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BURTON & MIDDLECOAT CHRONOLOGY AND DOCUMENT LINKS
Recent Ancestors (with portraits) Burton ancestor chart census page links all bmd links
Earlier Middlecoat ancestors in Tregony, Cornwall
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1650 - 1825 Nicholas Middlecoat and
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four even earlier generations of Cornish ancestors in Tregony in the 1700s±. |
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Ancestors of Lt Col John Adolphus and Georgiana ("Gem") Burton
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Chart linking four generations of Burtons, Middlecoats, Lockes in the 1800s in British India. |
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This map shows modern India. Victorian British India (including modern day Pakistan, Bangladesh and Burma) was administered in three "Presidencies" - Madras, Bombay and Punjab. The Middlecoats, Burtons et al all seem to have been from the Madras Presidency. Each Presidency had its own army - hence "the Madras Army" rather than "the Indian Army". However, doctors like John Adolphus were part of the IMS - Indian Medical Service - and he seems to have been posted to all three presidencies.
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1 September 1802 George Middlecoat born |
copy of the 1802 page of the register of the Bethesda Independent Chapel, Truro (Cornwall). George was child 12 of 13 who were all baptised in the Bethesda Chapel. His father Nicholas was a political fixer and Licensee of the Queens Head Inn, Tregony.
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10 February 1820 - George Middlecoat (17) |
lodges a £500 bond (number 2349) on becoming a Cadet in the Madras Army. That is one huge sum of 1820s money / guarantee! His application papers are still filed (unmicrofilmed) in the India Office Records section of the British Library. He entered the East India Company's Addiscombe (Croydon) Officer Training Seminary on 11 February 1820, graduated on 10 May 1822 and on the following day was appointed a Lieutenant in the Madras Artillery.
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5 January 1826 - George Middlecoat marries |
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Susanna Hampton in Madras. She was the daughter of a General Hampton - still to be traced.
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20 June 1839 - Francis Middlecoat |
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is born in Madras.
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14 February 1845 - George Middlecoat (42) |
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dies in Belgaum (near the mid-west coast of India) leaving wife Susanna and around 10 kids aged between 3 and 17 behind. Susanna dies in Lambeth 25 years later in March 1870. The Madras Military Fund would have paid pensions to Susanna, his unmarried daughters, and sons under 21. It is not clear when Susanna went to England - she is not to be found in the 1861 census.
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9 March 1850, Mary Henrietta Locke (to become Francis Middlecoat's wife) born in Nellore. |
Nellore is quite a bit to the north of Madras. Mary's father Samuel Richard Locke was described as "Deputy Collector" in the Times of India report of Francis and Mary's Madras Cathedral wedding in 1866. Presently there is nothing further on Charlotte Sophia Jane Locke (Nasky or Rehling), Mary's mum, except that she had been previously married and seems to have been born a Johnson.
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10 December 1854 - John Adolphus Burton born in Rajahmundry |
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As per Crawford's Roll of the Indian Medical Service (IMS). John Adolphus' father, Charles Benjamin Burton, was a writer based in Rajahmundry, which is some 470 km north of Madras.
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1857 - 58 Indian Mutiny et seq |
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in the wake of which the British Raj took over from the East India Company, which was originally set up in 1600 at the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. One consequence of this was that Addiscombe House, the Company's Officer Training Seminary south of London, where George Middlecoat was a student from 1820 to 1822, was closed.
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1858 Francis Middlecoat (19) commissioned |
in the Madras Army (Infantry).
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10 January 1866 Francis Middlecoat |
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marries Mary Henrietta Locke in St George's Cathedral, Madras.
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3 April 1871 (UK Census) - Francis Middlecoat |
is head of household at 2 Laburnum Cottages, Bank Street, Great Malvern, with wife Mary Henrietta and daughter Charlotte Lucy Hampton (whose names are swapped over in the hand written census form). Must have had a relaxed leave time because Mary Henrietta is still here giving birth to Georgiana 9 months' later!
What's the link with Great Malvern? a - It's a lovely place; b - Mary's mother might have come from here (in April 1871 there were lots of Johnsons around but no Middlecoats or Hamptons or Lockes); c - Next door to them at 3 Laburnum Cottages was Malaccan born Lucy H Puon (35), a widow and annuitant of the India Office living with three daughters and one adopted daughter (and a servant of course) - possibly an old friend? Who knows ......
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24 December 1871 - Georgiana Ernstin Middlecoat born in Laburnum Cottage, Great Malvern. |
One imagines that the (then) Captain Francis Middlecoat (Madras Infantry) must have had to return to duty before the birth because it was registered by wife Mary.
Georgiana Ernstin was the only one of her many siblings not to have been born in India. Family notes have her as Georgina Ernestine, but we know that was not what was on her birth certificate.
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22 January 1880 - John Adolphus Burton admitted to the British Medical Register |
having studied at Edinburgh to become a LRCP Edin, and a LRCS Edin in 1879.
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1881 John Adolphus Burton (26), Surgeon / MD, on board the Indian Troopship HMS Serapis bound for India. |
LINK (ORIG) (scroll right down for illustration of ship)
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Lots of doctors, officers, other ranks and families were on the well appointed steam / sail combo Serapis on their way to India. At census time (2 April 1881) the ship was passing through the Suez Canal (opened in 1869) under the command of Capt Guy O Twiss. In 1875 Serapis had been used by the Prince of Wales to go on a state visit to India hence the "well appointed" description. An earlier (1779) H.M.S. Serapis had fought and lost a famous engagement with the Bonhomme Richard - the first ship in the "American Navy".
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1881 Dr John Adolphus Burton
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Admitted to the Indian Medical Service (IMS) - we have now tracked down the application papers to get a fix on his parentage.
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1888 33 year old John Adolphus Burton marries 16 year old Georgiana Middlecoat at |
Pallavaram, now neighboured by the Chennai (Madras) International Airport, which was the major garrison town for the Madras Presidency. Record of marriage from "Family Search".
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12 August 1890 - Ethel Henrietta Florence Burton (Adrian's Grandmother) born in Mangalore, India. |
Mangalore is in SW India. Ethel was christened in Madras on 14 September 1890. Info from "Family Search" and 1911 census.
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17 January 1891 - Col Francis Middlecoat (51) |
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"Commandant of European Veterans, Madras", retires from the Madras Army and eventually heads for London.
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1892 December
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Surgeon Captain John Adolphus Burton promoted to Surgeon Major.
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1901 - Georgiana Burton discovered in Bedford with the 3 kids (Charlie, Ethel and Cyril) and her sister Lucy Middlecoat. |
Temporarily back from India - maybe to settle arrangements for child accommodation / education - why Bedford? ... Ethel (my grandmother) told me that she saw her parents only once between the ages of 10ish and 17ish - I also remember her saying she lived in Bedford (sort of) .... maybe there were other family members around here where she could go in the school holidays.
In 1900 Surgeon Lt-Col John Adolphus was involved in the China War.
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1901 - Colonel Francis Middlecoat (61) is living at 148 Addison Gardens, Hammersmith, London. |
The good Colonel Francis has retired to London and is living with wife Mary and three of their 10 or so children, but there is no servant - bit of a culture shock after India, but one suspects the Middlecoats were not as well heeled as the Burtons.
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27 November 1906 from Liverpool -
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John Adolphus and "Gem" return from leave in the UK on board the "Castalia" (via Bombay) .
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3 July 1910
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Lt Col J A Burton arrives at Tilbury from Colombo on the "China" to start his London based retirement.
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The career of Lt Col John Adolphus Burton
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is published as entry 1466 in DGCrawford's "Roll of the Indian Medical Service"
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1911 - The Burtons have returned from India to live at 21 Victoria Road, Upper Norwood, SE London
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Now retired Lt Colonel John Adolphus (56), wife Georgiana Ernstin (Middlecoat) (still only 39), children Charlie (22, a London Hospital medical student and friend of Frank R Fletcher, who is to join the RAMC), Ethel (20, to be Mrs Frank R Fletcher) and Cyril (16, to be very very large indeed later in life) and a maid complete the household. |
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1911 - The Middlecoats have moved in a bit - to 20 Melrose Gardens, Fulham (near Shepherds Bush).
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Two Middlecoat "kids" (Lucy - 35 and David - 27) are still at home.
Col Francis Middlecoat dies in Lambeth in 1922 aged 83, and Mary dies in Wandsworth in 1928 aged 78. They must have been at the wedding of their grand-daughter Ethel Burton in 1915, but they do not appear in the wedding photo.
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1915 - Marriage - Sunday 15 August |
Ethel Burton (25) marries Frank Rex (Jimmy) Fletcher (also 25) - at the unmemorable Parish Church of St Mary Magdalene, Milton, Hampshire. Why there, one wonders - possibly the groom was stationed at New Milton.
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September 1917 |
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Ethel Fletcher and Terry Burton (Charlie's wife) photographed at breakfast on 6 September 1917, photo by Jimmy Fletcher
Ethel (left) and Terry (right) with cameras and Jimmy's sister Gwen Fletcher (later Kingdon) and mother Elizabeth Fletcher (née Procter)
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Charles Frank ("Charlie") Burton (1889 - 1942 (53))
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Ethel's elder brother Dr Charles Frank Burton was serving in Field Ambulance Units on the Western Front when the above photos were taken. He collected an MC and two mentions in despatches, and stayed in the RAMC after WWI finished (this cartoon of him is dated 1935). He was killed during the evacuation of Singapore in 1942.
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1 January 1924 - John Adolphus dies in Wallington aged 69.
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"Gem" lives on for another 30 years (d 1953) - much of it in a cigarette smoke filled basement flat in Dene Court in Folkestone (Jimmy & Ethel's house).
"Gem" Burton at Dene Court late 1940s
Link to John Adolphus Burton Obituary in the British Medical Journal.
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