Martha Mault

Charles Mault

Their voyage to Bombay lasted more than five months and, due to "the setting in of the monsoon", it was another seven months before they were able to reach Charles' mission station at Nagercoil in Travancore. The town of Nagercoil, near Cape Comorin at the southernmost end of the Indian peninsula, is on the coastal strip five miles from the sea with the mountains of the Western Ghats behind rising to 6000 feet. Travancore, which was then a separate state ruled by a native prince, now forms the southern part of Kerala.

The review of the East India Company's Charter of 1813 had for the first time fully opened the door to India for missionaries. Before this, chaplains employed by the Company were explicitly banned from preaching to the Indians, and the entry of missionaries severely restricted. The Company's concern was that militant well-meaning Christian evangelism might so threaten some Indian cultural or religious practices, viewed as barbaric or evil in the drawing rooms of Britain, as to interfere with its vital commercial interests. So Charles and Martha Mault had arrived among an army of young men and women, "idealistic, altruistic adventurers intent on spreading the word". But it has since been suggested that the bloody Mutiny of some three decades later was in part an Indian reaction to the zealous way in which these missionaries advanced their 'alien' cause - the very effect which the East India Company had tried to prevent.

The Maults progress and travails are documented in the letters they wrote to the LMS headquarters in London (correspondence now in the library of the School of Oriental & African Studies). By 1821 Charles had established the first printing press at Nagercoil while Martha had started the first of many schools for Indian girls. In the following decade Martha gave birth to five children, but in 1833 she became ill and had to return home to England for her own health, and also to settle her children at schools there with her brother as guardian. The welfare of her children became a frequent subject of letters to the LMS after her return to India in 1836.

Meanwhile Mault's reports were full of the many problems that the mission was facing. But there were successes, especially with the conversion of Shanars in the Tamil areas and in 1821 accessions in the Quilon region where Malayalam is spoken. But in 1828-30 caste and Christianity came into conflict and there was some pillaging of Christian homes by Hindus when low caste converts started assuming rights which were reserved for the higher castes - the clothing of the upper body in women was one such pretext. Christian evangelistic approaches towards the capital, Trivandrum, were rebuffed as being too near the sacred pagoda, although by 1838 the Hindus had relented. Mault generally managed to end his reports on an optimistic note. Extracts from that of 6th Jan 1829 to LMS headquarters in London are at Annex A.

Charles Mead

In 1843-44 and again a year later, South Travancore was beset by cholera. Charles was suffering exhaustion as a result, and Martha pointed out to the LMS that "it is five years since my husband had permission to go to England on leave but he is still awaiting a replacement". The plea went unanswered, and was forgotten because in 1851 Charles rashly wrote, "After 31 years in this country, I thank God that my good health continues. I was never more able to carry out my duties than now". A year later his long-time missionary partner, Rev Charles Mead, resigned. Mead had three times lost a wife to disease in Travancore and then married the daughter of an Indian poet. It left the sixty year old veteran missionary with a much increased work-load. Mead was replaced by C. Leitch the following year, but in 1854 Charles Mault's health finally broke down. He and Martha were forced to return home and retire, settling at Stoke near Coventry.

"Noticing the almost total absence of the women I enquired of the Catechist the cause. He told me that they never came and that they never would! I called the men together and showed them how wrong it was to keep their wives from church. To my great grief they told me in reply that it was an unheard of thing to teach women and that consequently they could not consent to such conduct without being highly reproached!" - Rev James Fleming Kearns, SPG missionary, South India in 1856

This attitude and the whole subject of female welfare became primarily Martha's work from the moment they reached Nagercoil in December 1819. Little more than a year later, helped by contributions from church 'friends' at home, she had established the first girls' boarding school in South India. Within it was a lace-making class. Martha herself had brought with her from England the equipment and the special thread needed for making lace, having learned the techniques at home in St Neots. Her school primarily taught reading and writing through religious study, plus some basic arithmetic and geography. At an appropriate stage, girls were taught lace-making (or later a similar saleable industrial technique like embroidery) which provided them with the means of earning money, and hence gave both them and their families a sense of their worth. To some unfortunate girls, who were virtual slaves, it gave the means of buying their freedom.

"Many of these children are orphans without a friend to care for them who, but for this asylum [the school], would be left to perish in ignorance, vice and wretchedness - such a child is pitiable beyond expression. Moreover not a few of these girls are slaves ...We teach them in preference to others to make lace, and as soon as their earnings amount to more than their support, a portion of their work is reserved for the purchase of their liberty." From Martha's letter to the LMS headquarters, 26 Austin Friars, London; dated 2nd June 1830.

So Martha's 'industrial' class provided one way out of the servitude and exploitation into which many Indian women were then born. Yet progress in overcoming the prejudice against female education was at first very slow and exacerbated by problems of caste. But by 1830 Martha reported, "we were determined to persevere ...and were permitted to realize our hopes, for as the improvement of the children began to manifest itself, ...those who formerly opposed, now in some instances become friends to the object". And so it grew. Eventually lace-making was providing employment for thousands of women and especially widows. "The lace industry started by the missionaries grew to large proportions and continues to this day, making available most beautiful hand-made lace that will rival any made in the world" - Hatch EG, "Travancore: A Guide Book for Visitors" (OUP 1933).

In 1841, when Martha's daughters Eliza and Sarah, both fluent in colloquial Tamil, were working full time with her, she reported the girls' boarding school at Nagercoil to be virtually full with 94 children. Thirty of them were entirely dependent on resources provided by friends in England. Martha and Charles had also established 26 village day-schools for girls in both Christian and heathen communities in the district. Half these new schools had female teachers who Martha had recruited to avoid the previously accepted situation that all teaching should be done by men.

Caldwell had always been a voracious reader, remembered what he read and had an extraordinary gift for language. His memory for the etymology of words was compendious. In Madras he not only learned Tamil but was so attracted by the beauty of the language that he also explored its rich literature and poetry. In the process he became familiar with many of the other languages of the region. He even learned German so that he could study the work of Christian Schwartz, Charles Rhenius and other past Lutheran missionaries of South India. After four years working in Madras he transferred from the LMS to the (Anglican) Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG). Like those early German missionaries, he felt he could do most good by ministering not to the privileged higher castes in the towns and European settlements but to the poorest and most isolated rural communities. In his case this was in the SPG's southernmost District of Madras, Tirunelveli, then referred to as 'Tinnevelly', the anglicised spelling.

Eliza Mault

"In consequence of their degraded condition, the females of the district had no desire for improvement, nor had they any wish for the education of their children ...They were not only extremely ignorant but filthy in their habits, rude in their manners, and quarrelsome. If this was the state of the Christian females who, though long neglected, were in every respect superior to the heathen, it may be imagined how very low the heathen women were sunk." From Eliza's letter to Rev. Vincent Shortland, Secretary to the Madras Diocesan Committee (SPG); dated 14th July 1845.

Eliza Caldwell, c1880

Soon after her arrival at Idaiyangudi, Eliza expanded the girls' day school (set up by her husband) into a boarding school and, with it, also took over control of the existing boys boarding school. "The boarding school is the stronghold of a mission, from it comes forth the educated members of the congregation, the schoolmasters and mistresses, the catechists, the native clergy and the best counsellors." - Rev. D. Vedamuthu (native Tirunelveli clergyman 1866-92). It was the beginning of a long campaign which Eliza and Robert waged to improve the prospects of native girls, and through them convince their families of the value of education. Much of the financial support for this depended on their personal reputations at home, as it came direct from private donors in England, as well as from SPG, SPCK and other sources in India. Their campaign continued unabated in the following years while Eliza gave birth to four sons and three daughters. Indeed, by the 1860s, her two elder daughters, Isabella and Louisa, were working alongside their mother in superintending the boarding and day schools that she and Robert had by then set up.

"Rev A Margöschis has been for some months in a state of nervous prostration owing to overwork and anxiety during the famine ... The doctor has recommended a couple of months sea voyage". Letter from Rev Dr John Strachan, Secretary, Madras Diocesan Committee (SPG), to Rev Bullock, Secretary SPG Headquarters, London; dated 11th May 1878. [In the event Margöschis was sent to Calcutta for a change of air]

They needed more "muscular Christians"! The shortage of suitable missionaries together with the difficulties of their family life and the education of their children were live issues throughout the correspondence from India. "We require men who can do work on a large scale", but many either fail, get sick or die in post. In January 1880, Caldwell described Arthur Margöschis as "a very useful little man but unfortunately such a victim to asthma that you cannot expect from him anything but the work of a station". Caldwell's own health was sometimes of concern. A colleague of his wrote that "few Englishmen could walk great distances in the tropical heat as he did". Although he suffered from various bouts of illness throughout his life (once getting sunstroke from travelling on an open-topped bus during his first return to England), he had great powers of recuperation. "When an old man, he would be found almost too feeble to speak, then in a day or two he would be heard preaching in a clear firm voice or seen travelling about the Western Ghauts to Tuticorin, and from Ramnad to Cape Comorin".

Holy Trinity, Idaiyangudi

Caldwell's method was to use the old existing village hierarchical structure to raise congregations, establish a pattern for Christian villages based on the model at his mission at Idaiyangudi, and to build churches. At the same time, despite opposition from the Madras committee of the SPG, he set up committees and other structures to encourage the development of independence within the native church including the raising of their own funds. The erection of the large Gothic church ('Holy Trinity'), which he built at Idaiyangudi, kept pace with the progress of his evangelism - it took him 33 years to complete. At the same time, many small 'daughter' churches were built in the district, most from money contributed locally by the villagers themselves (by 1873 there was said to be about forty of them). In the words of his obituary, Caldwell "had seen the Christians in Tirunelveli increase from 6,000 to 100,000" in the district which is today the southernmost diocese of the Church of South India. Few of these accessions, however, came from the Hindus and higher castes despite his efforts towards them.

Statue of Caldwell

All this literary effort had unforeseen effects. It helped to give a linguistic and cultural identity to the lower castes and Tamils in particular which they were quick to embrace. It brought thousands into the Christian church giving them access to education, and has grown over the intervening years to raise the status of many lower caste Christians in South India. In effect, Caldwell launched a Dravidian movement, but it was much broader than he can ever have envisaged. Now widely known as "the Tamil Renaissance", it has had a profound effect across all faiths of this region. In this transformation, Caldwell's role as "a pioneer Dravidian linguist" was acknowledged in 1968 when his statue was among eight erected on the Marina Beach at Chennai (Madras). Today he is still discussed by many who were simply the beneficiaries of the Tamil revival and the Non-Brahmin movement as a whole to which he was an important stimulus.

One wonders how Caldwell found the time to pursue his literary studies. In his journal he describes a punishing schedule. The bulk of this work was done on the long voyages of four months round the Cape or when staying in the Ashambu Hills or at Kodaikanal in the Palanis where he went in the hot season or to regain his health. On these occasions he invariably worked for six hours a day (excepting Sunday). Even while doing missionary work around the villages he was generally but not always able to devote two hours a day to his books.

Caldwell as Bishop

Edward Sargent

The SPG committee (the MDC) was an 'ad hoc' body "consisting partly of laymen and partly of chaplains who happen to reside in Madras". The system had worked well in Caldwell's time and continued to do so after his return from Calcutta as the new SPG bishop just as Tirunelveli was faced with the seven months of famine and floods referred to earlier. The relationship between the MDC and missionaries 500 miles away on the ground, some with independent financial support from England and direct access to the SPG Standing Committee in London, was a sensitive one. It relied very much on good will and the personality and understanding of the MDC secretary, who for 26 years had been Rev Alfred Symonds, followed for the next nine years by Dr John Strachan. Caldwell described Symonds as "not an opponent or a person whose policy was influenced by party views, but a large-hearted sympathetic friend". It was after 1880 that the relationship with the MDC started to break down. The effect of this change is starkly shown in the SPG correspondence of the period (Annex B, C & D). The blame for it is less easy to attribute:

"Much of it must be due to the calibre and experience of the men who by chance then composed the committee and the influence of their secretary. Clearly there was between them a lack of understanding of the situation of SPG missionaries and the native church far away in the field. To add to these shortcomings there may have been some jealousy over Caldwell's high

Robert Caldwell's House

reputation and influence in England and the financial support he attracted direct from there, much of it going to Eliza's schools". Kumaradoss, Y Vincent, "Robert Caldwell: a scholar-missionary in colonial South India", ISPCK 2007.

In 1883 Caldwell moved his base from Idaiyangudi village to the town of Tuticorin on the coast to improve communications. This was a major operation involving the redisposition of schools and other facilities, but it gave the bishop better access to the district as a whole. Although slightly closer to Madras, he was still 444 miles away by road or 30 hours by mail.

"I am worried about further annoyances caused to me when Mr Sharrock returns from leave. Before he left he circulated an address charging me with making misleading statements..." "Rev Vickers has reported me to the Bishop for promulgating slanders against him..." Extracts from two letters by Rev Margöschis to Rev HW Tucker, Secretary SPG London, dated 7th Oct 1890 and 8th June 1891 respectively.

Arthur Margöschis

The dissension in Tirunelveli grew worse. "When the MDC learned that Caldwell was, as they saw it, an Evangelical, they began to look down on him ... and treat him like any other missionary". So began a period of strife in which the MDC seemed intent on frustrating all Caldwell's "measures for the self-government of the native Church", and destroying his reputation by "publishing hundreds of pages of correspondence to prove that his episcopacy was a failure". Meanwhile Margöschis used his 'party' connection with the MDC and direct access to the SPG in London to his own advantage - to Caldwell's great discomfort. But Margöschis' leverage rapidly ceased after Caldwell's death! :-

"Margöschis needs more money for all his schools etc. In the past he has had funds direct from London by writing to you. He is now so worried over finance that, if he cannot be granted what he needs, he will have to move elsewhere to a less responsible post..." Extract from a letter by Rt Rev Dr Frederick Gell, Bishop of Madras, to Rev HW Tucker, Secretary SPG London, dated 1st Dec 1892

Edward Benson

To face the antagonism, Caldwell, despite his advancing years, had to draw on all his old fighting spirit, but relying heavily on the strength of Eliza's support too. On two occasions, he successfully appealed direct to the President of the SPG (Edward Benson, the Archbishop of Canterbury) to have a committee decision overturned. In November 1887, two years after his plea for tolerance in dealing with the irascible John Sharrock (Annex B), the MDC, in the absence of Dr Frederick Gell, the Bishop of Madras, and behind Caldwell's back, succeeded in getting the SPG Standing Committee in London to dismiss Sharrock, giving him just three months notice. Caldwell appealed again to the SPG President, Sharrock's notice was extended and in February 1888 the dismissal was rescinded - a mark of Caldwell's reputation in England. Sadly this was just one of the frequent skirmishes in an internecine 'war' that was to continue until Caldwell's death. By that time the MDC had almost succeeded in closing Caldwell College by withdrawing its funding in favour of Margöschis' new High School at Nazareth. They had established the latter in direct competition with the College. They also withdrew recognition from Eliza Caldwell's long-standing Female College at Tuticorin on the grounds that it was technically 'new' and unapproved. Eliza's letter in response to this resolution by the MDC is at Annex C.

Dr Frederick Gell

Appeals were made to the SPG President about this ruling and the whole role of the MDC. This caused the Archbishop in December 1887 to advise the SPG Standing Committee to call the MDC to order to bring the organisation abroad up to date so that proper account is taken of the views of bishops and others working at some distance in the field. His final remark was "the very inadequate construction of the Council is clearly illustrated in what has passed". "I am persuaded that the interests of the Society are affected by an organisation of which the defective theory does not seem to be now justified by practical convenience or success."

Subsequent correspondence (an example of 1888 is at Annex D) indicates that this 'advice' had virtually no effect on the SPG in Madras. The MDC wrote a forceful rebuttal and continued their deconstruction of some of the Caldwell legacy. In particular they took further steps to counteract the measures he had taken to foster self-governance in the native church on the grounds that it was in its infancy. Subsequent events proved how wrong they were:

"That ...in 1896 [five years after Caldwell's death] it was possible for Tirunelveli to become, by contemporary standards, a properly-constituted Anglican diocese, is a measure of the reactionary, negative and misguided character of the opposition Caldwell faced, and a measure, too, of the soundness of his own vision and aspirations". Kumaradoss, Y Vincent, "Robert Caldwell: a scholar-missionary in colonial South India", ISPCK 2007.

Tamil Nadu Stamp

Robert Caldwell and Eliza are buried beneath the chancel of Holy Trinity, Idaiyangudi, the church which he took 33 years to build. The strands of Caldwell's life and work in India are well summarised on his memorial tablet in St George's Cathedral, Madras:-

"Excelling as a Scholar and Philologist, intimately acquainted with the Tamil people, their history, language and customs, a ready and elegant Writer, he attained a wide reputation, bringing honour thereby to the Missionary's calling, and strengthening the cause of Missions in the Church at home. But all his attainments and fame did not divert him from his great purpose and the simplicity of his Missionary life. He continued to be an earnest, sympathizing, vigilant watcher of souls. By his Apostolic labours and example, he trained many native agents, brought thousands of heathen into the Church of Christ, raised the character and status not of the Christians only, but also of those without the Church, and won their attachment and reverence."

For those who wish to know more about him and his times, a new biography was published by ISPCK in India in 2007: "Robert Caldwell - a scholar-missionary in colonial South India" by Dr Y Vincent Kumaradoss, Professor of History at the Madras Christian College, Chennai. [ISBN 978-81-7214-958-1] ]. Available direct from the publisher: ISPCK PO Box 1585, 1654 Madarsa Road, Kashmere Gate, Delhi 110006, India. Tel: 11-23866323. E-mail: ashish@ispck.org.in Mail order: UK #12.50; India Rs.215 (incl p&p) or from Amazon: Robert Caldwell: A Scholar-Missionary in Colonial South India

Wyatt Family

Wyatt went on his first home leave when Caldwell returned from his consecration as bishop in Calcutta, and he missed the terrible famine and floods of 1877-78 in Tirunelveli and the large accession to Christianity which followed it. His 'leave' in England was spent, as was usual, working and speaking for the SPG. On his return in 1879, he found himself drawn into the disputation between his father-in-law and the MDC. Caldwell, the founder of Caldwell College had recommended him to be the new headmaster. However, Wyatt found that this had been changed by the MDC in his absence and without consulting Caldwell, and that he had been replaced at the College by John Sharrock, and instead was going to be missionary-in-charge at Tiruchirappalli (then known as Trichinopoly or 'Trichy' for short).

All Saints Church

SPG College, Trichinopoly

For Wyatt it was a very different environment to that he had left at Idaiyangudi: "As I looked down on the crowded houses and the seething multitudes that filled the streets of the town, and then on the surrounding countryside including that beautiful island of Srirangam with its enormous Vishnu temple visited yearly by hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, my heart seemed to sink at the magnitude of the work which lay before me." Apart from the College, little more than Christian pastoral work had been possible in the district. Elementary education among the rural population was almost non-existent. "There is much stagnation among the older Christians, many of whom were received in former times from the Roman Catholics". Little evangelistic work had been attempted for many years and in 1894 the Church had adherents in only 32 of the 3000 villages and hamlets in the district. Even the vigorous efforts made by Wyatt's 1895 successor, John Sharrock, who in a year visited 600 villages, treated 4000 medical patients and preached the Gospel to 8000, made little apparent headway. "Often the evangelistic band are stoned and otherwise ill-treated. They see little fruit from their labours but have faith enough to wait".

Caldwells

Today Tirunelveli is a thriving diocese of the Church of South India. Much of the organisation that Caldwell put in place, despite the disruptive tactics of the SPG in Madras, will have contributed to this. The Caldwell name is still remembered by the students and teachers at the schools which he and Eliza founded, and by the many Christian descendants of those he taught, baptised and ordained. But it was the wives who were clearly the backbone of this dynasty - from Martha Mault to Eliza and Sarah, and finally to Isabella - they set up homes and managed their large families between two continents, and quietly worked with extraordinary devotion for the education of native children, and in particular for the encouragement and well-being of young Indian women. That was more than a century ago, but even in a report on skills training in the late 1960s which included Nagercoil an echo of their work still remains: "a flourishing lace-making and embroidery industry is still going on here, but reduced from the past when it involved thousands of women".