Stroud, the Five Valleys and the East India Company

Even though William Dalrymple’s bestseller,

The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise

Of the East India Company

Doesn’t mention Stroud in its index,

Stroud scarlet is, by implication,

Embedded in its narrative:

‘For behind the scarlet uniforms

and the Palladian palaces,

the tigers shot and the polkas …

always lay the balance sheets

of the Company accountants’;

The East India Company’s private army

Was ‘twice the size of the British army’

(At a time when Great Britain’s military

And navy were engaged in relentless

Global and continental conflict) …

The book is full of pictures of red uniforms,

Soldiers, sepoys, dignitaries;

And here are two textual examples

Of red uniforms in action:

For example:

‘several battalions of red-coated sepoys’,

At the Battle of Helsa, 1761;

And at the Siege of Patna, 1764:

‘The English lines appeared from a distance

Like a cloud of red and black’ …

The text also features Edmund Burke –

When such a reactionary figure as he

Could excoriate the East India Company thus:

‘more like an army going to pillage

the people under the pretence

of commerce than anything else’,

Then you do hope that our local plaques

And information boards scattered around

Stroud, the five valleys, and the canals,

Might just be able to acknowledge

David Olusoga’s telling point

About memorialisation:

Contextualisation.

But what would Robert Jenrick say?

Or Oliver Dowden?