1887 Abdul Karim OSBOURNE Ponsonby-Crown Princess,Queen Victoria Indian Servant . The letter she writes to her oldest Son John Ponsonby. on Crown / OSBOURNE paper and endorssed. Sir John was educated at Eton College, He was gazetted to the Royal Irish Rifles 16 November 1887, and to the Coldstream Guards 15 August 1888, becoming Lieutenant 29 June 1891.
1887; August 15th, A superb letter from Mary Ponsonby, Wife of Sir Henry Ponsonby, Queen Victoria's Private secretary, She herself former Maid of honour to 1861, a friend of the Queen and her Daughter "Vicky" The Crown Princess, and appointed Extra Woman of the Bedchamber 1895. The letter she writes to her oldest Son John Ponsonby. on Crown / OSBOURNE paper and endorssed
"Albert Cottage / August 15/ 1887
Dearest Johnny,
I want you to be careful not to get low by eating only a bun for luncheon, for taking writers word there is a case of diptheria somewhere about St James & nothing is so fatally sure a means of catching it as being what the doctors call below par, I will make your Father send you a douceur for luncheons or I will do so - I have written to Jane to say that your room must be the first prepared - & at once so that you may run down for a blow from Saturday till Monday on the river - We got excellent letters from Arthur & Fritz with Swimming & Music they seem to be propering -
We went to Swanage with the Crown Princess the day before yesterday you would have laughed to see your poor Rheumatic Mother first trotted up & down the deck for 2 hours, then taken for a climb on some flinty slippery cliff- then up & down stairs in a curiosity house & finally arriving rompue at Osbourne at ¼ to 9 The Crown Princess saving her dinner with the Queen by the Skin of Her Teath -
I dined last night, The Queen quite delighted with her new toy the Indian Servant -She is never without her vocabulary but is distressed sometimes after building up her sentance not to understand the answer.
Y'Loving Mother"
A remarkable letter mentioning Abdul Karim the Indian Servant & the Queen's early attempts at learning Urdu
Mohammed Abdul Karim CIE CVO (1863 – April 1909), known as "the Munshi", was an Indian attendant of Queen Victoria.
He served her during the final fourteen years of her reign, gaining her maternal affection over that time.
Karim was born the son of a hospital assistant near Jhansi in British India. In 1887, the year of Victoria's Golden Jubilee, Karim was one of two Indians selected to become servants to the Queen.
Victoria came to like him a great deal and gave him the title of "Munshi" ("clerk" or "teacher"). Victoria appointed him to be her Indian Secretary, showered him with honours, and obtained a land grant for him in India.
The close platonic relationship between Karim and the Queen led to friction within the Royal Household, the other members of which felt themselves to be superior to him. The Queen insisted on taking Karim with her on her travels, which caused arguments between her and her other attendants. Following Victoria's death in 1901, her successor, Edward VII, returned Karim to India and ordered the confiscation and destruction of the Munshi's correspondence with Victoria. Karim subsequently lived quietly near Agra, on the estate that Victoria had arranged for him, until his death at the age of 46
Mohammed Abdul Karim was born into a Muslim family at Lalitpur near Jhansi in 1863.[3] His father, Haji Mohammed Waziruddin, was a hospital assistant stationed with the Central India Horse, a British cavalry regiment.[4] Karim had one older brother, Abdul Aziz, and four younger sisters. He was taught Persian and Urdu privately[5] and, as a teenager, travelled across North India and into Afghanistan.[6] Karim's father participated in the conclusive march to Kandahar, which ended the Second Anglo-Afghan War, in August 1880. After the war, Karim's father transferred from the Central India Horse to a civilian position at the Central Jail in Agra, while Karim worked as a vakil ("agent" or "representative") for the Nawab of Jaora in the Agency of Agar. After three years in Agar, Karim resigned and moved to Agra, to become a vernacular clerk at the jail. His father arranged a marriage between Karim and the sister of a fellow worker.
Prisoners in the Agra jail were trained and kept employed as carpet weavers as part of their rehabilitation. In 1886, 34 convicts travelled to London to demonstrate carpet weaving at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in South Kensington. Karim did not accompany the prisoners, but assisted Jail Superintendent John Tyler in organising the trip, and helped to select the carpets and weavers. When Queen Victoria visited the exhibition, Tyler gave her a gift of two gold bracelets, again chosen with the assistance of Karim.[8] The Queen had a longstanding interest in her Indian territories and wished to employ some Indian servants for her Golden Jubilee. She asked Tyler to recruit two attendants who would be employed for a year.[9] Karim was hastily coached in British manners and in the English language and sent to England, along with Mohammed Buksh. Major-General Thomas Dennehy, who was about to be appointed to the Royal Household, had previously employed Buksh as a servant.[10] It was planned that the two Indian men would initially wait at table, and learn to do other tasks
Royal servant
After a journey by rail from Agra to Bombay and by mail steamer to Britain, Karim and Buksh arrived at Windsor Castle in June 1887.[12] They were put under the charge of Major-General Dennehy and first served the Queen at breakfast in Frogmore House at Windsor on 23 June 1887. The Queen described Karim in her diary for that day: "The other, much younger, is much lighter [than Buksh], tall, and with a fine serious countenance. His father is a native doctor at Agra. They both kissed my feet."
Five days later, the Queen noted that "The Indians always wait now and do so, so well and quietly." On 3 August, she wrote: "I am learning a few words of Hindustani to speak to my servants. It is a great interest to me for both the language and the people, I have naturally never come into real contact with before." On 20 August she had some "excellent curry" made by one of the servants. By 30 August Karim was teaching her Urdu, which she used during an audience in December to greet the Maharani Chimnabai of Baroda.
Victoria took a great liking to Karim and ordered that he was to be given additional instruction in the English language.[19] By February 1888 he had "learnt English wonderfully" according to Victoria.[20] After he complained to the Queen that he had been a clerk in India and thus menial work as a waiter was beneath him,[21][22] he was promoted to the position of "Munshi" in August 1888.[23] In her journal, the Queen writes that she made this change so that he would stay: "I particularly wish to retain his services as he helps me in studying Hindustani, which interests me very much, & he is very intelligent & useful."[24] Photographs of him waiting at table were destroyed and he became the first Indian personal clerk to the Queen.[25] Buksh remained in the Queen's service, but only as a khidmatgar or table servant,[26] until his death at Windsor in 1899.
According to Karim biographer Sushila Anand, the Queen's own letters testify that "her discussions with the Munshi were wide-ranging—philosophical, political and practical. Both head and heart were engaged. There is no doubt that the Queen found in Abdul Karim a connection with a world that was fascinatingly alien, and a confidant who would not feed her the official line."[28] Karim was placed in charge of the other Indian servants and made responsible for their accounts. Victoria praised him in her letters and journal. "I am so very fond of him" she wrote, "He is so good & gentle & understanding all I want & is a real comfort to me."[29] She admired "her personal Indian clerk & Munshi, who is an excellent, clever, truly p[i]ous & very refined gentle man, who says, 'God ordered it' ... God's Orders is what they implicitly obey! Such faith as theirs & such conscientiousness set us a g[rea]t. example."[30] At Balmoral Castle, the Queen's Scottish estate, Karim was allocated the room previously occupied by John Brown, a favourite servant of the Queen who had died in 1883.[31] Despite the serious and dignified manner that Karim presented to the outside world, the Queen wrote that "he is very friendly and cheerful with the Queen's maids and laughs and even jokes now—and invited them to come and see all his fine things offering them fruit cake to eat.
As the Munshi had no children, his nephews and grandnephews inherited his wealth and properties. The Munshi's family continued to reside in Agra until Indian independence and the partition of India in August 1947, after which they emigrated to Karachi, Pakistan. The estate, including Karim Lodge, was confiscated by the Indian government and distributed among Hindu refugees from Pakistan. Half of Karim Lodge was subsequently divided into two individual residences, with the remaining half becoming a nursing home and doctor's office.
Until the publication of Frederick Ponsonby's memoirs in 1951, there was little biographical material on the Munshi.[127] Scholarly examination of his life and relationship with Victoria began around the 1960s,[128] focusing on the Munshi as "an illustration of race and class prejudice in Victorian England".[129] Mary Lutyens, in editing the diary of her grandmother Edith (wife of Lord Lytton, Viceroy of India 1876–80), concluded, "Though one can understand that the Munshi was disliked, as favourites nearly always are ... One cannot help feeling that the repugnance with which he was regarded by the Household was based mostly on snobbery and colour prejudice."[130] Victoria biographer Elizabeth Longford wrote, "Abdul Karim stirred once more that same royal imagination which had magnified the virtues of John Brown ... Nevertheless, [it] insinuated into her confidence an inferior person, while it increased the nation's dizzy infatuation with an inferior dream, the dream of Colonial Empire."
Historians agree with the suspicions of her Household that the Munshi influenced the Queen's opinions on Indian issues, biasing her against Hindus and favouring Muslims.[132] But suspicions that he passed secrets to Rafiuddin Ahmed are discounted. Victoria asserted that "no political papers of any kind are ever in the Munshi's hands, even in her presence. He only helps her to read words which she cannot read or merely ordinary submissions on warrants for signature. He does not read English fluently enough to be able to read anything of importance."[133] Consequently, it is thought unlikely that he could have influenced the government's Indian policy or provided useful information to Muslim activists.
The 2017 feature film Victoria & Abdul, directed by Stephen Frears and starring Ali Fazal as Abdul Karim and Judi Dench as Queen Victoria, offers a fictionalised version of the relationship between Karim and the Queen.
Fresh to the Market Place, from Major-General Sir John Ponsonby's Collection
For more from this collection see our shop category for SIR JOHN PONSONBY COLLECTION
John Ponsonby (British Army officer)From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Major-General Sir John Ponsonby KCB CMG DSO (25 March 1866 – 26 March 1952) was a British Army officer who commanded 5th Division during World War I
Born the son of Sir Henry Ponsonby (Queen Victoria's Private Secretary), his Mother Hon. Mary Elizabeth Ponsonby, Maid of Honour to Queen Victoria and a daughter of John Crocker Bulteel.
His brothers were Frederick Ponsonby, ( Assistant Private Secretary to Edward VII & GV), and Arthur Augustus William Harry Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede, (British politician, writer, and social activist).
Sir John was educated at Eton College, He was gazetted to the Royal Irish Rifles 16 November 1887, and to the Coldstream Guards 15 August 1888, becoming Lieutenant 29 June 1891. He was ADC to the Governor and Commander-in-Chief, South Africa, 10 August 1891 to 30 January 1895; served in operations in Matabeleland (Medal); was promoted to Captain 7 September 1898, and in that year served in Uganda (Medal), and again in 1899, during the operations against Kabarega (clasp). Captain Ponsonby served in the South African War, 1899-1902, on special service with the Rhodesian Field Force, 19 February 1900 to 7 July 1901. He was Adjutant, 5th New Zealand Regiment, 8 June 1900 to 1 January 1901; afterwards in command 1 January to 18 January 1901. From February to May 1900, be was employed with Mounted Infantry, and he took part in operations in the Transvaal, west of Pretoria, from July to 29 November 1900; operations in the Transvaal, February to June 1901; operations in Cape Colony, February to 31 May 1902. He was mentioned in Despatches [London Gazette, 10 September 1901]; received the Queen's Medal with four clasps, the King's Medal with two clasps, and was created a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order [London Gazette, 27 September 1901]: "John Ponsonby, Captain, Coldstream Guards. In recognition of services during the operations in South Africa". The Insignia were presented by the King 27 October 1901. He was promoted to Major 23 January 1904, and commanded the Guards' Depot 1 March 1905 to 28 February 1907. He became Lieutenant Colonel 28 October 1913. Lieutenant Colonel Ponsonby served in the European War, 1914—18; commanded the 2nd Guards Brigade, BEF, 26 August 1915 to 19 November 1916: was given the Brevet of Colonel 1 January 1916; commanded the Special Reserve Infantry Brigade 28 November 1916 to 7 March 1917; commanded the 21st Infantry Brigade, BEF, 8 March to 20 March 1917; became Colonel 20 March 1917; commanded the 2nd Guards Brigade, British Armies in France, 21 March to 21 August 1917; commanded the 40th Division, British Armies in France, 22 August 1917 to 3 July 1918; subsequently commanded the 5th Division, British Armies in France, 4 July 1918 to 1 April 1919; was promoted to Major General 1 January 1919. He was mentioned in Despatches; created a CMG in 1915, a CB in 1918, and was given the Brevet of Colonel.
He went on to become General Officer Commanding 5th Division remaining in that role until the end of the War. After the War he became General Officer Commanding the Madras District of India. He retired in 1928.
He lived at Haile Hall near Beckermet in Cumbria
:
Powered by SixBit's eCommerce Solution