Material (Re)collections of the ‘Shiny East’: A Late Nineteenth-Century Travel Account by a Young British Woman in India
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Abstract
Millicent Pilkington (1872–1960) travelled from Lancashire to India in 1893 for a year of ‘frivol’. Pilkington was the daughter of Thomas Pilkington, son of William Pilkington, one of the founders of the hugely successful Pilkington glass works at St Helens on Merseyside. The 1881 census lists Millicent’s mother Catherine C. S. Pilkington as born in Calcutta, and some of her time in India was spent with cousins in Hyderabad. Her journey to India followed fairly well-established tourist routes: London to Brindisi by train, and then by steamship to Bombay with Port Said and Aden as the major stops on the way. She documented her sojourn in India in a 50-page, leather-bound travelogue-cum-souvenir album that combines a carefully arranged mix of watercolours, sketches, photographs,1 autographs and ephemera with extensive narrative passages.
Keywords
Hill Station Tourist Route Racial Superiority Travel Account Imperial Travel
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Notes and references
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© Renate Dohmen 2016