 |
Edward Lawford, Clerk to the Drapers' Livery Company and Solicitor to the East India Company
|
Colonialism
Both the Lawfords and the Pughs were deeply involved in India.
I had always been quietly proud of my family's connections with India, and didn't question too closely the prevailing narrative the we 'hadn't behaved too badly' as the colonial power and ruled largely by leaving the princely States to run things themselves under the ancient Roman theory of 'divide and rule'. Indeed, I had had some appreciative comments made by an Indian political scientist about the positive role played by my grandfather, Col Archie Pugh, in arguing cogently for joint electorates of Europeans and Indians in the new Bengal Council. Furthermore, my own long business association with India had allowed me to make good friends with a number of prominent lawyers and business people such as S.Venkiteswaran, and none had ever raised the subject of our shared history in a negative way except with reference to specific issues such as the many colonial era laws that still caused us difficulties when solving shipping cases. Indeed, it was often said that the country was far less corrupt when the British were in charge, and knowing my family's moral attitudes, I accepted this at face value.
It was therefore a profound shock when my attention was drawn to a lecture given in 2017 by Dr Shashi Tharoor MP at Edinburgh University that painted an entirely different and more horrifying picture of the effect our rapacious colonial administration had on that once fabulously wealthy country. As already admitted, I am not well versed in the history of our county's involvement in India, apart from being aware of some of the key dates and incidents, such as the Indian Mutiny, the Amritsar Massacre and the impeachment of Warren Hastings, I took comfort from the fact that my grandmother, Nina, was a friend of Rabindranath Tagore (who, as you will hear, returned his K in disgust after the Amritsar Massacre) and was a most kind and gentle soul. However, this lecture painted an entirely darker picture of the British time in India than just the 'isolated incidents' that one had thought punctuated a largely peaceful and orderly regime.
Some of the main family members are mentioned in this piece that I wrote for Lloyd’s List in 2006:
'I had always been drawn to India partly because, like many Englishmen, I have family connections going back several generations through both the Lawfords and my mother's family, the Pughs. General Edward Lawford, an engineer, had commanded the garrison in Madras and Mysore in the 1850s and his younger brother, Lt-Col Henry (1812-1880) also served in Madras. Likewise Lt-Col Edward Melville Lawford (1826-1891) was Colonel of the 4th Madras Cavalry, while his younger brother, Henry Baring Lawford was Chief Judge of the High Court of Kishnagur. Further back, Edward Lawford, another lawyer, became wealthy as Solicitor to the East India Company and Clerk to the Drapers Livery Company, and had his home, Eden Park, described appreciatively by Pevsner in 'The Buildings of England'.
 |
| Eden Park, Beckenham, Edward Lawford's home |
My grandmother, Nina Arundel, whose father Sir Arundel Tagg Arundel was on Curzon's staff, married my grandfather Col Archie Pugh, who was then a solicitor in Calcutta, in 1894 while my great-grandfather Lewis Pugh Evans Pugh was Attorney-General for Bengal. My mother was born in Darjeeling, the nearest hill station (though even today several hours journey away), and I remember her talking of the view of the Himalayas as seen from her bedroom window. A Pugh great uncle (Lewis Pugh) had led the raid by the Calcutta Light Horse on Goa in the Second World War (which disabled German warships providing intelligence about the movement of allied shipping and was later made into a film ‘The Sea Wolves’ in which his part was played by Gregory Peck)'.
Slavery
Fortunately my many times great grandfather Robert Lawford (1609 - 1688. Gent; Lord of the Manor of Tockington) was mayor of Bristol in 1643 just before the 'official' slave trade got going, but another grandfather was solicitor to the Barings (some of whom we married) and is on record as negotiating with the government for the ‘reparations’ that they were paid for ‘giving up’ their slaves.
Our connections with Bristol ceased sometime thereafter and the family became almost exclusively involved with the City of London through banking (Curries, Lawford & Co), stockbroking (Steer, Lawford & Co) and the law (Lawford & Co of Austin Friars). However, it's difficult to escape the conclusion that Edward Lawford (1787 - 1864) as solicitor to the East India Company as well as Clerk to the Drapers, gained his great wealth through other than his Indian business interests. So bolstered were the family's finances that at one time in the middle of the C19th, no less than 26 members of the family were members of the Drapers Livery Company and along with another family, the Lambarde's have, over three centuries, provided the largest number of Masters of the Company of any family in England.
 |
| Lawford Lunch at the Drapers' Hall 2014 |
Coal Mining
My grandmother, Jane Lawford, who was from the Mapplebeck family of Warwickshire, grew up in a beautiful mansion, Exhall House, with her father, William Batty Mapplebeck, who's fortune derived from coal mining. Now, in a world when the even farming (particularly the industrial kind) draws opprobrium, coal mining is still seen as an acceptable way of having made money, as long as one had treated the miners and their families decently. I have no knowledge of whether this was the case and will have to assume it was.
