Respected Memsahibs

.. contains extracts from the letters, memoirs and narratives of nineteen women who lived and worked across the British Indian Empire between the First World War and Independence in 1947...a unique record of life and work in the latter days of the British Raj. That we have such a record is due almost entirely to the dedication and indefatigable work of Mary Thatcher, who began in the later 1960s to collect material from former residents of different parts of British Asia. With a combination of tact, persistence and charm she assembled a large number of collections of papers and recorded interviews. Yet she was particularly interested in the lives of women and in many cases asked them to write more substantial memoirs of their time in India. - from the Introduction by Professor Sir Christopher Bayly The women are Mrs Lucy Elinor Lyall Grant, Mrs Christian Showers, Mrs Margaret Murison, Lady Beatrix Scott, Lady Lyle Maxwell, Mrs Violet Fulford Williams, Mrs Mollie Dench, Mrs Anne Parry, Lady Jean Anderson, Lady Alice Stokes, Lady Olive Crofton, Mrs Kits M.Mullan, Mrs Joan Cruickshank, Mrs Viola Bayley, Dr Hilda Davis, Mrs Elisabeth Stewart, Miss Muriel McKnight, Mrs Margery Hall, Mrs Eve Ross, and Mrs Iris Butler (Portal)