'That he may take due pride in the empire to which he belongs': The education of Maharajah Kumar Sidkeon Namgyal Tulku of Sikkim

In 1879, the first wife of the 9th Maharajah of Sikkm, Thutob Namgyal, gavce birth to their second son, Sidkeon Namgyal, following the birth of a daughter in 1876 and their first son, Tsodag Namgyal in 1878. The Maharani died in childbirth in 1880 and the years that followed were difficult ones for the Maharajah, as the interests of Sikkim clashed with those of the British Empire. Following the conflict of 1888, a British Political Officer was appointed to oversee the administration of Sikkim. The officer selected, John Claude White (1853-1918), was a petty, mean and dominating indiviual who, during the following two decades in which he dominated the state of Sikkim, carried on a long vendetta against both the Maharaja and his son Tsodag Namgyal. John Claude White's successors in the Gantok Residency included some of the outstanding frontier officers of the Biritish empire, men such as Lietenant-Colonel F.M.Bailey (1882-1967) and Lietenant-Colonel Sir W.F.O'Connor (1870-1943), as well as forward thinking and culturally sensitive diplomats such as Sir Charles Bell (1870-1945) and Sir Basil Gould (1883-1956).