The Thug School of Industry, Jubbulpore

William Simpson, a Scottish ‘war artist’ visited India several times in the second half of the 19th century and published his drawings as a set of chromolithographs in ‘India: Ancient and Modern’ in 1867, written by John William Kaye. These images present a detailed and wide-ranging representation of India through Simpson’s eyes, elaborating on contemporary manufacturing units of economically viable textiles.

The plates illustrates the Thug School that was set up in Jabalpur for the children of the ‘Thugee’ cult whose fathers had been imprisoned in order to train them in commercially viable crafts. In 1867, the carpets made at the Thug School were sent to the Paris Exhibition.