Letters Home

Dr. Victoria Dickenson

The case study: Lady Gwillim's China

The new project: Hidden Hands

Welcome to Letters Home, a podcast that explores the lives and interests of Elizabeth Gwillim and Mary Symonds, English sisters in India at the turn of the nineteenth century. Over eight episodes, Rosie Noskwith and Amber Craig read letters from the sisters to their family in England, and host Ciel Haviland talks with researchers who explored a facet of the life they were exposed to.

The Gwillim Project website
The Gwillim Project youtube channel
The book! Women, Environment and Networks of Empire

Scans of the original letters

Hana's case studies:
'Best for this country'
Curious for fish: Mary Symonds's fish watercolors
Gwillim Student Symposium

Welcome to Letters Home, a podcast that explores the lives and interests of Elizabeth Gwillim and Mary Symonds, English sisters in India at the turn of the nineteenth century. Over eight episodes Rosie Noskwith and Amber Craig read letters from the sisters to their family in England and host Ciel Haviland talks with researches who explored a facet of the life they exposed.

The Gwillim Project website
The Gwillim Project youtube channel
The book! Women, Environment and Networks of Empire

A great chat with Henry Noltie about plants and Elizabeth Gwillim's efforts to master botany and my cat needs to go in and out of the room.

For the online symposium on Lady Gwillim's Botany:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASrfoZAml2Y&ab_channel=TheGwillimProjectOnline

For a fantastic chapter on Indians painting in an English style in Forgotten masters: Indian Painting for the East India Company, edited by William Dalrymple.

Welcome to Letters Home, a podcast that explores the lives and interests of Elizabeth Gwillim and Mary Symonds, English sisters in India at the turn of the nineteenth century. Over eight episodes Rosie Noskwith and Amber Craig read letters from the sisters to their family in England and host Ciel Haviland talks with researches who explored a facet of the life they exposed.

The Gwillim Project website
The Gwillim Project youtube channel
The book! Women, Environment and Networks of Empire

Please enjoy this episode, where we get into English and Indian historic dress at the turn of the 19th century through Mary and Elizabeth’s letters with Alexandra Kim, Dr. Ann Wass, and Dr. Toolika Gupta.

Webinar: "My Things from the Ship are All Come Safe"
and
Case study: “Best for this country”: Limerick Gloves

Digital collection of Elizabeth Gwillim's watercolors of birds at McGill Rare Books and Special Collections here.

More information at the Gwillim Project here.

For more information Hidden Hands in Colonial Natural Histories, find their website here.

For more on Henry Gwillim, some brief biographical information can be found here on the Gwillim Project website. There is also a Youtube symposium Personal Histories Revealed, which includes a presentation from Arthur MacGregor on Henry Gwillim.

More work from the prolific Arthur MacGregor:
St Helena: An Island Biography (2024)
The India Museum Revisited (2023)
Company Curiosities: Nature, culture and the East India Company, 1600–1874 (2018)

Dr. Menon's introduction to the special edition of South Asian History and Culture can be read here (open access):
Indigenous knowledges and colonial sciences in South Asia

For a symposium on those who were in the background of the letters: Missing Voices: South Asian Perspectives on the Gwillim Archives

other pieces:
What’s in a name? William Jones, ‘philological empiricism’ and botanical knowledge making in eighteenth-century India

Chapter in Histories of Medicine and Healing in the Indian Ocean World

Dr. Anna Winterbottom helps me to put the lives of Elizabeth and Mary in context of their place and time: what was India? What was science? How does one do that research?

All of Dr. Anna Winterbottom's articles and publications can be found here. Information on her book: Hybrid Knowledge in the Early East India Company World.

Welcome to Letters Home, a podcast that explores the lives and interests of Elizabeth Gwillim and Mary Symonds, English sisters in India at the turn of the nineteenth century. Over eight episodes Rosie Noskwith and Amber Craig read letters from the sisters to their family in England and host Ciel Haviland talks with researches who explored a facet of the life they exposed.

The Gwillim Project website
The Gwillim Project youtube channel
The book! Women, Environment and Networks of Empire

Welcome to Letters Home, a podcast that explores the lives and interests of Elizabeth Gwillim and Mary Symonds, English sisters in India at the turn of the nineteenth century. Over eight episodes Rosie Noskwith and Amber Craig read letters from the sisters to their family in England and host Ciel Haviland talks with researches who explored a facet of the life they exposed.

The Gwillim Project website
The Gwillim Project youtube channel
The book! Women, Environment and Networks of Empire