EAP1104/9

Custodial history: A fraction of the Daw family headed by Ramnarayan Daw settled at Jorasanko in Calcutta at the very beginning of the nineteenth century migrating from their ancestral village of Kotulpur of the present district of Bankura, West Bengal. One of his descendants, Narasimha Chandra Daw was initially engaged in spice trade and later he moved on to a more profitable business of gun selling. He opened up a gun shop in 9, Dalhousie Square, BBD Bag, Calcutta-700001 named ‘Narasimha Chandra Daw and Co., Gun and Rifle Makers’ in around 1835. The context for opening up a gun shop was to provide the provincial rulers or native Rajas of India specially that of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa for personal safety as well as for wildlife hunting or shikar purposes. During the early rule of East India Co., there was stiff competition and petty intra-regional political rivalry between these native regional rulers for which they maintained their own respective arms arsenals. Very quickly, this class of Indian chiefs, Rajas, zamindars and other petty regional rulers, became steady buyers of arms and ammunition of this company. They also provided licenses along with the guns and rifles to this elite class of buyers. Gradually, a steady market of muzzle loading guns appeared vis-à-vis this company quickly emerged as a leading gun merchant in whole India competing with other cotemporary European gun merchants. During the revolt of 1857, they started marketing the breech loading guns and revolvers. They also started selling small sized canons. These canons were 17 inches long and produced by Winchester Repeating Arms which are still used to initiate sandhi puja during Durga Puja every year in their old house on Vivekananda Road. During the late 18th and 19th century, guns were primarily imported from England and Germany. R. B Roda and Co. and Manton and Co. were the two major European gun sellers in Kolkata during that time. The Daws had to face stiff competition with them in the market and the pressure was more so because it was an indigenous business venture under a colonial rule. Gradually they took the lead in the market and virtually become the monopoly gun sellers to the Indian chiefs as well as the officials of the East India Company. After Narasimha Daw, the business was looked after by his three sons, Ashutosh, Neelmadhab and Nandalal. Due to an exponential increase in demand, Ashutosh Daw opened up a new shop named ‘A.T Daw and Co.’ in 1884 at Dharmatola Street in Calcutta. The customers of the Daw family included the royal families of Nepal, Jaipur, Tripura, Bhutan, Sikkim, Assam and all the leading zamindari families of Bengal. During the Post-independence era, there was a steady decline in the authority of the Indian chiefs and landlords who were the chief buyers of guns. Simultaneously, with the growing restrictions on the practice of hunting, the demand for guns decreased to a great extent. Naturally the gun business of the Daw family was affected badly. However, they found new buyers of guns among the big factory owners, the government of India and the shooters of various events of shooting. Both the N. C Daw and Company and A.T. Daw and Company have branches in different parts of Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand. The Daw family is well known for its Durga Puja which was initiated around 1859 by late Nandalal Daw. It still continues with the same grandeur as before. Most of the members of the Daw family are still engaged in their old family business. A the house and the shop of the Daw family we found a trade license of 1896-97, an appoint letter of agent ship from the Khan of Kalat, Beluchistan, an appointment letter from the Governor of Assam as supplier of arms and ammunition, a catalogue of arms, ammunition and accessories of 1939-40; a money receipt of 1911 from King Hamilton & Co. , a register of second hand arms.

Arrangement: Arranged by the custodian.

This collection contains the following 11 files:

• EAP1104/9/1: Appointment Certificate (1) [6 Feb 1942]
• EAP1104/9/2: Appointment Certificate (2) [24 Dec 1948]
• EAP1104/9/3: Cheque [19 Jul 1911]
• EAP1104/9/4: Income Tax Receipt [1927-1930]
• EAP1104/9/5: Indenture (1) [3 Apr 1908]
• EAP1104/9/6: Indenture (2) [12 May 1943]
• EAP1104/9/7: Licence Renewal [1928]
• EAP1104/9/8: Memorandum of Agreement [12 Mar 1908]
• EAP1104/9/9: Arms Register [16 Jan 1934-31 Aug 1965]
• EAP1104/9/10: Tax Bill and correspondence [1942-1943]
• EAP1104/9/11: Trade Licence [1896-1897].

The physical collection in India also contains the following 3 books (which have not been digitised for this project:

• Catalogue 1, 19th century
• Catalogue 2, 1939-1940
• Catalogue 3, 19th century.