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ANCESTORS IN BRITISH INDIA (1710 - 1910) & CORNWALL (1680 - 1840)
MIDDLECOAT, HAMPTON, LOCKE & BURTON CHRONOLOGY, PHOTOS AND DOCUMENT LINKS (Madras & England 1800s to early 1900s)
Previously: Hampton, Hick, Palmer Chronology and Document links (Calcutta 1700s to early 1800s)
More Recent Ancestors (with portraits) census page links all bmd links
Earlier Middlecoat ancestors in Tregony, Cornwall
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Ancestors of Lt Col John Adolphus and Georgiana ("Gem") Burton
An overview chart linking five generations of Burtons, Middlecoats, Lockes & Hamptons in the 1700s / 1800s in British India.
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Recapping the direct (*) ancestor line back to Charles Hampton (early 1700s):
- Adrian Fletcher* (1943 - ) - Col Michael Fletcher* (1918 - 2007 (89)) (British Army) and Peggy Sproule (1917 - 2005 (88)) - Ethel Fletcher* (Burton) (1890 - 1968 (78)) (c Madras) and Dr Frank Rex ("Jimmy") Fletcher (1890 - 1974 (84)) - "Gem" Burton (Middlecoat)* (1871 - 1953 (82)) and Lt Col John Adolphus Burton (1854 - 1924 (69)) (Indian Medical Service) - Col Francis Middlecoat* (1839 - 1922 (83)) (Madras Army) and Mary Henrietta Locke (1850 - 1928 (78)) - Susannah Palmer Middlecoat (Hampton)* (1808 - 1870 (61)) and Capt George Middlecoat (1802 - 1845 (43)) (Madras Artillery) - Capt James Hampton* (1784 - 1821 (drowned) (37)) (Madras Army) (brother-in-law of John Palmer) and Mrs Mary Forster (1786 - 1855 (69)) - Col Samuel Hampton* (1735 - 1786 (51)) (Bengal Army) and Margaret Hick (1748 - 1784 (36)) - Charles Hampton* (EICo Bengal) and (Mrs) Martha Vesey, Adrian's 6xGreat Grandparents
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Grateful thanks to Jane Ellis (a Middlecoat) and to Sylvia Murphy of FIBIS in Sydney for patiently helping to unravel much of these and other lives! |
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Thomas Locke, Gent of Taunton, |
fathers Thomas and Samuel Locke (and possibly others)
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27 March 1785 - Thomas Locke marries |
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Elizabeth Lang (we think she's the right Elizabeth) in St Luke, Old Street, Finsbury (London).
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16 March 1788 - Thomas Locke jnr christened |
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in St Anne's Soho, London - his parents are Thomas Snr and Elizabeth Locke (Lang) and there are also IGI records for the births / baptisms of siblings Amey (1786), Elizabeth (1790) and Jno (?John) (1793). The children seem to have stopped a bit early for those days - possibly Elizabeth died. Thomas Snr was still around to sign off Thomas jnr's birth record confirmation in 1807.
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1806/7 - Thomas Locke jnr a cadet in the Madras |
Army via a gift from his uncle the Rev Dr Samuel Locke of Farnham School, as explained in the House of Commons Hansard record
ie Lady Lumm sold for 200 shillings her (Madras?) cadet nomination right, using Thomas Watson as a commission agent, to Rev Dr Locke, which then got swapped for one of James Patterson's Bombay Army nominations ..... no, that doesn't work ..... whatever, Team Ciaofamiglia, unused to English patronage market manipulations, got lost between who was buying and selling what and clipping the ticket on the way, and gave up ...
This did, however, via the Church of England Clergy Data-Base (Winchester Diocese) and the Oxford Graduates' list lead us to establish that Samuel & Thomas Locke's father was Thomas (Locke), Gentleman of Taunton (Somerset) - as yet not located.
Amongst other things the Rev Dr, graduate of Wadham College, Oxford, was Chaplain to the Duke of Kent - what were the connective implications of that?
The question now is who was Thomas (Locke) of Taunton (and his good wife) ?
Despite all this Thomas' first go at Madras military life did not work out, which we know because in .....
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1809 Thomas Locke jnr reapplies for |
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a Madras Army cadetship .....
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1819 East India Register |
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Lieut Thomas Locke and Capt James Hampton both listed as officers in the 7th Regiment Native Infantry (Madras). In 1866 their grand children Mary Locke and Francis Middlecoat are to marry and live unhappily ever afterwards.
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2 May 1820 Lieut Thomas Locke (32)
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7th Reg NI (Madras) marries Helena Francis Frederica de Sadlo
This extract is from Volume 11 of the Asiatic Journal and Monthly register, which was published from 1816 to early 1845 and contained the voluminous happenings of the East India Company. Quotes below are from later volumes, and have been restricted to highlight the relevant event.
Sadly Helena only outlived the birth of their first child by a month, dying on 12 December 1821.
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8 June 1822 Thomas Locke marries
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for the second time - Indiana Laura Shaw, in Quilon Madras, as reported in Vol 14 of the Asiatic journal.
One of the witnesses at the wedding is Margaret Shaw - either Indiana's mother or sister. Indiana (named "Laura" in the birth registers) is Adrian's 4xgreat grandmother.
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1823 Lieut Locke as an officer in the
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Twenty-Fifth Native Infantry, as recorded in the 1823 in the East India Register and Army list.
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29 March 1825 Samuel Richard Lock(e) born
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The marriage to Indiana also produced two surviving daughters - Harriet Amelia (to be Young) and Jane Catherine Theophilia (to be Beaver - see below).
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1827 East India Register |
Captain Thomas Locke in the Fiftieth Regiment, Native Infantry (Fort St George, Madras)
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17 April 1827 |
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17 Aug 1827 Indiana Laura Locke dies
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11 December 1828 Thomas marries wife No 3 |
Justa Jacobina Hoff Wodschow (22) (born in Frederiksberg, Denmark).
They have ten children (give or take), and Justa would have been mother to Helena's child and Indiana's three children also.
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1836 - Capt Thomas Locke features in the |
East India Register and Army List as a member of the Madras Invalid Establishment.
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1845 - Capt Thomas Locke again in the |
East India Register and Army List as a member of the Madras Invalid Establishment (/ 1st NVB) - immediately above him in the list is Capt Napleton Beaver who is four year's short of marrying Thomas' daughter Jane Catherine Theophilia (see below).
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9 March 1849 - Samuel Richard Locke, Indigo |
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Planter, marries Charlotte Sophia Jane Nasky Rehling, the widow of Augustus Johan Adolph Rehling, who is some 10 years older than Samuel, in Madras. Her maiden name was Jansen and a comment on the hand written family tree says "Danish". She and Adolph have had 3 boys together. It still seems a bit odd to have a ggg-grandmother
Sadly the microfilm record of the marriage register was the
victim of camera shake, but here it is
To further the generation mixing, in 1849 Samuel Richard's 22 year old younger sister Jane Catherine Theophilia Locke marries Capt John Napleton Beaver. He is 48, twice widowed, and had been invalided out of the army in 1836. Notwithstanding all this they produce 5 little Beavers who, along with a further two generations of Beavers, are the only "non-direct" rellies shown on our (mostly Middlecoat) hand drawn family tree, so the families were probably quite close.
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9 March 1850, Mary Henrietta Locke (to become Francis Middlecoat's desperately unhappy 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.
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31 July 1850 Capt Thomas Lock dies in
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Madras aged 62, leaving a short will. His third wife Justa dies in 1857 aged 51.
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October 1865 - Bankruptcy |
Poor Indigo Planter / Magistrate Samuel Richard Locke avails himself of the British India equivalent of Chapter 11 bankruptcy after 16 years of Cougar marriage .....
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2 April 1889 Charlotte Sophia Jane Nasky Locke |
dies in Palamcottah (Madras) aged 74, and the impoverished Samuel Richard thinks about retiring to Chiswick (London), where he later dies in 1894 worth just £93.
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Middlecoats, Hamblys & others from Tregony
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1650 - 1825 Nicholas Middlecoat jnr and
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four even earlier generations of Cornish ancestors in and around Tregony - right back to George Demountfryart (aka de Monfriart), Bodmin physician - see his name as 1700 Mayor on a fresh water outlet in Bodmin's Bell Lane.
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1752 - Nicholas Middlecoat Jnr is Christened
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on the 25 August 1752 in the Church of St James, Cuby with Tregony, Cornwall.
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23 November 1760 - Ruth Hambly
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baptized in the Church of St James, Cuby with Tregony, Cornwall.
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Tregony High - 2011. In the early 1800s Nick Middlecoat Jnr's Queen's Head Inn stood where the white building on the right now is The reason why the road is unusually wide is that in the middle there was a market hall, and above this was a meeting room (for the "council") - Nick went one stage further and put a substantial arch over the road between his inn on the right and the meeting room in the centre. Substantial, because on top of the arch linking the inn and the meeting room was a drinking lounge run by Nick (a sort of Cornwall Vasari Corridor with bar)
The tower on the left was built much later when the middle-road markets were removed, but the large stone house (the Rectory) and the coaching inn next door (The King's Arms - an excellent lunch spot and now sole survivor of Tregony's 30 - 40 inns and pubs) on the left would have been familiar sights to Nick. Many many thanks to Frank Grigg, local historian, for helping interpret all of this.
Detail from a 1787 map held at the Cornish Archives
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6 July 1779 - Nicholas Middlecoat Jnr (27)
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marries Ruth Hambly (18) in the Church of St James, Cuby with Tregony, Cornwall.
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William Hambly (b1758), Ruth's older brother,
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was also an interesting entrepreneurial character. He set up some very profitable trading deals using the "Falmouth Packets", but then these started to go pear shaped and he went bankrupt. He was Mayor of Falmouth in 1799, and shared his wheeler dealer interests with his more domestic wheeler dealer brother-in-law Nick Middlecoat jnr. And he is the only cast member of Ciao Famiglia who can boast that he got
a letter from George Washington!
Mount Vernon, September 1, 1799.
Sir: I have been favoured with your favour of the 13th. of April from Falmouth, accompanying what I persuade myself will (when opened) be found to be, a very fine Cheese, as all which I have had from you, have proved. For this additional evidence of your kind, and polite attention to me, I pray you to accept my gratitude and thanks. Unsuccessful in my first attempt to get a few (Virginia) Hams to you I am making another trial through the medium of Messrs. Thompson and Veitch, and hope they will meet a better fate than the last. For your obliging wishes respecting me I feel very sensible. I reciprocate them cordially, and am Sir etc.
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Extract from "Old Falmouth" by Susan Gay (1903) which may partly explain William's enthusiasm for sending cheese to George Washington! |
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1 September 1802 George Middlecoat born. |
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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 Middlecoat Jnr was a political fixer and Licensee of the Queens Head Inn, Tregony (Cornwall) - there is a lot more here about Nicholas Middlecoat Jnr and Tregony in the 1750 - 1850 period.
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12 July 1808 - Susannah Palmer Hampton |
- to be Mrs George Middlecoat, born at Sankerrydroog. The surname of her uncle-in-law, the mega-wealthy John Palmer (husband of her father's sister), now adopted as a "family" Christian name. No church record yet.
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14 July 1819 |
The Times reports that Nicholas Middlecoat jnr and four others were found guilty of attempting to rig an election by bribing the voters of Grampound - an odd prosecution and verdict as bribery of this sort was rampant and apart from this event was ignored in Cornwall and elsewhere! The court report gives a fascinating insight into the conversations and comings and goings around the "Bell and Crown" coaching inn in Holborn - a 24 hour coach ride from Exeter on the Royal Auxiliary Mail - in June 1818. Grampound later became the only rotten borough to be disenfranchised before they all fell over in the wake of the Great Reform Act of 1832.
Grampound High in October 2011
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10 February 1820 - George Middlecoat (17) |
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lodges a £500 bond (number 2349) on becoming a Cadet in the Madras Army. This would have been a sort of insurance policy with a cover of over £20,000 in today's pounds! His original application papers are still filed in the India Office Records section of the British Library, and are available on lds film 1951826. The IOR cadet application collections are of particular interest because they are original documents, not "head office returns" like many of the church records.
George 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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1822 - George M sails to his new life in India - |
more detective work needed to establish what boat he arrived on
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1822 - The 1823 East India Register shows |
George Middlecoat as a Cadet (in 1822?) in the Fort St George (Madras) Artillery.
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5 January 1826 - George Middlecoat marries
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Susannah Palmer Hampton, grand-daughter of Col Samuel Hampton, at St Thomas' Mount, in Madras. George and Susannah are to return to England at least twice before George dies in 1845 aged just 42.
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1827 - The East India Register - Lieut George |
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Middlecoat appears in the "Quartermaster / Interpreter / Paymaster" group in the Madras Artillery.
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1836 - The East India Register - Captain |
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Middlecoat artilleries on.
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27 July 1839 - Francis Middlecoat |
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is christened in St Mary Haggerston, Hackney, Middlesex. The fact that George's name is not filled in is odd because he would have been around as he and the missus (and weenie Francis) sailed back into Madras on the 25 January 1840 on the ship "True Briton".
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1844 - Cap'n George goes to Sydney maybe ?? |
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"Departures from Sydney 18 April 1844 on the MEDUSA Captain Purdy for Madras
with horses Passengers: Capt. Mackenzie Dr. Baki Messes. Mark Dixon, Horace
Gooch, William Bunny and James May Mr. Middlecoat and two
native servants"
Was this our George (without military title - unusual) helping Cap'n Purdy buy Australian gun horses ? Or having a well paid leave (Indian Army Officers remained on full pay on furlough in Oz, half pay in England) with servants, or some other Middlecoat we don't know about ......
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4 August 1844 - Nick Middlecoat, aged 92, |
is buried in the churchyard of St James, Cuby with Tregony after a very long and very eventful life!! Sadly no gravestone survives. |
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1844 - East India Register |
List of the Officers of the Madras Artillery |
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1844 - Cap'n George commands the |
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artillery which smashes a breach or more in the walls of Samanghur and gets several mentions in The London Times of 5 December 1844.
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1845 - Captain George Middlecoat's last |
entry in the East india Register. |
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"Madras Artillery Records"
Captain George Middlecoat |
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Captain George Middlecoat was a Cadet of 1821, and arrived in India 14th January 1823, date of Commission as 1st Lieutenant 11th May 1822; promoted to Captain 29th May 1832.
Served with the South Eastern Division of the Army in 1824 and 1825, and was present at the taking of Arrcan.
Served in the Southern Mahratta Country from the 16th September 1844, till the early part of 1845, under the command of Major General P. Delamotte, C.B.; was present at, and commanded the Artillery at the siege and capture by storm of the Fort of Samaghur on the 13th October 1844; at the surrender of Budderghur on the 10th November 1844; and the siege and capture by storm of the Fort of Punalla; and at the taking possession of the Fort of Powenghur on the 1st December 1844. Received the thanks of Lieutenant Colonel Wallace, commanding Field Force before Samaghur, dated 20th September and 9th October 1844, and of Major General P. Delamotte, C.B., commanding Southern Division of the Army, dated 14th October 1844. Received the thanks of Lieutenant Colonel Lloyd, C.B., in common with the Officers and men composing the force before Punalla.
Captain Middlecoat died at Belgaum on the 14th February 1845
Madras Artillery Records Vol. 12 (1849) p. 1637 - thanks to Jane Ellis for this.
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14 February 1845 - after his all-too-brief moment in the sun in 1844 (see above), |
George Middlecoat (42) spends too long in the next lot of sun as he apparently dies from sunstroke in Belgaum (near the mid-west coast of India) leaving wife Susanna (née Hampton) and around 5 kids aged between 3 and 17 behind (at least as many again had died in infancy). Susanna dies in Lambeth 25 years later in March 1870 aged 61. The Madras Military Fund would have paid pensions to Susanna, George's unmarried daughters, and sons under 21. It is not clear when Susanna Palmer Middlecoat went to England - she is not to be found (yet) in the 1861 UK census.
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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 (today's Croydon), where George Middlecoat was a student from 1820 to 1822, was closed.
Susanna's brother Lieutenant General (eventually) William Philip Hampton, in 1855 a 45 year old Major in the 31st (Bengal) Native Infantry, was one of the very few native infantry commanders whose troops did not join the mutiny.
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1858 Francis Middlecoat (19) commissioned |
in the Madras Army (Infantry).
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10 January 1866 Francis Middlecoat |
marries Mary Henrietta Locke in St George's Cathedral, Madras. Who paid for the tiffin ? - her dad Samuel had been bankrupted in 1865.
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28 March 1870 George Middlecoat's widow |
Susanna Palmer Middlecoat (Hampton), dies in Surrey, England aged 61.
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3 April 1871 (UK Census) - Francis Middlecoat |
On home furlough is head of household at 2 Laburnum Cottages, Bank Street, Great Malvern (the cottages were still there as listed buildings in 2010 - we were sorry to have missed them in 2009 but now we know what a shit Francis was it doesn't seem that important!!)), with wife Mary Henrietta and daughter Lottie (Charlotte Lucy Hampton) (whose names are swapped over in the hand written census form).
Next door at 3 Laburnum Cottages is Lucy H Prior (35), a widow and annuitant of the India Office who is living with three daughters (Louisa, Susanna and Mary) and one adopted daughter (Martha) (and a servant of course) - Lucy is Francis' sister - daughter of George Middlecoat - so that's probably why he was there. Great Malvern is close to Tewkesbury, home to the grandfather and great grandfather of Lucy's late husband Capt George Prior.
Lucy's husband Capt George Boyes Prior (Bombay Cavalry) had died in India's North West Frontier area in 1859, and she herself is to die in Great Malvern aged just 36 in December 1872, just over a year after the census. Probably the three (or four) girls went back to relatives (the Middlecoats?) in India, because they all married out there. Mary's husband died young on the North West Frontier, and she went to Edinburgh, eventually to marry a knighted ex-doctor ex-Provost and become "Lady Mary". Susanna married Samuel Archbald - brother of Mary Henrietta and eldest son of Samuel Richard Locke - who became chief judge of Cochin, though at some stage it seems that Susanna herself might have decamped to live in Edinburgh near her sister - her name was certainly absent from the memorial tablet erected for Archbald in the Franciscan church in Cochin after his death in 1912. Another generation shift but there was more to come when the awful Col Francis later accused Mary and Samuel Archbald of committing incest ....
And Louisa married (1879) Jakob Steiner from Winterhur where they then lived, and around 1911 had their portrait painted by Wilhelm Balmer.
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24 December 1871 - Georgiana Ernstin Middlecoat born in 2 Laburnum Cottages, Bank Street, Great Malvern (still there in 2010). |
Like several of his home furloughs Capt F Middlecoat's 1870 leave was a relaxed affair timeline wise - from 7 July 1870 to 5 June 1872 (1 year 334 days the service record says). This comment is possibly a little unfair as his first long furlough seems to have been unpaid, and later he was granted at least one extended furlough for unrecorded medical reasons (maybe extreme paranoia!).
As an unrelated aside we heard an interesting story that some Madras army officers discovered Australia as an attractive furlough destination, because when there they remained on full pay whereas the Old Country meant half pay!
What did officers on extended furloughs do to keep themselves amused one wonders? Francis did not even register Georgiana's birth - that was done by Mary!
Georgiana Ernstin was the only one of her many siblings not to have been born in India. Some sources have her as Georgina Ernestine, but we know that was not what was on her birth certificate. She was called "Gem".
Gem Burton (Middlecoat) - early 1920s
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The Webbers
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To come - more about the Webber-Incledons
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To come- More about Henry's mum and dad
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Ensign (later Maj-Gen Webber) and "unknown". |
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To come - More about Priscilla's mum and dad
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Henry the clerk and Jane / Johana Dosseyn |
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21 October 1826 Priscilla Webber, who |
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will marry Charles Benjamin, is born in Madras.
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22 January 1854 - Henry Webber buried - |
St Mary's church, Madras. He was 69 and had died from Dysentery.
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9 July 1878 - Jane Webber (Dossetyn), widow
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of H.Webber, buried at Washermanpettah, Madras, aged 80. |
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The British Library glossary of special terminology used in India during the British Administration. |
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Thanks to Sylvia Murphy of FIBIS and the Family Research Centre at Parramatta (Sydney) for help with all the India Office records, and in particular those revealing the sad story of Dublin Labourer John Adolphus Burton Snr, from the Parish of St Paul, Adrian's Grt x 3 grandfather. |
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John Adolphus Burton born c1795
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(from age 21 in 1816) in St Pauls, Dublin. |
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John Adolphus Burton departs the
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Chatham Depot along with 360 other recruits on 4 February 1816 in the ship "Regent" bound for Bombay, then Madras (where he got off) and places further east.
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1816 - 1817 Madras Muster / Casualty Rolls |
John Burton appears as a Matross (gunner's assistant), 2nd Bat Fort St George (Madras) / St Thomas Mount Artillery in the muster lists for late 1816.
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Mrs Susanna Habernack ("a native"), who is to marry John Adolphus Burton Snr in 1817,
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was possibly married first to John Habernack. He was a musician from Germany, Viena (sic) who had arrived in Madras from London on 3rd Feb 1804. In the December 1815 Madras list of residents he lived at 41 Anderson Street, Black Town. There were no other (adult male) Habernacks in town. No record of his death in 1816 or 1817 or of little Habernacks yet.
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3 December 1817 - John Adolphus Burton Snr |
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(22) marries widow and "native" Mrs Susannah Habernack (26) in St Mary's Church, Madras - she signed with "her X mark".
John Adolphus is described as a Matross in the 2nd Madras artilllery, which is about as junior as you can artillery-wise. Impressive then that on 20 December 1819 (aged 24) he became a Conductor (WO I + equivalent = about as senior as you can get ordnance-wise), Fort St George Arsenal (Madras) - as recorded in the 1820 East India Register & Army List. He was in the same position in late 1822 as recorded in the 1823 East India Register and Army List (extract below).
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29 April 1824 Charles Benjamin Burton |
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(Adrian's gg-grandfather) christened in St Mary's Church, Fort St George, Madras. He was in the end the only surviving child of Conductor John Adolphus and Susanna. Two little siblings died in early 1824, just before Charles was born, and a third died a few years' later at the age of 3. Heartbreaking, especially in view of what happened to John Adolphus himself.
St Mary's Church, Fort St George - from "The Story of Madras" by Glen Barlow, 1921
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On 3rd November in 1826, things |
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to go pear shaped for Conductor Burton (31). The 1825 East India Register shows Conductor J A Burton exiled to the Nagpore (now Nagpur) Ordinance Sub-Force, a year later he is still there, then the 1827 edition shows him all on his own back in Madras under a special heading "Reduced" (= "Reduced to the Ranks") effective 3rd November 1826 ....
Then very sadly we discover that at the baptism of John Edward Burton on 23 July 1827 his father has become "the late" John Burton, Gunner. Thumbing back through the register entries we found the burial of John Burton, Gunner 1st Battalion Artillery, in Nagapore on 26 January 1827.
Neither age (he would have been c32) nor cause of death are stated. It is just possible we may discover why he was "reduced" via a regimental court-martial record, but his death within three month's of this is likely to remain a mystery - could it be the grog ??.
Even more sadly John Edward is buried on 1 June 1831, leaving just Charles Benjamin in the care of his Indian mother, almost certainly without any pension.
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18 December 1850 Susanna Burton |
( / Habernack), long widowed mother of Charles Benjamin Burton, dies in Madras aged 59.
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20 January 1853 Charles Benjamin Burton (28), |
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clerk, brought up as an only child by his widowed mother, marries Priscilla Webber (26) in Blacktown, Madras.
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10 December 1854 - John Adolphus Burton (jnr) born in Madras - Christened 17 January 1854 Mission Church, Blacktown (Madras) |
As per Indian Medical Service (IMS) entry application papers and Crawford's Roll of the IMS.
His BMJ obit says he was born in Rajahmundry, which is some 470 km north of Madras, but other records say it was Madras, and he was certainly Christened a month later at the Mission Church in Blacktown (Madras).
John Adolphus' father, Charles Benjamin Burton (30), was described then and later as "a (EICo) writer" (see earlier - not to be confused with novelist!). By then the EICo had become a government owned administrator, into administrating rather than trading, so maybe there was a career writers' stream. John Adolphus is the oldest of 5 children, but 3 and possibly 4 of them die before the age of two. His father was the sole survivor of 4 children.
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1874 - Extract from J A Burton's Indian (Army) Medical Service entry papers (L/Mil/9/407 f344-350) |
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From Revd Charles Cooper MA I have much pleasure in bearing testimony to the character & acquirements of Mr. John Burton. I had him for upwards of two years in my Scripture & Latin classes in the Doveton College* as a student. He did his work faithfully & made satisfactory progress. His disposition is amiable & his moral character is irreproachable. If he should succeed in gaining a scholarship in the medical college for which he is an applicant, I am sure he would do his best to deserve it. Charles Cooper F.C. College, Madras 30th June 1874
*From "The Story of Madras" by Glen Barlow, 1921 - Doveton College, Vepery, for Anglo-Indian boys was opened in 1855. It owes its existence to a wealthy Eurasian, (Naval) Captain John Doveton, who obtained his Captaincy in the service of the Nizam of Hyderabad, and who left a large sum of money to an earlier institution, the Parental Academy, which was afterwards called Doveton College in the deceased officer's honour.
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22 January 1880 - John Adolphus Burton (25) |
is admitted to the British Medical Register having studied in Edinburgh to become a LRCP Edin, and a LRCS Edin in 1879. How did he fund himself? Did he get a scholarship?
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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 jnr
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Admitted to the Indian Medical Service (IMS).
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21 September 1884 Charles Benjamin Burton
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(John Adolphus jnr's dad) dies aged 60.
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8 October 1884 Charles Benjamin Burton's
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will proved in Madras.
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13 June 1887 Funeral of Priscilla Burton
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in Madras.
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Burtons & Middlecoats join forces
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1888 33 year old John Adolphus Burton |
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marries 16 year old Georgiana Ernstin ("Gem") Middlecoat at Pallavaram, today neighboured (possibly covered) by the Chennai (Madras) International Airport, which was the major garrison for the Madras Presidency. Records of marriage from "Family Search" and the Times of India.
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12 August 1890 - Ethel Henrietta Florence Burton (Adrian's Grandmother) born in Mangalore, India. |
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Mangalore is in SW India. Ethel was christened there on 14 September 1890. She was an outstanding woman - how I wish I remembered more of the family stories she told me when I was little!
Ethel was the second of three surviving Burton children - older brother Charlie was born in Rangoon on 18 January 1889, and younger brother Cyril was born in Belgaum in 1894. A girl, Edith Winifred, born in 1891, must have died in infancy.
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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 not, one presumes, confident of a warm reception from his separating wife!.
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March 1894 - Samuel Richard Locke dies in London |
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Mary Middlecoat's father Samuel Locke dies in Chiswick aged 68, leaving his entire estate of £93 2s 9d to his daughter.
One of his sons, Samuel Archbald Locke, was on his way to becoming Chief Judge of Cochin and on the way marry Susanna Prior (see above - work that gen-slip relationship out!) - though it seems she might later have developed a preference for living in Edinburgh like her sister!
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5 April 1891 to 1894
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Mary Middlecoat (Locke) with six children and a servant are censussed in 142 Evering Rd, Hackney - no sign of the Colonel (who interestingly had been christened at St Mary Haggerston, Hackney) ....
Then, on 9 June 1891, the allegedly molto adultera moglie Mary files a petition for judicial separation from the allegedly verbalmente offensivo colonnello ....
READ THE MIDDLECOAT JUDICIAL SEPARATION PAPERS
Col Francis Middlecoat (? date) Mary Middlecoat (1912)
The petition was dismissed, but you would have to wonder how they got on for the next thirty-something years living together.
The 90s were not a good decade for Colonel Francis Middlecoat (or probably his family) - in September 1894 he is assaulted in his pad in Shepherds Bush by prospective son-in-law Alfred Perring Taylor. The subsequent court case is reported in the Times (Taylor was descended from a Lord Mayor of London and a Chief Justice of Ceylon). Alfred Perring's marriage to Mary Constance went ahead in Kensington (did the Colonel pay?), and by the 1901 census they had produced 4 little children in Fulham. Shortly thereafter the Taylors moved to spend the rest of their lives a prudently safe distance away - Saskatchewan - where they had 2 more children and in 1913 he became deputy provincial treasurer. A P Taylor died in Vancouver in 1955 aged 82.
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1892 December
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Surgeon Captain John Adolphus Burton promoted to Surgeon Major.
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1900
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1901 - Georgiana Burton discovered in Bedford with the 3 kids (Charlie 12, Ethel 11 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 - and where indeed was the school she was at?.. We just hope she did not have to spend time with her grandfather Francis Middlecoat!
In 1900 Surgeon Lt-Col John Adolphus took part 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 is living "reunited" 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, especially after the legal fees involved in the separation that wasn't.
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27 November 1906 from Liverpool to India
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John Adolphus and "Gem" return from leave in the UK on board the "Castalia" (via Bombay). Maybe this was the "one time" referred to by Ethel that she saw her parents?
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1907 - Gem, a young looking 36, at a picnic in Bellary (India)
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1910
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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.
A bit later in 1910 he and his family gather at Walton on the Naze (SE Essex - extreme estuary country).
In the photo: Cyril (16), Ethel (20 and Adrian's grandmother), Lt Col John Adolphus Burton (56 and just retired from the Indian Medical Service), Gem Burton (Middlecoat) (39) and Charlie (21). Jimmy Fletcher was there as well in the role of Charlie's mate rather than Ethel's future hubbie.
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The career of Lt Col John Adolphus Burton
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is published as entry 1466 in D.G.Crawford'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 would surely 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.
We have a bigger version for face spotters !
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September 1917 |
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Ethel Fletcher (Burton) and Terry Burton (Gelardi) (Charlie's wife) photographed at breakfast on 6 September 1917, photo by Ethel's husband Jimmy who had just bought a new camera!
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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14 August 1922 Col Francis Middlecoat (83) dies in Lambeth
16 March 1928 Mary Henrietta Middlecoat (Locke) (77) dies in Wandsworth
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Many of the BMD dates for the Francis Middlecoat family are contained in this Madras Military Fund document.
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Charles Frank ("Charlie") Burton (1889 - 1942 (53)) - born in Rangoon on 16 January 1889
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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 of his wife Terry 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 lost his life during the evacuation of Singapore in 1942.
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1 January 1924 - John Adolphus Burton dies in Wallington aged 69.
Link to John Adolphus Burton Obituary in the British Medical Journal.
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"Gem" lives on for another 30 years (d 1953) - latterly in a cigarette smoke filled basement flat in Dene Court in Folkestone (Jimmy & Ethel's house). In the 1920s and 30s she looked after Jimmy and Ethel's son Michael, and Charlie and Terry's children Joan and Peter whilst their parents were on overseas army postings.
"Gem" Burton at Dene Court, Folkestone, late 1940s
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Link to Photos of more Recent Ancestors of Angela Williams (Fletcher) & Adrian Fletcher
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