• 2 The role was called Governor-General of Fort William from 1773-1833. It became the Governor-Genera (...)
• 3 This is acknowledged, chronologically, by scholars in works such as Percy Hetherington Fitzgerald, (...)
• 4 John Adam’s grandfather was also called John Adam, who was Robert Adam’s eldest brother, making th (...)
• 5 This is to my knowledge. The link between the men was already lost by the 1885 edition of the Dict (...)

1Government House in Calcutta, today known as the Raj Bhavan of West Bengal, was built between 1799 and 1803 as the official residence for the Governor-General of Fort William, then the 1^st Marquess Wellesley.2 It is well-established that this building is modelled after Kedleston Hall, erected between 1759-1768 in Derbyshire, England, for Nathaniel Curzon, 1^st Baron Scarsdale, and known for the involvement of the famed Scottish architect Robert Adam in its design.3 A significant fact linking Robert Adam and Kedleston with Government House is the presence of Robert Adam’s great-nephew, the statesman John Adam in Calcutta, at the time Government House was designed and built.4 This familial connection has not previously been acknowledged.5 This link, however coincidental, cannot be ignored as John Adam became acting Governor-General in 1823, meaning he would have lived and worked in a building modelled after Kedleston—thus creating physical and material proximity between the family members. In exploring the idea of Scottish architectural and familial networks within the British empire, there are three central themes that emerge: the construction of British buildings in the empire, the importance of Scottish connections, and the place of the Adam family in the British empire.

• 6 Thomas R. Metcalf, “Architecture and the Representation of Empire: India, 1860-1910,” Representati (...)
• 7 Ibid., p. 39.
• 8 The eic only undertook the expense of two large building projects: Fort William and the Government (...)
• 9 Thomas R. Metcalf, “Architecture and the Representation of Empire,” op. cit. (note 6), p. 39.
• 10 Nirmala Rao, “Projections of Empire: India and the Imagined Metropolis,” Asian Affairs, vol. 41, n (...)

2At the beginning of British rule in India in the 1760s, the East India Company (eic), as the head of Britain’s territories in India, thought the construction of “showy buildings” to be financially wasteful and a “needless extravagance.”6 This meant that the Presidency capitals of Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay were among the few places in India where architecturally-minded buildings were constructed by the British in the eighteenth century.7 In Calcutta specifically, and as an exception from the eic’s general rule of not spending money on construction, Government House was built on a grand scale and in an English neoclassical style.8 There were several existing classically-inspired buildings in Calcutta that served as precedents for the Government House project, such as Fort William (1758-1781), the Council House (1764) and the Writers’ Building (c.1777). One notable example is the burial place of John Adam: the Cathedral of Calcutta, later known as St. John’s Church (built 1784-1787), which is based on James Gibbs’ St Martin-in-the-Fields in London (built 1722-1726). In selecting the neoclassical style as a source of inspiration, Thomas R. Metcalf states that “these buildings transplanted contemporary European forms to Indian soil.”9 Nirmala Rao asserts that the British chose the contemporary and fashionable neoclassical style in order to cast India in a European image and therefore “claim a right to rule.”10

• 11 Esme Cleall, Laura Ishiguro and Emily J. Manktelow, “Imperial Relations: Histories of family in th (...)
• 12 Ibid.

4The importance of family networks, especially for Scots in India, has been widely acknowledged. Family connections and networks were crucial in the quest for patronage and the growth of political power; this is especially true in the exchange between India and Britain, as we will see with John Adam in Calcutta and his father in London. In their exchange of letters and involvement in networks of patronage, the Adam family participates in the “intimate frontiers” of the empire, casting the British empire as quite literally a “family affair.”11 As discussed by Cleall, Ishiguro, and Manktelow, this article takes the Adam family as a “focal [point] for wider biographies of empire […] and thereby link[s] the personal and the political in both grounded and extensive ways.”12 Here the study of these two members of the Adam family will be seen to link India with England and Scotland through an exploration of different tensions between public and private in the contexts of exchange within the British empire.

• 13 Viccy Coltman, “The Aesthetics of Colonialism: George Chinnery’s Portrait of Gilbert Elliot, 1st E (...)

5This idea of exchange is rooted in the analytical framework set out by Viccy Coltman, exploring a set of binaries related to colonial aesthetics in visual representations: “between formal and domestic portraits, public and private contexts, likeness and unlikeness, proximity and distance, youth and age and […] colony and metropolis.”13 Drawing upon this methodology, this article seeks to locate the identities of Robert Adam and John Adam within a different set of binaries, or rather a series of exchanges: between Government House and Kedleston Hall; between public buildings and private houses; between India and Britain; and finally between Scottish, English, and British identities. In the context of these exchanges, an exploration of the history and meaning of Government House allows us to connect these two family members and explore the issues at stake as they relate to the Adam family—that is, seeing what this tells us about Scottish identity, Scottish family connections, and, more broadly, the exchange between England, Scotland, and India within the bounds of the British empire in the early nineteenth century.

• 14 Wellesley arrived in Calcutta on 17 May 1798. George Curzon, British Government in India, op. cit. (...)
• 15 Most of the official eic buildings were rented as the eic disliked spending money on real estate a (...)
• 16 Therefore Wellesley and the eic purchased the existing houses that were designated as the Governme (...)
• 17 Preeti Chopra, “South and South East Asia,” op. cit. (note 3), p. 284, and Bankey Bihari Misra, Th (...)

6Plans for a new Government House were conceived when Wellesley arrived in Calcutta in May 1798 and decided that the existing accommodation was unsuitable.14 Prior to the building of Government House, the Governor-General lived in a series of different houses in Calcutta, usually rented by the eic.15 Wellesley decided to build a new Government House that would house the Governor-General and provide offices in owned, not rented, buildings. This was done for reasons of “utility and of ultimate economy” though the “reduction of the expense to be incurred by the Company for the rent of public buildings.”16 Wellesley began the project without the London-based Court of Directors’ consent, and ultimately the eic deemed the expense to be too great and unnecessary, which is a large part of the reason he was recalled to England in 1805.17

• 18 Sten Nilsson, European Architecture in India 1750-1850, op. cit. (note 3), p. 101, and George Curz (...)
• 19 After twelve years of private practice in India, Tiretta retired to Somerset where he purchased an (...)
• 20 In a letter to Lord Grenville. George Curzon, British Government in India, op. cit. (note 1), p. 4 (...)
• 21 Wyatt was made Clerk of Works in 1760. Other work was between 1767-1769. Peter Leach, “James Paine (...)

7Originally, two men were called upon to produce plans: the eic’s Civil Architect Edward Tiretta, and Captain Charles Wyatt of the Bengal Engineers.18 Tiretta was Venetian by birth and sent to Calcutta as a carpenter by the eic; he eventually became Civil Architect, also referred to as “Superintendent of Streets and Buildings.”19 Wyatt is the more significant figure of the two in the context of this essay, as he is the nephew of English architects James and Samuel Wyatt. This family connection is even mentioned in a letter from Wellesley, demonstrating that he was aware Charles Wyatt was the nephew of “well-known English architect James Wyatt.”20 In fact, James Wyatt was considered to be a rival of Robert Adam in the eighteenth century, making his nephew’s selection of Adam’s plan somewhat provocative. However, Samuel Wyatt was master carpenter and later Clerk of Works at Kedleston for Adam, and even designed the stable block and coach houses.21 This gives Charles Wyatt a familial connection to Kedleston, which is especially significant as he was likely responsible for that fact that Kedleston was chosen as the inspiration for Government House.

• 22 Curzon comments on this as early as 1925: “So many erroneous accounts have been published of the d (...)
• 23 Ibid.; Sten Nilsson, European Architecture in India 1750-1850, op. cit. (note 3); Andreas Volwahse (...)
• 24 George Curzon, British Government in India, op. cit. (note 1), p. 42.
• 25 Swati Chattopadhyay, Representing Calcutta, op. cit. (note 3), p. 113.

8Neither Tiretta’s nor Wyatt’s plans for Government House survive. However, we can see Wyatt’s design as built in James Best’s 1804 plan of the house (fig. 1). The fact that Government House is adapted from Kedleston is widely acknowledged; yet the degree to which Government House is faithful to Kedleston is much debated.22 In addition to Curzon in 1925, and Nilsson in 1970, there are several more recent accounts, such as those by Volwahsen (2004), Chattopadhyay (2005) and Chopra (2016), that have probed the buildings’ connection.23 In a direct comparison of the plan of Government House with plans for Kedleston by both Adam (fig. 2) and James Paine (fig. 3), we can see the resemblance of the plans. The similarities in the outlines of the buildings is recognised by the above scholars: both have a large, rectangular central block with curved passages connecting the four pavilions. Curzon additionally explores the similarity of their plans in further ways, such as the column-lined marble halls; the employment of a dome above the South façade; the location of the public state rooms in the central block; and the orientation of the houses, with the front facing North.24 Chattopadhyay adds that the four pavilions are used as private spaces in both buildings.25

• 26 At Kedleston, the marble hall and domed saloon are doubled height and lit by skylights; whereas at (...)
• 27 George Curzon, British Government in India, op. cit. (note 1), p. 42-43, and Sten Nilsson, Europea (...)
• 28 Oppositely, Marshall asserts that the British classical buildings in India made “very few concessi (...)
• 29 Swati Chattopadhyay, Representing Calcutta, op. cit. (note 3), p. 119. Also see Preeti Chopra, “So (...)
• 30 George Curzon, British Government in India, op. cit. (note 1), p. 42-43, and P. J. Marshall, “The (...)

9Yet Government House must not be seen as a direct copy of Kedleston, as the houses are more different than similar. The most obvious deviation is in the material: Kedleston is built mostly of a local Derbyshire sandstone and partly of brick, while Government House is built exclusively in brick covered with white plaster.26 Also notable is that the exterior of Government House is comprised of three storeys, whereas Kedleston has just two.27 The difference between the two buildings’ interiors is seen especially in the spatial arrangements which are altered at Calcutta to accommodate the local climate and the functional needs of its inhabitants. Firstly, Government House adapted Kedleston’s design for the warmer temperatures found in Calcutta.28 Its exterior walls are permeated by large windows, and the interior walls are thick and segmented, filled with double-sized doors. This allowed “the maximum possible cross-ventilation in a house without a central courtyard.”29 Additionally, verandas covered large parts of the South façade for the purpose of providing shade from the sun.30

• 31 On the inside of Government House there are four staircases, one at each corner where the corridor (...)
• 32 Preeti Chopra, “South and South East Asia,” op. cit. (note 3), p. 284-285, and Sten Nilsson, Europ (...)
• 33 Preeti Chopra, “South and South East Asia,” op. cit. (note 3), p. 284-285.

10Secondly, Government House adapted the layout and arrangement of Kedleston, a private house, for the different needs of the home and offices of the Governor-General of Fort William. From the plans of the two buildings, the most obvious difference is the location and number of staircases.31 The grand staircase, inside the main block at Kedleston, is moved to the exterior of Government House, acting as a grand, ceremonial route into the house with space at the sides for the presentation of arms by soldiers.32 Finally, as Chopra notes, the layout of Government House changed the flow of space throughout the house; the servant spaces at Kedleston were isolated from the main areas of the house, through the use of separate stairs, passages or vestibules, whereas at Government House, space flowed from room to room without utilizing “buffering elements.”33 At Government House, the privately-owned Kedleston is adapted for a new climate and a new public function, demonstrating the different requirements for a private English country house versus a more public building in British India.

• 36 Samuel Johnson, A diary of a journey into North Wales, in the year 1774, London: Printed for Rober (...)
• 37 Boswell mistakenly records the house as being published in Works in Architecture. This in in volum (...)
• 38 These are the only printed sources I could locate. Later in the nineteenth century, Kedleston is o (...)
• 39 These gateways too are altered from the original, as discussed in Sten Nilsson, European Architect (...)
• 40 P. J. Marshall, “The White Town of Calcutta,” op. cit. (note 8), p. 323.

14Curzon is partially incorrect on both points. First, while Johnson did visit Kedleston twice, in 1774 and 1777, the account of his first visit in A diary of a journey into North Wales, in the year 1774 was not published until 1816.36 His second visit with Boswell in 1777 does appear in Boswell’s popular work The life of Samuel Johnson (1791), although Johnson’s comments are derogatory and not flattering.37 Secondly, Kedleston does not readily appear in handbooks or dictionaries of architecture prior to the start of Government House’s construction in 1799. Significantly, it does not appear in Adam’s own The Works in Architecture (published 1773-1778). The only two published appearances of Kedleston before 1800, and indeed the only places where the plans appear in the eighteenth century, are Adam’s plan in the fourth volume of Vitruvius Britannicus (1767), and Paine’s plan in his volume Plans, Elevations, and sections, of noblemen and gentlemen’s houses (1783), as Curzon correctly points out.38 The plans for Government House and Kedleston are so alike that Wyatt must have had a copy of the plans on hand in Calcutta. Therefore, we can presume that books on architecture, specifically in this case Vitruvius Britannicus and Paine’s Plans, Elevations, and sections, must have been present in Calcutta. Additionally, a copy of Adam’s own The Works may also have been available in Calcutta, as the gateways to Government House (fig. 4) appear to have a formal relationship to that at Syon House, as published in volume one of Works in Architecture (fig. 5).39 These deductions are supported by a thriving book trade between Britain and India in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, with European books imported for sale in Indian shops.40

• 41 Sten Nilsson, European Architecture in India 1750-1850, op. cit. (note 3), p. 40.
• 42 Preeti Chopra, “South and South East Asia,” op. cit. (note 3), p. 283.
• 43 Swati Chattopadhyay, Representing Calcutta, op. cit. (note 3), p. 111.

15In casting Government House as an ideal English Country House, Wellesley was seeking to establish English traditions in India. The choice of the neoclassical style was to be expected, given that it “had been the dominant style in England” since the work of Inigo Jones in the seventeenth century and the rise of Palladianism in the early eighteenth century.41 Yet in selecting Kedleston, an ideal neoclassical English country house, as a model, Wyatt and Wellesley made a choice about the image and representation of the British empire in India. The design of the building is significant as it was “the first unambiguous architectural pronouncement of British imperial power on the Indian subcontinent.”42 When Government House officially opened in 1803, it “projected the English country house idea.”43 In fact, Government House realises Adam’s full vision for Kedleston, which is actually an incomplete house. Due to financial limitations, only two of the wings of Kedleston were built; but at Government House, all four pavilions are completed. In this sense Government House is a “complete” English Country House in a way that Kedleston was not.

• 44 Sten Nilsson, European Architecture in India 1750-1850, op. cit. (note 3), p. 107.
• 45 Preeti Chopra, “South and South East Asia,” op. cit. (note 3), p. 284.
• 46 These are, respectively, Add MS 13904 A which is unsigned but dated 16 February 1804; and Add MS 1 (...)
• 47 Ibid., p. 111.

16The selection of Kedleston as a model for Government House in Calcutta is also significant from the point of view that, as the first purpose-built structure of its kind in India, it set an important precedent. As Nilsson suggests, Lord Clive largely emulated “Wellesley’s active architectural policy in Calcutta” for his own designs in Madras.44 As Chopra notes, Government House “would become the model and inspiration for other seats of power in British India, including the residences of indigenous potentates, such as the Nawab of Bengal in Murshidabad.”45 There are two plans for palaces at “Moorshedabad” in the British Library: one for “the first floor of a palace proposed for his Highness the Nawab Nazim-ul-Mulluck” (fig. 6); the other for “the principal floor of the proposed palace […] drawn by Edward Tiretta” (fig. 7).46 These plans, at least the one by Tiretta, shows that architects were working in a neoclassical style, as the principal floor of Tiretta’s palace strongly resembles a Palladian house with a central block and two projecting wings. In many ways the palace’s first floor, with its column-lined main hall and projecting portico, are highly reminiscent of the design of Government House. While a palace was not built at Murshidabad until 1825-1826, Duncan Macleod’s design shows that “Government House in Calcutta was still used as a model.”47 Clearly, the selection of Kedleston influenced numerous designs and formed the basis for the projection of power in India throughout the nineteenth century, both imperial and indigenous.

• 48 The exact date of the transfer from Brettingham to Paine is unknown, but it is thought that Bretti (...)
• 49 It is thought that Paine left due to a disagreement over his charges with Samuel Wyatt, the clerk (...)
• 50 From the Kedleston Archive, Ibid., p. 22.
• 51 Sten Nilsson, European Architecture in India 1750-1850, op. cit. (note 3), p. 101.
• 52 Lecture IX, as quoted in David Watkin, Sir John Soane, op. cit. (note 38), p. 621.
• 53 For more information on Scottish architecture and architects abroad see G. A. Bremner, “The expans (...)

17Finally, the selection of Kedleston as a model provides insight into the reputation of Robert Adam at the end of the eighteenth century. There is no mention of Adam’s fame being a factor in the decision to use Kedleston as a basis for Government House; instead of heralded as a masterpiece by Adam, Kedleston is chosen purely for its status as a model English Country House. Complicating the question of Adam’s authorship is the fact that he was not the first architect of the building project: Matthew Brettingham was hired first in December 1758, and later Paine in 1759.48 Although Adam was “in complete charge of the central block” by May 1760, Paine and Adam did work together until 1761.49 Thus it was not until 15 April 1761 that Adam officially took charge of Kedleston, signing a contract that made him the “Surveyor to the main body of his Lordship’s house.”50 Because of this complicated timeline, many authors give credit for Kedleston’s design to the English architect James Paine. Additionally, Nilsson asserts that it is likely that Wyatt used Paine’s plans in Plans, Elevations, and sections, of noblemen and gentlemen's houses (1783) as a basis for his design, instead of Adam’s in Vitruvius Britannicus (1767).51 But whether the design of Government House was reliant on either Adam’s or Paine’s plan is immaterial, for Kedleston was known as an Adam work in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This is evidenced by Adam first publishing his plans and elevations of Kedleston, as built, in Vitruvius Britannicus in 1767, signing the plans with “R. Adam Arch^t.” This was a full sixteen years before Paine published his plans in Plans, Elevations, and sections, of noblemen and gentlemen’s houses (1783). A further example comes from one of Soane’s Royal Academy lectures in 1813, in which he discusses Adam’s work at Kedleston: “although begun by Mr. Paine, [Kedleston] may notwithstanding be considered as one of the great works of my late friend Mr. Robert Adam.”52 Clearly for Soane, a contemporary of both Adam and Paine, the fact that Paine had begun the work at Kedleston was second to Adam’s final product. By ascribing Kedleston’s design solely to Paine, Kedleston becomes an English Country House built by an English architect. While it is a country house built in England for an English patron, Robert Adam, as the recognized architect of Kedleston in the eighteenth century, is undoubtedly Scottish.53 Such an exclusion overlooks the significance of a Scottish architect’s contribution to the design and conception of Kedleston and ultimately for that of Government House.

• 54 Katherine Prior, “Adam, John (1779-1825),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford Univers (...)
• 55 A position which he still held in 1815. Bankey Bihari Misra, The Central Administration of the Eas (...)
• 56 The Marquess Cornwallis was in office July-October 1805. Sir George Barlow, Bt was acting Governor (...)
• 57 Katherine Prior, “Adam, John (1779-1825),” op. cit. (note 54).
• 58 John Sturgus Bastin, Raffles and Hastings: Private exchanges behind the founding of Singapore, Sin (...)

18While John Adam played no part in the selection of Kedleston as the model for Government House, his ongoing presence in Calcutta cannot be ignored. John Adam was born in Edinburgh on 4 May 1779, the eldest son of William Adam, Lord Chief Commissioner of the Jury Court for Civil Causes in Scotland. He attended the Charterhouse School in England, before spending a year at the University of Edinburgh in support of his nomination to an eic writership in 1794.54 He arrived in Calcutta in February 1796, when he was just seventeen years old. Adam served under Governor-General Shore and acting Governor-General Clarke, before Wellesley arrived in 1798, at which time his career flourished. He was appointed as the Collector of Gorackpore in 1803, and was afterwards appointed as the first Deputy Secretary for the Secret, Political and Foreign Departments in 1804.55 After Wellesley’s departure in 1805, he served under several successive Governor-Generals and acting Governor-Generals: Cornwallis, Barlow and Minto.56 During Minto’s governorship Adam was appointed Secretary in the Military Department (1809), later becoming Secretary to the Secret, Foreign and Political Departments (1812). Lord Moira, the 1^st Marquess of Hastings, arrived in 1813, and under his command Adam’s career advanced significantly. He acted as the private and political Secretary to Hastings between 1813 and 1823, in addition to continuing his role as Secretary to the Secret, Foreign and Political Departments.57 He was nominated as a provisional member of the Supreme Council in 1817 and became a full member in 1819.58 The pinnacle of Adam’s career came when he was made acting Governor-General from January to August 1823, between the departure of Hastings and the arrival of Lord Amherst.

• 59 This is perhaps a reference to John Malcom’s two volume A Memoir of Central India: Including Malwa (...)

19It is through these many roles in the eic administration that Adam would have worked in and inhabited Government House, bringing him into indirect contact with Kedleston and Robert Adam. The reference key on Best’s 1804 floorplan of Government House’s principal story shows that the Northeast wing held the Council chamber, offices of the chief secretaries, and other public offices; while the Northwest wing was allocated to the Governor-General’s Private and Military Secretaries. It was Adam’s appointment as first Deputy Secretary for the Secret, Political and Foreign Departments in 1804 that would have first seen him working in the Northeast wing of Government House. In 1809 he likely moved to the Northwest wing as the Secretary in the Military Department, and back to the Northeast wing as Secretary in the Secret, Foreign and Political Departments in 1812. Throughout the rest of his career in India, as private and political secretary to Hastings, and as a member of the Supreme Council from 1817, Adam would have worked between the Northeast and Northwest wings. Ultimately, as acting Governor General in early 1823, Adam would have lived in Government House, as the Governor-General’s private apartments occupy the Southeast and Southwest wings. Adam is linked to Government House in the 1829 mezzotint copy of his portrait by Lawrence (fig. 8). Here Adam is shown seated in an armchair with a row of columns behind him. In the background, at the left of the portrait, is a large column-lined block similar in design to the pavilions of Government House. Resting on a footstool at the bottom left is a book (possibly a ledger or letter book) with “Central India 2” written on its spine.59 With these architectural and geographical references, this portrait likely places the sitter on one of the verandas at Government House. Thus, through this image, Adam is permanently linked to the physical spaces of the building.

• 60 John M. MacKenzie and T. M. Devine, “Introduction,” in John M. MacKenzie and T. M. Devine (eds.), (...)
• 61 Stephanie Barczewski, Country Houses and the British Empire, 1700-1930. Manchester: Manchester Uni (...)
• 62 See Alistair Rowan, Vaulting Ambition: The Adam Brothers, Contractors to the Metropolis in the Rei (...)
• 63 In fact, all of John’s four younger brothers pursued careers as well: Charles Adam became an Admir (...)

20Despite reaching the peak of a career in India as Governor-General, in most ways Adam’s career with the eic was typical in its career-seeking, elective migration, and in the importance of family connections and Scottish patronage. As MacKenzie and Devine point out, it was common for younger sons of the gentry or professional classes to migrate electively throughout the British empire in search of opportunities overseas.60 As the son of the Lord Chief Commissioner, Adam would certainly fit this category. However, as the eldest son he was in-line to inherit the family estates from his father and therefore should not have needed to pursue a career overseas with the eic. While it was mostly younger sons who pursued careers in the empire, as Barczewski states, “some men risked their lives in India in order to save an existing familial estate rather than to purchase a new one.”61 This is where the history of the Adam family becomes relevant: from the mid-eighteenth century, the Adam family’s finances were in a habitually precarious position. After the failure of the Adam Brothers’ Adelphi development in 1772, caused by a banking crash, Adam’s grandfather, also John Adam, was forced to mortgage the family estate and sell smaller properties.62 The financial instability of the Adam family explains why William Adam pursued a career as a lawyer, and why his son John Adam may have joined the eic in search of profit and fortune.63

• 64 Andrew MacKillop, “Locality, Nation, and Empire: Scots and the Empire in Asia, c.1695-c.1813,” in (...)

21Adam’s career with the eic was also typical in its reliance on family connections and Scottish patronage. His career typifies the phenomenon of Scottish patronage in the late eighteenth century; yet we must keep in mind that Scots had been involved in the eic from the start of the eighteenth century. Although, as MacKillop points out, we must not overstate the importance of well-known Scottish patrons like John Drummond or Henry Dundas, in Adam’s case, Dundas was a patron of his great uncle Robert Adam, and corresponded with his father in an official, political capacity, while they were both active MPs.64

• 65 He was also the Treasurer of the Ordnance twice, September 1780-May 1782 and April-December 1783.
• 66 P. J. Marshall, “The White Town of Calcutta,” op. cit. (note 8), p. 312-313.
• 67 William Adam to his son Charles—on the “writer’s appointment as counsel to eic,” 27 June 1802. Ada (...)

22John Adam’s rise within the eic administration in Calcutta is best contextualized by a juxtaposition with his father’s career and political connections. For instance, when Adam was awarded an eic writership in 1794, his father was an active MP.65 As competition for eic positions was fierce, with Bengal holding the most opportunity for wealth and success, John Adam’s appointment to Calcutta validates Marshall’s claim that “only young men of wealthy and politically influential families stood much chance of success.”66 The parallel between Adam’s career in India with his father’s own in Britain can be drawn out further. William Adam was appointed as counsel to the eic in London in 1802, which corresponds almost precisely with John Adam’s appointment as Collector of Gorackpore in early 1803, and his subsequent promotion as the first Deputy Secretary for the Secret, Political and Foreign Departments in 1804.67 Additionally, William Adam would later become Lord Lieutenant of Kinross-shire in 1802, Chancellor of the Duchy of Cornwall in 1806, a member of the Privy Council in 1815, and Lord Chief Commissioner of the Scottish jury court in 1815, with John Adam nominated to the Supreme Council in 1817. In many ways, William Adam’s increasing professional and social status is reflected in his son’s rise to power in Calcutta.

• 68 Adam family of Blair Adam (Private Archive), NRAS63/Box 13, Box 14, Box 15, Box 16, Box 17, Box 20 (...)
• 69 Letter from Hastings to William Adam in 1800 regarding “Mr. Forth's intended libel v. the Prince o (...)
• 70 As well as to the Supreme Council of Bengal and as acting Governor-General upon his departure from (...)
• 71 Andrew MacKillop, “Locality, Nation, and Empire,” op. cit. (note 64), p. 60.

23There is evidence to suggest that William Adam closely monitored his son’s career through correspondence with prominent Scots in India, such as Edward Hay, Secretary to the Government; merchant and agent Henry Trail; and Sir John Anstruther, the Chief Justice of Bengal from 1797 to 1806.68 Anstruther was an active supporter of Charles James Fox, one of William Adam’s chief political rivals. Nevertheless, he actively worked to advance John Adam’s career in India. Most acutely, William Adam had dealings and corresponded with the 1^st Marquess of Hastings, although not a Scot, prior to his arrival in Calcutta as the new Governor-General in 1813.69 Hastings made John Adam his private and political secretary from 1813 to 1823.70 Although William Adam’s involvement in his son’s Indian career was extremely active, it was removed geographically. As MacKillop emphasises, these kinds of patronage networks linked London, Scotland, and India together, demonstrating “the powerfully connective character of political, commercial, professional, and sojourning activity within the empire.”71 In the case of John Adam, we see how, due to the power and position of his father in Scotland and England, he could ascend to acting Governor-General, the top rank of the eic in India.

• 72 Dated 7 October 1805. Adam family of Blair Adam (Private Archive), NRAS63/Box 44.
• 73 Adam family of Blair Adam (Private Archive), NRAS1454/2/132.
• 74 Adam family of Blair Adam (Private Archive), NRAS63/Box 19 and Box 60.
• 75 John M. MacKenzie and T. M. Devine, “Introduction,” in John M. MacKenzie and T. M. Devine (eds.), (...)

24William Adam’s patronage was not a one-sided exchange, as he was asked by other Scots to secure positions for their sons in India. One example of this is James Maitland, the 8^th Earl of Lauderdale, who wrote to Adam in 1805 for help in procuring a Bengal writership for his third son.72 Significantly, Lord Maitland was also a patron of Robert Adam, and later one of the pall-bearers at his funeral. William Adam also acted as a referee for the son of Scottish philosopher and mathematician Dougald Stewart in his search for employment with the eic.73 A further beneficiary of William Adam’s patronage was his nephew John Loch, who would later become a Director of the eic from 1821 to 1854, and Chairman in 1829 and 1833.74 These examples support MacKenzie and Devine’s assertion that Scots were “clannish” and that they formed “networks of kin and friendship,” both at home and abroad.75 These clans and networks were, contrary to circumstances, reinforced and indeed strengthened by the physical distance and modes of exchange between India and Scotland.

• 76 Katherine Prior, “Adam, John (1779-1825),” op. cit. (note 54), and John Sturgus Bastin, Raffles an (...)
• 77 Lushington was Adam’s private secretary while acting Governor-General. Charles Lushington, A short (...)

25Adam had been in poor health for some time before he finally left Calcutta, sailing for Liverpool on 16 April 1825. He did not make it home, however. On 4 June he died off the coast of Madagascar.76 Upon his death, a series of posthumous memorials were conceived: a biographical sketch of his life was written; a posthumous portrait was painted; and two monuments were constructed. The first posthumous memorial was a text: Charles Lushington’s A short notice of the official career and private character of the late J. Adam, Esq., published in December 1825.77 The volume was written in Calcutta and was “Not Published, But printed for Private Circulation.” Lushington begins with an account of Adam’s early life and career in India, detailing all of his accomplishments and positions. This indicates that these would have been worth noting, and thus exceptional.

• 78 Information from Calcutta Government Gazette, 14 August 1823 and 22 January 1824, 1^st supplement, (...)
• 79 Viccy Coltman, “The Aesthetics of Colonialism,” op. cit. (note 13), p. 150.
• 80 Adam wore spectacles, which appeared in Chinnery’s drawings, but are not present in Lawrence’s por (...)

26Adam’s portrait was first conceived prior to his death, when he stepped down as acting Governor-General in 1823. A public subscription of 16,000 rupees, equivalent to £1,600 at the time, was raised to have artist George Chinnery paint his portrait for the Calcutta Town Hall.78 It was common practice for committees and institutions to commission portraits that “commemorated a particular event in the sitter’s career during his lifetime.”79 In this case, Adam’s portrait would have been thanking him for acting as Governor-General. However, Adam left India in 1825, before the portrait could be painted, dying on the voyage. Chinnery’s preparatory drawings were sent to England where Sir Thomas Lawrence painted the posthumous portrait, which was later sent back to Calcutta in June 1828.80

• 81 The engraving of portraits was a common occurrence at this time; for example, Turner was also comm (...)
• 82 J. Atkinson to William Adam. London, 9 July 1827. Adam family of Blair Adam (Private Archive), NRA (...)
• 83 Atkinson was born in the county of Durham, studied medicine at Edinburgh and London, and was named (...)
• 84 This is similar to Coltman’s assertion regarding the Earl of Minto’s portrait: “where a formal col (...)
• 85 The portrait is featured in: “Notes and Observations by George Scharf, Esq., C.B., Director and Se (...)

27While in Britain the Lawrence portrait was copied twice, in two different and distinct forms: firstly, as an engraving by Charles Turner (published 1829) (fig. 8); and, secondly, as a painting by an unknown artist for the Adam family at Blair Adam in Fife, where it still hangs today.81 The copy is significantly smaller, at 3’8.5” x 2’6,” which is almost half the size of the original Lawrence portrait at 8’11” x 5’10.5.” As James Atkinson wrote from London to Adam’s father William on 9 July 1827: “You would have from Admiral Adam that you are to have a complete, small-size, copy of the whole length Portrait now in the hands of Sir Thomas Lawrence, indeed this arrangement was made at the commencement and I thought that particulars had been communicated to you.”82 Atkinson, a notable Persian scholar and army surgeon, was on a visit from Calcutta to England in 1826-1827.83 While Lawrence’s portrait was intended for the public setting of the Calcutta Town Hall, this copy simultaneously places Adam in Scotland at his family’s private home.84 After being engraved and copied, Lawrence’s portrait sailed to Calcutta in 1828 and hung in Government House until 1885. The portrait later returned to England to be cleaned, before being sent back to India again in 1887.85 This introduces yet another variation on the exchange between India and Britain, as the portrait, in both its preparatory drawing state and its finished form, made four voyages between India and Britain.

• 86 It is 8 feet 3 inches high, by 4 feet 6 inches wide. Made of statuary and white marble. The figure (...)
• 87 The title page states: “Description and Representation of the Mural Monument, Erected in the Cathe (...)
• 88 On either side, hang Chouri, which are “the emblem of supreme power in India,” Ibid., p. 1-2.

28In addition to the public subscription collected for Chinnery’s portrait in 1823, a second subscription was taken in Calcutta upon Adam’s death in 1825 for the erection of a monument in the Cathedral of Calcutta, now known as St. John’s Church (fig. 9). It was designed by English sculptor Richard Westmacott and erected in 1827.86 Accompanying the monument was the pamphlet “Monument to John Adam, Erected at Calcutta.”87 It was published in 1827 in London for public consumption, unlike Lushington’s 1825 volume, which was written and privately printed in Calcutta. The British Library’s copy of this pamphlet is inscribed by John Adam’s father, William, to James Stuart Esq. on 26 March 1830. Stuart was most likely the Director of the eic (active 1826 to 1833). On the right side of the monument itself, Justice rests upon a Fasces, the ancient symbol of authority, while intertwining arms with Power, who holds a large upturned sword, representing John Adam’s government as a supposedly perfect alliance between Justice and Power.88 The monument’s inscription reads:

• 89 This monument was designed by John and Robert Adam in c.1750-1753.

30The Calcutta monument is echoed by a monument in the Adam Family Mausoleum at Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh.89 As part of the larger tomb, Adam’s monument is just an inscription panel (fig. 10). The text is nearly identical to that in Calcutta:

• 90 Later on 19 September 1827, Playfair again wrote Adam regarding the progress of the tomb at Greyfr (...)

32Despite differences in wording, the inscriptions on these two monuments are clearly based on same source. It is unclear whether one monument was the basis for the other, and whether the text originated in Calcutta or in Edinburgh. While the Greyfriars Monument is inscribed as erected in July 1827, a letter from architect William Henry Playfair to William Adam, dated 5 April 1826, states that the design for the monument in had been approved.90 We do know that the Calcutta monument was also erected in 1827, although it was sculpted by London-based Westmacott. Therefore we may conjecture that there was some level of exchange between Calcutta, Edinburgh, and London in the design and creation of these two monuments.

• 91 John M. MacKenzie and T. M. Devine, “Introduction,” in John M. MacKenzie and T. M. Devine (eds.), (...)
• 92 Richard J. Finlay, “National Identity, Union, and Empire, c.1850-c.1970,” in John M. MacKenzie and (...)
• 93 Ibid., p. 285.
• 94 July 1811. Letter from Cape of Good Hope during leave there. Adam family of Blair Adam (Private Ar (...)
• 95 Adam family of Blair Adam (Private Archive), NRAS1454/4/911.

33Further consideration of the wording of these inscriptions raises broader questions about the issue of Scottish, English, and British identities, especially in the context of exchange within and throughout the empire. The relationship between Scotland, England, and the British empire is a complex and contested one, and the ambiguity of language further complicates these issues.91 Finlay asserts that the relationships between “Scottish national identity, and a wider British national and imperial identity” were constantly changing, and additionally notes that prior to 1880 there was a tendency to use “England” rather than “Britain.”92 Supporting this idea is the fact that “England” is used extensively, while “Britain” hardly features in Adam’s monuments, nor in the volume detailing the Calcutta monument or in Lushington’s posthumous account. Finlay also notes that, in certain cases, Scots themselves used the term “England” in place of “Britain,” such as in the text of the Greyfriars monument, despite it being a monument for a Scottish family in Scotland.93 Additionally, Adam himself used the terms “English” and “England” interchangeably with “British” or “Scottish,” and “Britain” or “Scotland.” In July 1811, he writes: “One thing which I delight in here is the resemblance of every thing to England in the way of living and the manner of the People.”94 In November 1813 he writes to his father about his own Englishness: “With the utmost care to preserve ones English ideas and habits, it is impossible to live so long in India, without being thoroughly unenglish.”95 Adam, as a Scot in the empire, casts himself as English rather than Scottish or British. Such concealments of Scottish identity, by Adam himself and his posthumous monuments, mask the link between Adam and Scotland; the link between him and his family in Scotland; and ultimately the link between Adam and his great uncle Robert Adam. This perhaps explains why the family connection between these prominent Scots has not been made previously.

• 96 Esme Cleall, Laura Ishiguro and Emily J. Manktelow, “Imperial Relations,” op. cit. (note 11).

34In summary, the connections between Government House in Calcutta, the architect Robert Adam, and the statesman John Adam has demonstrated one way in which the study of a Scottish family can provide “wider biographies of empire” as well as linking “the personal and the political.”96 Through a series of exchanges that took place within the British empire—between Government House and Kedleston Hall; between public buildings and private houses; between India and Britain; and between Scottish, English and British identities—this article has mapped previously unknown familial, professional, and architectural networks. In comparing Government House and its model, Kedleston Hall, this article has explored what the selection of Kedleston, as a private English Country House, meant in terms of public architecture in a particular part of the British empire; and also what it says about Robert Adam’s legacy at the end of the eighteenth century. In illuminating John Adam’s career with the eic, it has also demonstrated the importance of networks of Scottish patronage in both India and Britain, as well as the privileged position of the Adam Family within those networks. And finally, in the discussion of John Adam’s posthumous monuments in both Calcutta and Edinburgh, it has highlighted complex issues of Scottish, English, and British identity, and explained how the previous failure to acknowledge the familial connection between John Adam and Robert Adam is closely tied to the suppression of their respective Scottish identities in India. Ultimately, this article suggests that the concealment of Scottish identity affects how, and if, we view these Scottish family connections within the context of the British empire in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.