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E. J. Beck
‐
Honorary Secretary of the National Indian Association
Other names
Emma 'Jessie' Josephine Beck
Place of death
Allahabad, India
About
E. J. Beck was Honorary Secretary of the National Indian Association from 1905. She was the younger sister of Theodore Beck, Principal of the Mahomedan Anglo-Oriental College in Aligarh, and lived in India with him when he was Principal. After his death, she returned to London and became involved in the National Indian Association. On the death of E. A. Manning in 1905, Beck became Honorary Secretary. She did not, however, edit its organ, The Indian Magazine and Review, for long, and employed Miss A. A. Smith to take on editorial duties. Beck was present at the NIA event at the Imperial Institute at which Madan Lal Dhingra assassinated Curzon Wyllie and was called as a witness to Dhingra's trial. She retired in 1932 and The Indian Magazine and Review stopped printing.
She died in Allahabad on 1 January 1936 while on a tour of India to visit friends. Cornelia Sorabji was in Allahabad at the time and recounted the last days of Beck for the NIA.
Present at murder of Curzon Wyllie at Imperial Institute, 1 July 1909
Abdullah Yusuf Ali, Muhammad Ali, Theodore Beck (brother), Sir Curzon Wyllie, Madan Lal Dhingra, Elizabeth Adelaide Manning, Sarojini Naidu, Miss A. A. Smith, Cornelia Sorabji, Mrs J. D. Westbrook.
Smith, Ellen, 'Epistolary Labour: A Cultural History of the Imperial Letter and British Family Life in Colonial South Asia, 1857–1921', unpublished PhD thesis (University of Leicester, 2023)
Beck Papers, Mss Eur C334, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras
Special Issue: Commemoration of Miss E. J. Beck, The Indian Magazine and Review, March 1936, Mss Eur F147/23, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras
NIA minutes (1905–29), Mss Eur F147/9-14, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras
Image credit
© Remaking Britain: South Asian Connections and Networks, 1930s – present
