South Asians Making Britain at Middlesbrough's Central Library
![picture : Princess Sophia Duleep Singh selling copies of The Suffragette outside Hampton Court Palace. (The Suffragette, 1913) © British Library Board [1913 LON 515 (1913) NPL]](/uploads/images/jpegs/news/south-asians-making-britain-at-middlesbrough's-central-library.jpg)
Did you know that the first Indian MP took his seat in British parliament in 1892? Or that 1.5 million Indian troops battled for Britain in the First World War? Or that an Indian woman was prominent in the suffragettes’ campaign for women’s rights in Britain?
Tackling stereotypes and reconfiguring the nation’s understanding of how South Asians have helped shape Britain, this major touring panel exhibition reveals and celebrates the contribution of Asians to many walks of British life, including sport, the arts, cultural, intellectual and domestic life, resistance and activism, and national and global politics.
South Asians Making Britain, 1858-1950 was co-curated by the British Library and the Making Britain research team. Now in its second year of touring, it is coordinated and supported by The Open University and The British Library.
Making Britain: South Asian Visions of Home and Abroad, 1870-1950 was a three-year research project (2007-10), which examined a wealth of new material from archives in Britain, India, Sri Lanka and the United States. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, it was led by The Open University in collaboration with the University of Oxford, King’s College London, the British Library and SALIDAA (South Asian Literature and Arts Archive).
Meet a co-curator
Rehana Ahmed, co-curator of the exhibition and Lecturer in English at Teesside University, will give an accompanying talk at Middlesbrough Library on 25 October at 7.00pm.
Useful links
Beyond the Frame: Indian British Connections
Photo credit: Princess Sophia Duleep Singh selling copies of The Suffragette outside Hampton Court Palace. (The Suffragette, 1913) © British Library Board [1913 LON 515 (1913) NPL]