This article examines the work of British widows in the construction of their husbands’ memory following their violent deaths in British India, during the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Exploring the collections of a military, missionary and Indian Civil Service widow, it suggests that a specifically feminised culture of mourning nurtured imperial narratives. It moves between personal correspondence, to published accounts of frontier ‘murders’, to a new understanding of South Asian ‘condolence meetings’ and resolutions addressed to British widows, arguing that women were critical to the fashioning of men's identity in death and a broader colonial politics of grief.
Funding
Arts and Humanities Research Council. Grant Number: AH/AH/R012725/1
History
Author affiliation
Department of History, School of History, Politics and International Relations, University of Leicester