Partition Stories

I started this blog after an increased interest in my family history.  I wanted to write something a bit different to the ‘how to’ family history blogs.  Lately my posts have taken a different turn, according to how I have been feeling about the world in general.  However, my own family history is particularly relevant at the moment.  And in a far more direct way than usual.  It is seventy years this week since Partition in India.

This anniversary has led to a flurry of articles and documentaries, many of which are making use of testimony from the dwindling number of eye witnesses.  These testimonies have attested to the previous reluctance to discuss what happened during Partition.  But over a million people died and at least fifteen million were displaced. Due to arbitrary lines drawn on maps by the escaping British.

My own paternal family were (are) Anglo-Indian, as mentioned on previous posts.  Their community existed on the fringes of ‘real’ British society.  Mostly Christian, mostly European-dressed but not white, they had developed their own way of life.  (The photo, which has appeared on this blog before, is of my grandmother - in white - at school.)  Their numbers were substantial at this point.  A distant relation of mine, Sir Henry Gidney, had even managed to represent them at the independence negotiations in the Thirties.

But when Independence actually came and Partition happened, the British had little sense of what was about to be unleashed.  The terror, the violence, the frantic movement of millions of people.

Anglo-Indians were endangered by their positions as ‘assistants’ to the British.  But on a day to day basis, they were endangered simply by having to live in a country where random and terrible violence could break out at any time.  Watch some of the documentaries currently on iPlayer and you get a glimpse of hell. 

Some of my family left almost immediately.  My grandfather stuck it out until 1949, two years after Partition.  But then he upped sticks and took flight remarkably quickly.  He, my grandmother, her mother and brother and my father were all on a ship within days of being caught in a riot, by all accounts.  Presumably, in waiting, he had had the relative luxury, not afforded to so many, of being able to plan a little as regards money.  They were not supposed to take much out of the country.  I don't know if he planned the destination but since his sister-in-law was already in the UK, it seems there was a choice not to join his own parents and siblings in New Zealand.

Since my father subsequently married an English girl, I clearly have reason to be grateful for this move.  Who would wish themselves from existence after all?  But in reading the many accounts being published at the moment, I can see that my family were terribly fortunate in many ways.  Although I am sure, in leaving everything they had ever known, it didn’t feel that way.  Their lives in India were comfortable and their position was one of relative privilege in some ways, despite the discrimination and resentment against them.

Partition is a word which has been used thoughtlessly for seventy years now.  It makes it sound like it was a kind of natural phenomenon that a country was summarily split by civil servants.  And as the current wave of comment is finally admitting, the event is still not given the notice or importance that should be attached to it.  Younger generations are barely aware - if at all - that Pakistan is only seventy years old.  You could wonder, for example, how much the arbitrary agreement to  Muslim state in India has contributed ever since to the ideas of Caliphate which fuel Islamic extremists.  If it could happen there, why not elsewhere?  State sponsored religious sectarianism, anyone?

I hope you will take the time to read or watch some of the anniversary pieces.  And take a moment to explain it to your children.  Independence was long overdue but its accomplishment was an appalling example of the kind of governmental arrogance and gung ho which still exists in our world today.  The actions of these ‘players’  reverberate amongst ordinary people for generations.  Just ask those desperate people still trying to escape across the Mediterranean.

British Values Day

Not written for a few weeks as you will have gathered.  Was really not sure what to say after Trump's victory on top of the rest of the weirdness in 2016.  However, I have been shaken from my lethargy by the appearance on our school calendar of 'British Values Day'.

We have not been told what this encompasses but it rang major alarm bells for me in the wake of Brexit.  A friend who is a school governor elsewhere says it's about tolerance and decency and so on and therefore should be embedded more into the curriculum on a daily basis.  She was surprised to see a whole day labelled this way.  As was I.

I come, as my regular reader (not sure if there is plural here!) will know, from an Anglo Indian background on my father's side.  I have done a great deal of family research and general reading about these mixed race people.  Early soldiers and male settlers were actively encouraged to integrate into India by taking native wives.  But the offspring of these partnerships gradually were prevented from marrying white settlers themselves and ended marrying within their own community.  But they were (are) Christian, Europeanised in dress and manners and not well received by the Indian population.  Mainly because the British used the Anglo Indians to prop up their rule of the sub-continent.  Railways, Post Office, telegraph systems, lower civil service levels - the nuts and bolts of the administration.  But socially the Anglo Indians were discriminated against by the British for their colour.  So 'British Values' changed over the course of the occupation of India, to accommodate whatever best suited those trying to maintain the Empire.  These chameleon tendencies are a pattern of all governments - whatever their political flavour - as they seek to control populations and advance their own agendas.

Why, for example, we are now classing basic human characteristics such as tolerance and decency as 'British Values'?  Does our government believe that enforcing a nationalistic tone in schools will drown out the news which our children are bombarded with elsewhere?  Of ministers refusing to help refugees.  Of cuts to all the services which children see around them - from doctors surgeries and hospitals to libraries or museums.  Of open racism.  

'You are British, children.  That is the best thing to be.'  Repeat until you are convinced and ignore the evidence to the contrary.

And how does our media fit into 'British Values'?  The gulf between headlines continues to grow.  The spin taken on different issues varies madly.  If you took your British Values from the Daily Mail, where would you be?  Some of their current stuff is beginning to look horribly like the pre-First World War headlines as regards antagonising Putin and Russia.

I am all for teaching our children tolerance, respect etc.  But in the current climate I am definitely not convinced that adding a 'British' aspect is helpful.

Adolescent Angst

 

On my family tree there are some people who were clearly forced to grow up very quickly.  On every family tree, in fact, there will be ancestors who married young, joined the army young, died of horrible diseases after childhood's blighted with illness.  The ones which stand out on mine are a couple of Anglo-Indian girls who married at 13 or 14 and a pair of brothers who, having lost both parents, were sent, in their early teens, into the army via music scholarships.  Both stayed in the army all of their lives, although only one died in middle age.

 

And now, as I struggle with the beginning of the teenage years for my eldest child, I have begun to question how such ancestors - and the millions like them - managed to begin adult lives so early.  I have been reading quite a lot of articles about teenagers.  My son is a good lad on the whole but there has been that very definite Harry Enfield-esque shift in his manner and attitude.  And, joy, it is only going to get worse.

 

One of the arguments around teenage psychology is about to what extent the 'teenager' is a modern invention.  Some believe that there was no such thing until the 1950s.  That young people went from childhood to dressing like their parents, getting jobs and settling down with nothing in between.  No experimentation, no rebellion.

 

However, the biological and cognitive changes in children between around twelve and seventeen are substantial and surely these cannot be a modern 'invention'.  The changes in their mental abilities during this period are very important for their future lives.  There are all sorts of huge life changes to deal with - all linked to their increasing independence.  And thanks to all of this, they are particularly vulnerable to abuse by others or of substances.

 

So how did our teenage ancestors cope with marriage, work, etc?  Modern Western children could not marry at 13 even if it was legal.  Most are still far too dependent on adults and far too immature in general - despite their attempts to have us believe otherwise via social media!  For example, for my above-mentioned ancestors, I am assuming the girls that married at thirteen then had to run households.  They did not make fantastically wealthy matches and then sit around chatting all day.  My kids can barely keep track of their pocket money or remember to feed the dog!  Actually, maybe despite the faux maturity projected on instagram, etc, possibly we have made teenagers less able to cope.  They are never completely out of contact with us, we drive them everywhere and we agonise over their every grade.

 

I think the 'teenager' definitely is an invention in terms of the recognition, by 1950s advertisers, of the huge marketing potential of the age group.  However, I do think that humans must always have had the attitudes, insecurities and frustrations during this period of their lives.  One of the biggest problems which Marie Antoinette had when she arrived in France, aged 14, to marry the heir to the throne was her own immaturity, capriciousness and tactlessness.   Quite the teen queen.

 

My issue now is how to deal with  these changes, these attitudes without losing communication with my son.  I know it is a phase and I know it will pass.  I just wish I knew when.  To quote Harry Enfield's Kevin, 'It's SO UNFAIR!'

PS my fiction writing efforts are continuing.  My first ever proper short story has been published on Kishboo e-magazine.  If you have a chance, please do read it and vote if you enjoy it!  It has an Anglo-Indian theme, in keeping with my family history interests!

Face it

Last night I was listening to an episode of Lemn Sissay's Homecoming on Radio 4.  Sissay is a Mancunian of Ethiopian origin, a poet and broadcaster.  In yesterday's and the previous episode, he has been looking at the nature of home.  You will find them on the BBC Radio iPlayer.

The programmes are extremely funny but also touching.  Very heartfelt.  He was the only black person for miles around for much of his childhood in Lancashire.  This was what he was discussing last night - the first episode was recorded in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he is descended from.

The idea which struck me in relation to this blog was his assertion that Ethiopians can recognise each other physically, by face shape and cheekbones and so on.  He wondered if this was true for other ethnicities.  And I got to thinking about my own roots (as usual! - it is obviously all about me!).

Sissay mentioned never seeing another Ethiopian in Manchester then getting to London and instantly recognising 'his people'.

So how did this work for Anglo-Indian people during British rule?  I have a strong memory of my father being very uncomfortable around Pakistani and Indian origin people in England when I was a child.  He was brought up to consider himself unlike them.  But in truth, he looked very similar of course.

For the early Anglo-Indians - Eurasians as they were called then - it must have been quite easy to recognise each other.  'Blacky White' (to quote Indian Summers) in colour.  Dressed in European style clothing.  Worshipping as Christians.

I just wonder if full blooded Indians would be able to tell if there was an Anglo Indian in their midst should those people be dressed as Indians.  Is there a face shape unique to the blend of Indian and European?

Looking at the photos I have amassed so far, I think that probably the European blood was already so diluted - by Normans, Vikings, Celts, Slavs, etc - it is not possible to identify an Anglo Indian "look" other than in colour.

Bet there were a few eventually who were blacky white with red hair or blue eyes or whatever.  What a give away, as the Monty Python boys would say.

Read All About It

Today I will be mostly scrambling to finish the book which I am supposed to have read for Book Group this month.  They are meeting at my house too, this time.  So no excuse.  But as I was walking the dog this morning, I was thinking that I really could think of much better things to read.  I do not like the book and with limited time available for reading, I am resenting having to persevere. 

I did also muse about the fact that we are so lucky to be able to read whatever we want, wherever we want, here in First World countries.  Imagine living in a place where learning and reading was restricted.  Many of the recent films for Comic Relief showed African children desperate to get to school, guarding the few books in their possession.  It is terrifying that our world is so unequal.

But how could I link this thought process to a genealogical blog post?  How did my ancestors go about learning to read?  What did they read?  Who taught them?  Of course, the history of education is a huge subject.  Most of us have a vague idea of the increase in child schooling which took place in the Victorian period.  We know that people used to leave school at much younger ages.  We have some idea of the rise of public libraries and we know that books used to be the preserve of the rich.

To narrow it down for this post though, I wondered about the schooling arrangements made for the Anglo Indian children.  The English soldier of the 30th Foot, Joseph Shaller, who took my family line to India, had four children with his Indian partner [the children are all listed as illegitimate].  Three of them were still alive when he himself died in 1822.  And thanks to the work of historian Carole Divall, I have, as previously discussed, managed to find original documents in the National Archives which contain those children's signatures.  Their handwriting was neat and legible.  They were clearly educated.  An assumption born out by the two boys' subsequent forays into teaching and the church as professions.

In the regimental diaries examined by Ms Divall, the number of "wives" and children with the battalion are shown for most months' entries.  In 1811, the Duke of York started a regimental school system and over the following century, teachers were recruited by the Army and sent all over the globe to teach both British soldiers and their children.  Apparently, it was quite usual for the sons of soldiers to end up joining the same regiment as their father so it was a good reason for spending money on their education, be they white or otherwise. 

Interestingly, although I do have other ancestors for whom this was the case, on this particular line it appears that their father's premature death [from illness rather than army action] led them to be taken up by a missionary society rather than joining the army.  So their reading matter was more than likely of a religious theme.  However, they had definitely taken advantage of the army education offered prior this and actually, the arrival of an education officer is mentioned in the diary. 

For Anglo Indian children, education also set them above full blood Indians to an extent.  Not in terms of colour discrimination socially but in terms of their usefulness to the British.  By the height of the Raj, Anglo Indian descendants populated the majority of the posts in civil service, the railways, the telegraph office and so on.  Positions of a certain responsibility but rarely allowed to be full in charge.  Relied on by the British because of their Christian, beholden upbringings yet not fully treated as equals.  Certainly, my grandparents received brilliant educations, at schools still well regarded.

Of course, this is a very minor happening in thousands of years of human education history.  Yet as can be seen now in Africa and other underdeveloped areas or in deprived areas of the First World countries, education is key to moving onwards and upwards for any person or for society as a whole.  Look at India now - the gaps between the educated castes and the others.

So I am going to try to be grateful for my excellent education, for my many life chances and for my easily-fed love of reading, even if it means reading The Geography of Bliss by tomorrow.  However, I do not recommend it....

Note:  Nor do I recommend falling asleep whilst lying in bed reading a Kindle.  Woke with a start to a fat lip as it fell on my face.....

The State of the Union

Today is the climax to the Six Nations Rugby Championship of course and I find myself a rugby widow for the day.  To be fair, this is a rare event.  It takes quite some important rugby event to persuade my husband to change his football habits.  [The lure of beer all day definitely helped his decision, I believe.]

 

However, when he does switch, he always supports Ireland.  He was born in the UK but, as whittered about in previous posts, he has Irish parents.  He will support England ahead of the others in a championship though if Ireland are not in the running.  There is a table of precedence, you understand...

 

And as I listened to the coverage on Chris Evans' Radio 2 show yesterday on the various points combinations needed to establish a winner today, I did wonder how these competitions work in other families.  In my family alone, I have an Anglo-Indian father who supports England with every fibre, a Scottish stepfather and a Scottish sister in law who are both highly patriotic but also mad keen Celtic fans for the football which links to their Catholic heritage.  This is a loyalty shared by my Irish Catholic husband.  He supports Middlesbrough as well, for his sins.  Are you keeping up with this? 

 

My nephew was born in England but, at three, for the sake of diplomacy, has to be dressed alternately in Scottish and England outfits in order to keep all grandparents happy.  His Scottish grandfather, my brother's father in law, is as Scottish as they make them for sporting loyalties.  Yet he voted against Scottish independence.  My brother continually treads a fine line of popularity with his in-laws due to his Englishness.  My step sister of course has a Scottish father but has an English mother.  I really must ask her where her loyalties lie on these occasions! 

 

And the thing is, I don't think we are that unusual these days.  A good friend has set off for Murrayfield today with her seven year old.  She is Scottish through and through but her son remembers only England.  And her husband is Northern Irish...  I could give many other examples.

 

The first rugby international took place in 1871 between Scotland (see picture above) and England.  And presumably, in ordinary families, this was an event only mentioned in the newspapers.  Not something to be thinking about and cheering or arguing about. 

 

It took around a hundred years, with the advent of the 1970s television coverage, for the Six Nations to gain huge popularity, although as far as I can work out, some matches were televised from as early as 1948 - whether rugby league or union.  As a child of the 1970s with a rugby mad father, I have vivid memories of him settling himself down for a good old shout at the TV, be it for the Six Nations or England v New Zealand All Blacks or whatever.

 

As our families have fractured with the increase in geographical and social mobility over the last 150 years, maybe the improvement in communications has allowed us to reinforce our sense of belonging to something wider via sporting loyalty.  (For rugby at least, it seems quite good natured.  I may be wrong.)  We can feel part of a wider picture, wherever we are in the world.  As for me, I do support England - it is what I was brought up on.  However, for the sake of Anglo Irish peace in our house, I will refrain from any match analysis, whatever the result today!

 

Racist Superiority

 

I have been trying for a few days now to write a post about Indian Summers, the new Channel Four drama series, based in 1930s British India.  I felt somehow that I ought to, given my family interest.

But there has been a great deal of comment already though.  Be it travelogues on Shimla where the series is set, travelogues on the places in Malaysia which actually doubled for vintage Shimla, pieces about the cast, the missionaries, the administration of British India.  Many British India chat rooms have been buzzing with the why's and where's, the authenticity and so on.

 

And you know, despite my many posts about adding colour and "feeling" to your family tree, somehow Indian Summers has felt far too close to home for me.  A step to far in seeing how things really were, seeing the segregation of British India up close and personal. 

My Anglo Indian grandmother and great aunt had referred occasionally to stories which showed the casual racism with which they had lived in British India.  Disturbing stories like going to a British club and being turned away because of the skin colour line on the sides of their hands, which were checked at the door.  Or because their voices "gave them away" as Anglo Indian.

Indian Summers puts this racism right out there for all to see.  The Royal Shimla Club was shown with a sign saying "No Dogs, No Indians", British characters casually refer to "blacky whites" for the Anglo Indian children of the nearby orphanage, the awful humiliation of an Indian civil servant invited to a British evening party.  Just a few examples. 

 

Then, today, I was listening to Desert Island Discs and the guest was Bryan Stevenson, an African American law professor and civil rights campaigner.  He was discussing the lack of "truth and reconciliation" in the US, after slavery ended, after the white supremacist terrorist activities or even after the civil rights battles of his own lifetime.  He talked eloquently of what he is up against but one story which struck me was of Stevenson was sitting, waiting, dressed in a suit, at the counsel table in a courtroom.  The judge and prosecutor came into the courtroom and immediately told him to get out, saying he had no right to be at counsel table without his lawyer.  Bryan Stevenson said that he told them who he was and they both laughed but offering no apology.  Stevenson forced himself to laugh along because he did not want to prejudice his client's case.  The client he was waiting to defend was white...  He said that it really made him think about the state of the nation - that it should be so completely assumed that the lawyer could not be the black man.

 

It could be a story straight out of Indian Summers, straight from the heart of British India.  And yet it is 21st century America.  One in three African American boy babies is now likely to go to jail at some time in their lives.  This statistic is the worst it has ever been.

 

In South Africa, the "truth and reconciliation" process referred to by Bryan Stevenson was aimed at allowing the two sides of apartheid to come together and talk and hopefully to move on and live in some kind of harmony.  By simply packing up and leaving, the British avoided the need for this in India.  To them, they were at the top of the heap and everyone "beneath" was one and the same.  All Indians, all as bad as each other, despite the Anglo Indians' attempts to "be British" and despite the many religious differences in the nation.  Indian Summers has, I think, done a fair job of showing this endemic feeling of superiority, shocking though it is to watch.  But what is more shocking is that in so many places in the world, the same attitudes still prevail. 

 

Do listen to Bryan Stevenson if  you have a chance.  It is a fantastic programme.  And incidentally, take care when Googling.. Turns out there is a US porn star called India Summers.....!

Mental Family History

 

 

Well once again it is a worryingly long time since I sat down to write.  Between half term and puppy training, I am just incapable of getting off the sofa to sit down and think by the evenings and there has not been a spare minute during the days.  The modern problem.  Every magazine and Sunday supplement seems to have articles about being happier, getting more time, making time for people who matter to you, being more relaxed, blah blah.....

However, since this is a family history related blog, it occurred to me that it would be interesting to be able to understand how many of these "problems" are indeed a modern issue.  Every age must have had its problems.  Maybe it is simply that they did not have names for the problems a century  or so ago.

In part, I wanted to write this post because it was announced a couple of weeks ago that thousands of mental health records, dating back to the eighteenth century, are to be put online.  It will not be via the subscription sites so you may not be aware of it.  This link will take you to the article relating to the release.  From there, you can link to the various organisations involved in this fascinating project.  It looks like there will be a mass of information available eventually - and not just from London hospitals either.

http://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/news/over-800000-pages-mental-health-records-go-online

 

On a personal note though, for the past ten years, I myself have battled mild depression.  Sometimes it does not feel so mild, to be sure, but in comparison with what many people suffer, I guess it is mild.  So I do have quite an interest in all the "be happier" articles and I have done a lot of work with a fantastic therapist (now, sadly for me, retired.  I am sure she is quite relieved!).  I have an even stronger interest in the idea of a family link with depression because I was always told that my paternal grandmother was a "manic depressive".  In modern terms, this is now known as Bipolar Disorder and everything I have read points to a strong genetic link for the condition.  Family history is very important in diagnosis.  Stephen Fry, above, is bipolar and has done a huge amount to publicise the condition. He is president of MIND.

I have always wondered about my great grandparents and even further back on that side.  Certainly my grandmother suffered quite extreme symptoms in later life - the main characteristic of the condition is mood swings - and was then subjected to quite extreme electric shock treatment in attempts to ease her situation.  [She died very suddenly of a heart attack at a relatively young age - I also wonder about the link between that and the stress that the shock treatment must have put her heart under but I need to really understand the treatment more...]

Unfortunately, at first glance, it does not look like I will find my grandmother's records in the new release.  I don't think her era will be released - too modern.  And my age old problem, as regular readers will know, is that my paternal side were Anglo Indian so finding their medical records in India is not going to be easy - in fact is probably impossible unless they were in the army.  The relevant paternal great grandmother did die in the UK though, so maybe I should start with her death certificate and see if that holds any clues.  I did meet her when I was very little but I have no clear memory of her.  (Although I do recall being given an old handbag of hers when her things were cleared out - it was red and it was in my dressing up box for years!)

 

Sadly for my grandmother, these days Bipolar Disorder is much better recognised and is treated mainly with various medication, therapy and lifestyle advice to deal with drink/drug/sleep/weight issues.  It was only in the 1980s that she was properly diagnosed, I believe.  There is reference, in the articles that I have read about the disorder, to recognising "triggers" which would bring on episodes of extreme behaviour - be it mania or  a real low.   I do recall mention of "triggers" when my parents tried to explain to me about Nana's illness.  I think her own siblings were a major trigger but I have never properly asked my father about this.  I think I need to get brave and find out.

 

I suppose, given my own recent history, one could be worried that one may develop Bipolar, given the family link.  After all, we do worry about our own future's if a relative is diagnosed with cancer or heart disease.  However, I do believe that Nana suffered so much in part because of ignorance of the condition. Maybe, for example, like myself, symptoms started years before - post natal like my own or even before.  If mild symptoms had been treated, maybe the condition would not have gone as far as it did.  Sad but highly likely, I believe.  Nana certainly had huge life changes in her time - children, issues with her family, leaving India after Partition, to name but a few - and I know only too well that for some people, change has to be carefully managed.

 

So maybe there is a place in the modern age for all the self help articles.  We do now have names for things and we do have an awareness of lifestyle choices and how they affect our mental well being.  That does not, of course, mean that we always follow the "path of good".  Personally, I self medicate with Maltesers quite a lot of the time.....

Be My Guest

 

 

This last week, every time I have sat down to write, something has interrupted me.  Stuff completely beyond my control but I do apologise for the silence (although maybe you were relieved). 

 

However, I have been attempting to write a post about my great great great grandfather Edward Guest.  I was even going through my notes as I sat waiting in A&E after my son sustained a footballing injury - not serious incidentally, I am not completely heartless!  So here, finally, is the tale of Edward Guest... 

I knew that one of my paternal great great grandmothers had been Annie Jane Guest and from her marriage and baptism details, I knew that her father was called Edward.  Until last year, however, I had not pursued this line of inquiry very far.  Reading a back copy of a  Families In British India Society (FIBIS) journal though, I came across a mention of an Edward Guest.  The article's author Dorota Walker was a British Library employee and had been engaged in research in areas of the library's resources outside of the India Office collections.  [These are the collections that relate to the entire period of British rule in India - the East India Company, the Empire and all their records.  Follow this link for details.]

Anyway, she had stumbled upon two volumes from the papers of a Sir Charles Napier relating to his time with the Indian Army.  Some related to the 22nd Regiment of Foot and amongst them was a permit for a Private Edward Guest.  From her description of him and from the follow up work I was able to do, I am sure that this was my ancestor.

Edward Guest was born in Belfast in 1808.  A labourer by trade, he signed up for the army in 1825 and joined the 41st Regiment of Foot.  He served in Burma, Afghanistan and Madras apparently.  There are records relating to him in the National Archives though and these concern three court martials.  Two in 1834 for drunkenness and theft.  He served three months in solitary the first time.  The theft charge brought a sentence of fourteen years "transportation" but this ruling was overturned for, as yet, unknown reasons.  Makes one wonder what he stole!  The court martial papers for these two appearances can be seen at the FIBIS website.

 

The third was in 1839, again for drunkenness.  According to the FIBIS article, this resulted in the loss of a Good Conduct badge - I could not find this note.  In the meantime, he had married, in 1837, an "Indo Briton" (ie an Anglo Indian) woman named Amelia Emsley.  The marriage record states that she was fifteen - her baptism record suggests that she was probably thirteen... shocking to us now but not unusual then.  Her father Joseph Emsley had also been in the 41st Foot and the Emsleys were a large family.

Between 1838 and 1861, Amelia and Edward had at least eight children - I suspect there may be others as yet untraced as there are some long gaps between them.  Five children were living when Guest made his first petition in around 1850.  He had been discharged from the army in 1846 (having transferred to the 22nd Regiment of Foot in 1843 in order to remain with his family when the 41st returned to England).  "Extreme ill health" was cited.  He then managed to get a permit to open a stall in the bazar [market] of the 22nd Foot - selling anything but alcohol!  The pension award is also shown on FIBIS - 26 April 1846.  However, in 1848 his pension was withdrawn - it looks like drunkenness is given as the reason for this....

Ex-Private Guest must have been desperate at this point.  He obviously had issues with alcohol - a common problem in the army in India in the nineteenth century as it was not exactly a stimulating posting - Billy Connolly's Who Do You Think You Are? gave further details of British India army life recently and it left a lot to be desired!  He managed for two years but then tried and failed to get his pension reinstated in 1850.  In 1854 he wrote to Sir Charles Napier and even to the Duke of Wellington [hence the tenuous use of his picture above! - I could not identify the correct uniform for Guest - when you Google, you get lots of re-enactment society snaps...].  There are no records pertaining to the result of this second attempt.

At my great great grandmother Annie Jane's birth in 1858, Guest is listed as "a discharged soldier of the 41st Regiment of Foot".  Then in 1860, he died on 10 September of "ebritas".  If you were watching the  Billy Connolly WDYTYA episode, you may remember that this is alcoholism.  He was buried a day later, aged around 52.  [As an even sadder postscript, his youngest daughter Isabella Bedelia was born in 1861.  Her father is listed as the "late Edward Guest".  She herself only lived for a year.]

By my calculation, my 3 x great grandmother Amelia was then left with at least three children who would still have been dependent, including my toddler great, great grandmother.  In 1860, Amelia also lost her father Joseph, then aged 72, to dysentery.  Her mother had died in 1841.

 

In a move typical of the times in which she lived, Amelia Guest almost immediately remarried.  Another soldier, Daniel Liffick.  He had been widowed only months before he married Amelia in June 1861 but it would seem to have given both of them a form of security as he too had young children to cope with.  However, in 1870, Daniel Liffick - by then working as a guard on the Great Indian Peninsula Railway - died of "an accidental gunshot wound to the chest" according to his death record.  I am still looking into this - not that he is directly related to me, of course but as previous readers of the blog will know, I find it hard to resist a detour when an interesting story awaits!

 

So it just goes to show what information is out there about apparently lowly relatives.  We can find chapter and verse about the Duke of Wellington of course (although I prefer to think of him as Stephen Fry played him in Blackadder The Third!) but Edward Guest, Joseph Emsley and Daniel Liffick were in the lowest ranks of the British Army and there is far more available to find then I ever thought would be possible.  Incidentally, if you want to make a start with military records, the National Archives are the best place to begin but the various chat forums such as Victorian Wars are also very good.

We're all going on a [Permanent] Holiday

One of the few mentions that my father made, during my childhood, of his Anglo Indian Roots was his claim to have "arrived on the same boat as Cliff Richard".  This is a claim that had long puzzled me as my father was three and a half when he and my grandparents took flight from India.  How did he know?  Had he read it somewhere?  Did my grandmother make friends with the family?!  I knew that my father had a vague memory of the Suez Canal but fellow passengers??  Well, thanks once again to the wonders of modern technology, I have been able to sort this little family tale out...

Cliff - aka Harry Rodger Webb - arrived in the UK from India by P&O boat but according to the amazing immigration records which are now available online, it seems that he arrived in 1948 to my father's 1949.  Furthermore, my father was on the SS Mooltan and Harry/Cliff was on the SS Ranchi.  So far, so myth...

However, Wikipedia claims that Cliff gets his dark colouring from a Spanish great great grandmother.  Hmmmm....

It must be remembered that Cliff became famous in the late 1950s.  He had been born in 1940 and by his late teens was doing his best Elvis impressions for British audiences (sorry, I know he has national treasure status...).  This was the time when my father was enduring, as far as I have been able to establish, quite a lot of racism in his adopted home town.  There had not yet been a great influx of immigrants and the Anglo Indians looked undeniably different.

So it is not unreasonable to surmise that any Anglo Indian in "Cliff" was glossed over.  After all, the same had been done much earlier in the century for Hollywood star Merle Oberon.  Looking at the few bits of available family history for Cliff, one can find the person listed on Wikipedia as Spanish using Find My Past.  Since she married a Smith, though, I have decided not to put any more time into trying to prove my Anglo Indian theory!  What is definitely true is that there were a lot of Anglo Indian Christian families with Spanish sounding names because they were (are) descended from Portuguese/Indian liaisons and marriages in the nineteenth century.  Santos, de Cruz and others are all often in the records....

If this is true, it is a great shame that Harry Webb, on becoming "Cliff Richard" felt unable to stand up for his roots.  It is entirely a product of the times of course and one can understand why he would have done it.  I do wish they could get him onto Who Do you Think you Are? though!  Be nice to know if I am right.  My father, of course, is convinced Cliff is Anglo Indian. 

And on a related subject, if you have even the slightest suspicion that your relations may have emigrated/immigrated/travelled abroad by ship, do look into the travel records available online.  Most have original images of the ships' registers.  These give passenger names, professions, ages, address that they are going to and lots of other useful information. 

If you want a "celebrity sighting", search for Harry Rodger Webb and there is "Cliff" and his whole family, arriving for a new life in 1948, a year after the Partition of India.  Good job that he did, my mother would have missed out on her first teen crush - maybe I had better check the photos to see just how similar Dad and Cliff were....

Great (Travel) Expectations

The school holidays are upon us once again.  The mind automatically turns to travel (even though one is not going far this year!).  Everyone is talking about where they are going, how they will get there and what they will see when they arrive.

We know so much about so many places these days.  Often, before we arrive at our destination, we have made restaurant bookings, booked outings, even taken virtual tours of our hotels or the sights around the area.  There are, of course, many places where you might not know quite how it will be upon arrival, even in these highly internet connected days - the Antarctic, the desert, the jungle, certain bars (!).  However, for most people, they do at least have some idea what they can expect once they have booked a holiday.  And you tend to want to talk to your travel company if your travels do not live up to these expectations!

Which leads to one to wonder what it must have been like to take months to get somewhere whilst all that time not knowing what you are in for.  One of my ancestors joined the army in around 1804, when Napoleon was emperor of France, George III (the one who lost the plot somewhat) was on the British throne and the general population really had no concept of foreign travel.

Joseph was a "staymaker" from London (ie he made corsets!).  On the enlistment roll, no reason for joining up is given but he joined the 30th Regiment of Foot, the Cambridgeshires - as mentioned on a previous post.  By April 1806 he was on his way to serve in India. 

It would have taken four to six months to get there at least - actually the battalion stopped to help with the taking of the Cape of Good Hope on the way!  The conditions on the ship must have been awful.  And then there was the worry of what awaited him and for how long.

As it happened, Joseph never saw England again.  The First Battalion 30th Foot remained in India until 1829.  Much to their frustration, it seems.  Life in India was hard and there were long periods of tedious garrison duties.  Their opposite numbers in the Second Battalion got to fight in the Napoleonic Wars... far more exciting for professional soldiers presumably.

The picture above shows Cannanore (also called Kannur) in South Western in India - in Kerala, actually.  The regiment had landed in Eastern India and had lived and worked on that side of India since arrival.  However, in autumn 1811, they were ordered to march (!) to the strategically important Cannanore.

It was in Cannanore that Joseph's eldest two year old son, who had apparently accompanied the regiment, died and his second son was born.  Joseph himself died in Hydrabad (back on the east coast again) in 1822, having worked his way up to Sergeant and had four Anglo-Indian children along the way. 

Imagine taking months to get somewhere that you have not even seen in a picture.  Imagine finally making a life there and then being ordered to walk hundreds of miles to start all over again.  Actually, it is hardly possible to imagine, for most of us.

The idea of international travel is taken for granted these days.  You only have to look at the list of the poor passengers on the Malaysian airliner that was apparently shot down this week.  They were (mostly) not on the way to start completely new lives in unknown lands.  They were holiday makers, people travelling for work, people visiting family or friends.  Short, planned trips that would have been laughably impossible in 1811.

We are very lucky to have such opportunities as those people thought they were taking - to travel, experience new places whilst being able to return to easily to our roots if we so wish.  It is unbelievably sad for those families who have lost their loved ones this week that what should have been easy and routine travel has ended in tragedy.

Into the Unknown

This ship is the SS Strathaird.  It is shown on a postcard sent by my great aunt to my grandfather as she and her family left India forever in December 1948 - on this very ship.  Their parents, siblings and friends were also leaving.  My grandfather lasted for another six months in the increasing chaos and violence of the Partition of India before he too booked passage for his family.  They were Anglo Indian - mixed race Christians abandoned by the British administration.

As discussed in yesterday's post, we now live in a world where we can see and hear about events all over the world.  We can watch amazing sporting achievements, royal weddings and Hollywood ceremonies as they happen.  Sadly we can also see bombs falling, people dying, refugees fleeing and any number of other terrible events.

I am currently reading India Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire by Alex von Tunzelmann1.  I wanted to start to have some understanding of the events which drove my family to leave their home of many generations to start new lives in countries which were completely alien to them.

The more I read about Partition, the more outraged I have become.  Not even particularly on behalf of my own Anglo-Indian relatives.  Just generally outraged for all involved (well, my nickname at college was Millie Tant...!).

At the end of May 1947, the British government - struggling against a tide of debt and misery in the wake of the 1945 peace - approved a plan which would carve up India and create a new country - Pakistan.  On 3 June, this plan was announced to the leaders of the many factions involved - the Hindu dominated Congress, the Muslim League, the Sikhs, the Anglo Indians, the many rulers of princely states, etc.  And at that meeting it was sprung upon them that Britain would be handing over power on 15 August 1947.  Not June 1948 as everybody had thought.  In just ten weeks time the British were expecting two new governments to have been created to govern two huge states, each with massive mixed and volatile populations.

It seems quite incredible that the British government got away with this.  Indian Summer details the fear of outside influence from the US, Russia, China and others; the concern about Pakistan becoming a focal point for an increasing hegemony of Islamists; the worries about the strategic position of Afghanistan and the ambitions of its rulers.  Is this all sounding horribly familiar?

We all watch rolling news broadcasts of wars and refugees.  My family were luckier than most that we see in, say, Syria.  They had British passports already; they had European lifestyles. They left with nothing though.  My grandfather ended up in Coventry simply because he had met one British man in the same line of trade (telecoms) and he had his business card.  Two of my great aunts went to New Zealand followed by my great grandparents.  To my knowledge, my grandfather never saw his parents again, although they did not die until at least twenty years later.

This post is not about the rights and wrongs of immigration; it is about how the human stories get lost in sweeping generalisations made by governments.  It was right that India was given independence.  It was not right to think that such a delicate operation could be carried out in ten weeks.  

 

1. India Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire - Alex von Tunzelmann (Simon&Schuster 2007; Pocket Books 2008)

Genealogy and the Bottle

My name is Deb and I am a family history addict.  There.  I have said it now.  A private hobby is now in the public domain....

I have apparently been interested in genealogy for even longer than I can remember.  I know this because when moving house a couple of years ago, I discovered two family trees which I had drawn as a child!  Clearly I had some idea of research methods as I appear to have interviewed my paternal grandmother at some point in the process.  And I know this because the tree contained her mother's maiden name - a name which my father swore blind he could not remember....

Anyway, over the course of the last few years, family tree building has become a real passion.  My rare free time is happiest spent poring over online services, visiting libraries and even (most indulgent of all) some child free time away to visit the British Library and National Archives.

As a child, I was aware that my father’s family were from India.  I could obviously tell that some of them were relatively dark skinned.  I knew that my brother and I tanned easily.  I was used to curry being served as Sunday lunch occasionally and I could tell that my grandparents and their siblings’ voices all had a particular sound to them.

However, I never questioned the family set up at all.  They liked Indian food, yes, they looked slightly Asian but they were all Methodists.  As I got older, I became aware that they all could be quite racist themselves.  They dressed in European clothes (in fact my grandmother was always immaculately turned out).  Their time in India was rarely referred to and if it was, it was in a kind of “when we were abroad” fashion.  They were all hugely patriotic and the Queen’s Speech at Christmas was a sacred time of silence if my grandparents were with us.

It was only as I got older that I began to look for answers.  This was when I first heard the term “Anglo-Indian”.  I suspect it was my mother who explained.  She herself was born and bred in England but I cannot believe that my father would have volunteered any information so I presume it was my mother who first explained.

I seem to remember the Anglo-Indians being explained as “not Indian and not British”.   I was told how various white folks had married (or so I presumed in my innocence!) Indians and had produced mixed race children.  The mixed race offspring had then begun to marry each other because neither the whites nor the Indians had wanted to marry them.  A child’s eye view of the Anglo-Indian situation clearly but as good a starting point as any.

The thing that began increasingly to interest me was the idea of when exactly the fully white people appeared on my family tree.  My father is quite dark skinned as was his father.  However, his mother was relatively fair skinned.  Apart from our tanning capacity, my brother and I looked very much like our cousins on our mother’s side – very blonde and blue eyed as toddlers.  And then there was my father’s cousin’s children – two dark and one like my brother and I, colouring-wise.  So how far back would I have to go to find this original “coupling” (to paraphrase Gwyneth Paltrow)?

My brother has asked how long our tree is going to take me to finish.  My answer? "How long is a piece of string?"....