Royal Commonwealth Society : The early stages of the Assam Company’s headquarters at Nazira

Fever, Sidney

Royal Commonwealth Society

<p style='text-align: justify;'>This watercolour by Sidney Fever recreates the pioneering working and living conditions of the tea company’s headquarters as it would have appeared during the early 1840s. In the left foreground is an experimental tea nursey containing young seedlings, and beside it are crops such as wheat, barley, flax and rice which were grown to feed the work force. The large thatched building in the middle ground is the European staff bungalow, and behind it is the main tea making house and the smaller withering shed. To the left are the split bamboo huts which housed the labour force. Behind it elephants with howdahs are carrying green leaf from outlying tea barries and clearings. Chests of manufactured tea were transported by water in country boats such as that featured in the lower right corner, or in later stages by government steamers, eventually reaching Calcutta almost 1,000 miles to the south.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>See Janus record <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk/db/node.xsp?id=EAD%2FGBR%2F0115%2FRCMS%20365%2F5%2F16%2F1'>here</a></p>