The Queen’s Indian Servants, Part 1

I promised here that I’d write about Queen Victoria’s Indians servants, so...here we go!

First, a little background.

When you think about it, being Queen Victoria was probably a rather lonely prospect. She had been raised to be very aware of who she was—basically, the very top of a large pyramid. No one was her equal, especially after Prince Albert died (“There is no one to call me Victoria now,” she said on his death.) She just didn’t have any BFFs, especially as she grew older, because how can you be BFF with someone who rules substantial portions of the planet? Her children were afraid of her even though they loved her; her half-sister, though also dearly loved, was scarcely in a position to be her chum. She was almost never alone, surrounded by ladies-in-waiting and equerries and other courtiers almost constantly...but while their relationships with her could be affectionate, there was always that certain something that kept them at arms’ length—not only on the Queen’s part, but on theirs.

One exception to this was the Queen’s “Highland Servant”, John Brown. He somehow managed to remain unimpressed by her position, called her “woman” to her face, and seems to have cared deeply for her in his peculiar, brusque way. Interestingly, all those ladies-in-waiting and equerries and her family all seem to have loathed John Brown, just because of the special place he held as her favorite servant and friend. When Brown died in 1883, the Queen was nearly as devastated as she had been after Albert’s death: she had lost her only friend. The fact that she was buried with mementoes not only of Albert, but also of John Brown, says a great deal about the depth of her feelings.

In 1877, Queen Victoria adopted the title “Empress of India.” She was fascinated by India, and in 1886, after attending the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, decided that she wanted to employ some Indian servants in her household in time for her Golden Jubilee coming up the following year. She asked the man in charge of one of the exhibits, a John Tyler, superintendant of the Central Jail in Agra, to recruit her two servants. As a result, in June 1887, Mohammed Abdul Karim and Mohammed Buksh, the former employed by Tyler as a clerk at the jail and the latter a servant of Major-General Thomas Dennehy who was joining the royal household, came into the Queen’s Service. Though she didn’t yet know it, the Queen had found a new friend...and her family and household found someone to hate as much as they had John Brown.

To be continued...