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The Gwillim Project

The Gwillim Project

A Remarkably Granular Snapshot of the World of an Expatriate Family in Madras between 1801 and 1808

  • About
    • About the Gwillim Project
    • The Network
    • Acknowledgements
    • Newsletter Archive
    • Media
    • Contact Us
  • Personal Lives
    • The Families
      • Elizabeth Gwillim
      • Henry Gwillim
      • Mary Symonds
    • Gwillim’s World: People
    • Gwillim’s World: Places
    • Gwillim’s London
    • Timeline
  • Letters
    • Letters
    • Reading the Letters
    • Letters and Sketches
    • Transcriptions
      • Extracts
  • Artwork
    • Artwork
      • The Gwillim Collection
      • The Madras Album
    • Sisters as Painters: Influence, Style, Attribution
    • “I shall want colours and paper for drawing”: Artists’ Materials
    • Gwillim’s Backgrounds
    • Mary Symonds’s Pasteboard Models
    • Mary Symonds’s Portrait Miniatures
    • A Scene from a Sanskrit Drama: Mary Symonds’s painting of the Śakuntalā
  • Natural History
    • Birds
      • Comparisons of Gwillim’s Birds
      • Feathers
    • Fish
      • “Curious for fish”: Mary Symonds’s Fish Watercolours 
      • Comparisons of Symonds’ Fish
    • Botany
      • Botanical Exchanges
      • Transporting Plants between India and England
    • Informants on the Natural World
    • “Seasoning to the Climate”: Health, Climate and Medicine
    • “Something of the Climate”: Observing the Weather in Early Nineteenth-Century Madras
    • Landscape
  • Case Studies
    • Mapping the Gwillim Environment
    • Behind the scenes: colonial violence and resistance in the Gwillim archive
    • What the Gwillims Read in Madras
    • Translating a sthala-purāņa
    • A Kitchen in Nineteenth-Century Madras
    • Lady Gwillim’s China
    • “Best for this country”: Limerick Gloves
  • Events
    • Events
    • Exhibitions
    • Webinars

Letter Extracts

Click on the links below to view extracts of letters by Mary Symonds and Elizabeth Gwillim, exploring the topics of art, food, culture, and climate.

Art and Painting
Climate, Complaints, and Remedies
Food and Cooking
Sketches in the Letters

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  • About
  • Personal Lives
  • Letters
  • Artwork
  • Natural History
  • Case Studies
  • Events
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