WD4479

The Parsonage at Gorakhpur, 1823.

Inscribed on reverse: ‘Parsonage Gurukhpore for Mrs. James Lobb. 20th October 1823’, with initials in lower left corner: ‘H.C.’

Old mount inscribed: ‘Parsonage Gurukhpore painted by our Great-grandmother Anne Clark for Mrs. James Lobb. 20th October 1823.’

Water-colour; 191 by 298 mm.

Purchased 2001.

Note: Church Missionary Society work opened at Gorakhpur in 1823, with a Mr. Morris, who left after a few months. Michael Wilkinson, newly arrived in Calcutta, elected to serve there and remained in Gorakhpur from 1824 to 1848. M.J. Wilkinson’s ‘Memorials of an Indian Missionary’, London 1859, p. 47, mentions Hezekiah Clarke Esq. as one of several European inhabitants of Gorakhpur urging the establishment there of a mission, and this must be the same as the artist whose initials H.C. appearson the reverse of the drawing. The parsonage had been built through the generosity of Robert Merttius Bird, Judge and Magistrate of Gorakhpur. Bird remained in Gorakhpur 1820-31, apart from a brief spell at Dacca, and Wlkinson was apparently greatly helped by Miss Bird, his sister, ‘patroness of female education in Upper India’. Mrs. James Lobb remains mysterious.

For Hezekiah Clarke's memoir of his sister Azubah Clarke, who died at Gorakhpur in 1826, see Mss Eur A185(a) which has further illustrations of Gorakhpur including the parsonage and church.