This study of famines, earthquakes and cyclones in British India, 1770-1934, moves from the aesthetics of representation through the knowledge cultures that sprang up around the disasters and finally the construction of the helpless native and the labouring Englishman. It studies the creation of imperial networks of knowledge acquisition, codification and training, as well as the employment of certain aesthetic modes when speaking of the land’s disasters. It pays attention to the categorization of the disaster victims and the work of the Englishman in understanding and helping the native. The study shows how the disasters were shaped and were shaped by imperial discourses of knowledge and learning, aesthetics of fright and horror and the labouring English.