NEW CASE study: Ships, Steam and Innovation

NEW CASE study: Ships, Steam and Innovation

NEW CASE STUDY! Ships, Steam and Innovation: An East India Company Family Story c.1700-1877

This contribution to the East India Company at Home project originates from a meeting between Helen Clifford and Blair Southerden, who came up to North Yorkshire to give a talk to the Upper Dales Family History Group in July 2013. Having heard about the project he brought with him a copy of his privately printed book A Gentle Lion and other ancestors (2013).  In a section in this publication he reveals the story of the discovery of his Parsi origins, the family’s close connections with the East India Company, and how through his association with the Company Ardaseer Cursetjee (1808-1877), Blair’s great great grandfather came not only to visit Britain several times, but also to set up home here in 1859.  The opportunity of presenting a case study from an Indian perspective seemed irresistible.  Ardaseer Cursetjee’s story reverses the usual tale of a white male East India Company servant travelling out to India, and coming home to England, and in so doing casts a different light on what ‘The East India Company at Home’ means.

To read the case study in full, click here.