These institutions were certainly not founded as schools but ASYLUMS. An asylum is defined as a safe or inviolable place of refuge especially as offered by the CHRISTIAN Church.
Extract from Circular to be sent (By order of then Major Henry Lawrence) to the Commanding Officers of all her Majesty’s and Honourable Company’s regiments, brigades, and battalions, on the Bengal Establishment: c. 1845
Paragraph 4:
As many misconceptions appear to be afloat, I may remark, that I do not design the institution should be restricted to any particular division of CHRISTIANS, or to any one arm of the service. I propose that all children, the offspring of EUROPEAN father and EUROPEAN mother, both of her Majesty’s and the Honourable Company’s army, whether CATHOLIC or PROTESTANT, be eligible for admittance.
The following is an extract from a rough draft of a proposal to start the first Lawrence Asylum drawn up by Sir Herbert (then Lieutenant) Edwardes 1847
‘the Bible -the common text-book of Christians of all denominations- will be read in open school by all the children, but not commented on.’
Extract from a Letter dated July 1 1854 from Sir Henry Lawrence, writing from Mount Aboo to Rev. J. Parker
‘That the Bible must be read by all, and Bible instruction given to all.’
Further extract from same letter: ‘In November of that year, 1846, Maharaja Goolab Sing offered me a lack of rupees for the asylum. I told him that if he still wished to give the money after an interval of a twelvemonth, to inform me by letter, and I would ask for Government sanction. Two or three times within the year the offer was repeated, and eventually I asked and obtained sanction. The money was at once funded, and still remains so. It is our only capital.’
Dina Nath, Ranjit Singh’s old Finance Minister, gave a thousand rupees (worth US$22500 today). From first to last, Henry Lawrence himself gave his institution 86,400 rupees.
It is astonishing that an Indian Hindu Maharaja was financing an institution that wouldn’t admit any children other than ones both of whose parents were European! There was also an obvious conflict of interest for Maharaja Goolab Sing was made Maharaja under the aegis of Henry Lawrence, then Resident of Lahore via his Assistant Resident Herbert Edwardes (from whose book these extracts have been taken). Goolab Singh was made Maharaja under the Treaty of Lahore of 9 March 1846. Under this treaty, the East India Company of which Sir Henry Lawrence was an employee, sold land that became his Kingdom to Goolab Sing! Goolab Sing could tax his subjects and as long as the East India Company got its share nobody would trouble him and he would be free to make his own fortune. It is very important to note this as it was Goolab Sing’s great grandson Hari Sing who continued to tax the people, invested very little for their benefit and he led a a life of debauchery. India continues to pay a heavy price for Hari Sing’s abrogation of responsibility leading to the Kashmir problem which haunts India even today!
The financial foundation of the Lawrence Asylums was, to say the least, dodgy and this was recognised by the Governor-General Lord Dalhousie who wrote to Lawrence in September 1852 as follows: (extracts)
‘I am concerned to find that I have neglected to reply to your questions regarding the Asylum. In regard to the acceptance of contributions to it from Native chiefs, you remind me of having said that ‘I saw no objection,’ or words to that effect. You are quite right. I said I had no objection myself; but, I added, that I was not sure that others would take the same view, and advised you that the point should be clearly settled for your own sake, as I understood there had been a discouragement of it, if not a prohibition of it, by the Government before my time………’
(Lord Dalhousie’s) letter goes on: ‘I confess I do not believe that any one of the chiefs contributes to such an institution as the Asylum, from which they and their’s derive no direct benefit, except from a desire to please you, and to gain favour in the local or Supreme Government, I think your detractors will very probably try to represent that you are using your official position virtually to obtain support for an object in which you take a strong personal interest from persons who are under your authority….’.
Extract from a Memo by Sir Henry Lawrence on the project for a school for Soldiers’ Children at Ootacammund, dated August 27 1856.
1. I deeply regret the differences of opinion that have arisen at Ootacamund, and earnestly trust that an accommodation may be effected. I regret them the more because all the correspondence I have seen proves that there is no difference of opinion as to the need of a school at Ootacamund.
2. As my views are quoted by both parties, I must state that my wish, from the beginning, was to assist in founding at Ootacamund an asylum for the children of British soldiers in India similar in all respects to that now existing in at Sunawar, and commonly known as Lawrence Asylum. I did not stipulate for its rules, but until March I certainly understood that the rules of the new school would at least be in their spirit. ……. I preferred to have a school for Protestants only rather than to have no school at all. Referring to the objections to the rules of the Lawrence Asylum, I beg to observe that that institution has stood the test of nine years’ experience. The children there are dealt with on Bible principles; they are taught ‘all the leading truths of Christianity without unnecessary allusion to disputed points of parties.’ The Scriptures are daily read, daily taught, daily enforced. In fact, Bible teaching is the basis of religious instruction at Sunawar….. Surely these facts are sufficient answer to the objections made that Catholics object to the Bible. The answer to such objection is simple: do not admit those who refuse to read the Bible.
As the immune majority of the Committee must be of the Established Church, there seems, I repeat, but little reason to fear any improper compromise of Protestant principle.
I rather hope that the differences that have hitherto divided the promoters of the education of the soldier’s child, may, by mutual concession and forbearance, resolve themselves into earnest and united effort to secure the great object that all parties have at heart, and that an example may be set to the Natives around of Christian Charity, not of controversial hostility.
Extract from Letter dated November 1856 written from Mount Aboo
Being about to proceed to the Plains, I now record my often-expressed opinion that the chief defect in the school is a defect in bodily energy in the children. I wish each boy to learn the use of his hands at some trade, I don’t care what it is. Let him cobble, carpenter, tailor or smith. This should be apart from telegraph, survey, printing or gardening work.
Boys must be taught not to be ashamed to put their hands to anything; to consider labour as honourable, and to see the advantage to themselves of being handy.
Extract from ‘The Journals of Honoria Lawrence India Observed 1837-1854 Edited by John Lawrence and Audrey Woodiwiss’
‘Sanawar School ….was the first of the hill schools founded by Henry Lawrence for the children of other ranks among the British troops in India. Hitherto they had been dragged up in degrading and death-dealing conditions in the plains.’
It is patently obvious that the founder Sir Henry Lawrence never ever intended the schools he founded to be of benefit to Indian Hindu children. There is more than ample evidence that Hindus were to be excluded!
Note: The Protestant Principle that Lawrence advocated is still followed by King Charles 3, direct descendant of Empress of India Victoria who made Lawrence a Knight and to whom he was loyal. See video of Coronation of Charles 3
Nothing to be proud about
Whilst much has been written about the ASSYLUMS founded by Sir Henry Lawrence, none of the asylums were good enough for his own children! His sons went to Rugby School in the UK!
Extract from a letter of Honoria Lawrence to her son Alexander dated January 5 1850:
‘One visitor we are very glad of is William Arnold who remembers you at Fox How and whom I hope you remember, for I should like you while you live to remember that you passed your ninth birth, in 1847, at Fox How amidst the scenes so dear to that wonderful and good man Dr. Arnold.’ ( Dr. Thomas Arnold, headmaster of Rugby School, was encouraged by Wordsworth to build a holiday home. ‘Fox How’ was completed in 1833 and, on Dr. Arnold’s death the house was willed to his son, the poet Matthew Arnold. William Arnold, see below, was the third son of Dr Arnold, a member of the Indian Civil Service and the future biographer of Dalhousie)
Extract from a letter of Honoria Lawrence to her son Alexander dated July 29 1851:
‘This letter will probably find you at Rugby. We have heard many particulars of the place from William Arnold who lived in the very house you are going to.’
Lawrence School Lovedale started functioning in 1858 in a rudimentary format based on the desire of Sir Henry Lawrence to cater to the needs of the orphans of White British soldiers but he never ever expressed any desire to cater to the needs of the orphans of Indian soldiers who were fighting for the British. Here is a list of Indian Army deployments overseas by the British in the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth century:
China (1860, 1900-01), Ethiopia (1867-68), Malaya (1875), Malta (1878), Egypt (1882), Sudan (1885-6, 1896), Burma (1885), East Africa (1889, 1897, 1898), Somaliland (1890, 1903-4), Tibet (1903). 5787 troops contributed to the Chinese war of 1856-57 that ended in the treaty of Tientsin (1857) and control of Canton; 11000 troops sent in 1860 to China, whose campaign ended in the capture and control of Peking; 12000 troops to release British captives from Abyssinia (Ethiopia); 9444 troops and some 1.5 million rupees contributed to rebellion in Egypt in 1882 and 1896, and 1219 soldiers dispatched to quell mutiny in East Africa. These campaigns were undertaken after the foundation of the Lawrence Asylums but not a single offspring of any soldier would have been allowed. In 1842, just before the founding of the asylums, there was an infamous retreat from Kabul. The victims were mainly Indians, none of whose children would have been allowed to enter any of the Lawrence Asylums. Watch the video of Shashi Tharoor who mentions among other things that Over a million Indian soldiers served Britain in WW1 and 2.5 million soldiers served the British in WW2. No orphans of these soldiers would have been allowed into any Lawrence School.
Sir Henry died in 1857 in the course of defending the interests of East India Company. He was fighting against our ancestors, the great unwashed Indians. These Indians had the temerity to start a revolution merely because they were forced to chew either beef fat or pig fat coated on the cartridges they were required to use! The fact that Indian Land was purloined by the British for the benefit of the British to provide a British way of life for British orphans in India should have caused disgust, not a sense of pride! This disgust should have increased if a simple fact is considered: the first Indian was allowed to join the school only in 1947. Even then, the school was in British hands! The final handover to Indians came in 1949.
Why on earth should one want to continue with any tradition that was the norm pre-1949? Those who have been running the school since have turned out ‘Seepoys’, defined as Indian soldiers serving under British or other European orders. Seepoy, is a corruption of the Indian word sipahi meaning soldier and is now a derogatory term. The seepoys now produced have no British or European giving ‘orders’; but only ‘wannabe’ white British giving orders. Reality is that we Indians have been so enslaved that we are constantly seeking validation from a non-existent British colonial master. It is appropriate to quote Radha Bhardwaj’s profound words: When the slave will whip himself after the master has long gone, the work of colonialism is complete.
Puritanical approach
Here is an extract from the School’s annual report for the year ended 31.3.1933:
‘Children of soldiers who have been dismissed from the service by sentence of Court-Martial, children labouring under any form of disease, mental or physical, and illegitimate children shall not be admitted without sanction of the Board of Governors.’
Why the celebration of the Founder? There is simply no valid answer for that. All that ‘Pomp and Circumstance’ is complete nonsense and really an exercise in bogosity!
The statue of the Founder, Sir Henry Lawrence is around 55 years old. I know; I was there when P.E. Thomas the sculpture master sculpted it! I actually bashed the clay to soften it and make it malleable before P.E. Thomas could mould it into the statue.
Reams of History have been written about the school and it is not necessary for me to repeat this. However, for academic interest, I have attached extracts from various sources, but I cannot emphasise enough that all British era traditions and practices were totally irrelevant and should have ceased. Were that not the case, what exactly did we fight to gain Independence for?
Note: Lawrence, Sanawar was founded on 15 April13 December 1847
Lawrence Mt Abu 1854
Lawrence Ghora Gali (Now Pakistan) was founded in 1860
Post Script: Tom Brown’s School Days
When I was in Class 7, our English Text Book was Tom Brown’s School Days. Some of us thought the characters in that book were our role models! Thus, there were budding ‘East’ characters, many fancied themselves as ‘Tom’, some who needed protection were regarded as ‘Arthur’ and many were regarded as ‘Flashman’! Sir Henry and Honoria Lawrence had close connections with the descendants of Dr. Arnold, the headmaster of Rugby School where the Lawrences sent their offspring! Please see Page Mac – Wilfred Joseph McMahon – From Rugby to Ruin