Tracing lives of ayahs under colonial rule
Through this series of images, this portfolio attempts to evoke new imaginations of the lives of ayahs, women who were maidservants in Anglo-Indian households, working in both South Asia, and in the countries of their employers, Britain, Australia, South Africa etc. Ayahs were primarily concerned with the domestic labour of the household, including the raising and taking care of children. The ayah was a desexualised figure, and the presence of ayahs in Anglo-Indian households became a symbol of English morality and racial purity. During this period, ayahs also accompanied families on their journeys back to Britain or to other colonies and migrated with them. Some ayahs were exclusively travelling ayahs, and they made several sea voyages back and forth. In these different images, I highlight elements of their lives and journeys, and their intersections with the Empire and British society.
The series begins with a photograph of the Ayah’s Home, Hackney in London from 1921 alongside a 2020 snapshot from Google Maps Street View of the same location – 26 King Edward Road. This home was run by the London City Mission and housed South Asian ayahs and East Asian amahs (also nurses and maidservants). This home was a hostel for travelling ayahs who stayed there while they waited to accompany a family departing for Asia. This space was also a refuge for ayahs who had been abandoned by their employers after having arrived in Britain or were abused by their employers. The image on the right shows a blue plaque installed on the building, with the inscription “The AYAHS’ HOME for nannies and nursemaids from Asia was based here 1900–1921.” This plaque was installed in 2020 and memorializes the invisiblized labour of ayahs and amahs that contributed to several households.
The next two images are attempts to discuss the voyages that the ayahs went on. The first comprises of an image of S.S. Bhamo, a ship that made journeys between Burma and Britain, and the interior of a suite on the Kaiser-i-Hind, another ship that travelled between Bombay and Britain. I arrived at these particular ships and routes through information listed on the passenger information sheets of ayahs. The following image is a collage of cropped (zoomed in) sections of 1932 British War Office world map image showing trade routes and the value of trade. These two images do not directly show or represent ayahs. They are without any human presence. I point to the empty suite room on the ship to help us imagine or envision the ayah in this space, to ask what her life in that room could have looked like. The representations of ayahs on the ships are hard to chance upon and yet it was their labour on these ships that enabled the movement of English families back and forth the colonies. Similarly, the trade routes help in visualising the large distances travelled by the ayahs, typically away from their families, losing caste identities and other relations. There are stories of ayahs risking their lives to save the children they nursed and of vengeful ayahs. The ship contained several possibilities for the ayahs.
Travelling required documentation such as a passport or a visa. In the following section, I place an image of the passport of Mrs. Anthony Ayah, an ayah from Ootacamund, Tamil Nadu, in a photograph of the incoming passenger lists on the ship Kaiser-i-Hind with the arrival date 26th February 1921. The list includes names of ayahs along with other passengers. The ayahs are listed as British subjects and often their last name is simply ayah, referring to their profession and does not include other family details. I intentionally play with time and space as I use photographs from the contexts of different ships, ayahs, and years. I hope to highlight the ambiguity and lack of detail we seem to have about the specifics of the lives of ayahs. The image that follows juxtaposes a photograph of the interior of the Ayahs Home alongside the 1911 census of the home. Similarly, the census appears to be limiting in detail about the ayahs. The marker of ayah also does not seem inescapable. When read with the image of the women knitting and reading, it raises questions of what these women’s lives entailed outside of their labour and outside of the roles and expectations assigned to them.
In the final two images, I play with ideas of invisibility and visibility. I first mesh together the photograph of two ayahs and their charges a park with a photograph of a man feeding pelicans at St James Park circa 1914. The photograph of the ayahs is not dated and the location is not specified. I layer the photograph of the ayahs over the photograph of the man. In the process I am hoping to bring in different members of British society together in one frame despite the differences in time and location. I want to extend the mood of leisure and play that is present in the pelican photograph into the scene of the ayahs and their charges. Similarly I use two photographs in the next image, I foreground a cropped version of a photograph of George Orwell and his ayah in front of another photograph of St James Park circa 1923. While Orwell was born in India and this photograph was most likely captured in India, I want to bring attention to other ayahs who left their homes to continue nursing English children by changing the background of the original image.
Through these different images, I intentionally mix time, space, and details of different women to point to the ambiguities and messiness that photographs can conceal. I want these images to escape the bounds placed by official records as well. The absences in some images and distortions in others should help us question or challenge the straightforward descriptions of the lives of ayahs.
