The Fishing Fleet

by Anne de Courcy

  In Alexander Trotter’s India, although the practice of marriage to – or cohabitation with – an Indian woman was beginning to die out, it was certainly not frowned on (in any case, there were very few British women in the country). A few years earlier the Governor-General, Sir John Shore, had publicly kept a native woman and the British Resident in Delhi, contemporary with Alexander, used to take the evening air accompanied by his thirteen bibis, as these unofficial wives or consorts were called, mounted on elephants.

  So Alexander’s cohabitation* with a woman described in his will as ‘a native woman of Hindoostan’ would have raised few eyebrows. She was clearly well born: one of her names, Khanam Jan, means the equivalent of ‘noble princess’. Most of Alexander’s fellow cadets died of disease or on active service; even so, there were few opportunities in this period for glory and swift promotion.* When he was invalided out of active service in 1825, he commanded a regiment of Native Invalids until his death in 1828.

  Their son William, described in his father’s will as his ‘natural son’, was born in 1814. By the time he was grown up native marriages were dying out, from a combination of factors: earlier edicts banning Eurasians from the best jobs, nineteenth-century religious fervour and the growth in the numbers of European women. So although his father was a gentleman, William, as half-Indian, was slithering down the social ladder. He started his career as Assistant to the Military Board of the East India Company in Calcutta and made a very early marriage indeed: at the age of nineteen he married a widow of eighteen in the Cathedral at Calcutta and died aged thirty-two in his father’s native Scotland.

  His son, William Henry Trotter, born in 1837, was Grace’s father. He had a career, working at times as a stockbroker and for different banks, almost always in Calcutta. His personal charm must have counterbalanced his Indian blood, as he married a young woman called Sarah Honoria Boote of a fairly humble background (both her father and maternal grandfather were non-commissioned soldiers). Both William’s mother and wife probably also had Indian blood, believes Grace’s great-grandson Charles Arthur.

  Two of their daughters, Grace, born in 1868, and her elder sister Mabel, were pretty, light-skinned girls who could pass as English – and were determined to do so. Grace’s is the story of someone who managed to transcend her origins in the teeth of a highly stratified and critical society in a most remarkable way.

  When Grace was only eleven her father died. Now, with a mother who looked English and their own similar appearance, there was nothing to suggest that Grace and Mabel’s blood was not as purely English – or Scottish – as any of the young men and women this well-established Calcutta family mixed with. But the knowledge of her heritage must have made her feel that making a ‘good’ marriage was essential if she were finally to shed something viewed as so discreditable.

  ‘Grace and Mabel teamed up to extricate themselves from the ghastly predicament into which the curse of mixed blood cast them in late-Victorian India,’ says Charles Arthur, who to his surprise discovered that William Trotter had had another four daughters. ‘They must have been darker-skinned and followed a Eurasian way of life, marrying other Eurasians who pursued Eurasian careers. At any rate, Grace and Mabel cut themselves off and the other girls were never mentioned to their descendants – perhaps my grandmother did not even know of them.’

  When Grace was nineteen she met a good-looking ‘griffin’ in the ICS. William Henry Hoare Vincent, born in 1866, was the third son of the vicar of Carnarvon, who had died in the cholera epidemic of 1869, leaving his wife with seven young children and little money. Fortunately in 1871 a compassionate cousin bequeathed to them a house and small farm at Bangor, but the sons relied on scholarships for their public school education.

  After school William went to London to train for the ICS entry examination, in which at the age of just nineteen he was placed seventeenth out of a field of about 200, most of whom had had the advantage of further education at Oxford or Cambridge, a high placing that made him a man to watch. Training periods at Trinity College, Dublin, and in London followed and in December 1887 William arrived in India to start his career in Bengal and Bihar and Orissa. Soon after his arrival he met Grace but was then sent to his first posting in Dacca.

  In 1888 Grace and her elder sister Mabel were invited on what must have seemed the trip of a lifetime – exciting, glamorous, romantic and in the company of the most eligible young man in all India; in short, the ne plus ultra of any aspiring Fishing Fleet girl. Their friend, George Sanderson (always known as GP), the most famous elephant hunter in India and the Superintendent of Keddahs* for the Maharaja of Mysore, had asked them to join the tiger-shooting trip he had arranged for Lord Clandeboye, the twenty-two-year-old eldest son of the Viceroy, Lord Dufferin. For two weeks they would be constantly in his company in the romantic setting of jungle camps, with the added spice of excitement and possible danger. It was the equivalent of two British debutantes being asked to go on an exclusive safari with the unmarried Prince of Wales. To Grace, it was so important that she wrote a daily journal of it.

  The trip began on Tuesday 24 April, at Mirzapore camp. As it was thick jungle the shooting would be from elephants. To make sure that Lord Clandeboye had sufficient opportunity to get a good tiger, GP had sent some cattle to the camp to act as bait if necessary; shooting at least one tiger had become almost obligatory for the Englishman in India and Lord Clandeboye, due to return to Britain later that year when his father’s viceroyalty ended, was not going to miss the chance.

  The next day they got to the jungle by boat on the river in about half an hour. ‘It was very big and dense enough to have been the home of wild elephants,’ wrote Grace. ‘Mr Sanderson and Lord Clandeboye went a little way into the jungle and took up their positions in a tree towards which the tiger was to be driven – Mab, Bertie [a friend] and I remained outside on a narrow strip of maidan* that separated the jungle they were beating from another piece the other side.

  ‘The heat began and after two hours of intense silence only broken by the occasional trumpeting of an elephant we heard a shot fired, which was followed almost immediately by shouts from the line (which was very close now) and savage growls from the tiger as he tried to break through before he finally did . . . Lord Clandeboye said that when the tiger came near his tree he fired and wounded it in the shoulder. It rolled over once and then walked away; and finally as we heard broke through the line into the heavy jungle beyond. We beat for him until about 3.30 then gave it up as hopeless. It rained hard nearly all the time, and we returned to the boats wet, hungry and disappointed . . . and slightly seasick. In spite of all our efforts to be cheerful we felt very melancholy and depressed at the loss of the tiger. It is the first time we have ever lost a tiger we’ve been after and having wounded it made it harder.’

  The rain went on bucketing down, the camp ran out of mutton (‘I was rather melancholy all day at the thought of the mutton having come to an end, and that henceforth we must live on fowls, duck and pigeons. I don’t like any of these. However we had mushrooms for dinner and that cheered me a little.’ There was nothing to do except play with the cat that Grace and Mabel had smuggled in, and no sign of any tigers.

  ‘Another idle day in camp,’ wrote Grace on 28 April, as the rain continued to pelt. ‘Lord Clandeboye is not very fond of Bengalis . . . Today he told one of our boatmen who was speaking rather loudly that he would tie a rope round his neck and hang him over the side of the boat till he learnt to speak more quietly before ladies! He keeps the men in good order and not one of them dares disobey him.’

  Just as Grace was writing ‘I think we were all beginning to feel a trifle mouldy after so much rain,’ everything suddenly changed. The rain stopped, news came in of a kill across the river and immediately after breakfast the party set out to find the elephants waiting for them on the far side of the river. At first it was easy jungle to work, chiefly scrub with the occasional large tree and patches of thorns. ‘Mab and I were posted in a narrow
strip of maidan that separated two bits of jungle,’ wrote Grace. ‘Mr Sanderson and Lord C were a little farther on. It was a very hot day and we just baked in the sun for about an hour while the line was coming up. There was nothing to keep the sun off one. Of course umbrellas were not allowed; and we did not have a tree to stand under.

  ‘. . . when the line [of beaters] was nearly through the jungle Lord C got a shot and wounded the tiger slightly when it sprang back into a thick thorny bush from which we could not dislodge it as there was a bees’ nest in it and no sane man will ever disturb a bees’ nest. Following up a wounded tiger is one thing but disturbing a lot of bees is quite another story.

  ‘While we were pottering about Stripes sneaked out and we lost sight of it for a bit and while Mr Sanderson and Lord C were beating up a bit of jungle a little way off she (it was a tigress) suddenly dashed out right in front of us with a tremendous noise and charged the elephant next to us. How frightened I was! I thought my heart was going to jump out of my body. I never knew what it was to be afraid when I was in the howdah with Mr Sanderson, not even on the day when we got the famous tiger (now in the British Museum) that charged straight at our elephant and was shot dead by Mr Sanderson only about a yard off. But having a first-rate shot in one’s howdah is very different to having no one.’

  Their elephant stood so firmly that the tigress changed her mind and retired into her thorn bush. Soon afterwards Lord Clandeboye arrived and, catching a glimpse of the great beast, which was preparing for another spring, finished her off with a couple of shots. ‘She died pluckily, poor beast,’ wrote Grace, ‘and though I felt very sorry for her it was cheering to hear the old familiar cry “Allah, Allah” again. This is market day and the usually quiet little village is very noisy and in a fearful state of excitement. . . . The dear old elephants looked very happy and contented having their dinner. It is pleasant to hear the ‘swish, swish’ of the grass as they beat it against their legs to get the earth out.’

  On Saturday 6 May the journal bubbles with pleasure and excitement. ‘We have had a most exciting and successful day and we are all immensely pleased with ourselves and everyone else in consequence. A villager brought in news of a kill early this morning and we started immediately after breakfast, about 9.30. We got to the jungle in about three-quarters of an hour and found all the elephants assembled awaiting orders from Mr S who had gone off to have a look around. It was a frightfully hot day. The jungle was in thick scrubby patches with a ginger swamp between two of the thickest and likeliest bits, and a small strip of maidan beyond, dividing two other patches.’

  The first two beats resulted in nothing; in the third they were all put to flight by the wild bees – but they had heard the welcome ‘it’s in front’ of the men and the occasional shrill scream of an elephant when it came close to the tiger, so they knew they would have what Grace called ‘some sport’.

  Her feelings changed later. ‘After a time a tigress came through and Lord C got an easy shot at her. She staggered on a little way and he fired again when after two or three awful groans she died. Poor beast. It was dreadful to hear her. Writing of it in cold blood it seems so cruel and heartless to go out and see them shot but at the time one gets so excited that one does not think so much of it. In the meantime another tiger (her mate) had charged back and broken through the line. The beaters went back and after some time he was brought up again and went past Lord C’s howdah into the thick jungle on the other side of the maidan. We saw him as he gained the other side and he looked magnificent as he walked quietly into the jungle and then turned round to see if he was being followed.’

  Lord Clandeboye had not seen the tiger pass, so both Grace and Mabel tried to attract his attention by whistling, but neither could manage to. However the mahout succeeded and very soon had the bit of jungle the tiger was in surrounded. It was a small and rather thin patch but with very heavy jungle just beyond and if the tiger got through the line there would be very small chance of ever seeing him again.

  ‘Mab, Bertie and I went into the line by way of a change and after we had gone a little way we heard Stripes growl and saw him spring forward just a little bit ahead of us. Lord C had a shot at him and he turned and charged the line and for the next ten minutes or so we had a very lively time indeed.

  ‘He kept on dashing about and growling and charging the line over and over again. It was a grand sight and we saw him the whole time. The nearer we got him to the guns the more he dashed about and tried to break through. Poor beast, he fought hard for his life. The elephants and men behaved splendidly and after some time Lord C got another shot at him which brought him down, and a third shot ended his troubles. How the men shouted “Allah la la la la” again and again at the tops of their voices, each one trying to make himself heard above the rest. And how they jabbered and gesticulated and grinned as each one insisted that he had been the first to see the tiger! No one thought of listening. Everyone talked.

  ‘The villagers, who had been posted up trees to mark the tiger’s movements, crowded in to rejoice at the death of their enemy and showed their contempt of him now he could not harm them by kicking and abusing him. Just the nation’s character all over. It was just 3 o’clock that the tiger was shot and after tying him to an elephant we went off to get the tigress and then started back to camp. We had a grand procession. The tigers side by side leading the way (on pad elephants of course), then ourselves on three elephants; and crowds of villagers running alongside and increasing in numbers every minute.’

  Although their days and nights in the jungle brought Grace and Mabel no romantic fulfilment, they did bestow one intangible but important benefit: an impeccable seal on their social credentials. Few would now question or – more to the point – think of questioning their antecedents. Soon Grace would leave these even further behind.

  William Vincent was still pursuing her. By any standards, and in particular by those of British India, he was a catch and, although he was only twenty-three, they married on 24 June 1889 in Dacca, where he was stationed. As ICS men were not supposed to marry before the age of thirty, and for the few who did special dispensation had to be obtained from the Viceroy, it says much for the high opinion in which he was held by the Service.

  From that moment Grace’s position in society was secure. William went on to have a distinguished career, switching from the executive side of the ICS to the judicial in 1900 and eventually becoming a judge of the Calcutta High Court in 1909. Unusually, he then switched back to the executive branch and joined the Government of India in 1911. As a member of the Government, he went up to Simla every year for six months, accompanied by Grace and, when they were not at school in England, their two daughters, Dorothy Grace (Charles Arthur’s grandmother) and Isobel Wynn.

  It was now the turn of Dorothy and Isobel, back from school as members of the Fishing Fleet, to enjoy dances, proposals and courtships. Enter Charles Arthur (grandfather of the present holder of the name). He had come out to India in 1905 to help out his uncle Sir Allan Arthur, whose business in Calcutta was in trouble from inattention; Allan had been President of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce several times and had served as the first Commerce Member of Curzon’s Viceroy’s Council. His business had suffered from his involvement in politics.

  Charles, the youngest of four sons, went out from Glasgow to help his uncle pick up the pieces, and there in Calcutta met Grace’s daughter Dorothy and fell in love with her – only to meet stiff opposition. Dorothy wrote to her mother in January 1914: ‘What I am going to tell you now will probably surprise you a good deal, & yet I think you must have seen how things were going at Delhi. I have liked him awfully for some time but did not like to say anything until I knew my own mind better. As I am now sure that I really love him I feel I ought to let you know. I hope you will approve. I don’t think you will be displeased because I know you are both very fond of him.’ Obviously thinking that this might not be so she concluded with the plea: ‘I do hope you will not be against it all
as we should hate to do anything you would not like, and if you are pleased it will mean so much to us.’

  Grace’s reply was frigid. ‘My dear Dorothy,’ she responded coolly. ‘Your letter received an hour or two ago has been a great shock to me. I am not going to write any kind of reply to it at present as I could not write as you would wish, and I do not wish to appear unsympathetic. I only ask that neither of you will give people any occasion to talk about you and I hope you will not consider yourselves engaged.’

  By now so socially impregnable that she had swallowed whole all the Raj’s fiercely hierarchical social protocol, Grace objected to Charles on the grounds that he came from a lower social class, declaring that ‘someone in trade is not good enough for the daughter of an ICS man’. William, the ICS man concerned, was only anxious that his daughter should choose a man who would make her happy.

  Grace went on to do everything she could to block the courtship: Dorothy and Charles Arthur had to exchange letters through a go-between, because Grace used to intercept any sent to the house and throw them away. But Charles was able to pursue Dorothy to Simla where, with her father a Government servant, she spent six months of every year. In Simla, with its parties and balls, it was impossible to prevent them seeing each other, dancing together and arranging meetings. It was in Simla that they married, in 1914, in Christ Church Cathedral, Grace (now Lady Vincent)* swallowing her objections sufficiently to give them a big society wedding, with the marriage ceremony itself conducted by the Bishop of Lahore and the Archdeacon of Simla and the register signed by both the Viceroy and the Commander-in-Chief.