Ribbons Among the Rajahs: A History of British Women in India Before the Raj

by Patrick Wheeler

From the mid-eighteenth century onwards, British women started traveling in any numbers to the East Indies, mostly to accompany husbands, brothers or fathers. Very little about them is recorded from the earlier years, about the remarkable journeys that they made and what drove them to travel those huge distances. Some kept journals, others wrote letters, and for the first time Patrick Wheeler tells their story in this fascinating and colorful history, exploring the little-known lives of these women and their experiences of life in India before the Raj.

With a perceptive approach, Ribbons Among the Rajahs considers all aspects of women's lives in India, from the original discomfort of traversing the globe and the complexities of arrival through to creating a home in a tight-knight settlement community. It considers, too, the effects of the subservience of women to the needs of men and argues for the greater fusion of European cultures that existed prior to imperial times.

256 pages, Hardcover

Published August 8, 2017

Reviews

[LaurieAnn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good day, accessible read for anyone non-academic who has an interest in this period of history. I really enjoyed learning about this part of the British Empire. My favourite fact was about air conditioning. My only criticism is about the construction of the text - chapters should have been better organised and the book would have benefited from a glossary. It also could have done with a concluding chapter instead of an abrupt end chapter concerning death.

[Brian Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before the Raj means before 1857, a time when all travel was adventure travel. This a very well-written book about the pioneering women of British imperialism.

As the writer says, "of legions of women who went to India in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. They are a forgotten community. Not being contributors to the great events of the day, they have been swept into a corner, and long since lost to history."