During our recent workshop, Daniel Clayton emphasised the importance of reflecting on where meaning congeals when investigating the impact of events and ideas across an empire. This approach is no more important than when considering the impact of the Indian…
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Mobilising an Empire: Part 2 – “Not Calculated to Attract Any Particular Attention,” Or, How to Smuggle an Army Through Someone Else’s Country Without Anyone Making a Fuss
In 1857, as the Indian Uprising threatened the stability and integrity of the British Empire, the British Government and the East India Company engaged in a massive smuggling operation. The cargo was people: armed men, shuttled en masse and in disguise,…
Mobilising an Empire: Part 1 – Sir George Grey and the Tale of the Self-Sacrificing Cape Colony
In our last couple of blogs, we have proposed the merits of viewing the violence of 1857 as a global event: one which necessitated the mobilisation of a global network of communications, technology, people, and power, and made use of…
1857: Managing imperial crisis
In our last blog, we looked at some of the ways in which the events of 1857 played out in one nodal point of the network of empire: how colonial administrators, as they went about the business of moving goods,…
Security, Economy and Education in Mauritius, August 1857
In August 1857, the British Empire was in the midst of an imperial crisis. The Indian Uprising caused panic across the governmental system, as it threw the vulnerability of British colonialism into stark relief. This was no more evident than…
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