History & Memory History and Memory Lucknow's fortunes changed
toward the mid-nineteenth century as the English East India
Company gained ascendancy in northern India. In 1856, the
British deposed Wajid Ali Shah, the last ruler of Awadh, and
annexed his kingdom. One year later, Indian soldiers and their
supporters at Lucknow joined the forces allied against the
Company in the Great Uprising, or Mutiny, of 1857–58 (also known
as the First War of Indian Independence). During the Uprising
some 3,000 people were besieged in the British Residency
compound at Lucknow. Their plight and the battle to recapture
the city were memorialized in various ways by British artists
and photographers catering to the intense public interest in the
conflict. In the aftermath of British victory, a wide gulf came
to separate European and Indian memories of Lucknow. Lucknow
remained legendary for its refined Indo-Muslim culture, evident
in the manners, language, dress, cuisine, and aesthetic pursuits
of the city's elites. Courtesans