Book of the Day: Britain After the Glorious Revolution 1689-1714

Despite living in the East Indies for nineteen years, Captain Thomas Bowrey remained aware of the political situation at home. He delayed his return home once when the news of the death of Charles II reached India. He understood that the accession of Catholic sympathiser of his brother, James, to the throne had the potential for unrest in the country. When he finally arrived back in England in 1689, he learned that the so called Glorious Revolution had taken place whilst he was on board the Bengal Merchant.

The Britain After the Glorious Revolution 1689-1714 edited by Geoffrey Holmes is perfectly placed to through light on the country to which he returned for the last twenty-four years of his life. The book’s format is ten essays on different aspects of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century British history with an introduction by Holmes. The major aspects of the social and religious life of the period are covered and many of the essays touch on important aspects of Bowrey’s life including shipping, the South Sea Company and the union between England and Scotland in addition to events that affected him and his business such as trade, the press and the wars of the time.

T C Smoult’s The Road to Union and the final essay  have been particularly useful for me. The subject of the latter is Robert Harley, first Earl of Oxford, in whose papers some of Bowrey’s proposals survive. They were probably introduced by Daniel Defoe who shared many of Bowrey’s trade interests.

Book of the Day: Vestiges of Old Madras 1640-1800

Today’s book, Vestiges of Old Madras, 1640-1800: traced from the East India Company’s records preserved at Fort St George and the India Office and from other sources Volume 4 – Index Volume by Henry Davison Love is here as a representative of all three volumes edited from primary sources by Love. Whilst only this index sits on my desk, the three volumes to which it refers are freely available on the Internet.

Love’s first volume contains a selection of accounts and descriptions of Fort St George and is the one in which there are a number of references to Thomas Bowrey taken from the East India Company records and Sir Richard Carnac Temple’s publications. At the beginning of chapter five, Love comments that considering the number of Europeans frequenting Madras – merchants, soldiers, clergymen, doctors and ships’ captains – it is remarkable that so few writings of this period are extant regarding Fort St George and its social life. Despite Love’s hopes, no other old manuscripts like those of … Thomas Bowrey have since been discovered and this is one of the reasons why Thomas’ papers are still considered important today.

For anyone researching early Madras residents, volume one’s many lists of residents are particularly useful. Many of Thomas’ friends and associates are listed here but nowhere else other than in his papers. At present, without the work of Love and others who have painstakingly edited some of the Company records, it would be an almost a huge task to find some of these individuals in the manuscript copies at the British Library. It is one of the reasons that, alongside writing his biography, I am slowly building a more detailed catalogue of all Thomas’ papers and other records relating to him.