The London Daily Newsletter Tuesday 20 June

On 20 June 1756, 146 British subjects were held overnight in Calcutta, India by Siraj-ud-Dowla, the Nawab of Bengal,. Supposedly only 23 survived the night. There is a lot of controversy on this issue. It is now widely accepted that the British exaggerated the event. As the story goes, on the capture of Calcutta by Dowla, the English garrison consisting of 146 men under the command of John Zephaniah Holwell, were locked up for the night in the common dungeon of the fortress. The dungeon was a strongly barred room and was not intended for the confinement of more than two or three men at a time. There were only two windows, and a projecting veranda outside and thick iron bars within impeded the ventilation, while fires raging in different parts of the fort suggested an atmosphere of further oppressiveness. The prisoners were packed so tightly that the door was difficult to close. One of the soldiers stationed in the veranda was offered 1000 rupees to have them removed to a larger room. He went away, but returned saying it was impossible. The bribe was then doubled, and he made a second attempt with a like result; the nawab was asleep, and no one dared wake him. By nine o’clock several had died. and many more were delirious. A frantic cry for water now became general, and one of the guards, more compassionate than his fellows, caused some to be brought to the bars, where Mr. Holwell and two or three others received it in their hats, and passed it on to the men behind. In their impatience to secure it nearly all was spilt, and the little they drank seemed only to increase their thirst. Self-control was soon lost; those in remote parts of the room struggled to reach the window, and a fearful tumult ensued, in which the weakest were trampled or pressed to death. They raved, fought, prayed, blasphemed, and many then fell exhausted on the floor, where suffocation put an end to their torments. The British prisoners resorted to cannibalism to quench their hunger and thirst in the ensuing pandemonium. About 11 o’clock the prisoners began to drop off fast. At length, at six in the morning, Siraj-ud-Dowla awoke, and ordered the door to be opened. Of the 146 only 23, including Mr. Holwell (from whose narrative, published in the Annual Register for 1758, this account is partly derived), remained alive, and they were either stupefied or raving.

Coldharbour Farm
Coldharbour Farm, which was active in Hayes until the 1950s, was once the property of the Minet family.

Properties in Hayes, Middlesex, acquired piecemeal by the Minet family, were collectively known as the Minet Estate. The Minets were a French Huguenot family who came to England after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1686. At its height the Minet Estate comprised a very large portion of the eastern side of the parish of Hayes. Not only did they own Coldharbour Farm but Hayes Court Farm, Hayes Bridge Farm, East Acton Brickworks, Victoria Sawmills, Wistowe, Porch House, Townfield and the Grange.

TUM Book Club: Tube Mapper Project
Photographer Luke Agbaimoni created the Tube Mapper project allowing him to be creative, fitting photography around his lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute.

The Underground is the backbone of the city of London, a part of our identity. It’s a network of shared experiences and visual memories, and most Londoners and visitors to the city will at some point have an interaction with the London Underground tube and train network. Photographer Luke Agbaimoni gave up city-scape night photography after the birth of his first child, but creating the Tube Mapper project allowed him to continue being creative, fitting photography around his new lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute. His memorable photographs consider such themes as symmetry, reflections, tunnels and escalators, as well as simply pointing out and appreciating the way the light falls on a platform in an evening sunset. This book reveals the London every commuter knows in a unique, vibrant and arresting style.

“An Autumn Lane” (1886)

John Atkinson Grimshaw

Video: Co-ordinate near to Gardner Close, Wanstead
Jago Hazzard went to the far reaches of the Central Line