I have been reading the new brief history of Sezincote which has just been written by Edward Peake, the current owner of the house.
It’s not straightforward: first bought by John Cockerell, who had had a career in the Indian army, including the defeat of Tipu Sultan at Seringapatam, and returned to England with a half-Indian, half-Portuguese mistress, Estuarta. He planned to employ his younger brother, Samuel Pepys Cockerell, to enlarge it, but the work was done by their younger brother, Charles, who made a lot of money in trade in India and was obviously happy to flaunt his nabobbery by commissioning a house in the Indian style.
William Dalrymple gave a talk on the Mughals which ended with an interesting answer to a question which I didn’t hear: the gist of the answer was that the British have not yet learned to be ashamed of what we did in India, not the answer expected by an audience enjoying the opulence of Anglo-Indian remains.
| Charles | Saumarez | Smith | 