Part of National Museums Liverpool
This internationally significant collection of over 2,000 Tibetan objects gives an insight into the lives of British India officers connected to Tibet and the Himalayas.
Currently on display in World Cultures, Level 3, World Museum
Sometimes, correcting mistakes found in the museum’s records leads to new and completely unexpected connections.
Start date: 1903 End date: 1903 Description: The British Mission to Tibet during 1903 and 1904 was an invasion of southern Tibet by British Indian forces on the pretence of negotiating trade relations between Tibet and British India. However, this was instigated primarily in the hope of preventing the Russian Empire from interfering in Tibetan affairs and thus gaining a base in one of the buffer states surrounding British India. The expedition was led by Colonel (later Sir) Francis Younghusband. It had a damaging effect on the British reputation, many Tibetans were killed and monasteries and houses were looted and/or destroyed along the way. The 13th Dalai Lama feld Lhasa before the arrival of the expedition and Younghusband negotiated, a soon to be repelled, convention with the Tibetan government or Kashag in Lhasa that was signed in the Potala on 7 Septmber 1904.
