Lahore Archives - Page 2 of 3 - INDIAN MEMORY PROJECT

The Bicycle Soldiers of World War One

My grandfather S.L Stonely (standing right most) Dalhousie, Himachal Pradesh. Circa 1916

My grandfather S.L Stonely (standing right most) Dalhousie, Himachal Pradesh. Circa 1916 Image and Text contributed by Peter Curbishley, United Kingdom This is an image of British soldiers, their wives and friends from 1/1st Kent Cyclists Battalion taken sometime between 1915 and 1919. They were at posted in Bangalore, Dalhousi, Deolali, Bombay, and then later at Lahore and Rawalpindi (now Pakistan). The sergeant sitting on the right is my grandfather A/S S.L Stonely. The image may have been photographed in Dalhousie before their posting to or from Rawalpindi. Dalhousie was a quaint hill station established in 1854 by the British Empire in India as a summer retreat for its troops and bureaucrats. Unfortunately, I do not know much about this image and I found it in a bunch of negatives sitting in an old box for years. Only recently I decided to get them digitised. It seems that several of these images were photographed by my grandfather, because the records show that Kent Cyclists Battalion had a Camera Club. All I know is that my grandfather was a member of one of the Kent Cyclists Battalions which was formed before World War I. Upon being removed from regimental strength, in 1908, the Queen’s Own Regiment of cyclist soldiers was re-named as the Kent Cyclist Battalion, and at that time became the Army Troops attached to the Home Counties Division (Territorial Force). The military use of cycles had begun in the 1880’s when a number of the old volunteer battalions had set up Cyclist Sections, whose brief was to defend Great Britain in the advent of an invasion, being something akin to a part time rapid response unit. In 1915, the first units of the Army Cyclist Corps…

The only non-white students of the batch

My grandfather, Dr. Preetam Pal Singh (seated) with his college mates at the King Edward Medical College. Lahore (Now Pakistan) Circa 1933

My grandfather, Dr. Preetam Pal Singh (seated) with his college mates at the King Edward Medical College. Lahore (Now Pakistan) Circa 1933 Image & Narrative contributed by Sarah J. Kazi, London This photograph of my grandfather with his college mates was taken in 1933/1934 at the King Edward Medical College in Lahore (now Pakistan). He was around 25 years old at the time and he and the others in this picture were the only non-white students of their batch. My grandfather, Dr. Preetam Pal Singh was born in 1908 at Gujar Khan, Rawalpindi District (now in Pakistan) and served as a doctor in the British Army. He was posted at Manora Island Cantonment, near Karachi when partition of India took place in 1947. My great grandmother, grandfather, his wife, and two aunts boarded the train to Firozpur (Indian Punjab) and later reached Faridkot, where he and the family stayed for three nights at the railway platform before the Maharaja of Faridkot employed my grandfather as his personal physician. My grandfather was allotted an official house, and my father was born in 1950. This huge house in red (called the Laal Kothi) still exists and was recently visited by my father. Later in 1957 my grandfather specialized in Radiology from the King George Medical College in Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh). In the 1960s, the whole family moved and settled down in Patiala, Punjab and I have fond memories of visiting the city to meet my grandparents. My grandfather passed away in 2003, at the ripe old age of 94.

One of the three earliest known Indians to have studied at the Royal College of Art, London

My great great grandfather, Vasu Deva Sharma. Berlin, Germany. Circa 1920

My great great grandfather, Vasu Deva Sharma. Berlin, Germany. Circa 1920 Image & Narrative contributed by Nyay Bhushan, New Delhi This is the only image of my great grand-father, Vasu Deva Sharma, in our family archives. It shows him working as an artist in a photo studio in Berlin. Dressed impeccably in a well-tailored suit, he poses in front of an easel with a brush in hand, with the canvas depicting a portrait of a possibly aristocratic European lady. Vasu Deva Sharma was one of the rare Indians of his time who studied at the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London in the 1920s. Vasu Deva Sharma was born on June 15, 1881 to Pandit Bhagwan Das in Pakpattan Sharif, District Montgomery, Punjab, (now in Pakistan). In 1910, he passed the Senior Vernacular Teachers Certificate Examination (Punjab Education Department) and in 1911 he joined Central Training College, Lahore as a Drawing Professor. The same year he married Saraswati Devi and on December 3, 1912, the couple had a son, Ved Prakash Sharma (my grandfather) and a daughter Ved Kumari in 1914. Tragically, in 1915 Saraswati Devi passed away and as joint families would, his brother Pandit Bhim Sen and sister-in-law Kaushalya Devi helped raise the two children. In 1920, at the age of 39, Vasu Deva Sharma gave up his job at the Central Training College, Lahore after receiving a scholarship to study at Royal College of Art. He sailed from Bombay to London on the ship Kaisar-I-Hind on the P&O line, and arrived in London on September 25, 1920. (Source : The National Archives, UK - Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960; www.ancestry.com) Upon his arrival in London he…

He designed motorbikes, served the British Army and worked in a circus with his wife.

My grandfather, Glyndon Ralph O'Leary, fondly known as Mike. Location - Probably Sibi (Now Pakistan). 1941

My grandfather, Glyndon Ralph O'Leary, fondly known as Mike. Location - Probably Sibi (Now Pakistan). 1941 Image and Narrative contributed by Shaun Waller & Oonagh Waller, UK These are the memories of my mother, Oonagh who was born in India to my grandparents, Glyndon Ralph O'Leary (Mike) and Sheilagh Anges Mary Maguire. - Shaun "My father, Glyndon Ralph O'Leary was fondly known as Mike. He was born in 1902 in Toronto, Canada to Winifred and Ralph O'Leary, who were of Irish descent. At the age of Twelve, he left Canada and began his military career in the Boys service, Indian Subcontinent from 1914 - 1919 and continued in various regiments serving the British Empire on and off until 1946. Mike was also a Practical Motor Engineer: his brothers and he owned and worked in a motorcycle workshop and showroom called the O’Leary Brothers in Dehradun, Uttar Pradesh. They also designed and built a motorcycle called the White Streak. However, it never made it to production. At one point, they bought an old motorcycle, a Brough Superior from T. E. Lawrence (The very original Lawrence of Arabia) and exhibited it in their showroom. While in the army in Lahore, Mike manufactured scale models for Forest Research, Rural upliftment, P.W.D. and Irrigation departments and also tactical models for training of mechanised fighting vehicles. 12 such gold medal standard models manufactured by him were on display in the Forestry Department of Lahore Central Museum. I wonder if they are still there. Mike married Sheilagh Anges Mary Maguire in October 1928 in Lahore and subsequently had three children - Michael, Oonagh and Larry. Later the children went to boarding school in Mussoorie: Wynberg…

Leaving everything behind in Scotland to an unknown future in India

My Gradndmother, Sydney Gorrie, on her wedding day. Lahore (now Pakistan). December 1923

My Grandmother, Sydney Gorrie, on her wedding day. Lahore (now Pakistan). December 1923 Image and Narrative contributed by Janet MacLeod Trotter, UK This is a photo of my Scottish maternal grandmother, Sydney Gorrie (nee Easterbrook) on her wedding day in December 1923. She and my grandfather, Robert Gorrie, were married in a cathedral in Lahore (now Pakistan). She looks beautiful but perhaps to me, also slightly apprehensive. This may be because she hadn’t seen her fiancé in over a year and had just travelled out by ship with her parents from Edinburgh, Scotland to get married. For some time their home was in Lahore (now Pakistan) which my grandmother enjoyed. Robert Gorrie fondly called Bob, a veteran of the World War I and survivor of trench warfare, had secured a job with the Indian Forestry Service, as a conservator of forests. Sydney was an only child and had left behind home and extended family in Edinburgh, Scotland for an unknown future trekking around the Himalayan foothills with her new husband. Bob was enthusiastic about trees and conservation and became an expert on soil erosion. He worked all over Punjab and the remote foothills of the Himalayas, and my grandmother would have to plan and organise camping trips for a month or so at a time. When my mother was born, she was taken along too; her pram hoisted onto poles and carried along jungle paths. According to his Work Records, Scottish Bob was “a tiger for work” but was impatient with the bureaucracy and criticised for being outspoken. My granny would sigh that she was constantly having to ‘smooth the ruffled feathers’ of the administrators. He was also based at…

All translations are machine generated, hence they are not 100% accurate.