Description

Forty-four. Senior Company judge, pompous, methodical, and given to quoting Blackstone at dinner. Twelve years in India, considers himself an authority on everything Indian, and speaks no Indian language whatsoever.

He sits slightly forward at St John’s of where his seniority strictly entitles him. Lady Anne arranged that.

Background

Sudder Dewani Adalat, the Company’s chief civil court of appeal in Bengal. Complaints that go nowhere in the districts sometimes arrive on his desk, and go nowhere there too.

Has not had an original opinion since Madras.

Motivations

Advancement, dignity, and the settled conviction that he is a fair-minded man. He is not dishonest. He is incurious, which in his position does more damage.

What Meg Says

Anne Pelham runs that household and that career. She decides who Roderick rules in favour of, not literally, but near enough.

Hook

He is the judicial reason nothing at Baranagar has ever been investigated, and he could not tell you a thing about it. Roy’s complaints reached this level of the system and stopped, filed and forgotten, exactly as designed. Nobody suppressed them. They simply arrived somewhere that does not act.

If Roy’s name is raised at table, Pelham is the man who would disparage him, briefly and without heat, as a mischief-maker. One line. Move on. It will ring when the party meets the name in the Gazette back files.

Connections

• Anne Pelham — his wife, who runs him
• Charles Ashworth — a professional peer
• Supreme Court Calcutta · Writers Building
• Scene 06 Ashworth Dinner

In Play

Chapter 4, Session 9 (9 October 1814) — at the Magistrate’s table, quoting. He dined at Garden Reach with the party and was inclined to quote legal texts at length.

That afternoon Meg told Katherine that he has not had an original opinion since his Madras posting, and that his wife Anne Pelham effectively hands down half the city’s judicial verdicts from her own dinner table. His household’s bearer Ratan was caught stealing the Magistrate’s silver spoons during the second course.

Appearances

Relationships

• Married to Anne Pelham — She manages him socially and professionally
• Knows Ram Mohan Roy — Regards him as a mischief-maker; has never read him closely