Britexpat: No sir! No sir! You have got it all wrong! Please do not try to rewrite history. The fact is as follows: After two short wars, the Punjab was annexed to Britain in 1849 and Dalip Singh, Ranjit Singh’s eleven year old son, signed the Treaty of Lahore. One of the terms, stipulated by the acquisitive Governor-General of India, James Ramsay, the Marquess of Dalhousie, was that the Maharajah would surrender the Koh-i-noor diamond to Queen Victoria. And so this historic diamond, which had passed across the mountains and plains of central Asia with the ebb and flow of its dynasties, embarked on its voyage to England. Lord Dalhousie had written to Queen Victoria that he hoped she would wear the diamond as “a trophy of the glory and strength of Your Majesty’s Empire in the East”. The diamond set sail from Bombay on 6 April 1850 on board HMS Medea and arrived in Portsmouth on 1 July 1850.
It was not a gift.
Britexpat: No sir! No sir! You have got it all wrong! Please do not try to rewrite history. The fact is as follows: After two short wars, the Punjab was annexed to Britain in 1849 and Dalip Singh, Ranjit Singh’s eleven year old son, signed the Treaty of Lahore. One of the terms, stipulated by the acquisitive Governor-General of India, James Ramsay, the Marquess of Dalhousie, was that the Maharajah would surrender the Koh-i-noor diamond to Queen Victoria. And so this historic diamond, which had passed across the mountains and plains of central Asia with the ebb and flow of its dynasties, embarked on its voyage to England. Lord Dalhousie had written to Queen Victoria that he hoped she would wear the diamond as “a trophy of the glory and strength of Your Majesty’s Empire in the East”. The diamond set sail from Bombay on 6 April 1850 on board HMS Medea and arrived in Portsmouth on 1 July 1850.
It was not a gift.