In 1800 Henrietta Clive, wife of Edward Clive who had been appointed Governor of Madras in 1797, embarked on an 1,100-mile, seven-month journey round southern India with her two daughters and her Italian artist friend, Anna Tonelli. This was an unusual thing to do at the time, and the fact that she was accompanied by over 750 people, 14 elephants, 100 bullocks and her pianoforte and harp does not detract from her remarkable journey.
Henrietta Herbert had grown up next door to the Clives on the borders of England and Wales, marrying Edward, Clive of India’s son, in 1784. When they embarked for India in 1798 they left their two sons in England. Henrietta was initially thrilled by her husband’s appointment to India, as she loved all things oriental, having had a very eclectic education — something she succeeded in passing on to her daughters. However, she found Madras a disappointment; the lifestyle there turned out to be very British and very military. It was for this reason, and because she was concerned about her and her daughters’ health, that she embarked on this ambitious journey. The cultivated, albeit irascible Tipu Sultan, who had been killed by the British in 1799, was to her the embodiment of all things Eastern, and she determined to visit his island kingdom, Seringapatam. She even started to learn Persian so that she could read Hafiz in the original (the first English translation by William Jones had appeared in 1771).
She knew she was something of an anomaly, writing to her friend Lady Douglas:
I believe I am thought a strange restless animal. A black woman never moves and the white ones in this country are not much more active. Beside, I descend from my dignity and walk upon my own feet at every place where I take up my abode.
Her journals and her almost daily letters to her husband, whom she addresses as Lord Clive, give us a wonderful idea of life in India at the time. She is curious about everything and was a motivated and disciplined amateur in several fields, especially geology and botany, although she didn’t like botanical drawing as she found it ‘fatiguing to the eyes’ and although she complained that ‘none of the fruits here please us’, comparing mangoes to turpentine, at least she tried them. She sent many seeds back to her husband in Madras, giving him strict instructions on how to grow them.
The importance of writing and receiving letters cannot be over-emphasised and a ship’s delay is ‘a most serious misfortune’. She writes regular and intimate letters to her brother, Lord Powis (with whom she has left her sons) and is completely devastated when, on her voyage home (which takes over seven months), she hears of his death. There is no record of her writing her journal or any letters after she receives the news.
Interspersed with Henrietta’s writings are the journals of her daughter Charlotte — known as Charly — who was later to become the Duchess of Northumberland and who was from 1830 to 1937 governess to the future Queen Victoria. The 12-year-old Charly’s journals are lively and amusing. Her mother considered tiger hunting ‘a most horrid sport’, while Charly describes the area as having ‘a very tygerish looking jungle all the way’. It is interesting to speculate on how much of her Indian experience was to rub off on her future pupil.
It seems to have been the heat and concern for her daughters’ health that finally persuaded Henrietta to leave India two years ahead of her husband — but we do at least have a wonderful record of her time there.
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