Reconsidering the ‘Transition Narrative’: The Domiciled Britons of Company Rule, c.1760-1857

This article engages with narratives of the domiciled British community during Company Rule in India. It traces the development of the ‘transition narrative’ which locates the differences in society, culture and beliefs of domiciled Britons in the early eighteenth century with those of their nineteenth-century counterparts and challenges the duality of this narrative highlighting its over-reliance upon the ‘colonial archive’ and limiting the scope for research. Through an exploration of developing approaches and methods which challenge both the ‘colonial archive’ and ‘transitional narrative’, it seeks to demonstrate potential new areas for research into this community.

Indian affairs, contributing to Britain's sense of global power, and increasing the willingness of the Government to intervene in Company affairs. Company rule has therefore featured centrally in the historiography of colonial India. 6 For several decades after Independence, the early colonial transition, from pre-existing political and cultural structures to western-dominated forms of authority during Company Rule, captured the interests of writers seeking to evaluate colonial rule in the newly emerging post-colonial environment. 7 A focus on the economic and political policies of the East India Company in their establishment of colonial power developed a clear sense that the onset of colonial rule had marked a radical break from the supposed chaotic militarised society which preceded it. 8 More recent research, influenced by post-modern approaches to colonial discourses, has begun to explore the ways in which the colonial state created, projected, and protected its power and ways in which the colonised were able to subvert and manipulate at least some of that power. A key result of this research was to highlight the existence of the 'colonial archive' and the restrictions it placed on on-going research. 9 A specific aspect research which has been influenced by the limitations of 'colonial archive' is the period of Company rule. Crucial to the development and implementation of British colonial power and prestige, this century was carefully curated by administrators, academics and indigenous elites to present a period of smooth transition from pre-colonial to colonial rule.
These broad shifts in the historiography and analysis of colonial histories has significantly affected research into the domiciled British communities in India during Company Rule. The daily experiences and representations of low and mid-level administrators are clouded by assumptions linked to traditional transition narratives. The need of the colonial state to represent their administrators as bastions of British power has led to a distorted perception of their lives. 10 Previous 6 Phillip J. Stern, 'History and Historiography of the English East India Company'. 7 Barrow andDouglas E. Haynes, 'The Colonial Transition: South Asia, 1780-1840', p. 469. 8 This characterisation was effectively challenged by, among others, Richard B. Barnett (1980) approaches and reliance upon the colonial archive has limited our ability to locate a truer sense of experience unchained from the rhetoric of nineteenth-century Empire. This paper will first consider the legacy of the colonial archive in the formation of this transitional narrative and examine new approaches and methods being, before suggesting where opportunities for new research and source materials can be found. It is hoped this paper can inform, educate and inspire others to push the boundaries of knowledge about the domiciled community during Company rule further, and locate a truer narrative of experience.

The 'Colonial Archive' and 'Transitional Narrative'
Current understanding of the British domiciled community in India, especially those in the direct employment of the East India Company, has been derived from the 'colonial archive'. These repositories of cartographic, linguistic, ethnological, ethnographic, religious, economic and historical knowledge in various forms have come to provide the main window into the lives and experience of those Britons who created it, and the subjects over which they 'ruled'. It is no longer possible to view this archive as a store of transparent sources from which to build a clear image of the colonial past.
Rather, it is imagined as an important site of power and (post)colonial oppression, a body of knowledge shaped by the struggles and violence of the colonial past. 11 Exposure to this 'colonial archive' has shaped historical interpretation and understanding of the colonial experience for colonised and coloniser alike. In many fields, the narrative which has been perpetuated by this archive has begun to be challenged. Subaltern studies, postcolonial approaches, with the evangelical reforming drive of Dalhousie and Bentinck. Yet, the implicit use of the orient and occident as comparative categories and binary nature of a community's identity and experience renders many of these works significantly limited. 12 Their approach lacks sufficient complexity to understand a community of individuals with differing experiences, pressures, and influences, instead treating all Britons resident in India as a homogenous group regardless of the distinct identities, histories and values each settlement created. The unique nature of their lives in India is lost in an attempt to reconcile their 'Britishness' with their isolation.
These 'transition narratives' as they will be described in this paper, attempt to reconcile and justify the differences between the portrayal and experiences of early domiciled Britons and their nineteenth-century colonial counterparts. These narratives began to appear while the British still controlled large territories on the sub-continent. Writings of the nineteenth-century utilitarian reformers, including James Mill, emphasised the changing focus of the British community towards a reforming and benevolent force within Indian politics, society, and culture. 13 The lifestyles of Britons in India during the eighteenth century came under scrutiny and were condemned for their excesses, immorality, and cultural integration. Mixed race children, the products of unofficial inter-racial marriages, in particular, became to be viewed as problematic, and a danger to British dominance and moral authority. 14 These early writings established the idea that British domiciled community underwent a significant transition, and became increasingly loyal to British culture, character, and principles.
Continuing into the twentieth century with Percival Spear's formative 1932 work, The Nabobs these 'transition narratives' began to take the eighteenth century as its focus. Spear's work specifically charts the differences of 'early' and 'late settlements' in Bengal, arguing that there were 12 'Orient' and 'Occident' here refer to the categories outlined by Edward Said in Orientalism (London: Penguin Books, 2003). ideologies in the education of Company employees at East India College, point to a semi-authorised indoctrination of Britons before their deployment to India. 18 Taken collectively, this current research has argued that the domiciled community's priorities, roles, and responsibilities began to change in line with their territorial expansion, while western liberalising ideologies provided a new political and cultural framework within which to structure their personal and professional lives. These shifts in global politics and ideology ingrained an adherence to British values, ideals, and beliefs within the expanding community and established, by the mid-nineteenth century, a more connected, ideologically coherent community-a precursor to the later community of the 'high noon'. 19

Reconsidering 'Transition Narratives': Approaches, Methods, and Current Trends
The reliance of 'transition narratives' upon the 'colonial archive' has received criticism from a broadening range of writers. 20 Central to much of the critique is traditional reliance upon the 'colonial archive'. Critics argue that given its purposeful creation as a power and knowledge structure of imperial rule, the pre-existing assumptions of life during Company rule will be inherent in research conclusions. The portrayal of British cohesion, authority, civility, and power is ingrained in the 'colonial archive' offering little possibility to complicate its narrative. Writers have therefore begun to focus instead on what might be called the more everyday aspects of the making of empire, with studies ranging from the effects of colonialism on gender, social and political relations, and structures of power within domestic spaces. These writers turn away from the question of macro imperial and global shifts and instead examine the particular, everyday experiences of changing colonial power by both Indians and domiciled Britons alike. In doing so, these writers hope to add complexity to the period of Company rule, dispel ideas of British homogeneity, challenge the orient/occident dichotomy, and highlight the colonial domestic sphere as an important site of enquiry.
One of the most successful challenges to both the 'colonial archive' and 'transition narratives', has been works utilising localised and area studies. In their narrower geographical focus, they are able to highlight distinct traits and cultures present in different British enclaves, challenging the idea of a homogenous British community. This notion was originally created by the Company's use of cartographic knowledge to frame a new and increasingly coherent image of India; in framing India's national boundaries, these maps developed during the eighteenth century, both reflected and reinforced the Company's, and later the British state's, ambition to extend power throughout India. 21 In reality, prior to British intervention, India was a collection of semi-autonomous, culturally diverse states. While they may have pledged loyalty to one empire or ruler, they retained clear aspects of identity making their cultural and political heritage unique. These nuances are lost in the records of the 'colonial archive' which perpetuates the one state narrative these cartographers were keen to represent.
In order to challenge this perception, writers have increasingly begun to focus their attention on specific regions, states, or cities. 22 In doing so they have disrupted the portrayal of British India as a one state nation, where experience was able to be standardised. Despite being written over 40 years ago, one of the most influential of these works is Suresh Ghosh's The Social Condition of the British Community in Bengal, 1757-1800. First published in 1970 it attempted to answer B.S Cohn's call for a 'systematic and analytic study of the British themselves and the societies and cultures they built'. 23 In choosing to focus on Bengal, Ghosh was able to focus attention on the unique history of Calcutta as a British base, including the growth of the 'white town' and close relationships between Anglo-Indian and British families. 24 In contrast, Bernard Cohn's 'The British in Benares', focuses on a rural population of Britons, isolated from the increasingly cosmopolitan centre of Calcutta where the British community was 'not tied to local Indian society' in the same way as in Calcutta. Cohn presents a community which isolated themselves long before the 'transitional narratives', highlighting the differences in experience depending upon location. Localised works have continued to be produced and taken collectively they build an increasingly complicated picture of British experiences in early colonial India. It is of course not possible for all studies to be localised, and it would not be sensible to suggest so. However, in the pursuit of knowledge about British communities and their lives it has proved a useful approach to move beyond the 'colonial archive' and nuance our understanding.
The inclusion of diverse source materials in these studies is another increasingly used method to attempt to complicate homogeneity and focus on the unique aspects of different communities. The use of locally published English newspapers has been a feature of the historiography for a number of years. The publication of subscription newspapers from the 1780s throughout British India quickly developed a strong and localised press core which reflected and influenced the communities they served. Reporting on the community's social calendar, national and local news, legal troubles of residents, and advertising items available for auction, these newspapers from Company control and purely local nature allow for analysis of the differences between British territories and nuance our understanding of experience. Andrew Otis' recent work concerning Hickey's Bengal Gazette, the first English language newspaper to be printed in India, highlights not only the possibilities of newspapers as a source of daily experience, but also the limitations of these sources. 25 In the case of Hickey's Gazette, William Hickey's personal opinions, quarrels, and troubles significantly affected the content of his publications. A strong anti-Company sentiment developed and is reflected in the newspaper, which is not representative of the domiciled community in Bengal. Equally, as Otis notes, these newspapers often constructed the community's values and experiences as much as they reflected them. Consideration of the limitations presented by these newspapers is of course required, however, there is considerable scope for their inclusion as a primary focus of research, rather than supporting evidence as they have often been used.

Conclusion
Whether viewing the East India Company as an institution or examining the lives of individuals, work centred on this quasi-imperial trading entity continues in earnest. The period of Company Rule attracts scholars of economic, colonial, political, and social and cultural histories, and more recently scholars of gender, race and post-colonial perspectives. The differences between the lives and experiences of domiciled Britons in 1750 and 1860 have been proven to be significant. Their relationships, their living and working circumstances, their outlooks and loyalties, and their community 'sense of self' all witnessed significant changes. This has led scholars to deem Company Rule a period of transition, in which these changes took effect. The influence of the 'colonial archive' has supported this notion of a steady and continuous movement towards western ideals of politics, culture, and society. The 'transition narrative' as this paper has termed it, therefore presents a neat narrative of Company rule which can be utilised by a variety of approaches. However, in recent years this narrative has been increasingly complicated.
New approaches, methods, and trends have questioned not only the smoothness of transition but the extent to which it existed at all. These approaches and methods have not set out a new, singular and perfectly consistent interpretation of Company Rule, as the traditional 'transition narrative' had. In part, this is because they have created a picture of a state and community that was characterised by internal contradictions, reliant on a range of complicating factors. Instead they have suggested a view of Company rule that is profoundly more complex than it is currently characterised; a state not simply related to colonial progression, but deeply grounded in local culture and society; and a community whose identity was in constant motion pressured by a multitude of factors.
European Identities and the Cultural Politics of Exclusion in Colonial Southeast Asia', Comparative Studies in Society and History, 34 (3), pp.514-51.