The book explores the history of one particular house on the Coromandel Coast of south India. It tells the fascinating story of former Danish governors in India in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and the cultural encounters and exchanges that took place with Indian staff of cooks, nannies, interpreters and with representatives from the broader Indian society of traders, temple priests, and princely delegates. The house is used as a prism and brings a new perspective to the multi-cultural life going on in a small colonial trading station and its relation to the wider Indian and European colonial setting. The study of cultural contacts between India and Europe has so far been determined by the overarching presence of British colonialism. However, this book about the Danish Governor’s residence and its people deals with cultural interactions as seen from the perspective of a minor European player on the Indian subcontinent.

Danish governors residing in the house

David Brown 1775-1779
Peter Hermann Abbestée 1779-1788
Peter Anker 1788-1807
Johan Peter Hermansson 1807-1808
Gerhard Sievers Bille 1815-1816
Johan Peter Hermansson 1816-1822
Jens Kofoed 1822-1823
Ulrich Anton Schønheyder 1823-1825
Hans Diedrich Brinch Seidelin 1825-1829
Lauritz Christensen 1829-1832
Konrad Emil Mourier 1832-1838
Johannes von Rehling 1838-1841
Christian Tiemroth 1841-1841
Peder Hansen 1841-1845

Fihl, Esther. (ed.). (2017). The Governor’s Residence in Tranquebar. The House and the Daily Life of its People, 1770-1845. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press.