The Fishing Fleet: Husband-Hunting in the Raj

by Anne de Courcy

Overview

By the late nineteenth century, Britain's colonial reign seemed to know no limit—and India was the sparkling jewel in the Imperial crown. Many of Her Majesty's best and brightest young men departed for the Raj to make their careers, and their fortunes, as bureaucrats, soldiers, and businessmen. But in their wake they left behind countless young ladies who, suddenly bereft of eligible bachelors, found themselves facing an uncertain future. With nothing to lose and everything to gain, some of these women decided to follow suit and abandon their native Britain for India's exotic glamour and—with men outnumbering women by roughly four to one in the Raj—the best chance they had at finding a husband.

Drawing on a wealth of firsthand sources, including unpublished memoirs, letters, photographs, and diaries, Anne de Courcy brings the incredible world of "the Fishing Fleet," as these women were known, to life. In these sparkling pages, she describes the glittering whirlwind of dances, parties, tennis tournaments, tiger shoots, and palatial banquets that awaited in the Raj, all geared toward the prospect of romance. Most of the girls were away from home for the first time, and they plunged headlong into the heady dazzle of expatriate social life; marriages were frequent. However, after the honeymoon many women were confronted with a reality that was far from the fairy tale they'd been chasing.

Rich with drama and color, The Fishing Fleet is a sumptuous, utterly compelling real-life saga of adventure, romance, and heartbreak in the heyday of the British Empire.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062290083
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/03/2015
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	1,137,475
Product dimensions:	5.31(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.86(d)

About the Author

Anne de Courcy has written eleven books, including Diana Mosley: Mitford Beauty, British Fascist, Hitler's Angel; Debs at War; and The Viceroy's Daughters. She lives in London and Gloucestershire.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations vii

Map of India ix

The Viceroys of India xi

Prologue 1

Intorduction 9

1 'Champagne has been known to allay sea sickness when all else failed' The Voyage Out 17

2 'Happy hunting-ground of the single girl' The Women Who Went Out 32

3 'Kisses on the boat deck' Love at Sea 44

4 'A £300-a-year man-dead or alive' The Men They Met 55

5 'Welcome to India' Arrivals 72

6 'A hell of a heat' The Climate 85

7 'Parties, parties, parties' The Social Whirl 94

8 The Viceroy's Daughter Elisabeth Bruce 108

9 'There are so many "Ladies"' Viceregal Entertainments 125

10 'I told him it was only the moonlight' Courtship 139

11 'It would be a pleasure to be in his harem, I thought' Maharajas 154

12 'Us and them' Brits and Indians 166

13 'I thought my heart was going to jump out of my body' Grace Trotter 173

14 'Where every Jack has someone else's Jill' The Hills 185

15 '"No" would have been unthinkable' Engagement 202

16 Daughter of the Raj Bethea Field 216

17 'Colonels must marry' Marriage 230

18 'No one will want to marry me now!' Perils 241

19 'As I inspected ours I sighed a bit' The First Home 256

20 "But what about horses? And Polo? And Parties?' Iris Butler 265

21 'Just lift up your skirts and you'll be all right' Up Country 278

22 'Cheerio, old girl' Sheila Hingston 292

Epilogue 307

Acknowledgements 313

Bibliography 315

Index 319

Editorial Reviews

The contrasts are irresistibly melodramatic, the characters colorful yet tantalizingly repressed. …. It is enough to make you wonder why Julian Fellowes hasn’t sent a few more members of the Downton Abbey cast on the heels of Miss O’Brien, seeking their fortunes in Delhi and beyond...” — New York Times Book Review

“Vividly sketches the lives lived in this strange limbo…richly entertaining.” — Boston Globe

“Making liberal use of letters and journals, The Fishing Fleet paints a fascinating picture of these women and their history…a glimpse of a unique era.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune

A “lively history…. Colorful.” — Daily Beast

“Journalist De Courcy provides a fascinating account—not quite gossipy but loaded with juicy anecdotes—of adventurous women sailing for the subcontinent in the 19th and early 20th centuries to fulfill their destinies as wives.” — Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

A “lively history…. Colorful.

Daily Beast

Making liberal use of letters and journals, The Fishing Fleet paints a fascinating picture of these women and their history…a glimpse of a unique era.

Minneapolis Star Tribune

09/23/2013
What’s a marriage-minded young Englishwoman to do when so many eligible young men have gone off to India to uphold the British Empire? Follow them, of course. Journalist De Courcy (Snowden: The Biography) provides a fascinating account—not quite gossipy but loaded with juicy anecdotes—of adventurous women sailing for the subcontinent in the 19th and early 20th centuries to fulfill their destinies as wives. Their matrimonial objectives were Englishmen of the Indian Civil Service and officers in the British army, the cream of the Raj crop, whose position and salary made them fine catches. First for the single women came the voyage, with its promise of shipboard romance that could quickly seal the marriage deal. The majority didn’t secure husbands that fast, so once the new arrivals settled in with relatives, they paid social calls and attended dinners, parties, and sporting events—all opportunities to meet eligible young men under the watchful eyes of chaperones. Typical of colonial outposts, interracial romance and marriage were banned. Successful fleet members became like Cinderella after the Prince fitted the slipper: married with a home and children to care for; unsuccessful ones, De Courcy notes with subtle irony, went back to England where they were known as “returned empties.” Three eight-page b&w photo inserts. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

The contrasts are irresistibly melodramatic, the characters colorful yet tantalizingly repressed. …. It is enough to make you wonder why Julian Fellowes hasn’t sent a few more members of the Downton Abbey cast on the heels of Miss O’Brien, seeking their fortunes in Delhi and beyond...

New York Times Book Review

Vividly sketches the lives lived in this strange limbo…richly entertaining.

Boston Globe

2013-10-20
A British biographer finds lively fodder from the accounts of Victorian women venturing to India to find a spouse--and the men who scooped them up. De Courcy (Snowdon, 2010, etc.) fleshes out the stereotypical portrait of the wilting English gentlewoman who functioned chiefly as a means of perpetuating the imperial status quo across the British empire. The women she chronicles in this vigorous study, sent to India to find a husband mostly during the Raj period (roughly 1850 to 1950), faced hardships with equanimity and purpose. Fortunes were to be had for the intrepid young men who flocked to India to work in the East India Company, Indian Civil Service, and other trading, government and army ventures, although diseases and an unfamiliar climate rendered their work perilous. The depletion of the marriage pool back in England left many English girls, those without fortunes, beauty or good connections, facing spinster futures during a time when marriage largely defined women, who had few other prospects. However, in India, men outnumbered women four to one, de Courcy estimates, increasing a woman's chances of finding a mate. Yet these were not passive women, and as the author delves deeper into their diaries and letters, she finds that voyaging to India allowed many women an exciting outlet they did not have in England. However, the arduous voyage took many months and required hardiness, as did weathering illness and oppressive heat. After hasty marriages to eager, lonely men, the wives were often obliged to pull up stakes and move constantly as their husbands' jobs required or live out in the jungles where their plantations were located. Moreover, they often faced long separations from their children, sent back home to boarding schools. De Courcy offers numerous, richly detailed accounts. An expert researcher brings the romantic Raj era to colorful life.

Kirkus Reviews