Eliza Ogilvy's commonplace book is missing

This is close to home. Who has the answer?

As if inspiration was needed!

Introducing Eliza Ogilvy (the long edition) A literary life; a network of artists, writers and scientists; a microhistory of the East India Company and its influence on British culture in the 19th Century.

I've decided to re-read Upton Sinclair's Lanny Budd series for the first time in 30 years - 11 novels averaging 650 pp each. The purpose: inspiration for Eliza Ogilvy's Commonplace Book is Missing.. Last time I had time on my hands, not now. If anybody wants to talk me out of this, feel free!

2. Beauty lies in the lap of terror Art legitimises wealth, title and status for the East India Company's little aristocracy

The more ambitious among the once-declining gentlefolk of the East India Company set about establishing themselves as a new aristocracy. This was achieved by grafting onto the old using techniques that will be familiar to readers of the novels of Austen & Thackeray eaho.substack.com/p/2-beauty-l...

Now at eaho.substack.com

12. Victory and lies _ Robert Peel's speech to Parliament on 2 April 1846 after the battle of Sobraon, celebrated a cult of Christian militarism and established tropes of imperial propaganda that are familiar today.

Third chapter: Wellington’s colonels (Dick was one, with Hardinge, Gough, Napier & Smith) planned the invasion of Punjab in 1845-46 & after their victory were praised by Robert Peel in the Commons in a speech that set the tone for a century of violent Christian militarism in Britain and its empire.

11. Taking the bull by the horns Part 2 of Mutiny at Ferozepur, 1844: a rebellion with disputed origins and chaos between government and army; a battle of wills between Dick and Ellenborough, and questions of who really ruled India.

The is the second chapter: Dick was involved in a succession of Batta mutinies in Madras, Hyderabad and on the NW frontier with Punjab, where he became embroiled in a bitter dispute with the Governor General, Lord Ellenborough, over the use of ‘coercive’ violence to suppress the mutiny.

10. Mutiny at Ferozepur, 1844 A sepoy rebellion along the North West frontier with Punjab caused a spectacular dispute between Sir Robert Dick and Lord Ellenborough, exposing the machinations of both men and empires.

All three tell the story of the British Army’s takeover of the East India Company's army in 1838-46, during and after the first Afghan war; it's told through the experience of Major General Sir Robert Dick, Eliza (Dick) Ogilvy’s rather fearsome guardian through her childhood. This is the first:

After a long pause, two new chapters and one revised chapter in Eliza Ogilvy's commonplace book is missing:

Ogilvy was a Director of the Crystal Palace Company, and the manuscript was kept by his wife Eliza Ogilvy after his death and so it must have had some significance. Who might be the composer? I’d be very grateful for any suggestions.

Dear music lovers (especially of opera): This manuscript is said to have been retrieved by David Ogilvy from the Crystal Palace after the fire that destroyed the North Transept in 1866 (hence the burned edges).

Tartan swagger: Colonel the Hon. William Gordon, in Huntly tartan, painted during his Grand Tour by Italian artist Pompeo Batoni, Rome 1765. National Trust Scotland, Fyvie Castle #TartanDay #OTD

Tartan swagger: Colonel the Hon. William Gordon, in Huntly tartan, painted during his Grand Tour by Italian artist Pompeo Batoni, Rome 1765.
National Trust Scotland, Fyvie Castle #TartanDay #OTD

14. Loot and arson - the destruction of the Yuanmingyuan After the Great Uprising came the 2nd Opium War. Eliza's brother embarked for China with his regiment, part of the British & French force that destroyed the vast cultural complex of the Qing emperors.

this later came to be known as the Picturesque, a style much appreciated by the Directors of the East India Company, some of whom would have been familiar with the villa gardens on the islands facing Canton, and who commissioned Repton in 1806 to design the gardens for the EIC college at Haileybury

This would have been less of a surprise to English observers had they understood that Kent and Brown had borrowed from the Chinese appreciation of irregularity and naturalism in garden design which had first reached England in the late 17th Century, via Dutch traders and English diplomats in Holland

British witnesses to the destruction of the Emporer's Summe Palace remembered the gardens, not the architecture, which were reminiscent of the English landscape gardens of William Kent, Capability Brown and Humphry Repton.

Poems at the Crystal Palace for Burns' centenary, 1859 Eliza Ogilvy wrote two poems for the Burns Centenary: one was her entry for the Crystal Palace competition; the other ridiculed the competition, in a parody of Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade.

A treat for Burns night. Two poems by Eliza Ogilvy, one on the meaning & making of the tradition Burns represents, written for the 1859 centenary poetry competition, the other a rage against the competition itself, written 3 weeks before the winner was announced 🤔 open.substack.com/pub/eaho/p/p...

Poems at the Crystal Palace for Burns' centenary, 1859 Eliza Ogilvy wrote two poems for the Burns Centenary: one was her entry for the Crystal Palace competition; the other ridiculed the competition, in a parody of Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade.

A treat for Burns night. Two poems by Eliza Ogilvy, one on the meaning & making of the tradition Burns represents, written for the 1859 centenary poetry competition, the other a rage against the competition itself, written 3 weeks before the winner was announced 🤔 open.substack.com/pub/eaho/p/p...

History is always political, and contest over it is a good thing | Aeon Essays In his work on republicanism as a living idea, J G A Pocock showed that contesting history is part of a robust civic life

"Pocock was paradoxically under attack for being too liberal, but also for not being liberal enough.Said differently, Pocock was criticised for being too American and for not being American enough –all the more intriguing for a New Zealander" Read my article on JGA Pocock below! tinyurl.com/xtv3maav

Eliza is particularly partial to wild wadi. I hope you made it there.

14. Loot and arson - the destruction of the Yuanmingyuan After the Great Uprising came the Second Opium War. Eliza's brother embarked with his regiment for China, where the British & French armies destroyed the vast cultural complex of the Qing dynasty.

These were usually faithful copies indistinguishable in style or content from sketches by the Illustrated London News' war artist, Mr Wirgman. Beato's photographs had an immediacy & sense of 'being there' that was lost in the engravings. 3/3 full story here: eaho.substack.com/p/14-looting...

The effect on the British public would've been lessened by the inability of newspapers to print photographs. That changed in the 1890s with the invention of halftone lithography. Until then photographs were copied by engravers on woodblocks or etching plates for publication in illustrated weeklies.

The Second Opium War of 1856-60 was one of the first to be photographed (the Mexican-US war in 1847 was the first, then Crimea). Today Felice Beato’s images are a powerful reminder of the terrible destruction wrought on the Taku forts east of Beijing by the British Armstrong guns.

14. Loot and arson - the destruction of the Yuanmingyuan After the Great Uprising came the Second Opium War. Eliza's brother embarked with his regiment for China, where the British & French armies destroyed the vast cultural complex of the Qing dynasty.

The Second Opium War is one of the hidden histories of the British Empire, involving a cultural crime of immense proportions that has been excised from the curriculum - the total destruction of the Yuanmingyan, the garden of perfect clarity. eaho.substack.com/p/14-looting....

Also called 'the Old Summer Palace’, this was a complex of dozens of palaces, libraries, temples, schools & gardens: 650 structures arranged in the landscape in 150 formal views over an area of 3.5 km2, looted, then burned to the ground over a week in October 1860. Eliza Ogilvy's brother was there.

14. Loot and arson - the destruction of the Yuanmingyuan After the Great Uprising came the Second Opium War. Eliza's brother embarked with his regiment for China, where the British & French armies destroyed the vast cultural complex of the Qing dynasty.

The Second Opium War is one of the hidden histories of the British Empire, involving a cultural crime of immense proportions that has been excised from the curriculum - the total destruction of the Yuanmingyan, the garden of perfect clarity. eaho.substack.com/p/14-looting....

It’s interesting that Rogers writes about the positive bias in innovation research. The research is premised on innovation being a good thing. You see this in the classic categories - ‘early adopters’, ‘laggards’. The former are brave, curious, savvy, the latter stubborn, etc. 1/n

For new followers: Eliza Ogilvy (née Dick) was a Victorian Scottish poet, a member of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Florence network, and also the Sydenham set: the group of artists, writers, engineers, musicians & scientists organised around the Crystal Palace at Sydenham in the 1850s and ’60s.

Winds of Change | Sunset on the British Empire

Season 1 of Winds of Change is almost here! From the East India Company to the "Mutiny" of 1857, through the World Wars, to Independence and Partition, Winds of Change will cover the whole history of the Indian freedom struggle.
Full episodes from 18th November.
www.langnessmedia.com/windsofchange

0. Prologue A woodland meeting with Edmund Burke

Stories from her life, her network & family are published on Bluesky and on Substack, where you'll find complete chapters (now 1-10). Good places to start are: eaho.substack.com/p/prologue or eaho.substack.com/p/1-patronag... or eaho.substack.com/p/introducin...

Eliza’s Life spanned 90 years of the long 19th Century. She was from an East India Company family and deeply involved in the transmission of culture between Scots & English, Empire & metropolis, gentry & the new middle class, and the spread of new technologies of mass communication and travel