More Archival Research at Kew and Seeing the Domesday Book

Monday, July 13, 2009
London

I did not have a good night at all. Was awfully restless, then awoke at 3. 30 am with a headache. Took a pill for it and tried to get back to sleep but tossed incessantly feeling hot and cold within five minute intervals. I finally gave up at 5. 45 am, typed my blog, then fell asleep again at 6. 30 am and did not awake till 8 am. I was so annoyed with myself as I had wanted to leave the house by 7 am to take the buses that would get me to the Archives at Kew by 9 am. Fat chance!

Well, I raced through a shower and my breakfast (cereal and milk), made myself a packed lunch and left the house at 8. 50 am. I carried Owen Thorpe's autobiography to read on the bus as I find the long journey of nearly two hours to Kew rather monotonous and I figured I might as well get another book read. I found it very interesting and not entirely serious either. It is written with a very firm tongue-in-cheek and as any boy who grew up on the Indian sub-continent in the 40s, 50s and 60s will attest, speaks of a simple but blissful childhood with dozens of friends and a multiplicity of games that kept one fit and slender. I saw so many visions of my own childhood reflected in the pages of this book that I am enjoying every moment of it. Despite the fact that Owen was brought up in South India and I in Bombay, there is such a similarity of habit, custom, tradition and experience as to make the book seem as if I have authored it. Very entertaining indeed!

Then, I was at Kew and ensconced in my seat at 10 A pouring over the last of the files that spell out policy decisions particularly those pertaining to the British Nationality Act, 1948. Needless to say, I am discovering a great deal about the legal positions that governed decisions regarding who could and could not legally enter the UK as immigrants and the extent to which the British government was willing to lend a helping hand and a leg up to the new arrivals. With all the reading I am doing, both fictional and autobiographical, and all the documents I am reading and photographing and photocopying, I feel fully steeped in the culture.

Unfortunately, I am unable to meet Alison Blunt whose work on the Anglo-Indian diaspora preceded mine. She sent me a text message to cancel our appointment due to a sudden loss in her family. I felt very sorry for her indeed and look forward to meeting her another time.

The National Archives Museum at Kew:
I was done with my research by 4 pm when I left the Archives, but on the way out I saw the entrance to the Museum of the National Archives and, of course, I cannot pass a museum without peeking inside it...so in I went. To my immense surprise, there was the famous Domesday Book that dates from the 12th century when William the Conqueror of Normandy decided to create a census, if you like, of all the landowners in the British Isles in order to determine the amount of taxes that was owned him by his new subjects! Hence, ever since that day, old and well established British families boast their age and authority by their presence (or otherwise) in this Book. Having seen the Book of Kells (at Trinity College Library, Dublin) and the Gutenberg Bible (in the British Library at King's Cross), I was thrilled to be able to inspect the Domesday Book--which is really the earliest book of any significance produced in the British Isles.

The Book is handwritten in exquisite calligraphy by a single monk who wrote on parchment leaves (obtained from the stomachs of sheep) and then illuminated (illustrated) each page with beautifully decorative borders and motifs. There is also a Little Domesday Book which contains similar entries for a few other parts of the British Isles and these two together make intriguing viewing. I also saw the chest that was used for its safekeeping.

Also on display at the Museum is the register in which Henry VIII's Bishop Thomas Cranmer began a slow and painful record of all the ecclesiastical properties that fell under the jurisdiction of the Crown following the Disillusion of the Monastries in 1538. This too us superbly illuminated with a rather interested representation of Henry VIII himself on the front page--wonder if it was made from a life pose or from memory. Though this museum is small, it has some rather wonderful exhibits and I was amazed, as always, at the condition of these priceless artifacts and the pride with which they are placed on display in the UK.

Though it is a bit of a hike getting to the National Archives which are situated in the midst of residential Kew, it really is worth going there just to see the Domesday Book. And really it is of significance that the book is placed here as thousands of ordinary people go to these Archives each year to trace their family history as the building is a receptacle for a thousand years of British documentary history. My own research in this place has proven invaluable--not only in helping me understand the state of affairs that brought Anglo-Indians to the UK but the manner in which bureaucratic principles of policy design and decisions were inherited by those of us who can trace our own history to the former British colonies. It amazes me how racist these men were (and they were always men then) in whose hands the running of the Indian sub-continent was placed and how despite their animus towards people of color, they never ever said so in so many words. As one of the more thoughtful and reflective of my Anglo-Indian subjects told me, "The British will never tell you to your face that they dislike you because you are brown...but boy, read the sub text which is present all the time...and the writing's on the wall!" Certainly in the documents I examined (many of which I have photographed) that date from the early 1950s, it is crystal clear that British officials tried their hardest to keep Anglo-Indians out of England after India's Independence. Indeed, had the Anglo-Indians been privy to the discussions that occured among the officials in whose hands their own fate was held, they would never have been surprized by the racism they encountered when they arrived here. No wonder so many of them have told me how grateful they are for the current climate of political correctness which, at the very least, prevents mainstream Britons from verbally expressing their dislike of people who do not come from what the documents describe as "white stock".

By 5. 50, I was home to check email and receive instructions and directions from my friend Oscar for the funeral I will attend tomorrow of Mary Wilson whom I had the pleasure of interviewing. I also used Journey Planner on my PC to figure out how to get to Lewsiham on the buses tomorrow. Then, I made a To-Do List of items I must slowly start to do as the days fly by and the day of Llew's arrival is upon me. Top of the list is to compete drafting and editing my lecture to be delivered at Oxford in a couple of weeks from now. It is, however, a great weight of my mind to know that I have successfully finished all my interviews and all my intended research at the British Library and the National Archives at Kew.

Feeling marvelously light (mentally), I started my packing. Hauling boxes out of my closet and pulling down one of my suitcases, I stated to put all my recent shopping into it and placed myself in Wind Down Mode. Then, when I had accomplished a great deal of clearing of papers and books, I stopped at 9. oo pm to have my dinner (Zurek, the delicious soured Polish soup to which we had been introduced in Poland and which I found in a Polish grocery store at Croydon and rice and vegetable curry). I watched a spot of the BBC News as I ate, then decided that since I slept so badly last night, I had better try to get to bed early tonight.