Excerpt: A Most Unsettled Man

Guest Post by Lily Style

George’s life had been mapped and pinned down from the moment his parents sent him to school in England. His further education in the Company’s required subjects of double-entry bookkeeping and mathematics had been part of his preordained career. When he’d returned home to Bombay, the Company viewed him as a freshly-milled cog to strengthen the workings of their ever-expanding, capitalist empire machine.

…With Scindia’s imminent return hovering as an ever-present black cloud, George set about overseeing the profitability of Broach’s calico production. This may, initially, have felt like an easy option compared with facing the Maratha army. However, the cloth-making process required the labour of thousands of local workers to churn out piece-goods in a similar fashion to present-day sweatshops. Though mercantile and privileged, George was deeply moved by “the misery of the people, and waste of fine agricultural land.” He filled journals with ambitious plans to improve conditions for Broach’s cotton workers.

On top of this, when not worried for the local workforce or the thunderous approach of Scindia’s elephants, young George likely felt bored stiff of being stuck, month after month, and year after year, in the backwater of Broach. After all, he was so innately restless that, in later years, Horatio Nelson’s wife described him as “ever the most unsettled man alive”.

Keep reading A Most Unsettled Man

George Matcham, dubbed the most unsettled man alive, was born in East India Company controlled Bombay and undertook three epic overland treks between Asia and England before marrying the favourite sister of the not yet famous Horatio Nelson. Intimate details about George's life have been preserved because of his close relationship with Nelson and his famous paramour Emma Hamilton, whose rises and falls he observed first-hand.

Packed with period press clippings and eyewitness accounts, A Most Unsettled Man provides an unprecedented glimpse into the private life of a modest 18th century English gentleman, as well retelling the enduring love story of Nelson and Emma from an entirely new perspective.

A Most Unsettled Man is available from Historium Press on Amazon US and Amazon UK.

Connect with the Author

Lily Style is the direct descendant of famed lovers Admiral Lord Nelson and Emma Hamilton and also Nelson's sister, Kitty Matcham (because their grandchildren married).

Lily is the founder of Emma Hamilton Society and writes regularly for Nelson-related publications. She is also a keen genealogist with an interest in piecing together real human stories lying behind dry facts.

One of these stories is of her 4th great-grandfather, George Matcham, whose story she's traced from his mid eighteenth-century birth in East India Company controlled Bombay through to his intimate involvement with Nelson and Emma's rise and fall.

Connect with Lily on her Website, Facebook, Amazon Author Page, and Goodreads.