Who should own the Koh i Noor Diamond - Britain, India, Pakistan, Iran or Afghanistan?

Britain and India are not the only nations making claim to the amaz­ing Koh-i-Noor diamond. Half the nations in Central Asia have been, or will be in court over this treasure.

Up until 1304 the diamond was held by the Indian Rajas of Malwa. By 1304 the diamond came into the possession of the Emperor of Delhi, Allaudin Khilji. Then in 1339 the diamond was taken to the city of Samarkand (now in Uzbekistan), where it stayed for centuries.

Clearly the diamond variously belonged to all the Indian and Persian rul­ers who fought bitter battles throughout history. In 1526 the Mog­­ul ruler Babur mentioned the diamond, gifted to him by the Sultan Ib­rahim Lodi of Delhi, in his writings. At 793 carats, it must have looked superb.

Shah Jahan (1592–1666) was the ruler who commissioned the Taj Mahal mausoleum. But he also commissioned the very glamorous Peacock Throne, the Mughal throne of India in Delhi. The Koh-I-Noor was mounted on this very special piece of furniture. When he was imprisoned by his son Aurangazeb, Shah Jahan could only ever see his beloved Taj Mahal via the reflection in the diamond.

Aurangzeb might have been cruel to his own father, but at least he protected the diamond by having it cut down by a Venetian specialist to 186 carats, then brought the Koh-I-Noor to the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore. Aurangzeb passed the jewel on to his heirs but Mahamad, Aurangzeb’s grandson, was not a great ruler like his grandfather. Sultan Mahamad lost a decisive battle to Nader.

Queen Alexandra's corontation 1902, 
with the Koh-i-Noor in the centre of her crown

Emperor Nader Shah, Shah of Persia (1736–47) and the founder of the Afsharid dynasty of Persia, invaded the Mughal Empire, event­ually attacking Delhi in March 1739. So Nader Shah took the diamond back to Persia and gave it its current name, Koh-i-noor/Mountain of Light. But Nader Shah did not live for long, because in 1747 he was assass­in­ated and the diamond went to his general, Ahmad Shah Durrani.

The defeated ruler of Afghanistan Shah Shuja Durrani brought the Koh-i-noor back to the Punjab in India in 1813 and gave it to Ranjit Singh, founder of the Sikh Empire. Durrani made a deal: he would surrender the diamond to the Sikhs in exchange for help in winning back his Afghan throne.

Most of the Punjab region (including Delhi and Lahore) was annexed by Britain’s East India Company in 1849, and then moved to British cont­rol. The last Maharajah of the Sikhs, the 10 year old child Duleep Singh, wept when land and treasures of the Sikh Empire were confiscated by governor-general of India, Lord Dalhousie, and taken as war compen­sat­ion.  The diamond, the most tragic theft of all, was formally transferred to the treasury of the Brit­ish East India Co in Lahore! Even the Treaty of Lahore specifically discussed the fate of the Koh-i-Noor, in writing.

The diamond was proudly shipped by Lord Dalhousie to Queen Victoria in July 1850. It was a symbol of Victorian Britain's imperial domination of the world and its ability to take the most desirable objects from across the Empire... to display in British triumph.

And then it was exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in Crys­tal Palace, in the south­ern central gallery. World Fairs were of­ten used to display a country’s greatest treasures. So, as expected, there was enormous excite­ment in Crystal Palace when official com­mentators and the general public first saw the jewel. Although there were 100,000 other exhibits displayed in Crystal Palace, the queues to see Queen Victoria’s diamond were the longest of all.

In 1852 the Queen decided to reshape the diamond and it was taken to a Dutch jeweller to re-cut it. The Koh-i-Noor had originally been one of the world’s largest uncut diamonds, but by 1852 the size had been reduced again, this time down to 106 carats. Queen Victoria wore the diamond occasionally afterwards. She wrote in her will that the Koh-i-noor should only be worn by queens.

After Queen Victoria died, the Koh-i-Noor diamond was crafted into the Crown Jew­els and displayed at the Tower of London.

The Koh i Noor diamond, set in the Maltese Cross at the front of the crown

106 carats during Victoria's reign.

In 1947, the partition of India led to the Punjab being divided into the newly created Union of India and Dominion of Pakistan. This partition has influenced the cases brought in Brit­ish courts over the last few years. Recently the descendants of the last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire said they were forced to hand over the Koh-i-Noor diamond to the British; they launched a court action in the UK to get the diamond back in Sept 2012. The case depended on the diamond being one of the many artefacts taken from India under ugly circumstances. The Indian lawyers claimed the British colon­isation of India had stolen wealth and destroyed the country’s psyche. Their court case failed.

But India was not the only nation with a historical claim to the diamond – it had passed through Persian, Hindu, Mughal, Turkic, Afghan and Sikh owners centuries before it was seized by the British in the C19th. So expect the British to face another legal battle, after a Pakistani judge accepted a petition de­manding that the Queen hand the $200 million stone back to them. Mind you, in 2013 the Prime Minister David Cameron said that returning the stone was out of the question. Will the next prime minister say the same to Persia/Iran?

Historians last question is "what is the proper response to imperial looting?" Read the brand new book Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World's Most Infamous Diamond by William Dalrymple and Anita Anand, published by Bloomsbury in 2017. The history of the Koh-i-Noor, that was accepted by the Brit­ish, is no longer a glorious piece of the nation’s colonial past. That history is finally challenged! The resulting version, now pub­lished, is one of greed, murder, wars, torture, colonialism and approp­riation.

A World Fair at Crystal Palace, 1851

The World Fair was a very large public exhibition, held every 4 years or so in different countries. It was a tradition that started in the mid C19th and has continued ever since.

Since it cost the host nation a great deal of money to collect the objects to be displayed, make an inner-city site available, build the exhibition buildings, mount the publicity and organise all public transport systems, profit clearly was not a motivating factor. Instead each World Fair was a basis on which a city could display its own modern science, engineering and arts. And the city could invite the rest of the world to build national pavilions and to display the best in science and the arts from across the globe. Ordinary families were encouraged to visit their nation’s Fair, providing these families with an educational opportunity as good as high school.

World Fair, 1851

Crystal Palace, London

The 1851 World Fair in London was vitally important, because it was the first. Until then, there had been national expositions in Paris every four years, but never an international project of such magnitude. This was Prince Albert’s opportunity to show off the achievements of industrialised Britain, where design and technology were leading the world. Vienna in 1873, Melbourne in 1880, Paris in 1889 and Chicago in 1893 and St Louis in 1904 were equally important, although they had different themes of cultural significance.

The opening of the exhibition, usually by royalty, was the highlight of the year. Vienna’s World Fair of 1873 was inaugurated by Emperor Francis Josef of Austria, with imposing ceremonies, in the presence of a vast throngs. The day was immortalised by the music of Handel and Strauss. And almost all the World Fairs were immensely popular. 27 million visitors arrived at the Chicago Fair in 1893, a third of the country's population at the time.

The majority of the World Fair structures were meant to be dismantled at the end of the festivities. The Eiffel Tower (Paris 1889) and the Exhibition Buildings (Melbourne 1880) were clear and fortunate exceptions. As was the last remaining building of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, the Palace of Fine Arts (now Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry). Even the main attractions at World's Fairs, the national pavilions that were created by participating countries, were always pulled down.

The Koh-i-Noor diamond

The Great Exhibitions Sale: Two Centuries of International Art and Design from the World's Fairs (published by Sotheby’s in London in 2006) is a wonderful source of information about objects displayed at various World Fairs. Sotheby’s was not confident about the true origins of the Koh-I-Noor diamond which was displayed in the southern central gallery of the Crystal Palace in 1851. Probably it had been mined in India and had been presented to Moghul Emperor Shah Jahan in the 16th century.

The diamond reached British hands through the annexation of the Punjab in 1849. As the de facto civil authority, the British East India Company came to own it. To mark its 250th anniversary, the Company decided to present the gem to Queen Victoria to whom it was delivered in July 1850.

The Koh-i-Noor had originally been one of the world’s largest diamonds at 793 carats, but by the time it reached Britain, the size had been much reduced. Nonetheless there was enormous excitement and wonder in Crystal Palace, when official commentators and the general public saw the jewel. Although there were 100,000 other exhibits displayed in Crystal Palace, the queues to see Queen Victoria’s diamond were the longest of all.

Young Queen Victoria with the diamond in a brooch setting

Eventually Queen Victoria mounted her new stone in a brooch setting which she often wore, as can be seen in royal portraits of the time. But one question remains. Why would a huge diamond been given the starring role in an exhibition that was to raise the educational level of ordinary British families and overseas visitors? Science, technology, design and the arts – yes! Social improvement – yes! Rank snobbery and elitism – seems inappropriate! This question still nags, whether historians believe that the diamond was illegally stolen from its Indian owner or was legitimately claimed by the British.

Despite the undoubted success of the Crystal Palace exhibition, and its popularity with ordinary families, Karl Marx saw this World Fair as an emblem of the capitalist fetishism of commodities, a shameful circus of greed where materialism was unconcealed and vanity given full play. But he had a separate attack for the Koh-I-Noor diamond - it was, he said, a forfeit of Oriental faithlessness and the prize of Saxon valour.

The splendid coronation album of King George VI: 1937

The album celebrated the Coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth with their childhoods, their wedding, an explan­at­ion of coronations over the centuries and great full-page photos. The beautiful red hardback was blind-stamped with regal décor­ation and gilt title.

I only wish the album had chapter headings in the front, an index in the back and individually dated photos, to use as an-easy-to-analyse historical document.

In Jan 1936 King George V died.. so his eldest son, Ed­ward VIII, succeeded him as king. Edward was still single, but the American soc­ialite, Wallis Simpson, had been close to him in the years lead­ing up to 1936. She was divorced from her first husband and still married to her second husband, shipping executive Ern­est Simpson. Edward and Wallis’ relat­ion­ship had not been reported in the Brit­ish press [because of the King's position in the Church of England].

King Edward's cor­on­­ation ceremony was planned for 12th May 1937, and while he was away with Wallis Simpson, Albert Duke of York sat in his place on the committees. King Edward had initially been reluct­ant to have a coronation at all, but he allowed a shorter, simpler serv­ice.

In 1936 the King told the Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin that he intended to marry Wallis. Baldwin and the Empire leaders ad­vis­ed the King that popular opinion in the dominions was hostile to the marriage; and at home he fac­ed opposition from the Church and from Parliament. The wide spread reluctance to accept Simpson as the King's consort and Edward's refusal to give her up, led to his ab­dication in Dec 1936. Wallis’ second divorce was finalised in May 1937.

The pre-coronation procession, Trafalgar Square

With the abdication, King Edward was succeeded by his next brother, Prince Albert Duke of York and his wife Lady Eliz­ab­eth Bowes-Lyon, daught­er of the Earl of Strathmore. It was decided to con­t­in­ue with King George VI and Elizabeth's coronation on the same date that had already been organised for brother Edward.

Archbishop of Canterbury, Cosmo Lang, spoke to the nation through the BBC serv­ic­es leading to Coronation Day; he saw the Coron­ation as an opportunity for the spiritual re­newal of the nation, and organ­ised a campaign of evangelism called Recall to Re­lig­ion.

The Archbishop was somewhat concerned about King George's stutter even though Lionel Logue was still the King's speech therapist. Logue remained his therapist and the King did deliver his speech without stuttering!

  Daily Herald, front page report


King George VI on his throne, 
receiving blessing during the coronation,


King George taking the oath

The ceremony was attended by the royals’ daughters, King's mother Dowager Queen Mary, royal cousins, peers, members of parliament, colonial administ­rators, ambassadors, foreign royals and heads of state, trade union repres­entatives and members of the armed forces. Once the lengthy proces­s­ion had made its way to the abbey, the royals travelled in their gold State Coach to the Abbey.

The Imperial crown had been remade for the occasion by the Crown Jewellers. Queen Elizabeth's crown was new and featured the Koh-i-Noor diamond from the crown of Queen Mary. Queen Elizabeth wore a gown made of silk satin, with pure gold thread embroidery and British Empire icons.

The first part of the coronation service was the Recognition, where the Archbishop of Canterbury asked those present to proclaim the sovereign as their rightful king. The King knelt before the al­tar and swore on the Bible his coronation oath. The three archbish­ops then began the Communion Service and afterwards, the King and Queen knelt while the choir sang. Then the Arch­bishop of Canterbury anointed the monar­ch's head with oil and the choir sang Handel's Zadok the Priest. Adorned in his regalia, George was crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the people proclaimed God save the King. The Ar­ch­bis­hop presented the Bible to the King and the Benediction foll­ow­ed.

Each Archbishop knelt and paid homage to the King, fol­lowed by each of the Bishops and Dukes. The Queen was crowned and anointed in a much small­er and simpler ceremony. She was handed her Sceptre with the Cross and the Ivory Rod with the Dove.

Finally there was a pro­cession through London's streets from West­minster Abbey, allowing the public to view the royals. They went via Par­liament Square, up Victoria Embankment and all the way to Buckingham Palace. The progression included a huge number of milit­ary personnel from Britain and across the Empire.

This Coronation ceremony was the first one to be broadcast on radio. Microphones around the Abbey captured the music and speech such that the BBC's Empire Service broadcast the whole 2.5 hours. And talks by Min­is­ters were broadcast under the name Responsibilities of Empire, presumably to further Britain's imperial ambitions. The coronation services were filmed and then shown as a news­reel in cinemas across the British Empire.

The post-coronation procession, 

rounding Victoria Monument 

The royal family on the balcony of Buckingham Palace 

After the ceremony itself, a 23-day-long programme of official events spanned May 1937 in a very public spectacle, to recapture the con­fid­ence of the nation after the abdication crisis. The public spectacles included a royal drive through north London, a luncheon at Guildhall with London dignitaries and the Empire Ser­vice of Youth in West­minster. The King and Queen inspected fleets, visited flagships and saw street parties decorated with flags. 

The final coronation event was the Review of the Fleet, held at Ports­mouth. The Empire was repres­ent­ed by warships.

The King marked his day by giving hon­ours to his subjects, while appointments were made to the Orders of the Garter, Thistle etc. An official medal was also struck to mark the occasion, issued to 90,000 people from across the Empire.

Clearly the media played an important part in broadcasting this show of pageantry and imperialism to the Empire. But the National Archives also had many photographs of celebrations from across the Brit­ish Empire: military parades, athletics events and religious services. The coronation was designed to be a public display of the glory of the British Empire. 

 coronation souvenir

Two years later WW2 began and the joy was over. Three years after the coronation, British cities suffered terrible bombardment from the Nazis.

Jewelled treasures from the last Punjabi Maharajah & Maharani

The book "In Pursuit Of Empire: Treasures From The Toor Collection Of Sikh Art", 2018

was written by Amandeep Singh Madra and Parmjit Singh

A pair of gold and seed pearl pendant earrings from the collect­ion of Maharani Jind Kaur (1817–1863) was sold at Bonhams in London in April 2018. The earrings were part of possib­ly the world's greatest treasury, that of the Sikh Emp­ire which was created by Jind Kaur's husband, The Lion of Punjab, Maharaja Ranjit Singh (1780–1839). Jind Kaur was Ranjit Singh's last wife, mother to Maharaja Duleep Singh.

The Punjab empire in the Maharaja’s time extended from the Indian Ocean to the Himalayas; his court was famous for its cultural and scientific achievements, and its riches. Punjab's Sikh ruling elite lavishly patronised artists and craftsmen, to create a stunning array of objects fit for Sikh royals, warriors and saints, and to reflect a vibrant new power on the world's stage. 

The Bonham earrings, whose estimated value was £20,000-30,000, sold for £182,000! See the gold pendant earrings, each crescentic and on gold loops, were finely decorated with granulation. The terminals had floral motifs, the lower edge with a band of suspension loops, each with a seed pearl and small gold leaf pendant. See From the Collection of the Court of Lahore.

Maharani Jind Kaur’s earrings Punjab, 1830-40
Gold, emeralds, diamonds, pearls and red spinel
Toor Collection

Sikh art coll­ector, Davinder Toor, explaining why he spent so much on the Maharani's jew­ellery, revealed his lasting pas­sion for Sikh art and history. The 2018 summer exhibition at the Brunei Gal­l­ery in Russell Square showed a glittering array of 100 works of art objects from leading private collect­ions and major in­stitutions, including stunning Punjabi jewellery. Plus a cannon of Maharaja Ranjit Singh which was used in Anglo-Sikh war, a receipt that marked transfer of Kohinoor diamond from Sikhs to the British, Jowahir Singh's sword (the Maharani’s brother), Maharaja Duleep Singh's clothing  and portraits of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. 

Objects from the Toor Collection have been exhibited at major global institutions, including the Kunsthalle Munich, Art Gallery of Ontario Toronto, Asian Art Museum San Francisco, and were featured in the book In Pursuit of Empire, 2018.

Now I need to ask how the Maharani Jind Kaur’s jewellery left the family and was sold off. Toor wrote that Jind Kaur was the most famous of the 20 wives of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, leader of the Sikh empire from 1801-39. They mar­r­ied in 1835 and gave birth to their only son Duleep Singh in 1838. When her husband died in 1839, Jind Kaur was the only wife not to commit sati on his funeral pyre. Their very young son was procl­aimed mah­ar­aja of the Sikh empire in 1843 and Jind Kaur became the child’s regent. 

gold pendant earrings, 6.5 cm. high

sold at Bonhams in 2018 for a record amount of money

Box says "From the Collection of the Court of Lahore".

After British victory in the First Anglo-Sikh War (1845-6), the East India Company invaded and annexed Punjab in 1849, despite arm­ed opposition organised and led by Jind Kaur. View­ed by the col­on­ial rulers as having a dangerous in­fl­uence over the affairs of state, the maharani was forcibly separated from her son and ban­ished to another part of British India. 600+ pieces of her jewellery were impounded by the British authorities in Var­an­asi.

By the mid-19th century, the Sikh kingdom had met its demise at the hands of the British Empire. After Punjab was annexed, Duleep Singh was taken by the British and in 1854 was sent into exile in England. He was not reunited with his mother Jind Kaur until 1861, but by then the last Pun­jabi queen of was unwell and virtually blind. The poor woman died in London in 1863 and her casket was shipped back to Bombay in 1864.

Having lost his battle against the India Office over the tricky issue of his financial allowances, the maharaja decided to auct­ion off some of the family’s possessions in order to raise a large amount of money to return to India.

Maharani Jind Kaur's earrings

Emeralds, diamonds, rubies, pearls and gold

The Lahore Treasury held the fabled Koh-i-Noor diamond and the Timur ruby, both of which were gifted to Queen Victoria by the the East India Company directors after Punjab was annexed. Of the hundreds of personal items of jewellery documented as having belonged to Jind Kaur, only four are known to exist today.

And see amazing Maharani earrings featured gold flower heads, set with emeralds in the centre and enclosed by lasque-cut diam­onds. The pierced bell drops featured emerald cabochons and more diamonds, with spinels terminating in multi-tiered pearl fringes with glass beads. 

Maharani Jind Kaur wearing many jewellery pieces
Portrait painted by George Richmond in 1862

See the film The Black Prince (2018) that told the story of Duleep Singh, the last Maharajah of the Sikh Empire, and his struggle with Queen Victoria.

History Carnival, July and August 2017. The best history posts

Thank you for these History Carnival nominations. Let me know which you enjoyed.

BRITAIN & EUROPE
The late Norman “Little Malvern Priory Church” was ready in 1171. In 1480 the Church & lodgings were ruined, so Bishop Alcock had the site re­paired. See Cherie’s Place.

"The Literal Bones of the World" is in Myths 'n Monsters.

 “Cold Sea Bathing in the Georgian Era” is in Geri Walton. Its therapeutic properties were most helpful for those who indulged in idleness or debauchery. The salt was important.

In A Visitor's Guide to Victorian England, “Victorian Crime: Murder in the Suburbs” noted that crime was low. Yet in the early 1880s, there were two Manchester murders that had an uncanny link with shocking events c30 years later.

“Meet the Man Who Saved Kenilworth Castle” is in English Heritage Blog. Sir John Siddeley bought the castle in the 1930s and made it public. See his story and see the exhibition of Armstrong Siddeley’s cars and planes.

The British royal family dropped their German surname in 1917 and refashioned themselves. The equivalent anti-German campaign in South Australia is in “The Centenary of the House of Windsor 1917–2017”, in History Matrix.

“Fitzrovia, London” in To Discover Ice tells of the suburb that became a artistic and bohemian community. Centred around Fitzroy Square, the area celebrates historic pubs, restaurants, media companies and literary homes.

In Heritage Bulletin, “Tothill Street, our first Headquarters” showed how the Women’s Voluntary Services for Air Raid Precautions was founded in 1938. The hidden histories of one million wartime women have been digitised.

Little Malvern Priory Church

"Material Culture from Below" in the many-headed monster. An Early Modern Europe Conference talked of methods used in material cultural history of the gentry-aristocracy. But what about the common people? 

The blog Dirty, Sexy History has a] "I Thought they Had Been Nuns: Great Wine & Failed Sexual Transactions", b] "Fanny Burney and Her Mastectomy" and c] "Sex, Contraception, and Abortion in Medieval England".

AMERICAN HISTORY
 By 1775 rebellion entered New York’s Albany County. Armed night watches and prisons intimidated British loyalists. "In Addition to Disarming Them...” in  Historical Nerdery.

"New England’s Darkest Day" appears in The New York History Blog. “Solar Eclipse Tips From John Quincy Adams” is published in Plodding Through the Presidents.

See The Secret Victorianist for “Governors Island: Castle William NYC”. Built to stave off British attacks that never occurred, Castle Williams became barracks for Civil War Union soldiers. Then it had new uses.

Regarding the popularity of cycling in 1900 and the laws that the riders broke, see"Breaking the Law on Two Wheels" in The Chemung County Historical Society.

In Mental Floss see “A Forgotten George Gershwin Musical just made its American Debut”. In 1982, crates of musical manus­cripts by Porter, Rodgers & Gershwin were discovered in New Jersey. His 1924 musical Primrose was discussed.

“Webster Hall Will Return” was published in The Bowery Boys. From 1886, the hall hosted the Greenwich Village Ball till the 1930s, a dancing bacchanalia for artists, bohemians and drag queens. It's now a New York City landmark.

“Laundry Methods During the American Revolution” is in 17th Regt. of In­fantry in America. See a] formal guides to wash­ing laundry b] civilian & military notations about laund­ering in the American colonies, and c] personal observations.

With Jim Crow restrictions, African Americ­ans were barred from mainstream holidays. From 1890-1960s, special coastal re­sorts arose, a haven against racism! "Summer Resorts Once Offered African Americans” is in Edwardian Promenade.

Naomi Clifford wrote “The Eruption of La Soufrière on the West Indian Island of St Vincent” in 1812. Alas the British were preoccupied with imm­in­ent naval war against the US. Worse, St Vincent was the centre of the Anglo-French War.

“A Montesorri School, Tchai­kovsky and a Murder” is in Daytonian in Manhattan. The Queen Anne style, 4-storey brick-stone dwellings were in West 74th St NY. Read of the different owners, illegal speak­easies and a 1932 murder.

144 W 74th St, Manhattan

Massachusetts Historical Society’s Center for Teaching History hosts workshops for teachers seeking to incorporate primary sources and contemporary historical scholarship. See  "Teaching #HistSex" in Medical Heritage Library

MUSEOLOGY  Blog of the Courtier talks of “Finding fakes: new museum confronts old problem head-on”. With newer scholarship, San Francisco’s Mexican Museum has discovered that some of its prize possessions may be unreliable.

“Who should own the Koh i Noor Diamond?” is in Art and Architecture, mainly. Nations in Central Asia will be in court over this diamond. When does an historical treasure need to be repatriated abroad? And to which country?

WAR “The Barge Canal: New York’s Patriotic Contribution to WWI” appears in The Friends of Schoharie Crossing.

The Second World War Research Group has a] "French Recruitment of Colonial Soldiers in Morocco after German Occupation of Paris”; b] "When Britain meets Free France: Coalition Warfare in French Equatorial Africa" and c] “The Italian Navy and Japan: Strategy and Hopes, 1937-1942”.

Read From Balloons to Drones for a] "Air Power in Technicolour", and b] "Blinded by the Rising Sun? American Intelligence Assessments of Japanese Air Power, 1920-41".