India, its set in India!

[eldawen345]

So we are working on As You Like It in costume design class this term. And I've chosen to set my version of it in India...British colonial India circa 1810-20ish, to be specific.  The Dukes and the girls are British (governor types, though Frederick has a military bent so that I can have him in khaki and make his court generally drab), Oliver and

Comments

[padawansguide]

ooh, that sounds amazing - please post pictures when you're done! It all sounds fascinating!

[edmndclotworthy]

On British Army uniforms in 1810

[eldawen345]

Wow, thank you!

[edmndclotworthy]

And incidentally, 1810 is too early for khaki - the British Army didn't begin to adopt this colour until the Indian Mutiny of 1857.

[eldawen345]

Haha, yeah, oh well :)

[flummoxicated]

I don't have any sources, but this sounds like it's going to rock my costume-loving world!

[peronel]

You may want to be a little careful with your terminology. India in 1810 isn't Colonial - that doesn't happen formally until the establishment of the British Raj which, iirc correctly, is in the 1850s. Before that, there is heavy involvement by the British East Indian Company. Parts are under direct British control, parts are in effect puppet states ruled by the Maharajah, and parts are fully under Indian control. The influence of the East Indian company gradually expands (often through military force, although I'm not sure of the connection between company forces and British forces) until its dissolution and the establishment of the Raj. But 1810 is still pretty early in that process.

This isn't my area of expertise so I don't know the details of the situation in 1810. Parts of the country will be in effect Empire but I would guess that early on they would be the minority. So you'd need to be careful with both where exactly this is set, and your terminology.

[eldawen345]

Right, Part of why I need to delve into this more is that right now I'm a little iffy about the actual specific historical happenings and such. I'm just sort of bandying about terms like "colonial" in the meantime. The general setting and everything seems to work for my concept, now I just need to firm up the specifics. Thanks!

[edmndclotworthy]

On military forces, the British Army and East India Company forces were separate entities, but both were present at this time and often fought alongside each other - for example at the Battle of Assaye in 1805. I'll look up the details of some units that you might want to look at for costumes - the 74th Highlanders, for example, distinguished themselves at Assaye and it might be fun to attempt highland uniforms.

On 1810 being early in the process. At this time the British were long established in Bengal and other areas in the south, which is around 30% of the country. They had fought two wars against the Maratha Empire in the centre (around 50% of India) and were in effective military control of that region; the third Anglo-Maratha war was fought in 1817-18 and left the British in decisive control of all of central and southern India.

There remained the Punjab and some other provinces in the north that remained independent of British control at this time.