The Bombay Case: Astronomers,Instrument Makers and the East India Company

Everest to Salmond, 17 November 1829, British Library India Office Records (IOR) L/MIL/5/402, fol. 342.

Wilkins to Court of Directors (CD), 28 February 1828, IOR F/4/940/26363, p. 62 and annotation, p. 112.

Bombay Public Consultations, 15 August 1821, IOR F/4/940/26363, p. 13; Bombay Council to CD, 29 August 1821, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 1–2.

Bombay Council to CD, 29 August 1821, IOR F/4/940/26363, p. 4; Curnin to CD, 27 April 1822, IOR E/1/148, pp. 114–16; CD to Bombay Council, 13 September 1822, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 7–8; Phillimore R. H. , Historical records of the Survey of India (4 vols, Dehra Dun, 1954–58), iii, 191, 435.

Curnin to Henderson, 1 July 1823, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 37–8.

CD to Wilkins, 25 June 1824, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 43–4; CD to Bombay Council, 13 September 1826, IOR F/4/958/27153, p. 5.

Curnin to Bombay Council, 21 April 1827, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 81–2, 97, 106.

“Proceedings of a committee appointed by Government to report on the instruments sent out by the Honourable Court of Directors for the Bombay Observatory”, 23 June 1827, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 81–108; CD to Bombay Council, 21 May 1828, IOR F/4/1131/30225, pp. 11–16.

Phillimore , op. cit. (ref. 4), iii, 191–2; Orlebar to Bombay Courier, 18 December 1845, in Buist George , Some observations on the remarks of Commander Montriou (2 parts, Bombay, 1851), ii, 2: “a building intended for an Observatory has existed for some years, but nothing more”; Edwardes S. M. , The gazetteer of Bombay city and island (3 vols, Bombay, 1910), iii, 227–9: “from [1841] the active life of the observatory may be said to have commenced.”

Curnin to James Weir Hogg, 2 June 1845, IOR Eur E342/21, fol. 10; Mints (East India), “Copies of all correspondence relative to the removal of Mr Curnin from his office of Assay Master of the Calcutta Mint”, p. 91 (1 July 1846), Parliamentary Papers 1847–48 (153) XLVIII.179; Challis C. E. , A new history of the Royal Mint (Cambridge, 1992), 496; Phillimore, op. cit. (ref. 4), iii, 435.

Buist George , Annals of India for the year 1848 (Bombay, 1849), appendix, p. xxiii. For Buist's polemic about the state of the observatory see Buist, op. cit. (ref. 9), i, 44–7 and ii, 8–9.

Margaret Herschel to Duncan Stewart, 25 November 1835, in Warner Brian (ed.), Lady Herschel: Letters from the Cape 1834–1838 (Cape Town, 1991), 86; for Curnin's visit to Thomas Maclear's observatory see Brian Warner Nancy (eds), Maclear and Herschel: Letters and diaries at the Cape of Good Hope 1834–1838 (Cape Town, 1984), 116 (21 November 1835).

Herschel John , Astronomy (London, 1833), 66; Gompertz Benjamin , “On the theory of astronomical instruments, part 1”, Memoirs of the Astronomical Society , i (1824), 349–54, pp. 349–50; Clerke Agnes , A popular history of astronomy during the nineteenth century (London, 1908), 122 (italics in originals). For political and colonial resonances in these remarks, see Ashworth William J. , “The calculating eye: Baily, Herschel, Babbage and the business of astronomy”, The British journal for the history of science , xxvii (1994), 409–41, p. 438; Musselman Elizabeth Green , “Indigenous knowledge and contact zones: The case of the Cold Bokkeveld meteorite, Cape Colony, 1838”, Itinerario , xxxiii (2009), 31–44, p. 40. For a case study of the problems in fixing astronomical instruments, see Reeves Nicky , “Constructing an instrument: Nevil Maskelyne and the zenith sector 1760–1774”, Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge University, 2008.

Bennett J. A. , “Instrument makers and the ‘decline of science in England’: The effect of institutional change on the elite makers of the early nineteenth century”, in de Clercq P. R. (ed.), Nineteenth-century scientific instruments and their makers (Amsterdam, 1985), 13–28, pp. 13–14; Hoskin Michael , “Astronomers at war: South v. Sheepshanks”, Journal for the history of astronomy , xx (1989), 175–210, p. 184.

South James , “Astronomy versus the Government”, 9 December 1828, in The Morning Chronicle, 11 December 1828 (italics in original).

Woodhouse Robert , A treatise on astronomy (2nd edn, Cambridge, 1822), 47; Curnin to Henderson, 1 July 1823, IOR F/4/940/26363, p. 37.

Pearson William , Introduction to practical astronomy (2 vols, London, 1829), ii, 7; Dewhirst David , “Meridian astronomy in the private and university observatories of the United Kingdom: Rise and fall”, Vistas in astronomy , xxviii (1985), 147–58, p. 150.

Curnin to Bombay Council, 28 April 1828, IOR F/4/1131/28377, p. 90; [ Sheepshanks Richard ], “Transit or transit instrument”, Penny cyclopaedia (27 vols, London, 1833–43), xxv, 122–34, pp. 133–4; Dewhirst, op. cit. (ref. 17), 153.

Beaufort to Wilkins, 16 February 1828, IOR F/4/940/26363, p. 138.

Gompertz , op. cit. (ref. 13), 350; Sheepshanks , op. cit. (ref. 18), 122; Pearson, op. cit. (ref. 17), ii, 287.

Woodhouse , op. cit. (ref. 16), 84. For Curnin on Woodhouse's remarks on levels see Curnin to Bombay Council, 21 April 1827, IOR F/4/940/26363, p. 90.

King Henry C. , The history of the telescope (High Wycombe, 1955), 233–4; McConnell Anita , Instrument makers to the world: A history of Cooke, Troughton and Simms (York, 1992), 16–19, 21–2; Howse Derek , Greenwich Observatory , iii: The buildings and instruments (London, 1975), 26–9, 38–40; Bennett J. A. , The divided circle (Oxford, 1987), 169–72.

Sheepshanks , op. cit. (ref. 18), 134 (stress in original); von Zach F. X. , “Observatoire royale de Marlia”, Correspondance astronomique , iii (1819), 70–104, 189–92, 298–305, p. 75. For Curnin's admiration of von Zach see Curnin to Norris, 16 August 1827, IOR F/4/981/27686, p. 30.

Curnin to Pouget, 27 June 1826, IOR F/4/958/27153, p. 17.

Browne to Wilkins, 8 June 1824, IOR F/4/940/26363, p. 51; Sheepshanks , op. cit. (ref. 18), 132.

Von Zach , op. cit. (ref. 23), 302–5; Baily to Everest, February 1829, and Everest to Salmond, 17 November 1829, IOR L/MIL/5/402, fol. 429v and fol. 343v–344r. Compare Insley J. E. , “Instruments of a very beautiful class: George Everest in Europe, 1825–1830”, Colonel Sir George Everest: Proceedings of the bicentenary conference at the Royal Geographical Society (London, 1990), 23–30, p. 26; McConnell , op. cit. (ref. 22), 27. For Everest against Gilbert see Phillimore, op. cit. (ref. 4), iv, 144.

Everest to CD, 21 May 1829, IOR L/MIL/5/402, fol. 455. For instrumental improvization see Reeves , op. cit. (ref. 13).

Everest George , A series of letters addressed to His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex (London, 1839), 140–6; Edney Matthew H. , Mapping an empire: The geographical construction of British India 1765–1843 (Chicago, 1997), 272–3.

Ashworth , op. cit. (ref. 13), 415–23; Miller David Philip , “The revival of the physical sciences in Britain, 1815–1840”, Osiris, ii (1986), 107–34, pp. 108–12.

Raj Kapil , Relocating modern science: Circulation and the construction of scientific knowledge in south Asia and Europe (Delhi, 2006), 81, 93–4; Drayton Richard , Nature's government: Science, imperial Britain and the ‘improvement’ of the world (New Haven, 2000), p. xviii.

Kennedy to Wood, 14 July 1821, IOR F/4/940/26363, p. 15; Ansari S. M. Razaullah , “Introduction of modern Western astronomy in India during 18–19 centuries”, Indian journal of history of science, xx (1985), 377–402, pp. 385–9; Kochhar R. K. , “The growth of modern astronomy in India 1651–1960”, Vistas in astronomy , xxxiv (1991), 69–105, pp. 91–2.

Curnin to CD, 27 April 1822, IOR E/1/148, p. 116.

Edwardes , op. cit. (ref. 9), i, 158–61, citing the engineer T. B. Jervis's census of autumn 1826 and Hall Basil , Fragments of voyages and travels (London, 1832), 42–3. Markham Compare Clements , Memoir of the Indian surveys , 2nd edn (London, 1878), 23; Money William Taylor , Observations on the expediency of ship building at Bombay (London, 1811).

Curnin to CD, 14 May 1824, IOR F/4/785/21353, pp. 15–17; Curnin to Pond, 10 June 1824, Cambridge University Library MS RGO 5/223.

Curnin to CD, 14 May 1824, IOR F/4/785/21353, p. 20. For the Company's China trade see Bowen H. V. , The business of empire: The East India Company and imperial Britain 1756–1833 (Cambridge, 2006), 234.

Everest George , “Memoir containing an account of some leading features of the Irish survey and a comparison of the same with the system pursued in India” (20 October 1829), IOR L/MIL/5/302, fol. 308.

Dossal Mariam , “Signatures in space: Land use in colonial Bombay”, in Patel Sujata Thorner Alice (eds), Bombay: Metaphor of modern India (Bombay, 1995), 89–99, pp. 91–7; Edney Mathew , “Defining a unique city: Surveying and mapping Bombay after 1800”, in Rohatgi Pauline Godrey Pheroza Mehrotra Rahul (eds), Bombay to Mumbai: Changing perspectives (Bombay, 1997), 40–57, pp. 43–4.

Phillimore, op. cit. (ref. 4), ii, 186–7; Dossal Mariam , “Knowledge for power: The significance of the Bombay revenue survey 1811–1827”, in Banga Indu (ed.), Ports and their hinterlands in India 1700–1950 (Delhi, 1992), 227–43, pp. 238–42.

Edney, op. cit. (ref. 37), 46, and Edney, op. cit. (ref. 28), 312; Naik J. V. , “Captain G. R. Jervis and the first Ganeet Shilpa Vidyalaya in Maharashtra 1823–32”, in Dossal Mariam Maloni Ruby (eds), State intervention and popular response: Western India in the nineteenth century (Bombay, 1999), 1–20, pp. 7, 11.

Curnin John , “A catalogue of stars to be observed with the Moon in March and April 1834”, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, iii (1834), 94–8, p. 95 (my stress).

Bayly C. A. , Empire and information: Intelligence and social communication in India 1780–1870 (Cambridge, 1996), 307. See Phillimore , op. cit. (ref. 4), iv, 137; Curnin to Prinsep, 27 October 1834, and Everest to Stuart, 4 November 1834, in Phillimore R. H. , Biographical notes compiled for historical records (London, 2000; xerographic copy in British Library IND/G62), s.v. “Curnin”.

Raj , op. cit. (ref. 30), 211. Edney Compare , op. cit. (ref. 28), 244–5 on the abandonment of astronomical control of the Survey in 1829.

Phillimore , op. cit. (ref. 4), iii, 212–13.

Insley Jane , “Making mountains out of molehills? George Everest and Henry Barrow, 1830–39”, Indian journal of history of science, xxx (1995), 47–55, p. 51. For Everest on the lack of “instrument makers” see “Memoir regarding the survey establishment in India and particularly the Great Trigonometrical Survey”, IOR L/MIL/5/402, fol. 369, and on “a puff of wind” see Everest, op. cit. (ref. 58), fols. 315–16. For indigenous surveyors and the GTS contrast Raj, op. cit. (ref. 30), 211–16 with Edney , op. cit. (ref. 28), 304–9.

Everest to Salmond, 17 November 1829, IOR L/MIL/5/402, fol. 349.

Edwardes , op. cit. (ref. 9), ii, 143; Bulley Anne , The Bombay country ships 1790–1833 (Richmond, 2000), 16.

“Advertisement”, Transactions of the Literary Society of Bombay, i (1819), pp. vii–viii; Gupchup Vijaya , Bombay: Social change 1813–1857 (Bombay, 1993), 86–9.

Phillimore, op. cit. (ref. 4), 191–2; Kennedy to Wood, 14 July 1821, IOR F/4/940/26363, p. 15; Bombay Council to CD, 29 August 1821, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 2–3; CD to Bombay Council, 13 September 1822, F/4/940/26363, pp. 7–8.

Curnin to CD, 27 April 1822, IOR E/1/148, pp. 114–16; Curnin to Pond, 10 June 1824, Royal Greenwich Observatory MSS 5/223; Gompertz to Wilkins, 25 February 1828, F/4/940/26363, pp. 165–6.

Curnin to Henderson, 1 July 1823, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 30–3.

Curnin to Henderson, 1 July 1823, and to CD, 21 April 1827, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 34–9 and 82–3; Bombay Council to CD, 10 September 1823, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 25–7. For the comparison with Greenwich see Curnin to Pouget, 27 June 1826, F/4/958/27153, pp. 15–17. For Reichenbach's transit circles see Bennett, op. cit. (ref. 22), 175–6.

CD to Bombay Council, 14 September 1825, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 21–2, and 8 March 1826, IOR F/4/1131/30225, p. 3.

Curnin to CD, 14 May 1824, IOR F/4/785/21353, pp. 8–9 on Barlow; Curnin to CD, 20 August 1824, IOR F/4/816/21748, p. 14 on Ivory; Curnin's longitude reports are mentioned in Monthly notices of the Astronomical Society of London, i (1827–8), 25–6, 78. On the tide programme see Curnin to Norris, 14 January and 23 February 1828, IOR F/4/1032/28377, pp. 49–50 and 68–9.

Curnin to Pouget, 7 August 1826, IOR F/4/958/27153, pp. 21, 24; Dickinson to Curnin, 4 September 1826, F/4/958/27153, pp. 26–7; Goodfellow to Greenhill, 13 November 1826, IOR F/4/958/27153, pp. 31–32; Curnin to Norris, 29 November 1826, F/4/958/27153, pp. 38, 40–1; Greenhill to Curnin, 14 December 1826, F/4/958/27153, pp. 47–9.

Curnin to Norris, 16 August 1827, IOR F/4/981/27686, pp. 13–18, 23; Goodfellow to Norris, 17 August 1827, IOR F/4/981/27686, pp. 47–9.

Norris to Pouget, 20 August 1827, IOR F/4/981/27686, pp. 34–5; Goodfellow to Curnin 10 September 1827, IOR F/4/981/27686, pp. 68–9; Norris to Curnin, 20 September 1827, IOR F/4/981/27686, pp. 73–4; Bombay Council to CD, 5 January 1828, IOR F/4/981/27686, p. 7; Curnin to Norris, 11 September 1827, IOR F/4/981/27686, p. 63.

Curnin to Norris, 21 April 1827, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 85, 87, 106.

Ibid., pp. 88–97, 104. For comments on levels see Woodhouse , op. cit. (ref. 16), 72–4; Pearson , op. cit. (ref. 17), ii, 290–1; Sheepshanks , op. cit. (ref. 18), 124.

Curnin to Norris, 21 April 1827, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 105–8.

Engineers' report, 23 June 1827, IOR/4/940/26363, pp. 109–16; William Tate, “Observations explanatory of the proceedings of a committee appointed by the Bombay government to report on the astronomical instruments sent out by the Honourable Court of Directors for the Bombay Observatory”, 20 March 1828, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 225–39; Curnin to Norris, 7 July 1828, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 116–20; Norris to CD, 1 August 1827, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 77–9.

Curnin to Norris, 28 April 1828, IOR F/4/1032/28377, pp. 77–102; details of the new budget are in F/4/1032/28377 (22 May 1828), p. 104 and F/4/1131/30225, pp. 17–18.

Curnin to Baily, 3 June 1827, IOR F/4/1131/30225, p. 53; Wilkins to Auber, 25 March 1828, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 217–19.

Curnin to Gardiner, 2 and 21 July 1828, IOR F/4/1032/28377, pp. 115–19. For the Kew instruments at Armagh, see Bennett J. A. , Church, state and astronomy in Ireland: 200 years of Armagh observatory (Armagh, 1990), 92–8.

Curnin to Gardiner, 21 July 1828, IOR F/4/1032/28377, p. 119; Curnin to Norris, 2 August 1829, IOR F/4/1131/30225, pp. 46–50.

Baily to Curnin, 17 October 1827, IOR F/4/1131/30225, pp. 53–4; Dollond to Curnin, 21 and 28 November 1827, IOR F/4/1131/30225, pp. 58–61.

Raj Kapil , “Mapping knowledge: Go-betweens in Calcutta 1770–1820”, in Schaffer Simon Roberts Lissa Raj Kapil Delbourgo James (eds), The brokered world: Go-betweens and global intelligence 1770–1820 (Sagamore Beach, 2009), 105–51, pp. 135, 139. For the Company's information systems see Moir Martin , “Kaghazi raj: Notes on the documentary basis of Company rule 1773–1858”, Indo-British review , xxi (1993), 185–93, p. 187; Bowen, op. cit. (ref. 35), 162, 180; Bayly , op. cit. (ref. 41), 151–4, 165–78.

Lloyd Mary , “Sir Charles Wilkins”, India Office Library and Records: Report for 1978 (London, 1979), 9–39, on pp. 1, 26–7; Desmond Ray , The Indian Museum 1801–1879 (London, 1982), 10, 20. For Astronomical Society investment in East Company stock see Ashworth, op. cit. (ref. 13), 416.

Wilkins to CD, 28 February 1828, and Committee of Correspondence to CD, 26 March 1828, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 59, 244; CD minute, 27 July 1824, F/4/940/26363, pp. 55–8.

Morse H. B. , Chronicles of the East India Company trading to China 1635–1834 (5 vols, Oxford, 1926–29), iii, 133; Cranmer-Byng J. L. Levere Trevor , “A case study in cultural collision: Scientific apparatus in the Macartney embassy to China, 1793”, Annals of science , xxxviii (1981), 503–25, pp. 511, 514–15. Dreyer J. L. E. , The scientific papers of Sir William Herschel (2 vols, London, 1912), i, p. li, refers to a 7-ft reflector for China at a cost of £105.

Kitchiner William , The economy of the eyes (2 vols, London, 1825), ii, 424; Kater Henry , “An account of experiments for determining the length of a pendulum vibrating seconds in the latitude of London”, Philosophical transactions , cviii (1818), 33–102, pp. 40–1; Simpson A. D. C. , “The pendulum as the British length standard: A nineteenth-century legal aberration”, in Anderson R. G. W. Bennett J. A. Ryan W. F. (eds), Making instruments count (Aldershot, 1993), 174–90, p. 185; Miller , op. cit. (ref. 29), 118.

Browne to Wilkins, 8 June 1824, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 51–3.

Dollond to Wilkins, 27 July 1824, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 55–8; Wilkins to CD, 28 February 1828, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 60–1; Gilbert to Committee of Correspondence, 6 September 1826, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 45–6; CD to Bombay, 13 September 1826, IOR F/4/958/27153, p. 5.

Wilkins to Auber, 25 March 1828, and Committee of Correspondence to CD, 26 March 1828, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 217–19, 253; CD to Bombay, 21 May 1828, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 14–16.

Gilbert to Wilkins, 23 January 1828, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 169–209.

Wilkins to CD, 28 February 1828, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 63–5; Committee of Correspondence, 25 January 1828, IOR F/4/940/26363, p. 248.

Miller, op. cit. (ref. 29), 113–14; Ashworth , op. cit. (ref. 13), 430–4; South, op. cit. (ref. 15); Hoskin, op. cit. (ref. 14), 177; Insley, op. cit. (ref. 26), 26.

Tate to Auber, 20 March 1828, IOR F/4/940/26363, p. 233; Baily to Wilkins, 11 February 1828, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 130, 132; Pond to Wilkins, 8 February 1828, IOR F/4/940/26363, p. 125; Beaufort to Wilkins, 16 February 1828, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 139–40; Ross to Wilkins, [16] February 1828, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 144–6.

Tate to Auber, 20 March 1828, IOR F/4/940/26363, p. 238; Baily to Wilkins, 11 February 1828, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 131, 133; Beaufort to Wilkins, 16 February 1828, IOR F/4/940/26363, p. 138; Ross to Wilkins, [16] February 1828, IOR F/4/940/26363, p. 146; South to Wilkins, 21 February 1828, IOR F/4/940/26363, p. 154.

South to Wilkins, 21 February 1828, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 153, 157; Hoskin, op. cit. (ref. 14), 183.

Wilkins to CD, 28 February 1828, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 59–70. Wilkins's annotations on Curnin's original report are at IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 81–108; Wilkins's transcription of Curnin's reports are at IOR Eur F303/446/8.

CD to Bombay Council, 21 May 1828, IOR F/4/940/26363, pp. 14–16; CD to Bombay Council, 10 December 1828, IOR F/4/1131/28377, p. 7.

Curnin to Bombay Council, 24 December 1828, IOR F/4/1131/30225, pp. 29, 31; Curnin to Norris, 2 and 3 August 1829, IOR F/4/30225, pp. 46, 63–5.

Everest to Salmond, 17 November 1829, IOR L/MIL/5/402, fol. 342; Shortrede Robert , “On the transit instrument at the Bombay observatory”, Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, viii (1847), 52–3. For Shortrede as surveyor, see Edney , op. cit. (ref. 28), 254, 259. For the re-erection of the transit in 1839–41, see Buist , op. cit. (ref. 9), ii, 2–3.

Dickens Charles , Dombey and son (London, 1848), chapter 4 (this part first published in October 1846).