Clara Jane

Clara Jane Shaw (1832–1891) married John William Younghusband (1823-1907) in 1856

Major General John William Younghusband was the son of Charles Younghusband and Frances Romer. His elder brother, Robert Romer, later married Clara’s older sister, Anna.

John William Younghusband was an army officer who went on to join the Punjab Police rising to the rank of Inspector-General. They married when he was home on leave. He had fought in the First Afghan War and been an aide-de-camp to Sir Charles Napier during the conquest of Sind. Their first home in India was a remote area near Dharamsala. John William Younghusband was stamping out any potential insurrection in the Punjab at the time of the Indian Mutiny, an event coinciding with the arrival of his first child.

The British Library India Office holds a collection of photos of the Younghusband family, "Recollections of Our Indian Life" (1880).

Clara was a proficient artist. Some of her sketchbooks and drawings are in a collection at the British Library India Office.

After many years in India John William and Clara retired to Southsea.

They had six children, all but one born in India.

1. Clara Emily (known as Emmie) (1857-1945)

By 1871 Clara Emily had returned from India and was staying with her Aunt and Uncle, Emily and Robert Hicks, in the West Country. She never married. In "Younghusband: the Last Great Imperial Adventurer" Patrick French deftly describes the intimate relationship that existed between Emmie, the elder sister in a family where affection was in short supply, and her “darling” younger brother, Francis

After her mother’s death in 1891 Emmie suffered from depression and in 1901, aged 44 and having rejected a marriage proposal from a local vicar, she decided to kill herself. She failed to do so and her brother, Francis, invited her to join him when he returned to India a few weeks later. Emmie did not find happiness in India and soon returned to England. After the death of her father in 1907, followed by another failed attempt to live in India with Francis, the family decided that Emmie should be looked after in a Provincial Licensed House, otherwise known as a private lunatic asylum. After 34 years of sitting and doing nothing all day long Emmie died of “senile decay” in The Grove, Catton, Norwich in 1945.

Moved by her plight, Patrick French saw Emmie as “the personification of the desperate Victorian daughter, hemmed in by family and convention, who took to illness as a substitute for living.”

2. George John Younghusband (1859-1944) married Madeleine Wood (1861-1952) in Shropshire in 1891.

Madeleine was the daughter of wealthy Shropshire landowner, Edward Wood and his wife Isabella.

George John Younghusband was a prolific author, writing the following books listed here by date of publication:

Eighteen Hundred Miles on a Burmese Pony, Allen & Co, 1888

Polo in India, Allen & Co, 1890

The Queen's Commission, John Murray, 1891

On Short Leave to Japan, Marston & Co, 1894

The Relief of Chitral, Macmillan, 1895

Indian Frontier Warfare, Kegan Paul, 1898

The Philippines and Round About, with some Account of British Interests in these Waters, Macmillan, 1899

The Story of the Guides, Macmillan, 1908

A Soldier's Memories in Peace and War, Herbert Jenkins, 1917

The Crown Jewels of England, Cassell & Co, 1919

The Tower from Within, Herbert Jenkins, 1919

The Jewel House, Herbert Jenkins, 1921

Exploits of Asaf Khan (Introduction), Herbert Jenkins, 1922

Forty Years a Soldier, Herbert Jenkins, 1922

A Short History of the Tower of London, Herbert Jenkins, 1926

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Younghusband

Major General Sir George John Younghusband KCMG, KCIE, CB was a cavalry officer and major general in the British Indian Army. He saw military service in India, Afghanistan, Burma, the Philippines, South Africa and the Middle East. After battlefront wounds brought an end to his military career King George V appointed him Keeper of the Jewel House at the Tower of London. George and Madeleine spent the last years of their lives at The Neuadd, Crickhowell.

George John and Madeleine had one child.

2.1 George Edward Younghusband (1896-1970) married Mary Barbara Elizabeth Foster (1898-1963) in London in 1924.

Brigadier George Edward Younghusband CBE followed in the footsteps of his father and other male relatives taking up an army career before he retired to The Neuadd, Crickhowell.

3. Ethel Younghusband (1860-1944) married Arthur Leonard Harrison (1862-1918) in London in 1895.

Rev Arthur Leonard Harrison was the son of Captain Thomas Arthur John Harrison RA and Mary Elizabeth Thompson. He was a curate in Haslemere and then vicar in the parishes of Walsham le Willows, Suffolk and Yelverton, Norfolk.

Poor Ethel. The First World War claimed the life of her eldest son in 1915. Two years later her second son died at sea and the next year her husband died. Meanwhile her only sister was languishing in a mental institution.

Ethel and Arthur had three children.

3.1 Leonard John Harrison (1895-1915)

Second Lieutenant Leonard John Harrison was a chorister at St George’s Chapel, Windsor before attending Haileybury School and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He died at the Second Battle of Ypres.

http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205300800

3.2 Gerald Younghusband Harrison (1897-1917)

Like his older brother Sub Lieutenant Gerald Younghusband Harrison died when he was 20 years old. He attended the Osborne Royal Naval College on the Isle of Wight. He was one of an estimated 804 casualties when HMS Vanguard suffered an internal explosion and sank at Scapa Flow in July 1917.

3.3 Alick Robin Walsham Harrison (1900-1969) married Margaret Edith Ross (1910-1988) in Oxford in 1932.

Margaret Edith was the daughter of Sir William David Ross KBE FBA, a Scottish philosopher known for his work on ethics and Greek philosophy, and Edith Ogden. Sir William David Ross was Vice Chancellor of Oxford University from 1941 to 1944.

Robin Harrison was educated at Haileybury and Merton College, Oxford and returned to Merton College in 1930. His academic interests centred on law in the ancient world. He was the author of The Law of Athens (1968). During the Second World War he was a civil servant at the Ministry of Food. He was awarded an OBE in 1943 and a CBE in 1950. After the war he returned to Merton College where he served as Warden from 1963 to 1969.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Harrison

4. Gertrude Younghusband (1862-1862) – died in infancy

5. Francis Edward Younghusband (1863-1942) married Helen Augusta Magniac (1861-1945) in Eton in 1897.

Helen was the daughter of Charles Magniac and Augusta Frederica Anne Fitzpatrick, widow of Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Vesey Dawson. Charles Magniac was a financier and Liberal MP. His father, Hollingworth Magniac, was instrumental in the formation of Jardine Matheson and Company; Charles became a partner.

Lieutenant Colonel Sir Francis Edward Younghusband led an extraordinary life, really too full to summarise here. He was a soldier, military adventurer and Great Game player, an intrepid explorer and expedition leader, a British Commissioner in Tibet, founder of the Fight for Right movement in 1915, President of the Royal Geographical Society in 1919, Chairman of the Mount Everest Committee organising the 1921 British Mount Everest expedition, founder of the World Congress of Faiths and a writer of 26 books. Francis Younghusband started life as an ultra-imperialist; he ended it as supporter of Indian independence. He grew up in a family of strict evangelical Christians; at the end of his life following a mystical experience in Tibet he had become a radical spiritualist promoting the power of cosmic rays and advocating free love.

Wikipedia and a very readable Westerham heritage page both provide summaries of Francis Younghusband’s life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Younghusband

http://www.visitwesterham.org.uk/heritage/h-famous-people/h-francis-younghusband

Patrick French’s biography "Younghusband: the Great Imperial Adventurer", Penguin, 1994, is thoroughly researched and an excellent read that gets under the skin the complex bundle of energy that Francis Younghusband was.

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/179198/younghusband/

Francis and Helen had two children.

5.1 Francis Charles Delaval Younghusband (1898-1898) – died in infancy

5.2 Eileen Louise Younghusband (1902-1981)

Dame Eileen Younghusband DBE was highly respected for her life-long work in developing social work training. She was a student at the London School of Economics between 1926 and 1929, and a member of staff from 1944 to 1958. The Younghusband Report (1959) led to the establishment of the Council for Training in Social Work, which validated courses at polytechnics and further education institutions. Eileen Younghusband was a significant figure on the international stage. She conducted a Global Survey of Social Work Training for the UN in 1958/9 and became President of the International Association of Schools of Social Work in 1961. Dame Eileen never married. A car accident in America brought an end to her long and illustrious career in social work training as she approached her 80th birthday.

Here is a link to Eileen Younghusband's Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eileen_Younghusband

There is treasure trove of information about her here:

https://wdc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/younghusband

6. Leslie Napier Younghusband (1866-1939) married Kathleen Elizabeth Caroline Bott (1873-1942).

Kathleen Elizabeth Caroline Bott was the daughter of John Harriott Bott and Elizabeth Mildred Blacker, who resided at The Grange, Marden, Wiltshire and Linden House, College Lawn, Cheltenham. Major General Leslie Napier Younghusband C.B., C.M.G. was an officer in the Indian Army. He saw action in the Second Boer War and World War One. After he retired from the army he and his wife settled in Folkestone.

Leslie and Kathleen had three children.

6.1 John Leslie Younghusband (1899-1966) married Catherine Beatrice Fisher (1903-1980) in Chelsea in 1927.

The National Portrait Gallery has a photo of their wedding party:

http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw235951/John-Leslie-Younghusband-Catherine-Beatrice-Younghusband-ne-Fisher-and-wedding-party

Catherine was the daughter of Arthur Oswald Fisher and Orfla Melita Rowan-Hamilton. Lieutenant Commander John Leslie Younghusband DSC was a Royal Navy officer from 1918 to 1946. He commanded a number of ships during the Second World War and was awarded the DSC in 1940 in recognition of his service commanding the destroyer HMS Wild Swan. He was born in India and retired to Hampshire.

6.2 Napier Younghusband (1900-1900) – died in infancy

6.3 Laurence George Short Younghusband (1903-1982)

Laurence George Short Younghusband was born in India and became an officer in the Indian Army. He never married. In 1939 he was living with his mother in Folkestone and his occupation was recorded as Motor Engineer (Heavy Work). He died when living in Hythe, Kent.