India

 Multicultural  Worlds

* British East India Company *

“The British connection with India was a part of British life for two hundred years *...” Of my direct ancestors (great grandparents to my parents), James Stormont on the patriarch side and the children of Mary Ann Marler on the matriarch lineage, were , born in India during the mid 1820s, and spent some of their formative years there or so I am led to believe by research of available records.

• Reference…https://indiafamily.bl.uk/ui/Sources.aspx

• L/MIL - Military Department Records (1708-1959)

• L/AG/23/10/1-2 - Madras Military Fund family registers. Established 1808, closed to new subscribers 1862. Provided benefits for the widows and children of regular officers and chaplains of the Madras Army - optional for Madras medical officers up to 1847. Rolls of subscribers and their wives and children give subscriber's dates of birth, marriage and death, wife's dates of birth and remarriage/death, children's dates of birth and daughters' dates of marriage/death. …19th & 20th centuries

Heritage Births In India

James Lancelot Stormont was born about 1829 in Haridwar, aka Hardwar”: which in 1947 was a part of the then Saharanpur district, in the United Province of the British Raj; It is known today as Uttarakhand (Uttarakhand, India) and between 1847-1854 a nearby village at Roorkee, in British India, the then lieutenant governor, Sir James Thomason established- Thomason College near the sappers and miners' depot.  This college continued to train soldiers and paying students to become assistant engineers.

Uttarakhand is also an area in which the Indian Mutiny of 1857-1860 occurred. Some  troops ere from New South Wales, Australia and some of them had been discharged after the Crimea (Russian Black Sea) war (1854-1856) and were recalled to quell the revolt in India. Refer: Colonial series by Peter Watt - Queen’s Colonials and Queen’s Tiger (2019).

If records were reliable sources of information, we can believe James came to New South Wales for a second time in 1857, with his wife Kathleen Sarah Wade Russell, whom he claims to have married in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He is assumed by many, to be the same person who arrived via the "Dale Park" in 1844 with wife Jemima and whose stated origin was then, in Belfast, Ireland and born in 1824. In 1880 James married again the much younger Jessie Nicholson in Bombala, New South Wales, while Kathleen continued to live in Melbourne’s growing city suburbs, seeming with independent means

1. Where was James between 1853 and 1857?

2. Is it possible he was in India with the British army, maybe as an assistant to a surgeon or 

3. Did James Stormont return to INDIA and complete his training to become a certified Civil Engineer? 

4. WHERE had he gone and how did he return to Belfast, marry Cathleen and return to Victoria, Australia?.

Ann Carver

Ann Carver arrived-in Madras about 1817 at the age of 17 and was ready to bear children and participate successfully with the organisation of the British government cantonements in Southern India.

Children  of Robert Broadfoot & Ann Carver 

Robert Broadfoot Jnr. born in 1816 Richmond, New South Wales.

1. Benjamin Broadfoot born 1817, christened 28th December 1817 in Madras, Madras Presidency, India.

   1. William Broadfoot born 1819 in Madras, Madras Presidency India. William died on 14 Dec 1821, aged 2 years and was buried at in Bellary, Madras, India.

The two boys Benjamin and William, probably attended schools set up for children of the Regiments and taught by the Drum Major with the assistance of some wives

Children of Thomas Marler (Marlow) & Ann Carver

• 1. Mary Anne Marlow born 10 Jan 1826 and christened on 28 Jan 1826 at Cannanore, Kerala, South India, and was schooled in India.  Aka. Mary Anne Marler

  2. Thomas Marlow, b 19 May 1828, Secunderabad, Madras, India and died 23 Jan. 1885. 

  3. Sarah Elizabeth Marlow, b. 9 February 1830, daughter of Thomas Marlow and Ann.

1. A significant presence of the military in the Secunderabad cantonment area, was established under the British Raj in the early 1800s. Wikipedia: "Modern Secunderabad was founded as a British cantonment after Nizam Asaf Jah II was defeated by the British East India Company. He was then forced to sign the 1798 Treaty of Subsidiary Alliance to get the favor of British troops camped in the village of Ulwul, north-east of Hussain Sagar, the lake that separates Secunderabad from its twin city Hyderabad. In 1803, Nizam Sikandar Jah, the third Nizam of Hyderabad, changed Ulwul's name to Secunderabad after himself.[10] The city was formed in 1806, after the order was signed by the Nizam allotting the land north of Hussain Sagar to set up the British Cantonment.This was the twin cities "separated by the man-made Hussain Sagar lake, which was built during the reign of the Qutb Shahi dynasty in the 16th century. Unlike Hyderabad, the official language of Secunderabad was English

Children of Alexander Appelbe & Ann Carver

• 1. Annie Mary Appelbe (See FamilySearch) born 5 August 1832; baptised 11 August 1832 at Secunderabad, Madras, India and may have died 19 August 1862 in County Cork, and appears to have remained in Ireland when her mother returned to Australia. Anne Mary and she married at Bandon in 1851, possibly to her cousin George. 

  2. Isabella Sarah Appelbe born 5 July 1831, died an infant and buried at Secundrabad, Madras, India on 5 Sep 1832

The three times widowed Ann and her children returned to Australia via Cork, Ireland about 1837, following which Ann Carver married twice more in Richmond. Young Mary Ann became the widow Ritchie before marrying my GGGrandfather, Thomas Putland, in 1860 (Bathurst). See links for further information on the maternal ancestry.

Notes: 

1. Hindoostan / Hindustan is the Persian name for India. The usage of "Bharat", "Hindustan", or "India" depends on the context and language of conversation.The Indian cultural sphere or Indosphere is an area that is composed of the many countries and regions in South and Southeast Asia that were historically influenced by Indian culture and the Sanskrit language. The term Greater India is used to encompass the historical and geographic extent of all political entities of the Indian subcontinent, and the regions which are culturally linked to India or received significant Sanskritization and Indian cultural influence.  

2. - Citation Source: diginole.lib.fsu.edu/  Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2003 - In the Company's Secret Service: Neil Benjamin Edmonstone and the First Indian Imperialists, 1780-1820 by Marla Karen Chancey: -"English (later British) East Indiamen usually ran between England, the Cape of Good Hope and India, where their primary destinations were the ports of Bombay, Madras and Calcutta. The Indiamen often continued on to China before returning to England via the Cape of Good Hope and Saint Helena."

3. The Stormont was one such graceful sailing ship..... which "sailed out of Portsmouth in March 1783 bound for Bengal, reached Madras in July and, by September, had made its way to the Hugli (Hoogley) River and Calcutta's Diamond Harbor. There it blended into the forest of masts belonging to some of the more than 300 vessels that called at the city each year. Like them, the Stormont's primary purpose was to take part in the lucrative trade in cotton cloth, saltpeter, indigo, opium and spices that made Diamond Harbor one of the world's most famous ports. As a small sideline, it also transported passengers, usually East India Company employees." 

4. Wikipedia /Telangana: "Throughout antiquity and the Middle Ages, the region now known as Telangana was ruled by multiple major Indian powers such as the Cholas, Mauryans, Satavahanas, Chalukyas, Kakatiyas, Delhi Sultanate, Bahmani Sultanate, Golconda Sultanate. During the 16th and 17th centuries, the region was ruled by the Mughals.[11][12] The region is known for its Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb. During the 18th century and the British Raj, Telangana was ruled by the Nizam of Hyderabad.[13] In 1823, the Nizams lost control over Northern Circars(Coastal Andhra) and Ceded Districts(Rayalseema), which were handed over to the East India Company. The annexation by the British of the Northern Circars deprived Hyderabad State, the Nizam's dominion, of the considerable coastline it formerly had, to that of a landlocked princely state with territories in the central Deccan, bounded on all sides by British India. Thereafter, the Northern Circars were governed as part of Madras Presidency until India's independence in 1947, after which the presidency became India's Madras state."

A Brief History of the British East India Company

Between early 1600s and the mid-19th century: 

 The British East India Company was launched in 1600 by a group of British merchants with ambitions to trade with the orient to their East. Officially known originally as the “Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading with the East Indies”, the EIC, obtained a Royal Charter from Queen Elizabeth I, granting it “monopoly at the trade with the East”. A joint stock company, shares owned primarily by British merchants and aristocrats with no direct link to the British government.

The East India Company took the lead in establishing and expanding international trade in Asia and subsequently lead the economic and political domination of the entire Indian subcontinent. The EIC built up its own private army and systematically gave up its trading interests, in favour of taking over and ruling large parts of India. The EIC was profiting from taxation and from a monopoly in the opium trade with China.

The EIC became a controversial mixture of private company and instrument of the British state, and was arguably, the world’s first multinational. - referenced from M.J. Carter's "The Devil's Feast" 2017. - (HC. Putnam. New York. 1st US edition, Chapter 3 page 36).

Through the mid-1700s and early 1800s:

The British East India Company came to account for half of the world’s trade. They traded mainly in commodities exotic to Europe and Britain like cotton, indigo, salt, silk, saltpetre, opium and tea. Although initial interest of the company was aimed simply at reaping profits, their single minded focus on establishing a trading monopoly throughout Asia pacific, made them the heralding agents of British Colonial Imperialism. 

• For the first 150 years the East India Company’s presence was largely confined to the coastal areas. It soon began to transform from a trading company to a ruling endeavor following their victory in the Battle of Plassey against the ruler of Bengal, Siraj-ud-daullah in the year 1757. 

• Warren Hastings, the first governor-general, laid down the administrative foundations for the subsequent British consolidation. The revenues from Bengal were used for economic and military enrichment of the Company. 

Military support was used as a protection force to safeguard property and trade with other nations. From 1788 when the first fleet arrived in Australia, there was a military and trade connection between Australia and the East Indies particularly India and also in the West Indies and America.

• Under directives from Governor Generals, Wellesly and Hastings, expansion of British territory by invasion or alliances was initiated. By 1837 the Company dominated the subcontinent, eventually acquiring major parts of present day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar andt Nepal, with Calcutta as its capital.

  • "Within these borders there still existed many independent princely states, however, which struggled to find ways of existing alongside their powerful and hungry neighbour." Quote from M.J. Carter's "The Devil's Feast" 2017. - (HC. Putnam. New York. 1st US edition, Chapter 3 page 36)

It is noted that in 1838, the government of New South Wales agreed to take seven boys (of not less than twelve years of age and of ‘pure European descent‘) from the Madras Military Male Orphan Asylum. The seven boys arrived on the 'Sesostris' in February 1841, their passage arranged and paid for by the East India Company’s Marine Board. The seven boys were Samuel Hobart, James Marlow, John Harris, Christopher Connor, William Bird, James Barry and James MacKin.[5][6]

Third Maratha War

1817-1818 - Third Maratha War 

• Peshwa undid their treaty with the British. 

• 5 November 1817 Peshwa attacked the British Residency andwas defeated a Kirkee. 

• Similarly, the Bhonsle chief, Appa Sahib also refused to abide by the Treaty of Nagpur, which he had signed with the British on 17 May 1816. According to this treaty, Nagpur came under the control of the Company. He fought with the British in the Battle of Sitabaldi in November 1817, but was defeated. 

• The Peshwa now turned to Holkar for help, but Holkar too was defeated by the British on 21 December 1817 at Baroda. 

• By December 1817 the dream of a Maratha Confederacy was shattered. 

• In 1818, Scindia was also forced to sign a new treaty with the British on the basis of which Ajmer was given to the Nawab of Bhopal, who also accepted the British suzerainty. 

• The Gaekwar of Baroda, while accepting the Subsidiary Alliance, agreed to hand over certain areas of Ahmedabad to the British. 

• The Rajput states which were under the Pindaris were freed after the latter’s suppression. 

• The year 1818 was a significant year on account of major political achievements for the British. 

1820 Kumbh Mela - see wikipedia : Quote:  A stampede left 430 dead during the 1820 mela. Subsequently, the Company government undertook extensive and expensive repair works on the bathing ghats. This move reportedly impressed the natives. The Asiatic Journal quotes one pilgrim as: "May your rule be blessed! May your reign extend for ages to come! You have produced a magnificent kumbh! You have turned the kali yuga into age of truth and justice!".[15]

The Maratha dream of establishing themselves as the paramount power in India was completely destroyed. Thus, the last hurdle in the way of British paramountcy was removed.

• In 1857, the Indians raised their voice against the Company and its oppressive rule by breaking out into an armed rebellion, which historians termed as the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. Although the company took brutal action to regain control, it lost much of its credibility and economic image back home in England. 

• The Company lost its powers following the Government of India Act of 1858. The Company armed forces, territories and possessions were taken over by the Crown. The East India Company was formally dissolved by the Act of Parliament in 1874 which marked the commencement of the British Raj in India."

East India Company

In the aftermath of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Government of India Act 1858 was passed on August 2, 1858, in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Its provisions called for the liquidation of the British East India Company and the transference of its functions in all three presidency towns of Madras, Bombay and Calcutta, together with all serving Regiments and armies to the British Crown. Source - Wikipedia / EIC/Presidency Army 

When the British Raj occupied “old India”, the country was not known in the same way as after 1947, when it split into the successor States of India and Pakistan, and the people of‘ India, then referenced all the inhabitants of the subcontinent.

46th. Regiment of Foot

The military enforcers of the East India Company in India, included the British 46th. Regiment of Foot (South Devonshire). The 46th regiment also served in Australia and America, and the Caribbean and were stationed in Australia from c.1812-1817 before serving under the East India Company, Madras Presidency.  

• Soldiers of the 46th regiment embarked at Sydney Cove, on the 8th of September 1817, in three divisions on board the "Matilda (iii) ," "Lloyd," and "Dick" transports, and arrived at Madras on the 16th December 1817. 

• On the 29th December, the regiment marched for Vellore, a city and the administrative headquarters of Vellore District in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. (Source:  Wikipedia). 

• The regiment then proceeded en route to the Presidency of Madras, arriving on the 12th of October 1818 at Fort St George on Rajaji Salai (Beach Road), a military compound established in 1644, and a foundation for the city known as Madras. (since independence the names naming has carried an Indian name as well as former British names, thus Madras was also known as Chennai, and the state becam Tamil Nadu, India).

• "On the 1st of July, 1820, the regiment commenced its march from Fort Saint George for Bellary, in the Ceded Districts (modern Karnataka, India), and arrived at that station on the 10th. August 1820.

• A detachment of the regiment, consisting of two captains, five lieutenants, two ensigns, one assistant surgeon, twenty serjeants, four drummers, and four hundred rank and file, marched from Bellary, for Belgaum, on field service in the Doab, on the 1st of October, 1820, and arrived at its destination on the 23rd of that month.

• During the years 1821, 1822, and 1823, the head-quarters of the regiment continued to be stationed at Bellary."

The 46th. Regiment remained there for 15 years in India and amidst them were three military men, who were successive husbands to Ann Carver. Ann was born 1798 in Richmond N.S.W., a daughter of Ben Carver and Sarah (my first Australian born ancestor). Marriage:

1. Sgt. Robert Broadfoot in 1816 at Richmond NSW; Ann travelled "on the strength of the Regiment" into India. No direct genealogy line connects the Broadfoot family history; Sgt. Robert Broadfoot died in India, about 1824, (the time of the siege of Kittoor) and Ann Carver Broadfoot (aka Bradfute) was widowed for the first time. 

2. Ann remained on the strength of the Regiment in India, through a second marriage to Drum Major Thomas Marlow (Marler) Who died there in 18??.

3. Ann's third marriage was to Quartermaster Alexander Appelbe, who became ill and returned home to Cok, Ireland together with Ann and the children.

4. Following a soldiers death a widow was not entitled to the protection of the Regiment and no provision was made for their support. It is probable that soldiers had their own code of honour, towards wives of fallen comrades and ensured ongoing support by offering re-marriage.

Footnotes

The Anglo - Maratha battles againstb the PINDARI Raiders on villages of the Coromandel coastline in 1815 - 1817, were over by the time the 46th Regiment arrived there. So what were their orders?

Anglo-Maratha Wars

The Anglo–Maratha Wars were three wars fought in the Indian sub-continent between Maratha Empire and the British East India Company:

1. First Anglo-Maratha War (1775–1782)

2. Second Anglo-Maratha War (1803–1805)

3. Third Anglo-Maratha War, also known as the Pindari War (1816–1819).

• Image:- Kolkata, India - The Victoria Memorial (Victoria Memorial Hall) is a large marble building in Kolkata (Calcutta),West Bengal, India which was built between 1906 and 1921. It is dedicated to the memory of Queen Victoria (1819–1901) and is now a museum and tourist destination under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture. The Memorial lies on the Maidan (grounds) by the bank of the Hooghly river, near Jawaharlal Nehru road.

1. By sea and by military campaigns around the globe and the British E.I.C. had competed aggressively with similar trading companies of the Dutch, French, Spanish, and fought the Mughal and Marathra rulers for control of trade in Mesopotamia, Burma and India.

"The British are not a spiritual people. They are either a fighting race or a commercial people. It would be throwing pearls before swine to appeal to them in the name of higher morality or justice or on ethical grounds. They are a self-reliant haughty people who can appreciate self-reliance and self-respect even in their opponents."

Quote:- Lala Lajpat Rai, ~ born 1865, Jagraon, India—died November 17, 1928, Lahore [now in Pakistan]), Indian writer and politician, outspoken in his advocacy of a militant anti-British nationalism in the Indian National Congress (Congress Party) and as a leader of the Hindu supremacy movement.

In 20th. Century Australia since Federation, our British, Irish and Scottish origin may have lost track of the fact, that during the preceding four centuries, the British Empire established colonies and conquests built on trade and supported by military campaigns around the globe and the British East India Company competed aggressively with similar trading companies of the Dutch, French, Spanish, the Mughal and Marathra rulers for control of trade in Mesopotamia, Burma and India.

1847-1854 - Thomason College at the sappers and miners' depot at Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India continued to train soldiers to become assistant engineers.. Refer : College of Civil Engineering at Roorkee (1847–1854). Thomason College of Civil Engineering(1854–1947). University of Roorkee (1947–2001).

Brochure online 1850s. 

References:

Humphrey Trevelyan, The India We Left ...

• 1. (1) Inglorious Empire. What the British did to India. Shashi Tharoor. 2016 - (pages 45-46 & 49).

     1. Refer Shashi Tharoor " Inglorious Empire " - To describe his method, Gandhi coined the expression satyagraha, literally, "holding+on+to+truth" or as he variously described it, truth-force, love-force or soul-force. He disliked the English term “passive+resistance” because satyagraha required activism, not passivity. If you believed in Truth and cared enough to obtain it, Gandhi felt, you could not afford to be passive: you had to be prepared actively to suffer for Truth. So non-violence, like many later concepts labelled with a negation, from non-cooperation to non-alignment, meant much more than the denial of an opposite; it did not merely imply the absence of violence. Non-violence was the way to vindicate the truth not by the infliction of suffering on the opponent, but on one's +self. It was essential to willingly accept punishment in order to demonstrate the strength of one's convictions.

  2. (i1) Empire. How Britain made the Modern World. Niall Ferguson. 2003. - Allen Lane The Penguin Press. London. (Chapters 1-6).

     1. Civilization Part 1 - BBC Series by Niall Ferguson. - Ferguson, N. Empire How Britain Made the Modern World - Why Britain ep 1/6 HD - YOUTUBE.COM.

  3. (iii) Colonial Secretary Index, 1788-

     1. 1817 Sep 17 - Re supply of bread on "Matilda" for detachment of 46th Regiment for Madras (Reel 6005; 4/3497 pp.59-60) 

     2. 1817 Sep 25 - Furnishing returns of expenditure of certain articles and provisions per "Lloyds" and "Dick" (Reel 6047; 4/1739 pp.251-4).

  4. (iv) Quotation of Sir Henry Sumner Milne - Village Communities East and West. 1895.

  5. New York Times:- The Proudest Day. India's Long Road to Independence. ANTHONY READ and DAVID FISHER. W. W. (1997). Norton & Company

  6. 31 May 1873 - mail steamer "Bangalore" or "RANGATIRA" arrived in Melbourne with a Mr. J.L. Stormont a passenger in 2nd class. "RANGATIRA" had departed King Georges Sound on Sunday, 25 May, 1873. and arrived in Port Adelaide on Friday 30th. May 1873: Masters: Paddle, Benjamin, via Glenelg with oorkee, passengers and the mails from the P.& O. branch steamer Bangalore, via Galle.passengers and the mails from the P.& O. branch steamer Bangalore, via Galle.

  7. Wiki "Lord William Bentick was the first governor general of British India . Everyone else before him was the governor of bengal (Fort William). On his return to England, Bentinck served in the House of Commons for some years before being appointed Governor-General of Bengal in 1828. His principal concern was to turn around the loss-making East India Company, to ensure that its charter would be renewed by the British government."

  8. Charles Grant (1746 - 1823) - education in British India.

  9. The Buddha and the Sahibs: The Men Who Discovered India’s Lost Religion by Charles Allen. audiobook 2015. This is the story of the men from the British Raj who rediscovered the history of the Buddha and his teachings and the role played by key Buddhist rulers such as Ashoka.   Beginning with Sir William Jones FRS FRSE (28 September 1746 – 27 April 1794).

  10. Ashoka : the search for India's lost emperor / Charles Allen. Author/Creator: Allen, Charles, 1940 Publication Information: London : Little, Brown, 2012. Physical description xix, 460 p. : ill., map ; 25 cm. Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [426]-447) and index. ISBN: 9781408701966 (hbk.).

  11. Noted: Surgeon Major / Assistant surgeon john stormont in bengal 1767 - 1788:- Research: 

      1. text of "A history of the Indian Medical Service, 1600-1913 [electronic resource]" - https://archive.org/stream/b21352148/b21352148_djvu.txt

  12. Refer: Colonial series by Peter Watt - Queen’s Colonials and Queen’s Tiger (2019).

  13. Haridwar district  also known as Hardwar on the Gange, is an ancient city and municipality. In the 16th century, Babur, a Timurid descendant of Timur and Genghis Khan from Fergana Valley (modern-day Uzbekistan), invaded across the Khyber Pass and founded the Mughal Empire, covering India, along with modern-day Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The Mughals were descended from Persianised Central Asian Turks (with significant Mongol admixture). which in the 16th century during the reign of Mughal Emperor Akbar, was a sacred city of Hindus. Being one of the oldest living cities, Haridwar, is mentioned in ancient Hindu scriptures and is woven through the life and time stretching from the period of the Buddha, to the more recent British advent. In 1947, when India achieved independence from the British colonial subjugation, the region of present Haridwar district was a part of the then Saharanpur district, in the United Provinceof the British Raj; the province was renamed as Uttar Pradesh state of India. It is today governed under the administration of Uttarakhand, India. Source Wikipedia “Haridwar”.

  14. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mohurrum_Festival_by_Lala_Deen_Dayal.jpg#mw-jump-to-license

Timeline of India 

-My Google Drive document -