ANATOMY OF A WILL
(published as lead article in Sunday Statesman, Kolkata and Delhi on 25 April, 2010 under the caption Bibis and Britsh Benevolence)
Until the second half of the nineteenth century the East India Company civilians, generally recruited between 16 and 18 years of age, lived an ‘unattached male’ existence in India. To overcome their ‘home sickness’ and sense of isolation they sought comfort in the arms of native women whom they took as mistresses and concubines but rarely as legally wedded wives. However, these white nawabs left their women well provided for. It is significant that of the Bengal Wills from 1780 to 1785 preserved in the India Office in London, one in three contains a bequest to Indian wives or companions/concubine/mistresses. Cornwallis discouraged miscegenation and such bequests went on decreasing over the decades. Post-Cornwallis, Evangelical Victorian colonial attitudes and the wholesale arrival of memsahebs from England ended all open sexual contact between the two nations. Between 1805 and 1810, bibis appear in only one in four Wills; by 1830 it is one in six; by the middle of the century they have all but disappeared.
Mark Davies, a scholar from Oxford, was recently in Calcutta/Patna to trace his ancestry, particularly on the mother’s side. He refutes the suggestion that most Britons would like to keep their Indian connection under wraps. He asserts that some not only boldly announce it to the world but make a special effort to research their roots and locate their forebears’ graves in India. (If properly handled this may promote what can be morbidly described as ‘graveyard tourism’.) To buttress his point he refers to a book A TUG ON THE THREAD by Diana Quick which is currently making waves in England. But Quick does not quite come to his rescue. She traces her family back to 18th-century India, where they struggled as “country-born” (people of mixed race). She describes her father’s difficulties as the son of a British officer sent to England to pursue his studies just before the war.
Mark Davies learnt from his family records that his ancestor Mathew Leslie (born 1755) was a civil servant under the East India Company from 1773 until his death in 1804. He is the very same Leslie after whom Leslieganj near Ranchi is named. Mark’s family sources revealed that Leslie had at least three Indian bibis. Mark had descended from one of them but he did not know which one. A bibi was a mistress or concubine and seldom the legally wedded spouse. Besides being posted as District Collector of Ramgurh (a much larger version of today’s Hazaribag district) and Rungpur (now in Bangladesh), Leslie had spent many years at Patna on different assignments such as a Judge of the Court of Appeal, his last posting being as Member of the Board of Revenue in Calcutta. Mark’s direct ancestor Robert, Leslie’s son, was born in 1782 when Leslie was probably based at Patna. It was therefore fair assumption on Mark’s part that he had descended from a bibi from Patna. While his search for his roots has so far has been elusive, he has not given up. He kindly let me have a copy of Mathew Leslie’s Will which he obtained from the family archives.
This handwritten Will in 13 pages is couched in neo-classical style of prose. It shows scant regard for grammar and composition. It begins thus: ‘This is the last will and testament of me, Mathew Leslie of Calcutta in the province of Bengal in the East Indies.’ It is dated 13 August 1803. Edward Stuttoll, R. Cramaff and E.S. Cameron witnessed the signing, sealing and delivery of this ‘will and testament’. Leslie died a few months later. Did he have a premonition? Could a life of hard work and indulgence have taken its toll?
More than telling who was to get how much, the Will reveals Leslie’s personality and the working of his mind which we can take as representative of his time. If the Will expresses Leslie’s generosity, it also reveals his racial preferences. He gives his beneficiaries enough to subsist during their lifetime but the corpus is to finally vest in his family estate in Ireland. The Will excludes all movable and immovable properties and is confined to money and securities. Debts, funeral charges and expenses incurred by the executors in the execution of the Will are to be settled before giving effect to ‘legacies, annuities and bequests’. So as to preclude any future complication he included in the Will an ‘Inventory of my fortune on the 31st July 1803’. It is considerable but not so much as to raise eyebrows, granting it was not unusual for the Company’s servants to carry on a business of their own on the side.
Leslie appointed ‘Ralph Uvedale, Thomas Raban and David Colvin Esqs. of Calcutta, Henry Douglas Esq. of Patna, and Archibald Solon Esquire of Baraile, executors of this my will in India and guardians of my children as shall be in India at the time of my demise and of such posthumous child or children as aforesaid during their respective residency in India…’ Ralph Uvedale was then Clerk of the Crown in the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal and Leslie refers to him as ‘my dearest friend’. Dearest friend indeed for his name comes up again and again in the Will. Leslie set apart a sum of Rupees 50000 or 5000 pounds and the interest thereon was to go to Ralph Uvedale, during his lifetime. Some years after Leslie’s demise his son Robert married Uvedales’s daughter. Henry Douglas, another executor, was also a civil servant under the East India Company and could have been Leslie’s colleague at Patna. Douglas died at Patna in 1839 at the age of 78. He lies entombed in the Sabzibag cemetery in the heart of the city. It has not been possible to locate the other three executors.
Normally only one executor is appointed to administer a Will. So what was the need for Leslie to have five executors? That was presumably because the executors were not merely to administer the Will. They were also to be the ‘guardians of my children as shall be in India at the time of my demise and of such posthumous child or children as aforesaid during their respective residency in India… I desire they will send my children to Europe or not as they think proper. Of this they are to be the sole judges.’ Obviously one executor could not have taken care of all of Leslie’s growing up children. In all humility Leslie gave each executor rupees one thousand ‘for the purchase of a ring as a mark of my sincere friendship and regard for them.’ He had placed a big burden on them and it was a small recompense. Leslie further appointed his brothers Charles Henry Leslie, John Leslie and James Wolfe Leslie ‘executors of this my will in Europe and guardians of the persons and estates of such of my children as may be in Europe at the time of my demise or be afterwards sent there by my executors in India…’ Of the six children mentioned in the Will John and Charles were then in Europe as was a married daughter Anne Hindley; Robert, Charlotte and Sarah were in India. Each one was given Sicca rupees 40000, less marriage expenses already incurred in case of daughters.
Unlike several of his contemporaries among the Indian nobility, Leslie left the women in his life well provided for though some received more than the others.. Even the servants received a gratuity. However, Leslie was not equitable in his bequest to the native women (bibis) he mentions in the Will. The lion’s share went to ‘my girl Zehoorun Khanum late wife of Meer Mahomad Hassan Khan’. She received ‘Sicca Rupees’ 20000 while the other two – ‘my girl’ Heera Beeby and ‘my girl’ Zebon - got only 12000 each. They were to be paid in quarterly installments the interest accruing on the above amount while the principal was to remain intact under control of the executors and was to revert to Leslie’s estate after the demise of the bibis. To each of the above three he also bequeathed ‘a house and premises in the City of Patna’, apparently to be enjoyed in perpetuity. Location and address of the property is not mentioned but leaves one in no doubt that all three were from Patna. Another bibi, ‘my girl’ Afsaroon, was given ‘Sicca Rupees’ 3000 only and no house. It may be noted that Leslie suffixes Khanum to Zehoorun’s name and Beeby to Heera’s but none to Zebon’s or Afsaroon’s. Was Leslie fonder of one than the others or were they graded according to their appeal and loyalty to him or by the number of children each bore him? Atleast, he refers to each of them as ‘my girl’ reflecting endearment and attachment.
It appears from the Will that Leslie did not have an English wife and he did not therefore have any English children. In fact, there is no evidence that Leslie ever married, and as no wife is mentioned in the Will, and no mother is ever named at the baptism of his children, it is safe to assume that all the children were conceived with local women. The Will does not specify which child was born of which bibi.
Names of the mothers of Leslie’s children may have been deliberately suppressed to keep their doors to the British society open. Leslie left it to the executors to ‘send my children to Europe or not as they think proper. Of this they are to be the sole judges.’ Presumably the colour of the child determined eligibility to be sent ‘home’. Many mixed-blood children, if they were very fair skinned, were successfully absorbed into the British upper classes, some even attaining high office, like Liverpool, the early nineteenth century Prime Minister of England. But there were exceptions too. William Fullarton, the founder of Patna on the bank of River Doon in Robert Burns country, Scotland was a very dark, handsome and powerful man and had earned the sobriquet of ‘Black Willie’. His black complexion was certainly unScottish, and it is very much within the realm of probability that he was the product of a liaison his father Colonel John Fullarton had with a native Patna dame. He spent his impressionable years in Patna where he made a fortune as a merchant. On his return to Scotland he founded a hamlet on the bank of River Doon and christened it Patna after the place of his birth. That was in 1802, around the same time that Leslie wrote his Will.
Leslie appears to have collected a virtual harem, not unusual for his time when his peers liked to live and behave like native nawabs or White Mughals as William Dalrymple refers to them. Apparently his domestic help had a large female component and he appears to have taken his pleasure at his fancy. His virility had not dimmed at 48 when he wrote the Will. He could not be sure which of the female inmates he had bedded and when. But he wanted to be fair and gave them the benefit of doubt. ‘And whereas some of the young girls living in my families may be with child at the time of my demise, in which case and in the event of such girl or girls being brought to bed within such time after my demise as will admit of a belief that the child or children so to be born may have been begotten by me and if my said executors shall be satisfied that such child or children was or were begotten by me…’. Each such posthumous child was to receive Rupees 15000 under terms and conditions applicable to the children mentioned above, except that if a posthumous child died the amount was not to pass on to other children ‘in right of survivorship’ but would revert to the estate.
Leslie did not forget his siblings back home. He bequeathed to his sister Mary Peacock the sum of pounds sterling one thousand and to his sisters Jane Collis, Charlotte Dorman and Sarah Falkiner the sum of pounds sterling five hundred each. To his brothers John Leslie and James Wolfe Leslie he gave ‘the sum of pounds sterling two thousand five hundred each for their sole and respective use and benefit.’ He left the ‘residue and remainder of my estate and effects, real and personal, I give, devise and bequeath the same unto my brother Charles Henry Leslie of Cork in Ireland and his sons for his or their separate use and benefit.’
By and large Leslie appears to have been fair and equitable in making his bequests. However, author Diana Quick’s own admission in her book referred to above that she was only nine when her grandfather gave her the peculiar instruction to “marry a pure-blooded Englishman” lends support to the view that East India officials of Mathew Leslie’s generation could have been guided by considerations of maintaining purity of their lineage and keeping their estate within the family in England.
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Dr. Sudhir Kumar Jha
NIRVANA
Buddha Colony, Patna
India 800 001
(The author is a former Director General of Police, Bihar, India and a free-lance researcher. He can be contacted at sudhirjhapatna@gmail.com)
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