Ayahs' Home: Remembering the forgotten Indian nannies of London

[NonnyMouse1337]

Very interesting article! I was unaware of this aspect of history, but it makes sense since there are similar sort of practices that continue today in India and the Middle East.

Glad to see the history is being researched and acknowledged. 😊

I can only imagine how lonely those women felt so far away from their home and their own families.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-61807623

Thanks for sharing that . I too was unaware but of course its obvious when you think about it. Such disregard for the experiences, needs and feelings of others. They must have been incredibly lonely.

Very interesting, thank you for posting

Oh my. I hope some of the individual women's stories are uncovered and told too. Thank you for sharing.

They have a really fascinating Instagram account at ayahshome that I’ve followed for a while. They feature the (relatively few) individual stories and photographs that they unearth or people (on occasion from the children they cared for!) send in.

Thank you for post.

I heard a woman from English Heritage talking about this yesterday.

Women who had been looking after children for years discarded like used wrappers when they got to the U.K. Horrific.

Well done to Farhanah Mamoojee for getting these women commemorated and recognised.

Thanks noraclavicle, I'll check out the Instagram

I'll look out for that, thank you.

Thank you Nonny.

I’ve noticed in Victorian and Edwardian fiction a recurring trope that the children are often far more attached to their ayahs than their mothers and miss them terrible once home. I suspect an ayah provided a more nuturing, maternal style attachment than a more traditional British nanny (because of the difference in their social status and place in the family, Nanny was discouraged from too close a bond with children, not that this didn’t happen but it would often have been the younger nursery maids who did the hands-on stuff while Nanny ruled the nursery).

I’ve noticed in Victorian and Edwardian fiction a recurring trope that the children are often far more attached to their ayahs than their mothers and miss them terrible once home.

My fil had an ayah in the 40s and that's definitely the impression he gives. His mother preferred horse riding to looking after small children. Dh says she was cold even as a grandmother. Whereas his ayah provided emotional support, home cooking (he still regularly cooks recipes he learned from her) and would play endless games with him.

Thank you for sharing this. I knew ayahs were used while families lived in India, but hadn't thought about them being taken over to the UK. Of course it makes sense when you think about it, that parents who had never really looked after their children before, would suddenly become able to do so for the long voyage home. But how awful for the women to be abandoned.
I hope the Ayahs' Home wasn't too forceful in trying to convert these women to Christianity.

That's a very interesting piece

Thank you for sharing

Thank you for sharing

That was a really interesting read - thanks for the share.

Does anyone know more - did these women have families of their own?

Would love to know what life was like in the home - the conversations that must have taken place!

Thanks for putting that here. I'm glad that some recognition is being made.

Really interesting, and sad. Thanks gor sharing.

How appalling the way some of those women were used, and discarded in a strange land.

Claud Cockburn, who was born in China, tells in his memoirs of a Chinese Ayah who came with them to England. Boys threw stones at her in the street because she wore black silk trousers, and she was terrified to take him for walks in case the Berkshire hills had tigers in them,

i wonder what happened to her.

That was really interesting, thank you for sharing.

I had a friend at uni who came from a wealthy Indian family & had his ayah (that was what he called her) with him in his flat. She spoke no English & I often wondered what her life was like there.