Auntie told us, she
has wrote to you about the same thing as all have “Coming Home” and if you only knew how much Good would be done by
your coming you would not refuse, we all think.
When the
widowed Colonel Joseph Walker Jasper Ouseley died in 1889 aged eighty-nine just
two of his six children were still alive to attend his London funeral, his
oldest child Mary Jane (1824-1911) and his youngest Louisa Alice (1840-1925).
Both were unmarried and childless. They were the inheritors of considerable
wealth and a great deal of stuff which, when Mary died, was finally
concentrated in the hands of Louisa.
In a
worst-case scenario it might all have passed to the dogs’ home but Mary and
Louisa had other ideas. Their first and joint decision was to use some of their
inheritance to endow a scholarship at London’s School of Oriental and African
Studies (SOAS) to support students of Arabic, Persian and Hindustani; the
scholarship named for their father still exists. After Mary’s death Louisa
gifted his manuscripts to SOAS, and in her will bequeathed the balance of her
father’s library.
Following
in family footsteps, Joseph Ouseley had gone out from Ireland to India in 1819
in the service of the East India Company but though he progressed through the
military ranks he never saw active service. Like his half-brothers, Sir Gore
Ouseley and Sir William Ouseley, he proved to be a talented linguist and was
quickly appointed to the Company’s college located in Calcutta’s Fort William
and by 1825 was professor of Arabic and Persian. He married there a local
vicar’s daughter, Elizabeth Palmer, and in addition to his teaching commitments
became one of the six original directors of the Bengal Bonded Warehouse
Association formed in 1838. He likely made visits to England and Ireland but
when he finally returned in 1844 it was to an appointment on the staff of the
East India Company’s college at Haileybury in Hertfordshire, again as professor
of Arabic and Persian. At Haileybury, he worked on what is his only recorded
publication, an edition of the animal stories which make up The Anvár-I
Suhailí: Or the Lights of Canopus in the original Persian, printed
on the Haileybury press, and published in 1851. His edition currently retails
for a few thousand pounds. An English translation by Edward Backhouse Eastwick
followed in 1854 and can be had as print on demand paperback for a rather more
modest sum. A much earlier French translation of The Anvár-I Suhailí
provided a significant source for the stories told in La Fontaine’s Fables.
Ouseley produced his Persian edition from a sixteenth century richly
illustrated manuscript which he owned and which Louisa later gifted to SOAS; it
is, as we say, priceless.
Mary Jane’s 1836 letter written from Limerick to her father in Calcutta and transcribed below is the priceless work of a twelve-year old. There were many families like hers with one foot in India and the other back home, divided by long periods of separation made longer by the slowness of the only possible means of communication. There were many reasons for nineteenth century men and women to choose to remain unmarried but my sense is that a common one was the experience of long childhood separations from loved ones, an experience for which bachelorhood and spinsterhood ensured there would be no repetition.
The
characters in Mary’s letter are her sister Elizabeth, born in 1825 and just a
year younger; her brother Gore 1827, and presumed cousins Joe and Ralph;
“Auntie” is her father’s older full sister Jane Priscilla who is often omitted
from genealogies, never married, and was living with her widowed brother in
London when she died in 1883. She adds a
postscript to Mary Jane’s letter.
From the
letter, it is clear that she and her sister have been living with their
paternal grandmother and aunt in Limerick for some time (six years, according
to the letter) and have recently been united or re-united with their mother
Elizabeth who the year previous to this letter had given birth in Calcutta to
another child William who is not mentioned but who was certainly alive. Mary
Jane writes of showing her mother the sights of Limerick, which places her as a
newcomer there.
*
Transcription
(spellings preserved)
Addressed
to: Captain J.W.J. Ouseley College Calcutta
Prepaid
mark and postmark of Limerick 9 June, London and London Ship
Letter 12 June, unclear arrival mark of Calcutta probably dated 7
November.
Datelined:
Limerick 28th of May 1836.
My
dearest Papa,
Lizzie,
and I, are so impatiently waiting for the arrival of our 2 letters which you in
your last letter said to expect – particularly as they are the first we are to
have from Papa – We were all very sorry to here of the death of poor Mama’s
Mama.
Gore,
Ralph, Joe & Mr Dore their Tutor, have all gone to see the review [?] this
being the King’s Birthday – as their Lessons are done – and I believe dear
Auntie intends to take Liz, and I, in the course of the day. I don’t know that
dear Mama is coming – You cannot know dear Papa how much we all, every
one, wish for you, and we all hope it is your wish to come too. Mama sometimes
talks of our going back [to India] but either Grand-Mama, Auntie, nor us
– feel satisfied at such settlements as it would be a dreadful business for
Liz, and I, to part with two from whome we have received such kindness, for so
long a time, 6 years – which you would easyly know were you at home – or
neither with Mama, if she went back alone.
We ae all
quite well in both Houses. Gore, and Ralph, are growing fast and so are we too.
Little Joe often talks of you, and oftener takes Pen and “Pink” to write
to you with – the Boy’s learn from Mr Dore, Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, and
Geography for 2 Hours every day, and Gore after Mr Dore goes has Lessons with
us, from dear Auntie. Ralph in the mean time goes to Mama, and I think that’s
all the business they do – but, Liz and I not only have Lessons with Auntie,
which sometimes takes nearly 4 Hours to finish, but attend Mrs Ledger every
morning in music, and Mr Kenedy 3 times a week in Arithmetic, and Geography –
and Mr Nunan 1 a week in writing – and I believe we are to begin dancing soon
again. We have enough to do at present.
Monday 31st.
Yesterday Auntie, Mama, Liz, and I went to “Munchin’s Chirch” and
Mama liked it much, and we showed her “Sir Harry’s Mall” and different Bridges
– and the house you were born in &c – and she liked it very much.
June 2nd
– this day Auntie read in the “Chronicle” that letters have been
answered in 5 months from India, and also that Lord Acland has reached India
safely, therefore we soon hope to have Letters from you, mentioning the receipt
of our Pictures – which went out by him. Mama has got a parcel of Letters and
newspapers from you today, but unluckily our two Letters are not in it. The
parcel was brought to London by a Mrs Clark. How delighted it would make poor
dear Grandmama to see you, and dearest Auntie too – they, and us, were very
affected to see Mama without you, as we never expected to see one without the
other.
Friday 3rd
Gore, Ralph, Liz, and Auntie, are all writing besides me, and Auntie told us,
she has wrote to you about the same thing as all have “Coming Home” and if you only knew how much Good would be done by
your coming you would not refuse we all think. Mama and Auntie received letters
from you today but no letters for us but Mama told us that you said you would
write to us soon – they had no late news, as it was telling of the death of
Grand mama Palmer [her mother’s mother who lived in India with her
husband] of which we have …[tear in letter] later Accounts. Dear mama
is I think quite well, yesterday Sunday she went with us all to the “George’s
Chirch” and after returning home, went to the “Cathedral” for evening service,
which was a great walk indeed – the key of Gore’s desk he mislade for some
day’s which put a stop to his letter but
found it again yesterday and he is just telling me what he wrote last was
asking you to “come home”.
Tuesday 7th.
I do not know how this letter is to go – if alone, I can only say, Good bye, [because
she has nearly filled the single sheet which would make a folded letter] but
if in a parcel I can go on. Auntie is up stairs when she comes down I will then
tell you – Now Auntie says she will send this by Post, as there are no parcels
going – so Good bye my dearest papa, I remain in great hope our letters will
soon let us see you, your very affectionate child Mary Jane Ouseley
Auntie is
going to write on the other end [of the sheet]
[in
another hand] My dearest Joe. I have written to you on dear little Mary’s
subject already - & Elizabeth [Mary’s mother] & I have had two
or three (to me at least) very agitating conversations on the subject. She now
appears rather less averse to the idea of your – but has lived too long in the
East [Elizabeth was born there] not to set a juster value on money’s
worth than I &c do. It is very true that so large a family would require
great resources but economies & self-denial can do much. I have been
interrupted & can only add that I am your [letter torn]
*
1836 Mary
Jane Ouseley
Contadini,
Anna 'A Jewel of Mughal Painting: The SOAS Anvar-i Suhayli Manuscript.' Orientations,
38 (8). pp. 51-56 (2007)
Wikipedia:
Joseph Walker Jasper Ouseley
Illustration shows Maimun the patriotic monkey luring the
bears to their fate
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