One of the delightful things about historical research is when it throws up completely unexpected facts irrelevant to what you are looking for. I remember thirty years ago finding that Richard Cobden had investments in railways in Illinois which increased sharply in value after the repeal of the Corn Laws opened up new trade routes for the vast agricultural produce of the mid-West.
I discovered today that Lord Liverpool – Britain’s most repressive Prime Minister bar Tony Blair – was an Anglo-Indian, though whether his Indian blood was an eighth or a quarter I am not quite sure. I had no idea of this. It is also a great thing that, though it seems the fact was well known, even in the bitterest period of modern British politics (1815-20) I can find no evidence of any racial jibe being made against him.
Lord Liverpool an Anglo-Indian. A black Prime Minister two hundred years before Barack Obama. Well I never.