1825 Bengal Directory published by Samuel Smith at the Hurkuru Press

The Bengal Directory and General Register for the Year 1825

xi [table of contents & prelims], 284pp Directory,xiv [index to names in the Bengal Army List], title page to Part VI Marine List pp303-314, title page to Part VII Commercial List pp327-340, title page to Part IX Shipping Arrivals and Departures etc pp503-509, title page to Part V Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths pp533-541, p542, I page of Administrations of Estates. The strange pagination. with no Part VIII would suggest that this the copy has been bound up with the parts of the Directory that the purchaser required for nothing seems to have been removed from the contemporary binding, the map referred to on the title page is not present. We do not see enough of these Registers today to be able to check this. Contemporary brown half leather gilt with marbled boards, excellent condition with no signs of having spent long in India, old ownership inscription to front free endpaper Mrs Gairdner, 12 Clarendon Crescent, Edinburgh. In the table of contents the missing Part VIII is referred to as British and Foreign Inhabitants, pages 401 to 530 alphabetically arranged [for some reason never bound in this copy). This volume includes the army list (King’s and East India Company), the Marine List, the Commercial list and much other information.  These directories are now extremely difficult to find.     dec19/4

These locally printed Registers include information which is not found in the London produced East India Register. For example:

This register shows 12  Extra Regiments Native Infantry in addition to the 69 standard ones, Extra Corps such as  Escorts to Nepal and  senior states, extra corps officered from the lines, the distribution of the  Army by Division, a named list of Warrant Officers, &c.