Greenwich, England: A Date with Time and History

prime meridian line
Feet astride the Prime Meridian Line in Greenwich, England.

The Royal Observatory and Museums of Greenwich, England

By Susmita Sengupta

A street in Greenwich, England.
A street in Greenwich, England.

East India Company is a name that brings about various emotions in the hearts and minds of the people of India. They were the precursor to British imperialism in India and also played an important role in increasing British influence in China in the 19th century.

I first saw the name East India on the green and white name board of a station on the Docklands Light Railway route in London on a bright, blue September morning. Several emotions ran through me because of the historical significance of that name. I clicked a picture as our train started pulling out.

The station gets its name from the former East India Docks located nearby from where ships sailed to India for trade in the early 19th century.

Bound for Greenwich    

My husband and I were on our way to Greenwich in Southeast London. Although we had visited London several times before, we had never been to Greenwich, known all over the world through Greenwich Mean Time.

We had come with the sole aim of visiting the famed Greenwich Meridian Line, the line that divides the eastern and western hemispheres of the earth.

This is the Prime Meridian of the world, also known as Longitude zero from where the distance of every place on earth is measured. Greenwich or Maritime Greenwich is situated on the banks of the River Thames and is easily reachable from the central London area. It is a World Heritage Site, having been awarded this status by UNESCO in 1997.

The world heritage sites

The clock shows the precise time in Greenwich Mean Time in Greenwich, England.
The clock shows the precise time in Greenwich Mean Time in Greenwich, England.

Stepping out of the station, we immediately saw the Cutty Sark, its masts and deck shining in the bright morning sky. The ship’s fame comes from it being a tea clipper, when tea was a primary commodity in world trade. In the middle of the 19th century, ships would try to outdo each other, to bring into Britain the first crop of fresh tea from China.

Victorian Britain fancied the new tea harvest and the annual tea race was a Victorian thrill. Cutty Sark was one of the fastest ships that made the tea run from China to England. The ship is half enclosed in a glass-topped building and we spent a few moments admiring the ship and reading about its history.
We were then ready to visit the primary attraction of Greenwich.

The Royal Observatory is the home of the Prime Meridian Line and Greenwich Mean Time. We climbed up a steep hill with extraordinary views of the surrounding areas and faraway London. At the top of the hill are the Observatory and the Peter Harrison Planetarium, the only one in London.

The Royal Observatory is housed in Flamsteed House, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, in 1675 during the reign of King Charles II. It is named after John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal who drew a map of the stars to be used for navigation.

The Flamsteed House has two magnificent exhibitions called Time and Longitude and Time and Greenwich. In these exhibitions, one can view the various ways time was measured and studied before the age of satellites. We looked at the inventions of John Harrison, who solved the longitude problem.

A View of the Cutty Sark in Greenwich.
A View of the Cutty Sark

This was very important to the English sailors and navigators who were traveling around the world in search of more trade.

We then walked out into the Meridian courtyard, where tourists from around the world were milling about at the Prime Meridian Line. We stood faithfully like all the other tourists, feet astride the meridian line, simultaneously being in the eastern and western hemisphere, and clicked photos of our feet.

Highlights of Britain’s History

Then we walked over to the National Maritime Museum, one of the largest such museums in the world, located at the bottom of the observatory hill and part of the same site. The museum highlights Britain’s past history at sea and there are displays of sea-related art, maps, manuscripts, ship models and navigational instruments.

This is where we saw the exhibition titled Traders: The East India Company and Asia. A new, permanent exhibition, it showcases Britain’s trade with Asia with a focus on the East India Company. The exhibition begins with a collection of model ships, boats, vessels, and dhows.

On one wall is a large portrait of Vasco Da Gama of Portugal painted in 1838, the first explorer to reach India by sailing around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa.

We then entered the main exhibition hall and came face to face with the history of the East India Company. The exhibits highlight the story of the company, the goods, and commodities that it traded, the people involved, and ultimately the conflicts and rebellions that it faced. There are displays informing us how in the year 1600, Queen Elizabeth I, of England, granted permission to a group of London traders, who wanted to profit from spice trade with the

Colored illustration showing slaves being fired upon by the crew of an African slave ship at the museum.
Colored illustration showing slaves being fired upon by the crew of an African slave ship at the museum.

east. These merchants then formed a company called The Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies. They started by sending ships to India and Indonesia to buy pepper and other spices to sell in London. These were the beginnings of a company that would ultimately change the world.

In 1612, the Company defeated the Portuguese in India and was granted trading rights by the Mughal Empire. But by the 1700s, East India Company had become more and more involved in the politics of India. In 1757, Robert Clive and his army defeated Nawab Siraj ud Daula of Bengal at the Battle of Plassey and thus started ruling Bengal. Slowly the company consolidated its position in India, and became an administrator of the land rather than a trading concern.

model tea clipper
Exhibit on China opium trade showing a model tea clipper.

But in 1813, the British Parliament took away its monopoly and after 1834, the company functioned as an agency of the British Government of India. In 1857, after the Sepoy Mutiny, also known as the Indian rebellion of 1857, the East India Company was dissolved and thus started the British rule of India.

The exhibition has displays that tell us that the company dominated the global textile trade primarily by trading in silks, and cotton goods from India. We see paintings of Indiamen, the ships that traveled to and from India to Britain carrying textiles, spices, tea, indigo, and saltpeter.

We see large displays with quotes from politicians, writers, and seamen of that era. “The greatest corporation in the world,” says one, a quote by Thomas Macaulay in 1849.

Macaulay is credited with introducing English-based education in India. But his aim was to create an English-speaking elite to act as bridge between the British rulers and the Indian masses.

There are exhibits of medals awarded to the soldiers of the Company, their uniforms, their swords and their weapons. I am intrigued to see displays that talk about the 1857 Indian Mutiny.

China and the Opium Trade

The next part of the exhibition deals with China and the opium trade, a trade that was dominated originally by the Dutch but was soon taken over by the British East India Company due to their rule in India. The British illegally exported opium grown in India to China to trade in Chinese silks, porcelains and tea.

This gallery is followed by the Atlantic gallery that explores the slave trade in North America and the Caribbean. There are similar displays of ships, uniforms, weapons and medals. We look at paintings and etchings about the forcible transportation of Africans to work as laborers on sugar, rice and tobacco plantations. There is an engraving from 1619 about the capturing of Pocahontas.

This is an exhibition that touches upon a very sensitive period of British history. It cannot be but painful to some of the visitors. It is thought-provoking to see that the museum has put forward an exhibition that not just highlights the achievements of the British East India Company and its effect on England but also does not shy away from showing the negative impacts it had on the countries that it conquered.

Getting there:   Greenwich is a wonderful day trip from London, and one can go there by road, rail or boat. One can even use the Emirates Air-line cable car over the River Thames which we did on our return trip. We had traveled by the Docklands Light Railway to Greenwich which has easy connections from the central London area. The train travels through Canary Wharf and I got wonderful views of the skyscrapers of London. Canary wharf is a major business district and one can easily compare it to Wall Street of New York City.

Eating: We ate lunch at Tai won Mein, a Chinese restaurant, reasonably priced with delicious food, located in the town center. There are a variety of restaurants from pub lunch to fresh street food at the Greenwich Market.

More Resources:

visitgreenwich.org.uk

rmg.co.uk

Susmita SenguptaSusmita Sengupta is a freelance writer who loves to travel. She and her family have traveled to various parts of the USA, Canada, Europe, the Caribbean, Middle East, Southeast Asia and India. She resides in New York City with her family.

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2 thoughts on “Greenwich, England: A Date with Time and History

  1. Cannot believe that there’s no mention of the tiunnel/ footpath/ bike path beneath the Thames connecting Greenwich with Londres. TOO cool!

  2. Greenwich is one of my favorite areas of London. I’d suggest to anyone staying elsewhere in the city and interested in history that a day trip is worthwhile. Traveling on the river bus, along the River Thames, provides outstanding views of waterfront buildings and offers an opportunity to sail beneath the iconic Tower Bridge. Journeys are relatively inexpensive compared to river cruises.

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