Overview

Shows how it was not just the London elite and City merchants who had connections to British India. Over the long eighteenth century, thousands of men and women from the English provinces lived and worked in the East Indies. Yet the provincial commitment of human, financial and social capital to ventures in the East Indies has largely been disregarded. This book challenges the widely held view that British rule in India was driven primarily by the interests of London merchants and national political elites. Based on extensive original research, including the piecing together of biographical fragments of over 400 men and women from the Cumbrian counties, setting them in their family, social, financial and cultural networks, and outlining the details of their sojourns in the East,the book portrays a provincial world heavily implicated in the East Indies. It discusses how provincial people's encounter with the East Indies was driven by the desire of middling folk and gentry to promote, sustain, and, in some cases, revive fortunes, position and influence in their own provincial milieu, and thereby demonstrates how provincial preoccupations shaped the East Indies, and how East Indies experiences shaped provincial life. KaySaville-Smith is Director of the Centre for Research, Evaluation and Social Assessment in Wellington, New Zealand. She completed her doctorate at the University of Lancaster.

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9781783272815

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Reviews

This book powerfully demonstrates the value of what is sometimes.marginalised as just `local' history.. [It] ought to promote a rethinking not just of Cumbrian history but of provincial motives for involvement in Empire by the ambitious and the needy in other counties. CWAAS NEWSLETTER

By demonstrating the provincial origins, motivations, and deployment of the returns from the East, the book offers scholars of the EIC, imperialism and global trade useful micro-foundational insights into the motivations and effects of imperial encounters. It also contributes to debates on the development and relative importance of provincial interests and experiences, as opposed to those of the national and metropolitan. ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW Makes a valuable contribution to the growing scholarship on British interactions with the East Indies and studies of provincial life in eighteenth-century Britain. JOURNAL FOR EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES By bringing the local into conversation with the global [it] enables a range of new interpretations and charts a path for future investigation. SOCIAL HISTORY This book powerfully demonstrates the value of what is sometimes...marginalised as just `local' history. [It] ought to promote a rethinking not just of Cumbrian history but of provincial motives for involvement in Empire by the ambitious and the needy in other counties. CWAAS NEWSLETTER [Stephen Constantine]

By demonstrating the provincial origins, motivations, and deployment of the returns from the East, the book offers scholars of the EIC, imperialism and global trade useful micro-foundational insights into the motivations and effects of imperial encounters. It also contributes to debates on the development and relative importance of provincial interests and experiences, as opposed to those of the national and metropolitan. * ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW * Makes a valuable contribution to the growing scholarship on British interactions with the East Indies and studies of provincial life in eighteenth-century Britain. * JOURNAL FOR EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES * By bringing the local into conversation with the global [it] enables a range of new interpretations and charts a path for future investigation. * SOCIAL HISTORY * This book powerfully demonstrates the value of what is sometimes...marginalised as just `local' history. [It] ought to promote a rethinking not just of Cumbrian history but of provincial motives for involvement in Empire by the ambitious and the needy in other counties. -- Stephen Constantine * CWAAS NEWSLETTER * Saville-Smith has written a robustly researched and stimulating study, with a spirited argument for the importance of archives in understanding a multilayered world. -- Adrian Green * Journal of British Studies *

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