The Indian Service Family in New Zealand

Meena Al-Emleh

Sitting in storage in Archives New Zealand’s Wellington collection, alongside numerous seemingly identical materials, is the Treasury Civil Pensions Ledger, 1878-1886. This ledger is part of a wider series of Imperial Pension records, but there is something that makes the Civil Pensions ledger special – it’s entries primarily list Indian servicemen receiving pensions in New Zealand.[1] It is a clear record of the imperial connection between British India and New Zealand, a connection that has been obscured in our own popular remembering.

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