On 1 March Helen’s follow-up article was published in The National Association of Decorative & Fine Arts Societies (NADFAS) Review. She would like to thank all of you who contributed to this, as it was very much a team production. We have already had more helpful feedback which proves how valuable our links are to NADFAS.

At the beginning of March a new ‘Unknown Object’ was added to the series. Unknown Object 3 features a pair of chairs currently in the collections of Kiplin Hall near Richmond, North Yorkshire. The chairs are listed

The East India Company at Home, 1757-1857

March 2013 Newsletter

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in the 1882 inventory, which is the earliest surviving inventory for Kiplin Hall. They are listed as being situated in the Hall (which is now the Tea Room) and were described as ‘2 very fine Indian arm chairs, richly inlaid with ivory, pearl and brass (1 knob dam-aged) More inlaid work. Slightly damaged in places’. It would be great to hear if there are any similar chairs in other collections. To learn more go to http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/eicah/unknown-object-3-goanese-chair/.

On 14 March the project team accompanied Huw Bowen (Swansea University), Felicia Gottman, Hanna Hodacs, Chris Nierstrasz and Meike Fellinger (‘Europe’s Asian Centu-ries: Trading Eurasia 1600-1830’, University of Warwick) to the British Library to meet with curators Margaret Makepeace, Anto-nia Moon, Richard Morel and Penny Brook. During the meeting we discussed ways in which readers at the Library could system-atically access documents that evidence the flows of trade central to the operations of the East India Company. Initially we are hoping to work together to create a finding aid, which will make tracing the archival (and printed document) trail of Company

Goanese Chair from Kiplin Park

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March 2013 Newsletter

ships, personnel and commodi-ties from Britain to the Indian Oceans and back to London more accessible for all historical researchers. Suggestions from Project Associates on what kinds of information they would find most helpful will be grate-fully received.

On 21 March the team (led by our AHRC Cultural Engage-ment Fellow Yuthika Sharma) organized and participated in an information evening at Osterley Park and House. The purpose of the evening was to provide po-tential volunteers with informa-tion about our ‘Global Spaces’ project at Osterley. In April we are hoping that volunteers will

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return to the house to see its magnificent collection, respond to certain objects and discuss objects in their own homes. We will record these responses for inclusion within the new display ‘The Trappings of Trade: A Domestic Story of the East India Company’, which will go on show at Osterley from July to November this year.

On 23 March ‘Englefield House: Processes and Practices’ became the latest case study to be uploaded on the website. This study, written by Kate Smith, tracks the East India Company people, objects and wealth that shaped Englefield House in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Residents connected to the Com-pany such as the former Governor of Fort St George Richard Benyon (1698-1774), Robert Clive’s widow Lady Margaret Clive (1735-1817) and Sir Francis Sykes’s daughter Elizabeth Sykes (1775-1822) all occupied the house in different ways during the period. At the same time the movement of Chinese, Indian and Japanese objects into and out of the house also bound it to the world of the East India Company. To read more about the case study visit — http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/eicah/case-studies-2/.

At the British Library