Photograph of Students at Dr Graham’s Homes
in Kalimpong, India
Date of Creation: c.1916
Materials: 50mm x 80mm glossy photographic paper
Arrival in Dunedin: 1921
Description: black and white
Researcher: Kate Knox
History:
This photograph was one of the few possessions that Lorna Birdie Peters took on board the ship Janus, when she migrated from India to New Zealand in 1921. The photograph depicts Lorna (far right with hand on hip) and other residents of Woodburn Cottage at St Andrew’s Colonial Homes (later renamed Dr Graham’s Homes) in Kalimpong, India.
The Homes was a working orphanage and school, built in 1900 for the purpose of educating Anglo-Indian children and preparing them for emigration to the British colonies. Students were typically illegitimate children of British tea planters and local Indian women, who were not readily accepted into Indian or British society.
Significance:
The founder of the school, a missionary named Dr. John Anderson Graham, established connections to Dunedin through the Scottish Presbyterian church. Lorna worked as a domestic servant for a Presbyterian minister’s family at Port Chalmers, Dunedin, until her father Egerton Peters also migrated to New Zealand. Intriguingly, the photograph also shows Lorna’s sister who was unknown to Lorna until after they arrived in New Zealand.
The photograph remains in Dunedin with Lorna’s granddaughter Jane McCabe who carried out a PhD thesis concerning the Homes’ migration scheme, titled “Kalimpong Kids.” This photograph was the only possession Lorna’s family had that revealed anything about her past in India.