Biwis of British Sahibs

Anindita Mazumder

The establishment of Supreme Court in Calcutta in 1773 saw the arrival of attorneys to the British trading post and among them was Willam Hickey. In 1777 when Hickey arrived in India for the first time, he came alone. But later on he came back with his mistress, Charlotte Barry in 1782, who a year later, drove herself to death with too much wine and exhaustion from dancing in, too, many balls. Hickey was lonely.

His friend, Robert Pott, the resident of Murshidabad was concerned enough to send his friend a fair complexioned, native girl to provide company. Hickey was happy with Kiron and after a year, she delivered a son. However, Hickey was perplexed by the dark complexion of his son because both he and the child’s mother were quite fair. One afternoon when Hickey returned early from work he found the girl fast asleep in his bed with his khidmatgar. Her son, too, was sleeping beside them. Needless to say both were dismissed immediately. Later, Hickey chose another native girl to be his companion. So happy was Hickey with his new companion, Jemdanee that he gave up his house in Garden Reach fearing swamp fever and bought a house in Chinsurah.

He spent Rs 40,000 on furniture in the elaborate set up. Every evening he took her in his boat for some fresh air. However, such happiness did not last long and the girl died after delivering a remarkably fair, beautiful child. William Hickey left a touching account of his attachment to his biwi, Jemdanee, as striking as the British artist, Thomas Hickey’s aesthetic portrait of this charming and dignified lady in her early twenties and elegant profile. “Jemdanee”, William Hickey wrote, “lived with me, respected and admired by all friends for her extraordinary sprightliness and great humour. Unlike the women in Asia, she never secluded herself from the sight of strangers; on the contrary, she delighted in joining my male parties cordially joining in the mirth which prevailed though never touching wine or spirits of any kind”. Jemdanee was a great favourite with Hickey’s friends who teasingly corrupted her nickname, Fateh to Fatty. Two of them, Robert Pott and Colonel Cooper, also had faithful biwis.

Not only Hickey and Pott, even Job Charnock, the founding father of the British trading post in Calcutta, too, had an Indian wife. According to legends, he had rescued her from the funeral pyre. She was apparently a Hindu Brahmin. However, Charnock has been long subjected to myths and this incident is no exception. Some say the daring act took place in Patna while according to others it was Cossimbazar and that it was reported to the Nawab. He sent some guards to capture Charnock but he escaped and his lawyer was arrested instead. Later, on Charnock managed to appease the Nawab with precious gifts. Captain Alexander Hamilton in his A New Account of East Indies wrote, his marriage to a local woman familiarised Charnock with pagan customs and he annually sacrificed a cock on his wife’s grave. However, historians have wondered whether Charnock’s wife was actually a Hindu Brahmin since in that case she would not have been buried. Moreover, cock sacrifice was not a custom followed among upper caste Hindus. In that case his wife was perhaps a Muslim or a Eurasian. She bore Charnock three daughters, the eldest of whom was married to Charles Eyre, a signatory in the agreement with Sabarna Roy Chowdhury.

William Hickey’s contemporary James Augustus Hickey who had posed a stiff challenge to governor general Warren Hastings with his articles in Bengal Gazette had also married a native girl and had 10 children in 10 years. Orientalist, Henry Pitts Forster was a civil servant of East India Company and rose to become Master of Calcutta Mint. He married a Bengali lady and became adept enough in the language to be a lexicographer and compiled a bilingual dictionary – English to Bengali and vice versa. He translated the Cornwallis code into Bengali. However, his son, Colonel Henry, being of mixed descent, was disqualified from obtaining service in company and joined the British army and earned his glory in Maratha and Pindari wars and later during the Mutiny. After his first wife, Ms Kellner was killed in the Sepoy Mutiny, he married an Indian woman.

Colonel Robert Kyd who established the Botanical Garden in Shibpur had married a Muslim lady. He had his own residence and garden at the southern side of Botanical Garden. Like David Ochterlony, he, too, had adopted the Mohammedan lifestyle and chose to be buried in his garden instead of a Christian cemetery. He had named his own garden as Shalimar after the Mughal Gardens. Hence, it can be assumed that Indian wives and mistresses often left a great impacton these sahibs.

Initially, European women in the colony were far outnumbered by the men and the practice of having Indian mistresses were not looked down upon. It also gave rise to practices such as “sitting up” when European women who arrived by ships were made to sit while men would choose their wives among them. But eventually as more and more wives chose to accompany their husbands to India, the practice of having Indian mistresses were frowned upon by the British society.