History

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ANGLO-INDIANS

- Dr. Gloria J. Moore

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This article originally appeared in “The Australian People: an
Encyclopedia of the nation, its People and Their Origins”, in
1988. It discusses the origins of the Anglo-Indians in terms of
the colonial practices of the Europeans and traces the valuable
role the Anglo-Indians played in maintaining the British in India.
The article then goes on to discuss the Anglo-Indian contribution
to post-colonial India, this is followed by the role that Anglo-
Indians are playing in Australia.

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The term “Anglo-Indian” was first used by Warren Hastings in the
eighteenth century to describe both the British in India and their
Indian-born children. In the nineteenth century the British in
India still separated themselves from coloured people but accepted
fairer (and often wealthier) people of dual heritage as
“Anglo-Indian”. Darker (and usually poorer) people were given the
name “Eurasian”. Today (apart from literature still alluding to
the British who have lived in India for a long time as
“Anglo-Indian” the term rightly signifies a world minority who
have settled in Canada, New Zealand, the United States of Americas
the United Kingdom and Australia, with some 150,000 still in India
and a total of well over 500,000 world-wide.
A figure of at least 300,000 Anglo-Indians living in India
at independence in 1947 has been given by Frank Anthony, the
present leader of the Anglo-Indians in India (and by other leaders
before him). Census figures were notoriously inaccurate under the
British Raj since it was a widespread practice to claim to be
“British” (to escape prejudice). Anglo-Indians were of British
descent and were British subjects; they were never accepted by
Indians as Indian.This world minority are descendants of Europeans and
Indians, their mother tongue is English, they are Christians
(mainly Catholics and Anglicans), and at independence they lived
throughout India, in the tiny towns up-country and in the cities
of Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, Agra, Cochin, Lucknow, and Bangalore,
a great centre of Anglo-Indian life. They travelled overseas, to
Burma and Ceylon, to Europe, and especially to Britain, the
birthplace of their male ancestors.The 1820s saw the rise of political activity under John
Ricketts, Louis Derozio and Captain John Doveton. Schools and
colleges, training ships and agricultural schemes were set up. As
a result of rising prejudice, self-help and community organisation
grew, creating a real Anglo-Indian community with a sense of
identity that never waned. These activities, coupled with later
work by Sir Henry Gidney (a famous eye specialist and political
leader), led to a certain security of employment for the
Anglo-Indians. They were given some public positions in
government, the police, customs, merchant navies and railways.
They went into business, like the famous “Grand Mogul” Palmers and
the Kellners. They were defined as Anglo-Indians by Lord Hardinge
in the census of 1911. In 1935 and in Article 366 (2) of the 1950
Indian Constitution, they were again defined as a distinct
“Community”. After independence they were guaranteed
representatives in the national parliament, yet today the
situation of a large number in the subcontinent is precarious. For
300 years they have challenged racial prejudice in British India.

Anglo-Indians were brought into being by the direct policies
of Portuguese, Dutch and British traders and colonists. The East
India Company directors in the seventeenth century paid one pagoda
or gold mohur for each child born to an Indian mother and a
European father, as family allowance. Children with British or
European fathers and Indian mothers were called “country-born” and
included those with Portuguese, Dutch or French fathers. These
offspring were amalgamated into the Anglo-Indian community,
forming a bulwark for the British Raj, a buffer but also a bridge
between rulers and subjects.At every point of critical importance in the development of
the British Raj, Anglo-Indians were present. At the Mysore wars,
at the Mahratta, Sikh, Afghan and Gurkha wars, Anglo-Indian or
countryborn men fought and helped win victories, defending their
fathers’ interests. The great regiments of the Indian army had
among them the Khyber Rifles (founder, Sir Robert Warburton), the
Shekwati Brigade (founder, Colonel Henry Forster) and Skinner’s
Horse (founder, Colonel James Skinner). All these men were the
sons of Anglo-Indian marriages, having among their ancestors
Indian or Anglo-Indian women. From 1791 the Anglo-Indians were
debarred from the East India Company’s armies and many trained the
armies of the Indian princes. The French-descended Bourbons served
Bhopal; the Filoses served the Scindia maharajas of Gwalior. It is
now acknowledged by biographers (as Anglo-Indians have long
believed) that men like William Pitt, Lord Roberts of Kandahar,
Lord Liverpool and W. M. Thackeray, who contributed eminently to
political life and to literature, were of partly Indian descent.

These Westernised people, their culture inherited from their
male ancestors but enriched by the spirit of India, have descended
from all classes, from both Indian and European aristocrats, from
missionaries and naval men, and from traders and soldiers. By 1750
they outnumbered the often transient British.

Australia had many strong links with the world of British
India, and this fact is still reflected in Australian
architecture. (The verandah was a gift of Anglo-India.)
Administrators, army personnel, bishops, travellers and clergy
moved between the two countries. Livestock from Bengal reached
farms in New South Wales and horses from New South Wales were
shipped to the Indian army for cavalry. The Anglican Church in
Australia came under the diocese of Calcutta. There were
Indian-born people (even convicts) living in the earliest
colonies. Their English surnames make it hard to identify the
Anglo-Indians, but one, James Sievwright, a convict clerk at the
Hobart post office in 1844, was fluent in English, French, German,
Bengali, Hindustani, Persian, Greek and Latin.

Colonel Light (whose mother was probably Malay) spent a
brief period in India, but his life was characteristic of this
group – he was refused a commission in the East India Company.
Light’s memorial is the city of Adelaide; his design was possibly
influenced by the beauty of Regency Calcutta with its new
Government House, which he remembered from his visit there in
1805. Caroline Chisholm and Lachlan Macquarie spent years in
India. Some of Caroline Chisholm’s students from a school she
opened in Madras might have emigrated through the Bengal Australia
Settlement Scheme.

A major shipment of Anglo-Indians was organised by Sir
William Burton, a judge in Madras in 1844. Burton was president of
the Madras East India Society and sought relief for those who “are
Christians and look to England as the land of their origin”. The
society sent two groups from Madras to Sydney in the William
Prowse (1853) and the Paltyra (1854). (A similar scheme for Albany
in Western Australia ended with a shipwreck.) Those settled by
Burton were surveyed by the Anglo-Indian author Henry Cornish in
1875 and the results were published in his Under the Southern
Cross (republished by Penguin in 1975). Twenty-four had been
compositors on Henry Parkes’s newspaper, the Empire. James Spooner
was at Towns and Company, Sydney; H. (Henry) Moreau was a
hairdresser in New Road, Sydney; William Grogan, James Dias and
John Gotting were at Cunningham’s printing press in Pitt Street,
Sydney, while Thomas Reynolds and James Baker had left Sydney to
join the Brisbane Courier. Benjamin Franz, John Hovenden and
Thomas Martin had died, and several others had returned to India.
Most were satisfied with their wages and conditions. Young married
couples would have made a complete success of the scheme, wrote
Cornish.

The Indian mutiny of 1857, in which thousands of
Anglo-Indians suffered, led to a rise in the number of Indian-born
settlers in Australia, among them officers of Hodson’s Horse and
other regiments. Colonel Andrew Crawford (who was English) had
also arrived in Tasmania; he was a former adjutant-general of the
Bombay army. He began the Castra farming scheme in northern
Tasmania, attracting retired Indian army officers. As early as
1825 an attempt was made to found an Indian Institution for the
sons of Anglo-Indians and British men. Links with Tasmania and
other areas (such as Western Australia) were strong. There were
372 Indian-born registered in Tasmania in 1881. Among them was Dr
John Coverdale, born in 1814 in Kedgeree, Bengal. Coverdale was a
medical practitioner at Moonah, where he lived for many years. The
Anglo-Indian film star of the 1930s and 1940s, Merle Oberon (born
in Calcutta), lived in an era of deception, giving her birthplace
as Tasmania to evade prejudice in the American film industry,
according to her biographers.

Anglo-Indians contributed en masse to the modernisation of
India, as their schools (with 80-90 per cent Anglo-Indian
enrolment) provided a network of European and Anglo-Indian
education across the country. Anglo-Indians also had a long
tradition of military service. They fought in Britain’s wars from
Plassey to Assaye, from Waterloo to the Crimea and the Boer War.
In the First World War Victoria Crosses were won by William Leefe
Robinson of the Royal Flying Corps and Reginald Alexander
Warneford of the Royal Naval Air Service. Between the two World
Wars the veterans faced increasing difficulties as the Indian
Home-Rule movement gathered momentum. In the Second World War they
flew with “the few” in the Battle of Britain (Guy Gibson of the
Dam Busters), and were at Dunkirk, North Africa, Malaya and the
fall of Singapore. At the end of the Second World War many chose
to be demobbed in Australia or Britain.

The handover of political power in August 1947, the end of
the Raj and the communal killings all engendered insecurity among
many minority groups. Over 100,000 Anglo-Indians emigrated
initially, mostly to Britain. While the first census after
independence did not record Anglo-Indian numbers, Frank Anthony
believes that almost all of the 191,979 “native speakers of
English in India” were Anglo-Indians.

The late 1940s and early 1950s saw some emigration to Perth
and other centres. Among those migrants were John Buckle, who had
survived the atomic attack on Nagasaki while a prisoner of war;
Adrian MacDermott, who came to Melbourne from Changi and the Burma
Railway; Patricia Pengilley, who won a Churchill Fellowship and
spent a lifetime teaching the adult deaf; Norman Oehme, who farmed
in the west and left his land to Aborigines; and Basil Sellars, a
director of such companies as AFP Investment Corp, Elders IXL and
British Gestetner.

Noreen Lubeck, an ex-officer of the Women’s Army Corps
(India), moved to Victoria, where her son (like many after him)
encountered teasing because of his race. One man recalls that
families faced being split, the fair being accepted and the dark
rejected. However, their desire to settle in a Christian country
made them persevere.

The educational levels and competence in English of
Anglo-Indians were of a high standard. Several graduates from St
Joseph’s, Northpoint, who arrived in the early years, did well.
Ed. Patterson became chief engineer of the Snowy Mountains
Hydro-Electric Scheme; the Gidneys, kin of the late Sir Henry
Gidney, have several doctors among their number and have settled
throughout Australia. Others went from journalism to writing
histories (Reginald Maher in Perth), from Dehra Dun to Duntroon
(both military academies), and from the railways to mining in
Western Australia.

In the 1960s thousands of Anglo-Indians who had emigrated to
Britain were considering remigration with their British-born
children to new countries. The relaxation in 1966 of the
restrictive entry policy, and the adoption in 1973 of a policy of
non-discrimination on the grounds of race, colour or nationality
in the selection of migrants, resulted in a noticeable increase in
the number of Anglo-lndian settlers in Australia. Between July
1969 and June 1972 Australia admitted 6,892 Indian-born of “mixed
descent”, of whom 39 per cent went to Victoria and 33 per cent to
Western Australia. To this figure must be added the thousands who
remigrated with their children to Australia from the United
Kingdom or Canada. All these countries now have sizeable
Anglo-lndian settler groups. Of the 41,657 Indian-born settlers
recorded in the 1981 Australian census, Ken McIntyre (and leaders
of the community) believe that at least 75 per cent (who are
Christian) are Anglo-lndian. The largest number arrived from India
in 1969. The Anglo-lndian community is less than 0.03 per cent of
the total population of India. Virtually a stateless people, they
face increasing difficulties in education and employment in India.

In 1947 Roland McGready became a gazetted officer, with 70,000
men under his command, in the Great Indian Peninsular Railway. He
left for Melbourne in the 1960s. His son, Dr Roland McGready (a
biochemist), has a successful academic research consultancy. A
daughter, Kathy, toured India with an Australian women’s cricket
team and is writing its history. Malcolm and Bonita Prior and
Peter Savedra opened factories which employ hundreds of people
between them. Tony Archer and former boxing champion Peter Prince
are in the insurance business. Henry Roach, Colonel Charles
Campagnac and Colonel Denzil Alexander (whose family served the
maharajas of Jaipur for seven generations) opened the Independent
Oil Company, which plans to build its own refinery in Westernport
Bay, Victoria. Kris Noble, who arrived from the United Kingdom,
produces satirical television programs for the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), such as The Gillies Report. Some
have opened restaurants, such as the Gardners and Parkers
(Melbourne), the Bretagnes (Sydney), and the deRosarios
(Adelaide). Others have moved into real estate and investment,
like Ivan Phillips, formerly of Northpoint. Those who arrived in
1948 could bring savings. From the 1960s, however, Indian currency
restrictions meant that most arrived with $7 per person. Father
Murphy of the Catholic Immigration Office in Melbourne remembers
helping many adults who had sacrificed good careers for their
children’s future.

Anglo-Indians are stable, conscientious workers, with
extended family networks and a lively social life. They remained
interested in India and the East, showing concern for
Anglo-Indians still in India. Their settlement has been smooth and
trouble-free, and they maintain good relations with other groups.
Unfortunately, some have encountered discrimination at work.
Philosophical, adaptable and with a strong community spirit, they
assimilate more readily than the other Indian-born such as Hindus,
Sikhs and Muslims. Those who have lived in the United Kingdom or
Canada are now accustomed to doing their own domestic work,
although all at first missed the comforts of India in this regard
and their unique social life there. All prefer the climate and
informality of Australian life. Opposition rarely exists to out-
marriage into other groups, and Anglo-Indians are marrying
increasingly often into other ethnic groups. Since they have the
same language, religion and culture as the mainstream society,
they may well lose their ethnic identity.

Anglo-Indians have made a significant contribution to
teaching in Australia. They can be found throughout all the
networks of schools, private and State, from Scotch College to
Geelong Grammar, and in Australian universities, although they are
under-represented in these so far. Government departments, the
police, the armed forces, customs, hospitals, libraries and the
arts all employ Anglo-Indians. Their children often move into the
professions.

Anglo-Indians are sports-loving and were the sports stars of
India. Leslie Hammond has settled in Ballarat, and the brothers
Richard and Laurie Carr live in Melbourne. Gene Raymond and Dusty
Millar (boxers) went to Melbourne (Raymond via the United
Kingdom). The Pearces in Perth helped win Olympic victories for
Australian hockey. Rudy Pacheco, Marcus Syms and Julian Maugey
began the Springvale/Noble Park Hockey Club, which draws all
groups and ages, as does Ken McIntyre’s Australia-India Cricket
Club – both in Melbourne. Kingsley Hayes-Rosario, a former Scots
Guard, coaches cricket in Victoria. Dennis Fallon and Dudley Beeby
coach hockey teams in Glen Waverley, Melbourne. Fund-raising
charity functions are a feature in Melbourne, Perth and Sydney, as
they are in the United Kingdom and Canada. The Melbourne Rangers,
the Australia-India Society of Victoria, the Sydney Rangers, and
“old school” associations (such as those of Bishop Cotton of
Bangalore and Campion-Vestry of Trichinopoly, in Melbourne), all
flourish and provide scholarships for youth in India or grants to
charities in Australia. The Indian Ex-Service Club of Victoria
hosts visiting generals, admirals and air vice-marshals from the
Indian armed forces, such as Admiral Ronald Almedia and
Brigadier-General Desmond Hayde, a hero of the battle of Dograi in
the India-Pakistan conflict, in September 1965.

The recently formed Australian Anglo-Indian Research
Association in Melbourne aims to encourage, co-ordinate and
supervise all aspects of research on Anglo-Indians – their
history, settlement and welfare. To date there is little useful or
valuable information on the Anglo-Indians. Attempts are now being
made to change this: Gloria Moore in The Lotus and the Rose and
The Anglo Indian Vision, Eric Stracey (Canberra), former
inspector-general of police (Tamil Nadu), and General J. G.
Henderson-Brooks, have all written histories or their
autobiographies. Adrian Gilbert intends to work on postgraduate
research in this field. And Christine Walker epitomises the many
who continually re-educate people about Anglo-lndian life and
history.

June D’Rozario held the seat of Sanderson (Darwin) in the
Northern Territory Assembly for the Australian Labor Party (ALP)
from 1977 to 1983, and Anne Warner was elected to the Queensland
parliament for the ALP in 1983. Fred Cress’s brilliant art,
influenced by the spirit of India, brings riches to Australian
life. Others have contributed to Australian society by their
unique traditions as bridge-builders between East and West, as
ambassadors of both Europe and India, and of multiculturalism.
Their activities include teaching English (Vivienne Wheeler,
through the English Speaking Union); researching rural development
projects in the subcontinent (the late Major Clarry Goff); working
voluntarily for the Epilepsy Foundation (Joe D’Souza); and reading
and illustrating books for the blind (Noreen Lubeck). Indira
Gandhi paid a warm tribute to “The Community, the whole country
admires their spirit of zest and adventure”. Malcolm Fraser
encouraged hockey player Leslie Claudius to emigrate to Perth.

Anglo-Indians were among India’s most international,
emancipated and democratic people, a Westernised minority amongst
the vast Indian population. Their families are now scattered all
over the Commonwealth and extend world-wide.

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