Mss Eur E410

Godfrey Collection: papers of Lt-Col Stuart Hill Godfrey (1861-1941), Indian Political Service 1892-1915, his wife Guendolen, and his father-in-law Lt-Col Sir Adelbert Cecil Talbot (1845-1920), Indian Political Service 1873-1900, Resident in Kashmir 1896-1900; including correspondence, papers, articles, and photographs, and illustrating the lives and careers of a British family with members serving in India.

The collection chiefly comprises the correspondence, papers and photographs of Sir Adelbert Cecil Talbot (1845-1920), Indian Political Service 1873-1900, of his wife Agnes, of their daughter Guendolen, and of Guendolen s husband Lieutenant-Colonel Stuar Hill Godfrey (1861-1941), Indian Political service 1892-1915, although other members of the family for example Guendolen s sister Muriel are occasionally represented.

Separation from their families was often a feature of the life of the British in India the parents remaining in that country while their children were sent home to England for their education. A natural result of such separation was a regular correspondence between parents and children, and the Godfrey Collection opens with long series of letters from Adelbert and Agnes Talbot (d. 1894) in India to their daughter Guendolen at school in England, and her replies. It is noticeable that , even as quite a young schoolgirl, Guendolen was expected to write regularly once a week to her parents. The correspondence opens in the late 1870 s and continues, with a few breaks, down to 1920, the year of Sir Adelbert s death. In the course of time, the geographical position of the correspondence was reversed. Sir Adelbert retired in 1900 and took up residence in England; but by this time Guendolen had married (in 1896) Stuart Godfrey and remained with him in India. Her husband proved as dutiful a correspondent as wife, and there is a long run of letters from him to Sir Adelbert and a shorter series of the latter s replies, as well as the continuing correspondence between father and daughter. There are also numerous letters from Godfrey to his wife when the circumstances of life in India kept them apart. In due course the Godfreys children were sent to England for their education, as their mother had been before them, and Sir Adelbert was now able to make up for missing a great deal of his own children s childhood by acting for much of the time in loco parentis to his grandchildren. His later letters thus contain a good deal on the latter s educational and general development.

The letters thus represent a remarkably complete picture of the life of one British Indian family over a period of virtually forty years. In addition they provide numerous insights into the work of Political Officers in the many and various locations in which in which Sir Adelbert and his son-in-law saw service, and which included, in the case of the former, postings to Mount Abu 1873-77 and 1878-81, Jaipur 1881-82, Bikaner 1883-88 and 1889-90, Bushire 1891-93, and Kashmir 1896-1900; while Col. Godfrey saw service in Kashmir 1894-96, 1897 and again in 1899-1901, Gilgit 1896-97, Ladakh 1897-1900, Zhob 1901-02, Malakand 1902-10 as Political Agent for Dir, Swat and Chitral, and Sutna as political Agent, Baghelkhand 1911-15.