A reception was held this week in the President's Lodge, Wolfson College, to mark the publication of Respected Memsahibs, an anthology compiled by Mary Thatcher from the archive collection in the 探花直播's Centre of South Asian Studies.
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探花直播anthology draws on the letters, memoirs and narratives of nineteen women who lived and worked in India in between the First World War and Independence in 1947. 探花直播collection forms an exceptional听record of life and work in the latter days of the British Raj.

探花直播Centre of South Asian Studies was established in 1964 with special funding from the UGC. Its role was to promote modern South Asian studies in Cambridge in an interdisciplinary way, and the Centre brought with it lectureships in History, Geography, Economics and Social Anthropology. From the start, it has been housed in the old Faculty Rooms in Laundress Lane overlooking the Mill Pool. Its library,archive and study rooms now occupy the whole of the top two floors of the building.

Mary Thatcher was the Centre's first Archivist. With funding from the Ford Foundation, St John's College and the Smuts Memorial Fund, she was commissioned in 1967 to begin a search for archival material which was otherwise in danger of being lost. Her brief was to focus on ordinary British men and women who worked in India, either in the Civil Service or its associated governmental concerns, those who lived in the Princely States, or were in the private sector, or served as missionaries or teachers. 探花直播resulting trawl of families who had returned to Britain after Independence has resulted in an archive of international importance and renown.

探花直播Director of the Centre, Professor Sir Christopher Bayly, said: ' 探花直播archive is unique and was ahead of its time in the sort of material collected and preserved. With a combination of tact, persistence and charm, Miss Thatcher assembled an amazing collection of private papers, photographs, cine film and other material objects. To this was added, in due course, over 300 recorded interviews. Miss Thatcher was particularly interested in the lives of women and in many cases asked them to write more substantial memoirs of their time in India.'

探花直播current Archivist at the Centre, Dr Kevin Greenbank, said: 'It is a pleasure to work with such a wonderful collection. We are still adding to it, and a great deal of investment has been made in recent years, helped by grants for conservation and digitization from the Newton Trust, the Thriplow Trust and the AHRC, to make the collection more accessible. We have enquiries from all over the world and use has been made of the archive in several recent TV films. I am delighted that Miss Thatcher's Anthology is now published.'

Respected Memsahibs is published by Hardinge Simpole听 and copies may be purchased from amazon.co.uk or from the Centre of South Asian Studies, Laundress Lane, Cambridge.

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