Queen

Ram Singh

About:

Bhai Ram Singh was an artisan from Amritsar who designed and worked on the Durbar Room at Osborne House in the 1890s.

Born in the Punjab in 1857, Ram Singh was educated in the Mission School in Amritsar. Ram Singh came to the notice of Lockwood Kipling, the father of Rudyard, in India. Kipling was Principal and Director of the Mayo School of Industrial Arts in Lahore and invited by Queen Victoria to design a banqueting hall for Osborne House. Kipling took Ram Singh to England to design this room for the Queen in 1891. Ram Singh stayed in England for three years and was principal craftsman on the job. He was then commissioned to design an 'Indian Extension' for the Duke of Connaught at Bagshot Park, Surrey. After his return to India, he became Principal of Mayo School and received various honours for his work. He died in 1916.

Date of birth:

01 Jan 1857

Connections:

Lockwood Kipling, Queen Victoria.

Precise DOB unknown:

Reviews:

The Graphic, 29 October 1892

Secondary works:

Ata-Ullah, Naazish, 'Stylistic Hybridity and Colonial Art and Design Education: A Wooden Carved Screen by Ram Singh', in T. Barringer and T. Flynn (eds) Colonialism and Object: Empire, Material Culture and the Museum (London: Routledge, 1998).

Bance, Peter, The Sikhs in Britain: 150 Years of Photographs (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2007)

Singh, Harbans, Encycopaedia of Sikhism (Patiala: Punjab University, 1995)

Archive source:

English Heritage Photo Library

Osborne House, Isle of Wight

Lockwood Kipling sketch of Ram Singh, University of Sussex

Involved in events:

Attends National Indian Assocation soirée, February 1892. [See Birmingham Daily Post, 25 February 1892]

Country of birth:

India

Other names:

Sardar Bahadur Bhai Ram Singh

Bhai Ram Singh

Location

Osborne House Isle of Wight, PO32 6JX

United Kingdom

50° 45' 3.9672" N, 1° 16' 12.864" W

See map: Google Maps

Date of death:

01 Jan 1916

Precise date of death unknown:

Date of 1st arrival in Britain:

01 Jan 1891

Precise 1st arrival date unknown:

Dates of time spent in Britain:

1891-1902

Tags for Making Britain:

Mehdi Hasan Khan

About:

Mehdi Hasan Khan was a Hyderabadi Civil Servant of Lucknow Origin. Born in around 1852, he met and married Ellen Gertrude Donnelly, the daughter of the Irish Resident of Lucknow. In 1883, he got a job in Hyderabad and became Chief Justice in 1886. In 1887 he was given the title Fath Nawaz Jung by the Nizam.

In 1888 he was deputed by the Nizam to travel to London regarding a case involving the Hyderabad (Deccan) Mining Company. During his time in Britain, Khan wrote a diary of observations. This was first partly published in a few edited extracts by Mary Hobhouse in the Indian Magazine in 1890. It was then also published for private circulation in 1890.

Associated with Sayyid Ahmad Khan and the Aligarh College, Khan arrived in England with introductions to relatives and colleagues of English officials. He was received in London by Theodore Beck's sister and invited to a 'drawing room' held by Queen Victoria in Buckingham Palace on 9 May 1888. The diaries deal with his visits to various landmarks and towns in England, the people he met and also provide some social commentary on British life.

Published works:

Extracts from the Diary of the Nawab Mehdi Hasan Khan Fathah Nawaj Jung (London: Talbot Bros, 1890)

Example:

From Preface to Extracts from the Diary of the Nawab Mehdi Hasan Khan Fathah Nawaj Jung (London: Talbot Bros, 1890) pp. 3-4.

Date of birth:

01 Jan 1852

Connections:

Lord and Lady Hobhouse, Miss E. A. Manning, Lord Northbrook.

Precise DOB unknown:

Reviews:

Hobhouse, Mary, 'London Sketched by an Indian Pen', Indian Magazine 230 (February 1890), pp. 61-73

Hobhouse, Mary, 'Further Sketches by an Indian Pen', Indian Magazine 231 (March 1890), pp. 139-49

Daily News, 4 February 1890 (review of Hobhouse's article).

Extract:

My main objects in projecting a visit to England were to study the question of difference of nationality, to see the broad principles, political and social, wherein the Indian races differ from the English, to see how far we can meet on a common ground, to study minutely the institutions and customs of England, and to form some opinion as to the class of people that we get to rule us.

Secondary works:

Khalidi, Omar (ed.), An Indian Passage to Europe: The Travels of Fath Nawaj Jang (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006)

Involved in events:

Annual Cutlers' Feast at the Cutlers' Hall, Sheffield, 6 September 1888 [see The Times, 7 September 1888]

City of birth:

Fathpur (30 miles from Lucknow)

Country of birth:

India

Other names:

Mahdi Hasan Khan Fath Nawaz Jung

Date of death:

20 Jan 1904