Victoriana
I have written a series of posts as a background to my final project for my master of Data Science and Innovation. Start off here to get some context.
I am watching the second season of Victoria at the moment. The Queen is still presented as driven and strong, if not little thick, and Prince Albert is rigid and German, but a man of the world and science. In the second episode of the series (“The Green-Eyed Monster”), I was excited/amused to see Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace as characters. The Queen is upset as Albert is very interested in their machines. The Queen sees the brilliant Ada as a threat (I mean, she’s the daughter of the scandalous Byron!) until Ada is reduced to a “working mother” just like the Queen, who worries about her sick child and could not have any time to be interested in the Queens’ husband.
Although the episode uses the characters of Lovelace and Babbage as a foil for the young Victoria and Albert to continue to work out what their marriage is all about, the episode’s backdrop is on the considerable scientific and industrial advancements of the Victorian age. In stories about Lovelace and Babbage, the importance of industrial demonstrations and expositions on their thinking is emphasised. Part of their own folklore is seeing the Jacquard weaving loom and being inspired by this to begin to think about further possibilities for Babbage’s Difference Engine, resulting in their work on the Analytical Engine.
It’s likely Ada would have met Victoria in around1837, when her husband became a Baronet. Two years later England would be engaged in the Opium War with China, which allowed them to seize Hong Kong. Not long after, in 1858, the English government had complete control over India. The East India Company and it’s commercial interests had managed to create a huge British Empire, almost in spite of itself. The British government took over operations after it fell into financial ruin. Later in 1877 the Queen was proclaimed Empress of India.
When the East India Company arrived in India in the sevetenth century, it was in search of spices, but it was importing fabric into Europe that really made it’s fortune. Bengali weavers where creating some of the finest cottons in the world, and England was hungry for them. The Industrial Revolution though ended these centuries old textile markets. England flooded the world with cheap fabric made in their factories, even cheaper than that made in India. India became a supplier of raw materials like cotton instead, and a highly skilled industry was largely destroyed. The number of weavers in Dhaka “went from several hundred thousand in 1760 to 50,000 by 1820”.
In 2013, it was estimated that Bangladesh has over 4 million people working in the garment manufacturing industry for very low wages. Dhaka is the centre of this industry. Once the place for the finest weavers and fabric dyers in the world, the west took its high quality, and cheap goods gladly. The they helped shut it down by flooding it with textiles even cheaper. Through its colonial interests it took the wealth out of the region, and left it in political and economic turmoil.
When I began to trace out the linking ideas I had for my project, the more I looked the more I could see connections. Arcs though history linked
Things that occurred to me as I explored this part of the story:
- I love Liberty fabrics. I sew my own clothes using Liberty cottons and corduroy. The store in London is this incredible mock-Tudor building, and filled with beautiful objects. I found out though that Liberty when opened was actually called the East India House, and full of Eastern imported objects and Orientalism. So what I think of as very British, and all about the English arts and crafts movement, actually started out as a homage to the Indian Empire and Orientalism. What is also interesting is that they imported their fabric and printed it in England copying Indian styles, and then claiming “Made in UK”. I’m not sure where the fabric is made or dyed now. Their famous Tana Lawn cotton was actually imported in raw cotton from Ethiopia. So much Empire. Their Madras check... it goes on and on. I need more time to process all of this.
- I wondered what would have happened to the Bengal textile industry if left alone, or if trade was done fairly? I wondered what the Bangladesh garment industry would be today; maybe creating high value garments?
- The impact of the Partitioning of India in 1947 keeps rippling through history. The background to the rise of the Bangladesh garment industry is quite interesting, but also really devastating. I talk a little bit about it here, but there are some references as well if you want to find out more.
