London

World Congress of Faiths

Date: 
03 Jul 1936
End date: 
18 Jul 1936
Event location: 

University College, London

About: 

The World Congress of Faiths was a descendent of the Parliament of Religions Congress held in 1893 in Chicago (attended by Swami Vivekananda). A Second Parliament of Religions was held in 1933 in Chicago, organized by Kedar Nath Das Gupta and Charles Weller. Francis Younghusband attended this Congress and through discussions the idea arose to have a Congress in London in 1936.

A number of international speakers were invited to the Congress, which sought to discuss spiritual matters. The committee for the Congress was headed by the international president, the Maharaja Gaekwar of Baroda, but the British National Chairman was Sir Francis Younghusband. After the success of the Congress, the World Fellowship of Faiths based in the UK decided to break away from the American parent organization and ran annual congresses such as in Oxford in 1937, Cambridge in 1938, and Paris in 1939.

Published works: 

Millard, A. Douglas (ed.), Faiths and Fellowship: Proceedings of the World Congress of Faiths held in London, foreword by Sir Francis Younghusband (London: J. M. Watkins, 1936)

Reviews: 

Reportage in newspapers such as The Times

Secondary works: 

Braybrooke, Marcus, A Wider Vision: A History of the World Congress of Faiths 1936-1996 (Oxford: One World, 1996)

Archive source: 

Sir Francis Younghusband papers, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Student Movement House

About: 

Administered by the Student Christian Movement, Student Movement House was a hostel for foreign students in Russell Square, London, founded in 1917.

Secondary works: 

Trevelyan, Mary, From the Ends of the Earth (London: Faber & Faber, 1942)

Date began: 
01 Jan 1917
Key Individuals' Details: 

Mary Trevelyan

Archive source: 

Student Christian Movement Archive, Section S, Orchard Learning Resources Centre, University of Birmingham, Birmingham

Location

Student Movement House
Russell Square
London, WC1B 5BA
United Kingdom
Tags for Making Britain: 

Indian Students' Union and Hostel

About: 

The Indian Students’ Union and Hostel was founded in 1920 by the Indian National Council of YMCA’s to provide living and social facilities for Indian students in London. Laurence Binyon gave the inaugural address at the opening ceremony. Originally housed in a building known as ‘Shakespeare Hut’ on the corner of Keppel Street and Gower Street, it moved to premises to 106-112 Gower Street in 1923, which were bombed during the Battle of Britain. One student was killed. The new home in 1923 was opened by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The premises were moved around after that until they became permanently settled, and continue to exist, at 41 Fitzroy Square in 1950, opened by V. K. Krishna Menon.

Although the hostel element was important, especially for students as they arrived and before they could find permanent lodgings, the Union provided recreational space and food for other Indian visitors. By 1925, approximately 2000 members had been through the Union. The Union organized entertainment such as trips and various sporting activities. They also hosted a number of visitors who gave talks and lectures. These included British speakers and Indian speakers such as Gandhi, Nehru and Tagore. The Union produced a journal, The Indus, from May 1921 and provided a space for students to write about the hostel and their experiences in Britain. With its central location and openness, the hostel was an important and influential landmark for Indian students.

Published works: 

Indus

With Indian Students in London, Being the Sixteenth Annual Report of the Indian Students’ Union and Hostel (Indian National Council of YMCAs) (London: Garden City Press, 1935)

Secondary works: 

Kinnaird, Emily, My Adopted Country 1889-1944 (Lucknow: E. Kinnaird, 1944)

Mukherjee, Sumita, Nationalism, Education and Migrant Identities: The England-Returned (London: Routledge, 2010)

Date began: 
01 Jan 1920
Key Individuals' Details: 

Edwin Bevan, Emily Kinnaird, K. T. Paul.

Connections: 
Archive source: 

Indian Students’ Union and Hostel, 5th Annual Report, 1924, ‘Beveridge 2/B/24/8’, London School of Economics Archives, London

Report of the Committee of Indian Students 1921-2 (London: India Office, 1922)

Indian Students’ Union and Hostel, 1946-9, L/I/1/142, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Location

Gower Street WC1E 7HT
United Kingdom
Tags for Making Britain: 

National Liberal Club

About: 

The National Liberal Club was established in 1882 by William Ewart Gladstone. It was designed to provide facilities for Liberal Party campaigners. William Digby acted as secretary of the Club until 1887.

The National Liberal Club held a banquet for Dadabhai Naoroji in 1888 to mark their disapproval of Lord Salisbury's comments that the electorate was not ready to elect a 'blackman'. Over the years a number of Indian visitors frequented the club.

The National Liberal Club still operates in London as a gentleman's club, but is now open to women.

Other names: 

NLC

Date began: 
01 Jan 1882
Precise date began unknown: 
Y
Connections: 

M. Asaf Ali, M. A. Jinnah, Dadabhai Naoroji, Shapurji Saklatvala, William Wedderburn, Henry Sylvester Williams

Location

1 Whitehall Place SW1A 2HE
United Kingdom
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India Society

About: 

Founded in March 1910 at the home of E. B. Havell, the India Society was created to bring attention to Indian Art, in its many forms, to audiences in Britain and the world. In February 1910, Havell gave a lecture to the Royal Society of Arts on Indian Art, to which the chair, George Birdwood, responded that India had no fine art tradition. In response a number of British figures, including William Rothenstein, wrote a letter to The Times affirming the presence of an Indian fine art tradition, and as a result the India Society was formed. The Society had close links with other societies in Paris and with India. Many of their members were based in India and included a number of South Asians studying and working in Britain, such as Jawaharlal Nehru (a student called to the Bar in London). The Society was keen to bring out regular publications, one of which was Rabindranath Tagore's Gitanjali (Song Offerings) in 1912, which led to the award of Nobel Prize for Literature to Tagore in 1913. The Society also brought out its own journal, Indian Art and Letters, from 1925.

The Society received royal patronage and became the Royal India Society 1944-1948. From 1948 to 1950, it was known as the Royal India and Pakistan Society. From 1950 to 1966, it was known as the Royal India, Pakistan and Ceylon Society. In 1966, it incorporated the East India Association and was renamed The Royal Society for India, Pakistan and Ceylon.

Published works: 

Indian Art and Letters: Journal from 1925

Coomaraswamy, Ananda K, Indian Drawings (1910)

Havell, E. B. (ed.), Eleven Plates. Representing Works of Indian Sculptures Chiefly in English Collections (1911)

Coomaraswamy, Ananda K., Kapilar and a Tamil Saint (1911)

Coomaraswamy, Ananda K., Indian Drawings (1912)

Tagore, Rabindranath, Gitanjali (1912)

Tagore, Rabindranath, Chitra (1913)

Fox-Strangways, A. H., The Music of Hindostan (1913)

One Hundred Poems of Kabir, trans. by Rabindranath Tagore and Evelyn Underhill (1914)

Herringham, Christiana, Ajanta Frescoes (1914)

Ajanta Frescoes, 42 plates in colour and monochrome, with explanantory and critical texts by Lady Herringham, Laurence Binyon, William Rothenstein and others (1915)

The Mirror of Gesture (1916)

Havell, E. B. Handbook of Indian Art (1920)

The Bagh Caves in the Gwalior State (1927)

Ganguli, Taraknath, The Brothers, translated by Edward Thompson (1928)

Kak, Ram Chandra, Ancient Monuments of Kashmir (1933)

Gangulee, N., The Red Tortoise and Other Tales of Rural India (1941)

Rawlinson, H. G. (ed.), A Garland of Indian Poetry (1946)

Iqbal, Muhammad, The Tulip of Sinai, trans. by A. J. Arberry (1947)

Secondary works: 

Indian Magazine and Review 473 (May 1910) and later issues for notices and reviews

‘Proceedings of the Society: Indian Section’, Journal of the Royal Society of Arts 58.2985 (Feb. 1910), pp. 273-298

Lago, Mary, Christiana Herringham and the Edwardian Art Scene (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1996)

Lago, Mary. 'A Lost Treasure: William Rothenstein, Tagore and the India Society', The Times Literary Supplement, 16 April 1999

Mitter, Partha, Art and Nationalism in Colonial India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994)

Mitter, Partha, The Triumph of Modernism: India's Artists and the Avant-Garde 1922-1947 (London: Reaktion Books, 2007)

The Times, 29 April 1911, 13 July 1912, 22 December 1919

Turner, Sarah Victoria, ‘The India Society and the Networks of Colonial Modernity, c.1910-1914’, in ‘“Spiritual Rhythm” and “Material Things”: Art, Cultural Networks and Modernity in Britain, c.1900-1914’, unpublished PhD thesis, (University of London, 2009)

Date began: 
17 Mar 1910
Key Individuals' Details: 
Connections: 

Laurence Binyon (committee member), Krishna G. Gupta (committee member), Roger Fry, Eric Gill, Jawaharlal Nehru (member from 1911 and vice-president from 1950s), T. W. Rhys-Davids (President), Earl of Ronaldshay (later Marquess of Zetland), Rabindranath Tagore (guest and committee member), Sourindro Mohun Tagore (Vice-President), Ratan Tata (committee member), Francis Younghusband (President).

Archive source: 

Mss Eur F147/65A-114, including minute books, cuttings, and correspondence, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Involved in events details: 
Tags for Making Britain: 

East India Association

About: 

The East India Association was founded by Dadabhai Naoroji in 1866, in collaboration with Indians and retired British officials in London. It superseded the London Indian Society and was a platform for discussing matters and ideas about India, and to provide representation for Indians to the Government. Naoroji delivered the first lecture to the Association on 2 May 1867. The Association's first President was Lord Lyveden.

In 1868, the East India Association had nearly 600 members. This had increased to 1,000 in 1878. Female members were admitted from 1912. The Association produced a journal (Journal of the East India Association) from its inception which included the papers that were delivered before their meetings. Papers and proceedings of these meetings were then produced in the Asiatic Quarterly Review, which eventually superseded the Journal of the East India Association. These lectures were usually delivered in the Association's regular meeting place - Caxton Hall, Westminster (i.e., Westminster Town Hall). Over the course of its existence, the Association would listen to lectures from a wide range of Indian and British men and women on matters ranging from the economic development of India to literature to suffrage. In March 1940, after a lecture delivered by Michael O'Dwyer at Caxton Hall, the former Governor of Punjab at the time of the Amritsar Massacre was shot dead by Udham Singh.

The East India Association incorporated the National Indian Association in 1949 and became the Britain, India and Pakistan Association. In 1966 it amalgamated with the former India Society, now Royal India, Pakistan and Ceylon Society, to become the Royal Society for India, Pakistan and Ceylon.

Example: 

'The Jubilee of the East India Association (founded 1866)', Ch. I, Asiatic Review XI.29 (January 1917), pp. 1-14; p. 3

Secondary works: 

Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto Press, 2002)

Content: 

Ten installments (until July 1918) in the Asiatic Review on the history of the East India Association, with details of all the key lectures that were given in the first fifty years of the Association.

Date began: 
01 Jan 1866
Extract: 

One of the chief objects Mr Naoroji had in view in founding the Association was the awakening of the British people to a due sense of their responsibilities as rulers of India, and his first endeavours were therefore directed to the dissipation of that 'colossal ignorance' of India which had so impressed him on his first arrival in England in 1855. Later on he saw how desirable it was that the Chiefs and Princes of India should be represented in this country, and that all possible assistance should be afforded them in laying their claims and views before Government for the protection of their interests and the redress of their grievances. So 'all persons interested in India' (whether Indians or Britons) were welcomed as Members of the East India Association.

Archive source: 

Minute books, financial papers and correspondence, Mss Eur F147, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Location

Caxton Hall London, SW1E 6AS
United Kingdom
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Northbrook Society

About: 

From an idea that was formed in 1879, founded in February 1880, as a sub-committee of the National Indian Association, the Northbrook Society was originally designed as a reading room and club providing Indian and other newspapers for Indian visitors to London and British members. Named after Lord Northbrook, former Viceroy of India, who was their president, the Society became a separate entity to the NIA in September 1881. In 1910, the Northbrook Society was housed along with the NIA and Bureau for Information for Indian Students at 21 Cromwell Road, South Kensington. The Society was then able to provide a small number of rooms as temporary lodgings for Indian visitors and students.

Example: 

Mary Hobhouse, ‘London sketched by an Indian Pen’, The Indian Magazine, 230 (February 1890), pp. 61-73 at p. 66.

Other names: 

Northbrook Indian Society

Northbrook Club

Northbrook Indian Club

Secondary works: 

Khalidi, Omar (ed.), An Indian Passage to Europe: The Travels of Fath Nawaj Jang (Karachi: OUP, 2006)

Burton, Antoinette, At the Heart of the Empire: Indians and the Colonial Encounter in Late-Victorian Britain (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998)

Robinson, Andrew, ‘Selected Letters of Sukumar Ray’, South Asia Research, 7 (1987), pp. 169-236 [Sukumar Ray's account of lodging with the Northbrook Society, 1911-12]

Content: 

Extracts from a diary written by Mehdi Hasan Khan of his time in London in 1889. This includes mention of a lunch visit to the Northbrook Club.

Date began: 
01 Feb 1880
Extract: 

In India I had heard disparaging things said about this club. Among other things, that the club being full of Anglo-Indians, Natives were treated badly there, deriving no benefit from, and having no voice in, the club. I am extremely glad to say that I found every one of these remarks contrary to the fact. Natives are treated there on perfectly equal terms with Europeans. It is a most useful institution for Indians. Our students in London assemble there regularly every afternoon, meet Englishmen, see club life, and enjoy one another’s society.

Key Individuals' Details: 

Gerald Fitzgerald (Secretary), Lord Northbrook (President).

Archive source: 

The Times, 6 August 1881, 15 May 1883, 22 May 1883, 10 August 1883, 7 August 1884, 5 November 1886, 1 September 1908, 11 January 1910, 2 May 1926

NIA Minutes, Mss Eur F147/3-4, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Involved in events details: 

Prince of Wales opened new house of Northbrook Indian Society at 3 Whitehall Gardens, 21 May 1883.

Tags for Making Britain: 

E. J. Beck

About: 

E. J. Beck was Honorary Secretary of the National Indian Association from 1905. She was the younger sister of Theodore Beck, Principal of the Mahomedan Anglo-Oriental College in Aligarh, and lived in India with him when he was Principal. After his death, she returned to London and became involved in the National Indian Association. On the death of E. A. Manning in 1905, Miss Beck became Honorary Secretary. She did not however edit its organ, The Indian Magazine and Review, for long, and employed Miss A. A. Smith to take on editorial duties. Beck was present at the NIA event at the Imperial Institute at which Madan Lal Dhingra assassinated Sir Curzon-Wyllie and was called as a witness to Dhingra's trial. She retired in 1932 and The Indian Magazine and Review stopped printing.

She died in Allahabad on 1 January 1936 while on a tour of India to visit friends. Cornelia Sorabji was in Allahabad at the time and recounted the last days of Miss Beck for the NIA.

Connections: 

Abdullah Yusuf Ali, Muhammad Ali, Theodore Beck (brother), Sir Curzon-Wyllie, Madan Lal Dhingra, Elizabeth Adelaide Manning, Sarojini Naidu, Miss A. A. Smith, Cornelia Sorabji, Mrs J. D. Westbrook.

Contributions to periodicals: 

The Daily Telegraph (interview about Curzon-Wyllie murder, 3 July 1909)

Precise DOB unknown: 
Y
Reviews: 

The Times, 4 and 15 January 1936 (obituaries)

Archive source: 

Special Issue: Commemoration of Miss E. J. Beck, The Indian Magazine and Review, March 1936, Mss Eur F147/23, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

NIA minutes (1905-29), Mss Eur F147/9-14, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Involved in events: 

Present at murder of Sir Curzon-Wyllie at Imperial Institute, 1 July 1909

Other names: 

Emma Josephine Beck

Miss Beck

Jessie Beck

Date of death: 
01 Jan 1936
Location of death: 
Allahabad, India
Tags for Making Britain: 

Sankaran Nair

About: 

Sankaran Nair was a lawyer who became a Judge in the Madras High Court in 1908. He played an active role in the Indian National Congress and served as their president in 1897. He founded and edited The Madras Review and The Madras Law Journal. In 1915, he became a member of the India Council.

Sankaran Nair visited Britain in 1920 as part of the Indian deputation to the Southborough Committee on Indian franchise. He had travelled with Herabai Tata and Mithan Lam to put forward the case for female suffreage in India. He served as councillor to the Secretary of State for India in London 1920-1. During his time in Britain he gave a number of addresses and was involved in a campaign for a residential club for Indian female students in London.

Sankaran Nair continued to pursue an active political career when he returned to India. In 1922 he wrote Gandhi and Anarchy which criticized Gandhi's noncooperation movement but also criticized Michael O'Dwyer and British suppression. He was chair of the All-India Committee which met with the Simon Commission in 1928-9.

Published works: 

Gandhi and Anarchy (Indore: Holkar State Printing Press, 1922)

Autobiography (Madras: M. Nair, 1966)

Date of birth: 
11 Jul 1857
Connections: 

G. K. Chettur (nephew), Mithan J. Lam, Herabai Tata.

Britain and India Association

Reviews: 

Britain and India Journal (mentions Nair's activities in Britain in 1920)

City of birth: 
Kerala
Country of birth: 
India
Other names: 

Chettur Sankaran Nair

Date of death: 
24 Apr 1934
Location of death: 
Madras, India
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 
01 Jan 1920
Precise 1st arrival date unknown: 
Y
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

1920-1

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Kedar Nath Das Gupta

About: 

Kedar Nath Das Gupta, a Bengali and friend of Rabindranath Tagore, was involved in forming the Union of East and West in January 1914. This was a society for the British and Indians in London which put on dramatic performances (having subsumed the Indian Art and Dramatic Society, formed in 1912). Das Gupta and the Society were based at 14 St Marks Crescent, London, NW1. He hoped that through the Society he could promote better understanding and collaboration between India and the West.

Das Gupta collaborated with Laurence Binyon in 1919 to adapt Kalidasa's play, Sakuntala, for the English stage. Das Gupta was able to publish through the Society some of the plays that they put on. The publication of Caliph for a Day in 1917, a Tagore play, also included photos of Das Gupta dressed in Indian clothes with three of the female members of the Society's executive, and photos of the Indian soldiers for whom the Union of the East and West had put on performances during the War.

In 1918, he published a play that he had written called Bharata, a four-act play that Das Gupta explained in the preface was drawn from writers, historians and philosophers of East and West on the four stages of life. The publication included a dedication to King George V and a quote from Lloyd George on the dust jacket. Das Gupta then migrated to New York with the Union of the East and West in the 1920s to create an umbrella movement known sometimes as the 'Fellowship of Faiths' or the 'Threefold Movement' incorporating as it did the Union of East and West, the Fellowship of Faiths and the League of Neighbours. He organized an International Conference of Faiths in Chicago in 1933. Das Gupta was also involved in organising the classes given in London in 1936 by the Swami Yogananda.

Published works: 

(with Margaret G. Mitchell) Bharata (London: Union of East and West, 1918)

Consolation from the East to the West: Ancient Indian Stories (London: Union of the East and West, 1916)  

Caliph for a Day, An Amusing Comedy (London: Indian Art and Dramatic Society, 1917)

(with Laurence Binyon) Sakuntala (London: Macmillan & Co., 1920)

Example: 

Beginning of Kedar Nath Das Gupta's play, Bharata (1918), pp. 9-10.

Content: 

The play begins with the main protagonist, Ram Lal, described as an 'idealist' describing to some British children the ideals of Empire.

Connections: 

T. W. Arnold, Bhupendranath Basu, Laurence Binyon, Lewis Casson, Charlotte Despard, E. B. Havell, Clarissa Miles, Margaret Mitchell, William Poel, William Rothenstein, Rabindranath Tagore, Sybil Thorndike, H. G. Wells.

Reviews: 

See reference to him and the Union of East and West in Britain and India, The Times (including 28 June 1916, 28 October 1916 and 17 October 1919), The Stage (including 23 October 1919, 20 November 1919), The Era (including 19 November 1919), The New York Times (including 23 June 1922 and 1 July 1922) 

William Poel, 'Hindu Drama on the English Stage', Asiatic Quarterly Review I.2 (April 1913), pp. 319-31.

Extract: 

Act 1. Enter Ram Lal into a park – begin conversation with Cohen, O’Brien and Jones (children)

JONES: What a lovely daisy

RAM LAL: Yes beautiful. It is like the British Empire. Look at its petals, each distinct from the other like English, Indians, Canadians, Australians, Africans, but all are attached to one place. What do you call it?

JONES: England!

COHEN: The heart of gold.

RAM LAL: That’s right. All are untied to the stem by the bond of love. Each has a separate existence, a special mission to fulfil, but their final goal is the same. East is East, West is West, but the twain must meet on the common ground of humanity. This is the true Union of the East and West.

Secondary works: 

Chambers, Colin, A History of Black and Asian Theatre in Britain (London: Routledge, forthcoming)

Relevance: 

This extract gives some insight into Kedar Nath Das Gupta's publications, style and ideas about unity and empire that had encouraged him to set up the Union of East and West and emphasized the power of drama to convey ideas.

Archive source: 

Theatre programmes (including programmes for 'Buddha' at Royal Court Theatre, 22 February 1912, and 'Sakuntala' at Winter Garden Theatre, 19 November 1919),  V & A Theatre Museum, Earls Court, London

Involved in events: 

Various performances put on by the Union of the East and West including performance of Sakuntala at Winter Garden Theatre, November 1919

Lecture delivered by Colonel Rai Jai Prithvi Bahadur Singh at Caxton Hall, 25 July 1929. Das Gupta had been involved in organising the event and also spoke at the event along with Annie Besant and Cecil H. Wilson (MP). [See http://nepal.humanists.net/speeches/london.html]

Lectures delivered by Swami Yogananda in London, 1936.

Location

14 St Mark's Crescent
London, NW1 8JL
United Kingdom
51° 32' 17.2572" N, 0° 9' 3.942" W
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

at least 1910s to 1920s, 1936

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