events now known as the First War of Independence were stirring across India. With Wajid Ali exiled and eventually imprisoned in Calcutta, thirteen-year-old Birjis Qadr became the royal figurehead of Awadh's rebel opposition and his mother, the begam, its de facto leader. Hazrat Mahal appeared immune to prejudice in her attempts to unite the fragmented rebels: powerful landowners, nawabi elite, religious leaders, enraged soldiers and citizenry. Despite her lack of education and experience, she devised military strategy, dealing with two, sometimes three, groups of soldiers with conflicting ideas, and negotiated with an unimaginably powerful enemy, the East India Company itself. And at the centre of her brief rule is one of the most dramatic episodes in the history of British India: the siege of the Lucknow Residency.Drawing from decades of meticulous research and previously undiscovered archival material - Indian and British - acclaimed historian Rosie Llewellyn-Jones rescues this ruler from obscurity and renders the complexities of nineteenth-century Awadh through the story of its fiercest, most unlikely leader.