Untold lives blog

In the days of the British Empire, North-East India provided temporary homes to a handful of European women, all with a common fascination for the Naga people.  The Nagas are a group of indigenous hill people, of Mongoloid origin, speaking diverse languages who shared a warrior culture prior to the imposition of the British administration.

Apart from the American Baptist missionary, Mary Mead Clark, these women were linked to British government representatives, military or political.  Some left written accounts, the best known being the books of Ursula Graham Bower.  These accounts cover events and comment on the people amongst whom they lived.  As such they have a historical and ethnographic value.  One of these is the diary of Connie Shakespear.  She writes of her time in the Naga Hills in 1900-1902 and includes photographs.  The world of amateur photography had just dawned; hand-held cameras were now available.  She and her husband captured traditional village culture in the Naga Hills, hardly altered for centuries, before the great social and cultural changes brought about by Baptist missions.  This unique record sets Connie’s work apart.

'Gwasen and his protege. Themakodima village. February 1902’ – image copyright of author

Connie comments on graves, dress, custom and ‘court proceedings’. Examples of her observation and description abound, such as:
‘… the unfailing good temper of the people.  I have never yet seen any exhibition of bad temper among them, no children quarrelling or fighting, no angry mothers scolding or cuffing their children, nor, as I say, any quarrelling at all, nothing but good temper and good will’.

'Mithun and group at Ghuckia's village' January 1901 – image copyright of author

Another example: ‘The Judge was a fine old fellow who standing up was haranguing the Court, (lines of men seated opposite him on the opposite bank of the street) and pointing each period of his speech by a violent dig of the spear he held in his hand into the mud in the middle of the street’.

Although Connie held the imperial mindset of her time, her ability to interact with Naga villagers, and with some individuals particularly, show a respect and a feeling for shared humanity.

Ayo and Impi -– image copyright of author

Bidding farewell to Ayo from Tamlu she writes: ‘It was quite touching.  He explained how, having his photo I should go into many countries but could always look at this and say “this is Ayo”.  He expressed his regret in many quaint little ways, and then finally laying one hand on my shoulder, and the other on my chest, with this sort of embrace he turned away, and we went our several ways’.

Moimang and Ayo, Lengta Nagas, Tamlu, February 1902 – image copyright of author

Although not in the same bracket as her cousin John Shakespear (1774–1858), who wrote on the peoples of the Lushai Hills, Connie’s photographs and writing are interesting for what they tell us of the lives of the Naga people then.  Her diary shows her love for the Naga Hills and enduring respect and feelings for the Naga people which she shared with the other ladies, notably Ursula Graham Bower, Mildred Archer and Mary Clark.

CC-BY
Nigel Shakespear
The Highland Institute, Fellow

Creative Commons Attribution licence

Further reading:
Connie Shakespear, The Diary of Connie Shakespear The Naga Hills 1900-1902 (Highlander Press, 2021)
Ursula Graham Bower, Naga Path (John Murray, 1950)
Mary Mead Clark, A Corner in India (American Baptist Publication Society, 1907)

On 30 December 1776 the Sherborne Mercury carried an advertisement for ‘a proper New-Years Gift for every Maid Servant’.  Employers were encouraged to buy Madam Johnson’s Present: Or, Every Young Woman’s Companion, in useful and universal Knowledge.

Advert for Madam Johnson's Present - Sherborne Mercury 30 December 1776 (British Newspaper Archive)

Madam Johnson’s Present was first published in 1753 and had reached its seventh edition by 1776.  The compiler kept the price low ‘out of her benevolence’ (1s 6d in 1776), and the book was said to contain twice as many pages as were usually sold for that amount.

Contents page for the fourth edition of Madam Johnson's Present 1770

The companion claimed to be the ‘Completest Book of the Kind ever published’.  It opened with a preface reflecting on the duties of servants, who should ‘take into their serious Consideration that low State of Life in which Providence has placed them, and the several little menial Offices, which they must, and ought without Reluctance, to perform’.  Servants should be grateful to their superiors who employed them, and be ‘very Industrious, Faithful, and Honest in every Trust reposed in them’.

Madam Johnson's Present - the duties of servants

This was followed by a ten-page ‘Short Dissertation on the Benefits of Learning, and a well-directed Female Education’.

Then came these sections:
• Spelling, reading, writing and arithmetic – this covered the alphabet; diphthongs and triphthongs; syllables; punctuation; writing with a pen; sample letters on different subjects; addition; subtraction; multiplication; division; time; measures for wine, beer, ale, dry goods, cloth and land; weights.

Madam Johnson's Present - 'The Young Woman's Guide to the Knowledge of her Mother Tongue'

• ‘The Compleat Market Woman' - instructions for ‘the judicious choice of all kinds of provisions’ including meat, poultry and game; butter, cheese and eggs; fish and seafood.

• A cook’s guide to ‘dressing’ provisions – roasting, boiling, and frying; cooking vegetables, with a warning about over-boiling greens which destroys their beauty and sweetness.

Madam Johnson's Present - instructions about greens

• A cook’s guide to pickling and potting, pastry and confectionery - making puddings, pies, tarts, gravies, soups (including egg soup), and sausages; baking cakes, gingerbread, macaroons, buns, and wigs (a type of teacake); making cheesecakes, creams, jellies, and syllabubs.

Madam Johnson's Present - how to make an egg soup

• An estimate of the expenditure of a family on the middling station of life – man, wife, four children, and one maidservant.

Madam Johnson's Present - An estimate of the expenditure of a family on the middling station of life – man, wife, four children, and one maidservant.

• The Art and Terms of Carving Fish, Fowl, and Flesh e.g. ‘Disfigure that Peacock’, ‘Splat that Pike’.

Madam Johnson's Present - terms for carving meat poultry game and fish

• A bill of fare for every month of the year for dinner, supper, and special occasions.
• An instructor for the correct spelling of words used in marketing, cookery, pickling, preserving etc.
• Plain and necessary general directions to maidservants - practical advice for the daily duties of housemaids, kitchenmaids, laundrymaids, and chambermaids, instructions on how to kill rats, bugs, and fleas, and clear flies and gnats; how to protect poultry from foxes and weasels; and a remedy for toothache and and ‘Scurvey in the Gums’ which involved a butcher’s skewer and gunpowder.

Madam Johnson's Present - treatment for toothache and scurvy in the gums

• Useful tables of information, including one for the most ‘familiar’ names of men and women. I was not expecting some of those listed for men – Sigismund, Caesar, Dunstan, Urban.

Madam Johnson's Present - most familiar names of men and women

Happy New Year! Time to celebrate with a bowl of egg soup and a wig.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Enjoy puzzles?  Try researching women hand bookbinders in the early 1900s!  ‘Lady binders’ was a hot topic in newspapers, but they tended to work for a restricted period, their careers cut short by various events including marriage (which usually involved a change of surname) and the social and economic upheavals of the First World War.

In careers articles and exhibition reviews, women binders are often referred to as ‘Miss’ plus surname.  Miss M. Marshall, the binder of Library’s newly acquired copy of William Morris's Poems (1908) has proved difficult to research, but we can reveal her identity.

Gold tooled green goatskin binding by M. Marshall on William Morris, Poems, 1908 (shelf mark to be assigned).

In an electoral register for London’s Holborn 1907-1908, a Maud Marshall is shown as joint occupier of a shop at 6 Denmark Street with Edith Gedye, who was a bookbinder.  Maud’s residential address is given as 18 Blomfield Street, Paddington. Through this address, Maud Marshall the bookbinder can be linked to her siblings Mary Crawford Marshall and Angus McPherson Marshall who were living there at the time of the 1911 census.  Mary was born in Yokohama, Japan.  In 1911, bookbinder Maud Marshall was living in Claygate, Surrey, and her place of birth was Japan.

Emily Maud Marshall was born on 12 January 1869 in Yokohama, the daughter of merchant William Marshall and his wife Clementina Strachan née McLean.  Her father died suddenly at Yokohama on 4 September 1873 and the family returned to England.  Clementina died in 1900.

Based in London during the first decade of the 20th century, Maud Marshall worked as a bookbinder in collaboration with Edith Gedye.  Their binding styles were influenced by William Morris and T. J. Cobden-Sanderson's Arts and Crafts movement (as were many contemporary hand binders) but it is not known who taught them.  The pair exhibited their bindings at Arts & Crafts Exhibition Society shows in 1903 and 1906.  From 1904 to 1907, the book seller Bain helped them sell their work.  Newspaper articles indicate that they submitted their bindings to many amateur and professional competitions, and they regularly received first prizes, certificates and honorable mentions.

Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society - catalogue of the seventh exhibition, the New Gallery, 121 Regent St. 1903. Images from Internet Archive. Digitised book from the collections of the Archive of Art and Design, Victoria and Albert Museum, uploaded by V&A staff.

Maud Marshall contributed a piece on bookbinding to The Fingerpost. A guide to the professions and occupations of educated women first published in 1906.  She wrote: ‘Of the many careers opened of late years to women, bookbinding is perhaps the one most attractive in point of interest, combining as it does physical, mental and artistic effort.  Whether it is a lucrative career must depend entirely upon the individual’.

A career in artistic bookbinding could certainly be an uphill struggle for women, as emphasised in this article from The Queen.

The Queen 28 May 1910 p.42 British Newspaper Archive

Gedye and Marshall offered lessons in bookbinding.  This not only provided an increased income stream for the business but also gave experience to those not otherwise able to learn the craft (notably women who were not usually eligible for apprenticeships).  They also devised a way of obtaining patronage from country house owners by offering to bind together family correspondence and supplying albums to be used for visitors’ books.

Country Life 19 December 1903 lxiv British Newspaper Archive

In 1910 the pair begun to work independently, with Edith moving to Bristol.  Maud continued to rent business premises in London, but in the 1921 census she is listed in Ware, Hertfordshire, ‘not occupied for a living’.  She died in Aldingbourne, Sussex, on 25 March 1940.

Lower turn-in with signature of M. Marshall.

P J M Marks, Curator, Bookbindings
Margaret Makepeace, Lead Curator East India Company Records

Further reading:
Marianne Tidcombe, Women Bookbinders 1880-1920, 1996
The Fingerpost: A Guide to the Professions and Occupations of Educated Women, with Information as to Necessary Training (London: Central Employment Bureau for Women and Students, 1906.)
See also British Library C.188.a.412. In an early twentieth century English brown goat skin binding tooled in gold and onlaid. Signed: M & G 1905 [i.e. Miss Marshall and Edith J. Gedye]
British Newspaper Archive

The British Library holds several early photograph albums compiled by the Dillwyn Llewelyn and Story-Maskelyne families (Photo 1246).  The broader collection includes eight albums containing photographs, two sketchbooks, watercolour drawings, seven journals, letters and a four-part memoir.  This collection showcases Thereza Dillwyn Llewelyn (later Story-Maskelyne) as one of the first female photographers during a period of discovery and experimentation in early photography.

Thereza Llewelyn and dickies, 1854. salted paper print from collodion negative. Photographer: John Dillwyn Llewelyn. © British Library, Photo 1246/1(11).

Thereza was the eldest child of John Dillwyn Llewelyn (1810-82), photographer and botanist, and Emma Thomasina Talbot (d. 1881), born on 3 May 1834 into a wealthy Welsh family with a strong interest in various scientific fields, including photography.

‘My earliest recollections connected with it carry me back to somewhere about 1841…, when as a child - I sat for my portrait taken by my Father … no one living at Penllergare could help being interested in what was of absorbing interest to my Father & Mother and I must have heard many conversations on the subject when letters to my Mother from her Cousin Henry Fox Talbot arrived.’ [Add MS 89120/10]

It was uncommon for women to practice photography during this period.  Thereza would assist her father with his photographic experiments, but her photographic albums and journals show that she was a photographer in her own right.  On her 22nd birthday (3 May 1856), she received a journal and a camera. ‘I saw Papa make 2 stereoscopes, with the new stereoscopic camera that he gave me for my birthday present - I intend to work hard with it, so as to get some pictures worthy of it.' [Add MS 89120/4]

Her journals describe her various photographic activities and highlight the prints in her photo albums.  The albums frequently contain the work of more than one individual, as nearly every family member and their friends were involved in photography.

‘September 6th - After lunch Emma dressed up as a gipsy, and Willy made a capital hut, and represented a wild looking gipsy man looking out, whilst Emma seated on a basket turned topsy-turvy told Caroline’s fortune.  Papa photographed the scene which was very picturesque & pretty, & I made a photo stereoscope thereof.’ [Add MS 89120/5]

Gipsies, 1856. salted paper print from stereoscopic collodion negative. Photographer: Thereza Story-Maskelyne. © British Library, Photo 1246/1(32).

Thereza had other scientific interests, including astronomy and botany, for which she used photography to record her findings.

Delesseria sanguinea or Sea Beech [Botanical Specimen], c. 1854. Negative paper contact Photographer: Thereza Story-Maskelyne. © British Library, Photo 1246/2(27).

Her father built an Equatorial Observatory for her in the early 1850s.  The Observatory made it possible for them to take photos of the moon.  In her memoirs, she mentions that her father ‘made a photo of the moon, and as moon light requires much slow exposure it was my business to keep the Telescope moving steadily as there [was]no clockwork action.’  She states, ‘That was one of the first [photographs] ever made of the moon’. [Add MS 89120/9]

Moon c. 1857. salted paper print. Photographer: John Dillwyn Llewelyn and Thereza Story-Maskelyne. © British Library, Photo 1246/1(49).

Her last entry in her journals was in August 1857, and next year, on 29 June 1858, she married (Mervyn Herbert) Nevil Story Maskelyne, a mineralogist and an associate of both her father and Fox Talbot.  Her interests may have taken a back seat to marriage and family.  Still, photography remained part of her life, as she took photographs of her family and travels.

[Portrait of Nevil Story-Maskelyne with Mary and William Arnold-Forster, 1890]. Albumen print. Photographer: Thereza Story-Maskelyne. © British Library, Photo 1246/7(12).

This collection is a beautiful insight into one of the earliest female photographers.

Susan M. Harris
Cataloguer of Photographs

Further Reading:
Dillwyn Llewelyn/Story-Maskelyne photographic collection, Photo 1246
The Papers of Thereza Story-Maskelyne (1834-1926), Add MS 89120
Noel Cahanan, The Photographer of Penllergare: a life of John Dillwyn Llewelyn 1810-1882 (2013)
Richard Morris, Penllergare A Victorian Paradise (1999)
V. Morton, Oxford Rebels: the life and friends of Nevil Story Maskelyne, 1823–1911 (1987)

The cataloguing and research of this collection (Photo 1246) is part of the British Library’s Unlocking Hidden Collections initiative, with the aim to open collections and make them more accessible to researchers and the public. Readers wishing to consult this collection should write to [email protected] and arrange an appointment in the British Library’s Print Room (Asia and Africa Reading Room).

Samuel Hough first appears in the records of the East India Company as Master Attendant of Marine at Bombay in the 1730s.  The Marine fleet guarded British shipping on the west coast of India mainly from attack by local pirates but also from other nations at time of war.  His position gave him standing in the community and he must have been a brave officer, as shown by an event in 1748 when he was in command of the Bombay, at anchor at Rajapore.  Some of his crew had been impressed, but on 1 March the remainder mutinied and broke open the arms-chest.  Hough managed to reason with the men, promising safe passage back to England at the first opportunity and after seven hours he took back control.  His promise was honoured by the Government who needed crew to man ships on the return to England at this time of war with France.

An aquatint of a view of Bombay Harbour from the pier up to the Bunder Battery including part of the fort or Citadel. From James Wales, Bombay Views: Twelve Views Of The Island Of Bombay And Its Vicinity Taken In The Years 1791 And 1792. British Library shelfmark X 436. Images Online

Shortly after this, on 19 May 1748, Captain Samuel Hough married Mrs Judith Sclater, a widow with two small daughters.  They had two more daughters (Louisa and Ann) before Judith died in January 1752.  At the end of that year Samuel took all four little girls back to England on the Streatham, disembarking on 7 June 1753.

On 16 March 1754 Samuel Hough married Martha Crichton at St Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury.  She came from a family well established in the East India Company and within a few weeks she sailed off to Bombay.  Her husband captained their voyage on the Hardwicke which was to remain in Bombay as part of the Marine.

They had been joined on the Streatham by Laurence Sulivan and his family, also returning home.  The two men had been friends and business associates and this arrangement continued to their mutual advantage. Back in Bombay Hough acted as an agent holding powers of attorney on behalf of his clients and could provide ways of remitting Indian funds through confidants among his fellow captains, to be deposited with Sulivan in London, on their behalf.

Appointment of Samuel Hough as Superintendent of the Bombay Marine - IOR/E/4/996 p.69 General Letter from Court of Directors to Bombay 5 April 1754

Samuel Hough was appointed Superintendent of the Bombay Marine, the highest ranking officer below the Council members.  It is clear he was greatly respected and his opinion was valued by the Council.  By 1759 he had become one of the Council members but he returned to England on the Harcourt, arriving back on 18 May 1761.  By this time his family had grown - Louisa and Ann were joined by a baby brother William and a sister Elizabeth.

Entry from the journal of the ship Streatham Wednesday 29 November 1752 - IOR/L/MAR/B/605H

Back in London Hough continued his involvement with the East India Company by investing in and managing ships.  He was the second signature on the charterparty agreements for five ships in the 1761/2 season with four more voyages for 1762/3.

Samuel died on 5 September 1764 at Bath.  In his will he left bequests to his three daughters and his son William but also named a ‘natural son Samuel Hough, now a mate on the Latham Indiaman’.  Samuel junior went on to become a sea captain with the East India Company, married in September 1777 but died a year later.

CC-BY
Georgina Green
Independent researcher

Creative Commons Attribution licence

In October I had the pleasure of attending the Connecting Threads: Fashioning Madras in India and the Caribbean Symposium at the V&A Museum.  This event focused on exploring the cultural and textile history of 18th-century Madras textiles, their production in South India, and their interwoven link with the Caribbean.

Madras Handkerchief made by Sooboo Chetty, c.1855. V&A, 4968(IS)

The Connecting Threads project is a collaboration among various specialists, aiming to amplify the voices and contributions of Indian weavers and African Caribbean consumers who have adopted Madras as part of their heritage, shifting the narrative away from colonial and Western markets.  The project’s accompanying website, Connecting Threads, supports this initiative.  With born-digital scholarship, the project aims to democratise research, reach a wider audience, and address Open Access data issues by making their resources freely available globally.  They also hope to influence the development of AI knowledge about Madras textiles, promoting a less Eurocentric view of its visual history.

The Programme
The programme featured 14 speakers from various backgrounds and specialisms, including curators, professors, historians, craftspeople, artists, and business owners.  Throughout the day, we viewed microscope-enhanced images of 18th-century and modern Madras handkerchiefs, analysed by the research team and a Chennai master weaver.  There were lectures on their production and how different caste groups, sexes, and religions may have worn them.  For example, Muslim groups were noted in inscriptions from 1538 for their specific weaving techniques (source: Uthra Rajagopal, scholar and curator).  There was some discussion into trade by the English East India Company and other European traders, and the appropriation of designs to be reproduced in Britain.

A Company painting titled ‘A Weaver and his wife’, c.1800. V&A, AL.8940N

Caribbean experts and scholars gave excellent talks and demonstrations on the trade and cultural use of Madras, particularly by enslaved or low-income groups.  The usage is complex, but the talks generally emphasized Madras’s positive context—its power in Caribbean island identity and, amusingly, the historical use of head wraps as flirtatious signifiers of availability.

Exquisite handmade dolls were displayed to the attendees, a real example of the integrated nature of Madras in Caribbean culture.  These dolls, currently held at the Bristol Museum, were made in the 1780s by Rebecca Ahmuty Snagg, a domestic enslaved woman in Grenada who died a free woman.  They were likely crafted for the children of the family that bought Rebecca, and they feature Madras head coverings, emulating the real-life articles worn by black Caribbean women at the time.

One of three of the Rebecca Ahmuty Snagg dolls, currently held at the Bristol Museum Collections - photograph by author

The conference was an insightful addition in the ongoing initiative to decolonise and diversify our collections.  This line of research is gaining momentum, with frequent discussions at the British Library on how to rethink our catalogues to promote a more diverse and inclusive narrative.

Maddy Clark
India Office Records

Further information about the Connecting Threads project can be found on their resource website and the V&A website.
Connecting Threads
Connecting Threads: Fashioning Madras in India and the Caribbean

Launched on 22 October 2014, the Qatar Digital Library (QDL) was developed as part of a longstanding partnership between the Qatar Foundation, the Qatar National Library, and the British Library.  The partnership includes the digitisation of a wide range of material from the British Library’s collections, aimed at improving understanding of the modern history of the Gulf, Arabic cultural heritage, and the Islamic world.

Following on from part 1 , members of the team of experts working on the QDL reflect on memorable material that they and former colleagues have encountered in the last decade.

• Preserving original order in George Curzon’s Persia and the Persian Question – Mss Eur F111/33

Annotated pages in George Curzon’s personal copy of his 1892 book, Persia and the Persian Question – Mss Eur F111/33 ff. 74v-75r. Image digitised by the BLQFP

George Curzon’s personal copy of his two-volume tome stands out for the interesting challenges it posed during conservation and cataloguing.  Rather unexpectedly, it contained dozens of assorted papers between its pages, including received correspondence, newspaper cuttings, various journal and magazine articles, and a few handwritten notes by Curzon.  The question for the conservation and cataloguing teams was how to preserve the inserted papers’ original order while ensuring their long-term preservation and indeed that of the book itself.  The solution was to number the pages of the book and the inserted items with the latter still in place, forming a single foliation sequence.  Now, when viewed on the QDL, the inserted items remain in their original order, between the pages of the two volumes (though some, e.g. certain newspaper cuttings, do not appear online for copyright reasons).  Physically, however, the inserted items are now preserved in a separate file.

• Discovering the unexpected – IOR/R/15/1/355 

A British wartime propaganda poster, dated c. 1941-42 – IOR/R/15/1/355, f. 42v

Cataloguing can be very serendipitous, as unassuming files can reveal the unexpected.  Such was the case with this financial file, containing two rare Arabic-language propaganda posters, which the British Government produced during the Second World War.  The posters only survived because of a wartime paper shortage, which led to financial accounts of the Bahraini Government being typed on their reverse.

• Personal reflections on life in the Gulf during the last years of Empire – Mss Eur F226/2, Mss Eur F226/7, Mss Eur F226/10, Mss Eur F226/13, Mss Eur F226/22, Mss Eur F226/23, Mss Eur F226/26, Mss Eur F226/28, Mss Eur F226/30, and Mss Eur F226/34

Excerpt from John ‘Jack’ Bazalgette’s 1984 memoir – Mss Eur F226/2, f. 152r. © Estate of John Bazalgette

These ten memoirs belonging to former British officials of the Indian Political Service provide a unique insight into one generation’s experiences of living and working in the Gulf during the last years of British India, as discussed at length in three blogs and in this QDL expert article.

• Muzah bint Ahmad Al Bu Sa‘id: the protector of Muscat – IOR/F/4/1435/56726

Heading to a letter written by Muzah bint Ahmad Al Bu Sa‘id, to the Governor of Bombay, dated 8 April 1832 – IOR/F/4/1435/56726, f. 235v

As in many archival collections, women are under-represented in the records, and those who do feature are largely misrepresented.  For these reasons, this item is particularly notable, since it contains a letter to the Governor of Bombay from Muzah bint Ahmad Al Bu Sa‘id, who, in the absence of her nephew the Imam of Muscat, took charge and defended his territories.

IOR Cataloguing Team, British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership

Whilst undertaking some work on the pension records of the Lord Clive Fund, I came across the marriage of Captain John Villiers Forbes to Anne Burgett in Calcutta, Bengal.

Marriage entry for John Villiers Forbes and Anne Burgett, 23 January 1849 at Calcutta, showing him described as a 'Single Man'. IOR/N/1/75 f.83

What caught my eye about the marriage was that John Villiers Forbes was described as a ‘Single Man’. The usual terminology in the India marriage records at that time was ‘Bachelor’ for an unmarried man and ‘Widower’ for a married man who had been bereaved. I had never seen the term ‘Single Man’ used before, suggesting that the Chaplain wished to make a point about the marital status of the groom!

John Villiers Forbes was born in Walcot, Somerset in 1807, the son of Thomas John & Elizabeth Forbes. He was appointed an Ensign in the Bengal Army in April 1823.

On 4 April 1831 he was married in Port Louis, Mauritius, to Marie Eudoxie De Bissey. The couple returned to Bengal shortly afterwards and had six children: Eliza Mary born 1832, Charles D’Oyly born 1833, Henry Villiers born 1836, Anna Maria Louisa born 1837, Caroline Virginie Elisabeth born 1839 and Adelaide Marie Eudoxie born 1846.

On 23 January 1849 John Villier Forbes was married for a second time to Anne Burgett, and the couple had three children Eliza Caroline Matilda born 1849, Arthur Frederick Colin born 1851 and Herbert Edward born 1853.

At the time of John Villier Forbes’s second marriage, his first wife Marie Eudoxie was still alive and living in Mauritius, which may explain the choice of words used by the Chaplain to describe Forbes's marital status.

The circumstances surrounding John Villiers Forbes being permitted to marry when his first wife was still alive are unclear. It could be that he and his first wife were divorced; it is also possible that as his first marriage was Catholic it would not have been recognised by the Church of England, and he would legally, if not morally, have been considered single.

Marie Eudoxie Forbes also remarried on 10 July 1851 in Mauritius to Alexandre George de Courson de la Villeneuve, and the couple had one daughter, Mary.

Marie Eudoxie de Courson passed away in 1851 and was buried at Pamplemousses Cemetery in Mauritius.

First two pages of the will of John Villiers Forbes, written in June 1853, outlining his wishes in relation to his children from his first marriage. IOR/L/AG/34/29/88 f.145

John Villiers Forbes died in Calcutta on 15 July 1853. His will left all his money and estates to his wife Anne, along with guardianship of their three children. He also left instructions for her relating to his surviving children from his first marriage. He left £100 Sterling each to his sons Charles D’Oyly and Henry Villiers, who at that time were at school in Essex before entering the British Army. His three daughters, Anna Maria Louisa, Caroline Virginie Elisabeth and Adelaide Marie Eudoxie, were described as living in Mauritius in the care of his late wife’s family and being supported by maternal inheritance, and he appointed their maternal uncle Gaston de Bissey as one of their guardians.

John’s second wife Anne moved to Munich following her husband’s death and remarried there in 1875 to Franz Binder.

Karen Stapley
Curator, India Office Records

Further Reading:
Bengal Marriage - IOR/N/1/75, f.83 marriage entry for John Villiers Forbes to Anne Burgett, 23 January 1849.
Bengal Burials - IOR/N/1/84, p.211 burial entry for John Villiers Forbes, 15 July 1853.
Bengal Wills - IOR/IOR/L/AG/34/29/88, f.145 – will of John Villiers Forbes, 1853.
Grave of ‘Marie Eudoxie de Courson’ at Cimetière de Pamplemousses, Mauritius 
Bengal Baptisms - IOR/N/1/35, f.79 – baptism of Eliza Mary Forbes, 29 April 1833; IOR/N/1/38, f.126 – baptism of Charles D’Oyly Forbes, 13 April 1834; IOR/N/1/50, f.60 – baptism of Anna Maria Louisa Forbes, 22 April 1838; IOR/N/1/77, f.64 – baptism of Eliza Caroline Matilda Forbes, 26 February 1850; IOR/ N/1/80, f.316 – baptism of Arthur Frederick Colin Forbes, 16 November 1851; IOR/N/1/83, f.267 – baptism of Herbert Edward Forbes, 5 June 1853.