Untold lives blog

Ship’s captain, free mariner, surgeon, cleric and infantrymen – seven members of one family, spanning three generations between 1767 and 1868.  A story brought to life through the India Office Records at the British Library.

Three generations of Barkers employed by the East India Company

1st generation - Commander
Robert Barker (1767-1835) attested his age before Major John Burnett at Mansion House in London on 17 January 1780.  He was just twelve years and five months old.  He sailed as an ordinary seaman for three years aboard the sloop Echo until, at sixteen, he was a midshipman aboard the Dutton on a voyage to India and back that took nineteen months.  Rising through the ranks of fourth, third and first mate, he became captain in 1801 of the Northampton.  Barker made three voyages to India and China before retiring to Brazil in 1807, where he became a plantation owner.

Robert Barker's service as Captain of the Northampton - IOR/L/MAR/B/198C, 198P (1) & (2)

2nd generation – Free mariner, surgeon, and cleric
Robert’s nephew, Alexander Popham Barker (1787–c.1821), sailed with his uncle aboard the Northampton in 1803 as a midshipman and in 1805 as a fourth mate, eventually rising to first mate.  In 1815 he applied to the East India Company to become a free mariner in the intra-Asian ‘country trade’ and based himself in Bengal.  Alexander was presumed lost at sea sometime after 1821.

Alexander’s younger brother, Thomas Brown Barker (1796-1848), was a member of the Edinburgh Royal College of Surgeons at 21 and then applied to become an East India Company assistant surgeon.  By July 1818, he was working in Madras.  He served in infantry and cavalry regiments at Madras, Benares, Calcutta and Bengal, becoming surgeon in 1829 aged 33.  Then, in 1848, after some 30 years of service and eligible for retirement, he set sail for home aboard the Gloriana, only to die during the voyage.

Thomas Brown Barker’s application to be Assistant Surgeon - IOR/L/MIL/9/370/14-17

Alexander’s younger sister, Francis Brown Barker (1790-1885), married Rev Joseph Laurie in 1822.  Later that year, Rev Laurie was installed as chaplain for the Church of Scotland for the Bombay Presidency.  He served as minister at the Scotch Kirk, later named the Church of Saints Andrew and Columba.  The Lauries lived in Colabah.  They had four children between 1823 and 1833.  The younger two died in infancy; the elder two entered the Company's Infantry.


3rd generation – Infantry cousins
Alexander Popham Barker (2) (1822-1844), Robert Laurie (1823-1856), and John Joseph Laurie (1825-1868) were cousins. All joined the Bombay Infantry, and all three died early - one with honour, one in disgrace and one through illness.

On 10 April 1844, Lt Alexander Popham Barker was wounded in the arm and side while in command at Hunooman Ghaut and died the same day, aged 21.

Alexander Popham Barker’s service record - IOR/L/MIL/12/72/377

On 2 May 1854, Lt Robert Laurie was court-martialled for giving false testimony at the trial of Lt Col Gidley earlier that year and was cashiered from the service.  He returned to England in disgrace and died at his parent’s home at the age of 32. 

On 28 September 1868, Lt Col John Joseph Laurie of the Staff Corps was buried in Bombay by the chaplain of his father’s church, having died from brain and liver disease aged 43.

CC-BY
Mark Williams
Independent researcher

Creative Commons Attribution licence

Further reading:
Anthony Farrington, Catalogue of East India Company Ships' Journals and Logs 1600-1834 (London: The British Library,1999), e.g. Northampton: Journal 12 May 1803 – 9 February 1805 IOR/L/MAR/B/198C; Ledger IOR/L/MAR/B/198P(1); Pay Book IOR/L/MAR/B/198P(2).
Anthony Farrington, A Biographical Index of East India Company Maritime Service Officers 1600-1834 (London: The British Library,1999) - officers by rank, ship and date of voyage.
Richard Morgan, An Introduction to British Ships in Indian Waters (London: The Families in British India Society (FIBIS), 2017).
The East India Register and Directory.
The Bombay Gazette via British Newspaper Archive and Findmypast.
Alexander Popham Barker’s application to be a free mariner - Minutes of Committee of Shipping IOR/L/MAR/C/29 1814-1815 ff. 778-9, 15 March 1815.
Thomas Brown Barker’s application to be Assistant Surgeon - IOR/L/MIL/9/370/14-17.
Alexander Popham Barker, Lt Bombay Infantry - IOR/L/MIL/12/72/377.
Robert Laurie, Lt Bombay Infantry – for Laurie’s court-martial, see Misbehaviour in the Bombay Army. 
John Joseph Laurie, Lt Col Bombay Staff Corps - Burial 28 September 1868 IOR/N/3/42 p.331
Cadet papers:
Alexander Popham Barker –IOR/L/MIL/9/195/535-37.
Robert Laurie - IOR/L/MIL/9/195/276-81.
John Joseph Laurie - IOR/L/MIL/9/196/769-75.

A recently catalogued collection of India Office Private Papers is now available to researchers in the British Library’s Asian & African Studies reading room.  This comprises the papers of Ralph Esmond Selby Tanner, British Army and Burma Frontier Service; and his wife Penelope Tanner, writer, photographer and illustrator.

Army identity card for Ralph Tanner Mss Eur F747/3/1

During the Second World War, Ralph Tanner was part of the Commando unit Layforce that saw desperate fighting in Crete in 1941, and served with the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry during the retreat from Burma in 1942.  His health seriously damaged by this, he spent long periods in hospital in India, before returning to England to recover.  While in England he met his wife Penelope Dell, and they were married in May 1944.  He returned to Burma a year later as part of the British Military Government, before transferring to civil employ as the Assistant Resident at Namhsan.  In May 1948, he travelled to Tanzania on Colonial Service, soon to be joined by Penelope.  They spent the next seventeen years living and working in Africa, before returning to the UK in 1965.  The collection contains Ralph’s letters to his parents describing his experiences in Crete and Burma 1941-43, and letters to his wife Penelope while settling into his new job in Burma in 1945-46.

Description of an air raid Mss Eur F747/1/9 f.25

The collection also has letters from Penelope to Ralph.  These date from before they were married up to just before Penelope left England to join him in Burma in late 1946.  These very personal letters document their developing relationship, family politics, their wedding, the health of themselves and their young son, and planning their future together.  When the series of letters began in late 1943, the Second World War was still raging, with regular air raids on London.  In one letter written in January 1944, she described a close call: ‘The second air raid we had was very noisy too, and most unlike me I went downstairs, and as I got to the bottom a piece of shrapnel came hurtling down the lift shaft, hit one of the supports and ricocheted against the wall about 3 inches above my head, and shot down into the basement’.

Design for table by Penelope Tanner Mss Eur F747/1/18 f.62

One fascinating aspect of Penelope’s letters is the light they shine on the amount of work required of her to organise moving herself and her baby son out to Burma to begin a new life with her husband.  From packing all their possessions, arranging shipping, dealing with travel agents, obtaining the correct travel documents, to even thinking about what furniture they would need in their new bungalow in Burma.  Being a skilled illustrator, Penelope sent Ralph sketches of furniture she thought they might need with precise measurements and instructions on having them made by Burmese craftsmen.

Oryx Antelope - photograph by Penelope Tanner Mss Eur F747/2/5

A very creative person, Penelope Tanner was a writer, photographer and illustrator.  The collection includes several unpublished manuscripts written by her.  They range from short stories, articles, a crime novel, a series of stories on cave dwellers in Kenya, and a memoir of her life in Burma with her husband and son.

John O’Brien
India Office Records

Further Reading:
Papers of Ralph Esmond Selby Tanner (1921-2017), Burma Frontier Service 1939-1946; and his wife Penelope Tanner (nee Dell) (1918-1985), collection reference Mss Eur F741, available to view in the Asian & African Studies Reading Room, and the catalogue is searchable on Explore Archives and Manuscripts.

Other Tanner papers held at the British Library:
• Mss Eur Photo Eur 411: Copies of letters from Ralph Esmond Selby Tanner, 1945-46.
• Mss Eur C522: Paper on `Religion and Economics: Kodaung Hill Tracts, Burma, 1945-8 and Sukumaland, Tanganyika 1951-5' by Dr Ralph Esmond Selby Tanner, 1990.
• C63/197 (formerly Mss Eur R195): Ralph Esmond Selby Tanner interviewed by David M. Blake, 7th August 1990.

Burma 1942: memories of a retreat: the diary of Ralph Tanner, KOYLI by R.E.S. Tanner and D.A. Tanner (Cheltenham: The History Press, 2019), BL reference YKL.2020.a.10619.

East India Company merchant John Pybus compiled notes about the practicalities of trade in various ports and settlements of the Indian Ocean in the 18th century.  Among lists of prices, exchange rates, and goods are advice and instructions for enterprising traders looking to maximise their profits through bribery and tax dodging.

A list of goods available at Bengal, Mss Eur F110/11, f 16.

Gift-giving is mentioned in the description of many ports.  At Atcheen (Aceh, Indonesia), Pybus bluntly states that a visiting merchant must ‘visit the King and make him a Present’.  For the Spanish colonial port of Manila, he helpfully includes a list of individuals ‘whom it is proper to get acquainted with’ and whose goodwill was required to conduct business successfully at the port.

A list of notable officials, merchants, and other individuals in Manila. Mss Eur F110/11, f 36.

The propriety of these ‘gifts’ seems questionable, at least in the case of the authorities at Manila.  While a trader was instructed to prioritise visiting the Governor of Manila to present him with a token of gratitude, this ‘must be done… without any witness, for should any body be by, he will not accept it’.

Payments could also be used to avoid paying dues on merchandise when the Spanish authorities came to measure a ship and assess its cargo.  First, it was important to greet the inspectors warmly- ‘you must have a very handsome entertainment for them which is very acceptable to them… I would advise to have at least, a dozen dishes of victuals, with what variety you can of Europe pickles and likewise of wines’.  If this did not make a sufficiently good impression, the money-conscious captain was to emphasise that ‘you are no stranger to the customs of the port, and that you intend to be gratefull for all favours’.  Finally, a direct approach was taken to secure favourable treatment from the man tasked with measuring the ship.  When a Spanish official was sent below decks to take measurements, ‘send a man down with 10 or 12 dollars, to slip into the officer’s hand (unseen)… it will turn to good account’.

A map showing the Bay of Manila, created in 1798

Even the constraints of European politics could be avoided through bribery.  Restrictions put in place by an imperial power half a world away could be ignored for the sake of mutual profit.  When describing Malacca, a Dutch colony at the time, Pybus mentions that ‘All trade is prohibited the English in all Dutch ports’, but the Dutch colonial administrators were not particularly attentive to this restriction.  At Malacca, an English merchant simply had to ‘land all goods in the night, by the Government’s permission, for which you pay 30 Rix Dollars for each chest of opium and 15 dollars for each bale’.  Pybus also advised the illicit trader to pay ‘four or five dollars each’ to the servants of the Governor who came to supervise the unloading of cargo.

Instructions for trading as an Englishman in Dutch-controlled Malacca. Mss Eur F110/11, f 19

Ignoring rules and buying influential friends seem to have been essential business skills in this period.

Dan McKee
Gulf History Cataloguer
British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership

Further reading:
British Library Mss Eur F110/11 Notes on Coins, Weights and Measures, and Conditions of Trade at Various Ports in the Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean and the South China Sea.

‘Many and varied are the difficulties which beset a woman, when she first exchanges her European home and its surroundings for the vicissitudes of life in the tropics.’  These are the opening words of Tropical trials – A Handbook for Women in the Tropics.  ‘This sudden and complete upset of old-world life, and the disturbance of long existing associations, produces, in many women, a state of mental chaos, that utterly incapacitates them for making due and proper preparations for the contemplated journey.'

Major S Leigh Hunt, Madras Army, and Alexander S Kenny, Tropical trials – A handbook for women in the tropics (London, 1883)

The book was published in 1883 by Major Shelley Leigh Hunt of the Madras Army and Alexander S Kenny, demonstrator of anatomy at King’s College London, as a companion work to their On Duty Under a Tropical Sun which had been intended for the use of men. The authors had received several requests from women to write a book for them with guidance about health, clothing, travelling and the management of children in the tropics – India, Burma, Egypt, China, Hong Kong, Australia, and Melanesia.

They claim that the ‘physical resources of women in withstanding the hardships and discomforts imposed upon them’ by tropical life are limited compared to men.  But a woman of sound sense can maintain her body and mind in a healthy state by anticipating the difficulties, and be victorious in her struggle with tropical trials.

Clothing and outfit
Grey or dust-coloured dress is recommended for travelling on land or railway.  A pith solar topee is not becoming but essential to avoid danger from the sun.  A silk gossamer veil worn with the topee cuts out glare and dust.

A variety of equipment is suggested – trunks; travelling baths; mosquito curtains; punkahs; goggles; lounge chairs for shipboard use; guide books and maps; toilet requisites; sheet music; books and stationery; saddlery; lamps; candlesticks; cutlery; china and glass; tea trays; household linen; insect powder; sewing machine; piano; refrigerator; mincing machine; coffee mill; knife-cleaning machine; scales and weights; crumb brush and tray; tool chest; chess and backgammon sets; garden seeds; bats, nets and balls for lawn tennis.

Travel
The book moves on to hints for travelling by sea, rail and road. Advice is given about shipboard life, and going ashore: ‘No lady should ever attempt to land at any port of call without the protection of a male escort’.

Diet
In temperate climates, ‘injudicious indulgence’ results in temporary indisposition but in hot climates could be disastrous, perhaps resulting in permanent damage to health.  Plain wholesome food is necessary to keep a woman in good health, not tasty ‘kickshaws’ calculated to create an abnormal craving for highly seasoned and harmful snacks.  Women should abstain from alcohol except in cases of sickness and under medical advice.

There are hints on domestic economy - servants, houses in the tropics, stables, dogs, and gardens.

Maintenance of health and the treatment of simple maladies
This section is 200 pages long.  One treatment which caught my eye was belladonna linament for sweaty feet.

Management and rearing of children
‘Children of European parentage are difficult to rear in the tropics’ – their constitutions are unduly taxed by a climate which pushes forward their growth whilst making heavy demands on their physical resources.  In the way that forced vegetables lack flavour, these ‘hot-house nurselings’ generally lack the vigour and stamina possessed by children reared in more favourable conditions.  Parents therefore send their children to Europe if circumstances permit.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
Major S Leigh Hunt, Madras Army, and Alexander S Kenny, Tropical trials – A handbook for women in the tropics (London, 1883), British Library shelfmark 7581.bb.10.

On 17 January 1879, the India Office received a letter from a man named John Carr, who claimed to have been born in Madras, but was destitute in London and asked for help in returning to India.  The India Office regularly received such requests for help, but this case turned out to be a little more mysterious.

Letter from John Carr IOR/L/PJ/2/58, File 7/564

In his letter, Carr claimed that around the middle of July 1878, he left Madras on the ship Gainsborough bound from Pondicherry to Guadeloupe.  During the voyage he fell ill and on arrival at Guadeloupe was immediately sent to hospital.  Once recovered, he discovered that the ship had left him behind.  He was able, ‘through the kindness of the Council and other Gentlemen’ to secure a passage to London on the ship J C Watson of Plymouth, but once there was unable to get a passage on to India.  In his plea for help he wrote: ‘I am now at the end of my resources, I have walked the streets all day without food very often in search of any employment, and I have had also sometimes to walk them at night, not having the means to pay for a bed however poor or humble.  My position is truly desperate, for I can only see a prospect of starvation before me, or of succumbing to the bitter climate, to which I am wholly un-used’.  Carr asked for help in securing a passage to Madras, and even offered to work for it.

India Office Minute Paper on the case of John Carr IOR/L/PJ/2/58, File 7/564

The official at the India Office thought that there was little official aid that could be offered.  He noted that the Sailors' Home on Well Street, which Carr had given as his address, was ‘in some sort under control of the Board of Trade’.  He worried ‘it may be hoped he will not be allowed to starve’. 

Letter from the Board of Trade about John Carr IOR/L/PJ/2/58, File 7/564

Enquiries were made but the results were unexpected.  The Board of Trade claimed to know nothing of Carr’s story, and the ship J C Watson could not be traced.  The only record found of a John Carr in Madras was a Sgt Major in the 16th Madras Native Infantry, who had drowned in India on 26 October 1867.

Note on the enquiries made about John Carr IOR/L/PJ/2/58, File 7/564

Enquiries were also made at the Sailors' Home, where a search was made of books, letters and names at the Home, as well as at a neighbouring branch asylum, but no trace could be found of Carr.  The India Office official took a dim view of the affair, and noted: ‘He does not say he is in the Home, but he has given a false address, and may be in league with someone to get his letters there, and it has been ascertained that numbers of swindlers and thieves swarm about the Homes’.  Given this lack of verifiable facts, Sir Louis Mallet, Under Secretary of State, advised that the letter should not be answered.

John O’Brien
India Office Records

Further Reading:
Public Home Correspondence: case of an individual stating himself to be of Indian birth, to have gone from Madras to Guadeloupe in an emigrant ship, whence he came to London and is now destitute and solicits a passage to India, shelfmark IOR/L/PJ/2/58, File 7/564.

History of the Sailors' Home 

‘He had countenanced intemperance and unbecoming conduct among the Officers of the Regiment under his Command by permitting, unchecked and unpunished, […] instances of drunkenness and impropriety, degrading to gentlemen, and ruinous to discipline.’

In February 1854, Lt Col Thomas Gidley was found guilty of gross dereliction of duty during the previous year whilst the Commanding Officer of the East India Company’s 15th Bombay Native Infantry stationed at Bhooj.  Between January and August 1853, Gidley had allowed his officers imbibe to excess both inside and outside the Regimental confines.  He was court-martialled and struck off the strength of the Army.

The ‘Bhooj Revellers’ were Lieutenants Lewis Bingley Comyn and Robert Laurie; Ensigns Frederick James Loft, George Scrope Hammond and Thomas Degennes Fraser; and Surgeon Henry Rodney Elliot.  Their indiscretions were:
• Elliott being drunk and using indecent language at a dinner party given by the Political Agent in Cutch.
• Comyn being drunk when attending the Durbar of His Highness the Rao of Cutch.
• Loft being drunk at a dinner party given by the Political Agent of Cutch.
• Elliott, Loft and Hammond being drunk at a nautch.
• Elliott being drunk, attending Ensign Cole in a medical capacity, having come from Gidley’s house.
• Laurie being drunk in the billiard room.
• Loft being drunk at Gidley’s house whilst Duty Officer.
• Two instances at the billiard room involving inappropriate behaviour.

Photograph of the durbar hall in the palace at Bhooj [Bhuj ]in Gujarat taken by an unknown photographer during the late 1870s -British Library Photo 125/3(10)

The whistleblower reporting these breaches of military discipline was Lt Frederick Alexander Campbell Kane who had joined the 15th Bombay Native Infantry in 1839.  In May 1850 he was appointed as Assistant Magistrate in Khandeish Collectorate.  There he pursued criminals with ‘commendable zeal’.  Two years later he was relieved of these duties because, according to the Bombay Gazette, ‘he had the misfortune to bring down the displeasure of the Government on him’.  Kane rejoined his regiment in March 1853 as Adjutant, the administrative right-hand man to the Commander.  Kane proceeded over the next six months to note the indiscretions of his Commander and fellow officers.

Surgeon Elliot died before he could be disciplined.  Bombay General Orders dated 27 September 1853 recorded that Elliot was indisposed and temporarily relieved of his duties.  He died on 17 October.  By 11 November, Gidley was under arrest, and on 15 November Kane was promoted to Captain.

At Gidley’s court-martial in February 1854, Comyn, Laurie, Loft, Hammond and Fraser all perjured themselves in giving evidence supporting Gidley.  They subsequently each faced a court-martial.  All were found guilty and cashiered in May 1854 except Fraser, whose sentence was commuted for reasons which are unclear.

East India Register 1855 – Bombay Army Casualties

Six weeks later, Lt Albert George Thompson was also cashiered.  At his court-martial he was charged with insubordination and insulting behaviour for declaring to Kane, who was in command of the firing party at Elliot’s funeral, ‘You, sir, are partly the cause of the doctor’s death’.

Gidley, in allowing a culture of excessive drinking and personal approbation, and Kane, seemingly pursuing some sort of moral crusade perhaps to regain personal standing, had brought about the downfall of five young officers. One of them suffered an untimely death: Robert Laurie returned to England and died in 1856 at the age of 32 at his parents' home in Bristol.

CC-BY
Mark Williams
Independent researcher

Creative Commons Attribution licence

Further reading:
Bombay Gazette via British Newspaper Archive (also available via Findmypast)
Bombay Army General Orders 1853-1854 IOR/L/MIL/17/4/423-424.

We end our series of posts about Chaund Bebee and her children by looking at the life of her daughter Eliza Cordelia.  Eliza was baptised at Calcutta on 23 January 1803, the ‘Natural Daughter of C Rothman Esq’, and the register gives her date of birth as 20 April 1802.

Baptism of Eliza Cordelia Rothman at Calcutta 23 January 1803 IOR/N/1/6 f.180

Charles Rothman was a businessman in Calcutta who moved into government service.  He appears to have been close to John Shore, father of Chaund Bebee’s other children – there is a letter written by Rothman in February 1788 passing on a message from Shore who was ill.

Letter from Charles Rothman to George Nesbitt Thompson stating that John Shore is still much indisposed, February 1788 - India Office Private Papers Mss Eur D1083/35

Rothman accompanied Governor General Wellesley to Madras in 1798, and was rewarded for his ‘incessant assiduity regularity and integrity’ by being appointed keeper of the Company’s stationery at Calcutta in 1801.  He died on 23 September 1805 aged 48.  His will left everything to his second wife Sarah Anne, and after her death for the benefit of their children.  Eliza is not mentioned.

Eliza Cordelia Rothman married James Urquhart Sherriff at Calcutta on 6 November 1815.  James was an assistant in the Mint and then a house builder.  He died in 1832 at the age of 35, leaving Eliza with eight children: Eliza, Henrietta Rothman, James Charles, Margaret Euphemia, Robert William, Hannah Sophia, David, and George Hill.  Eliza was the main beneficiary of her mother’s will in 1836 and she did not re-marry.

On 12 November 1856 Eliza died at Entally on the outskirts of Calcutta and was buried the following day at Chowringhee.  Her age in the burial register is given as 57 years, 5 months and 20 days, which does not tally with the date given in her baptism record.

Shortly before her death, on 28 October 1856, Eliza made a will which made bequests to her surviving children and their heirs, and to friends, servants, and charities.  Of her four sons, Robert William was still alive, but James Charles, David and George Hill had all died without issue.  Only two of her daughters were living.  Eliza was married to Josiah Rowe, surveyor to the conservancy commissioners of Calcutta, and had children.  Henrietta Rothman was the widow of Charles Ware Brietzcke, second judge of the Calcutta Court of Small Causes, and she had children by her first husband William Ridsdale.  Hannah Sophia had died unmarried without issue.  Margaret Euphemia had been married to John Willie, master mariner, but both were dead.

Newspaper report of the loss of the Hope - The Taunton Courier and Western Advertiser 27 December 1848

In 1848, Eliza’s family had been struck by tragedy.  On 14 October John Willie’s ship Hope was lost in a terrible storm when on a voyage from Calcutta to Penang.  John and his wife Margaret died with their three small children William Robinson, Eliza Rix, and John Burnie.  Also on board were Margaret’s brother-in-law William Risdale and her sister Hannah Sophia Sherriff.  They also drowned.  The ship Framjee Cowasjee had tried to help the people they could see on the stricken ship but only succeeded in rescuing five of the crew.  The Taunton Courier and Western Advertiser wrote: ‘By this sad wreck 7 members of one family have perished, and a widowed lady has been bereaved of 2 daughters, 2 sons-in-law, and 3 grandchildren’.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, India Office Records

Further reading:
IOR/N/1/4 f.171 Baptism of George, natural son of Charles Rothman, at Calcutta 3 January 1794 (born 31 October 1792). George appears to have died aged 21 in Calcutta in September 1813 [IOR/N/1/9 p.330].
IOR/N/1/4 f.202 Burial of Henrietta Rothman, wife of Charles, at Calcutta 6 December 1796.
IOR/N/2/2 f.352 Marriage of Charles Rothman to Sarah Anne Woodhouse at Fort St George, Madras, 31 August 1799.
IOR/F/4/128/2373 Salary paid to Charles Rothman in consideration of his previous services.
IOR/N/1/6 f.180 Baptism of Eliza Cordelia Rothman at Calcutta 23 January 1803
IOR/L/AG/34/29/17 no.77 Will of Charles Rothman.
IOR/N/1/9 f.269 Marriage of Eliza Cordelia Rothman to James Urquhart at Calcutta 6 November 1815.
IOR/N/1/34 p.363 Burial of James Urquhart Sherriff at Calcutta 8 November 1832.
IOR/N/1/90 f.517 Burial of Eliza Cordelia Sherriff 12 November 1856
IOR/L/AG/34/29/94 Will of Eliza Cordelia Sherriff 1856
The will of Chaund Bebee or Bebee Shore 
The children of Chaund Bebee and John Shore – (1) John Shore 
The children of Chaund Bebee and John Shore – (2) Francis and Martha Shore 
The children of Chaund Bebee and John Shore – (3) George Shore 

Paul Ferris was born in 1766 at Fort St George. Madras, the son of Paul Ferris and Agnes Daniel.  He trained as a printer under James Augustus Hicky at his printing office in Calcutta and was one of Hicky’s assistants along with Archibald Thompson in the establishment of Hicky’s Bengal Gazette, India’s first English language newspaper, printed from 1780-1782.

18th-century printing works from A Picaud, La Veille de la Revolution, (Paris 1886).General Reference Collection 9225.l.12 BL flickr

In 1792 Ferris and Thompson founded their own newspaper, the Calcutta Morning Post, and were later joined by Morley Greenway as a co-owner.  In June 1818 they acquired the Calcutta Gazette, which had been in circulation since 1784 as the Government’s official news circular.  Shortly after this acquisition, the Calcutta Gazette ceased publication, with its last edition being printed on 29 September 1818.

Ferris also went on to establish his own printing press, Ferris & Co, and a bookselling business in Calcutta. By 1802 Ferris & Co were acting as the Calcutta agents for the Mission Press in Serampore.

In 1815 Ferris printed a new edition of John Miller’s The Tutor in English and Bengalee, first published in 1797.  It was published with an addendum stating that it had been ‘carefully revised and corrected by a professional pundit’.  The ‘professional pundit’ was Ganga Kishore Bhattacharji, a publisher of Bengali works who was just starting to work with Ferris. In 1816 Ferris & Co became the first printers to produce an illustrated book in Bengali, a narrative poem Annada Mangal written by Bharatchandra Ray in 1752-1753 and published by Ganga Kishore Bhattacharji.

Ganga Kishore would go on to publish numerous Bengali works with Ferris & Co including Ingreji byakaran (An English grammar), Daybhaeg (Hindu inheritance law) and Bidyasundar (a courtly romance), which was also the first Bengali book to be accompanied by woodcut illustrations.

Danish settlement of Serampore  viewed from the opposite bank of the River Hooghly - pen and ink drawing by Frederic Peter Layard (1842) British Library WD4359 British Library Online Gallery 

Paul Ferris died in Serampore on 29 June 1821 at the age of 55.  He had married Ann Esther Mullins in 1800 (she died in 1845 in Bombay), and the couple had seven children together.  He also had three children prior to his marriage, a son Paul and two daughters Frances and Ann.

Paul Ferris’s obituary is somewhat intriguing as it suggests that, despite the success of his various enterprises, he may have been struggling financially prior to his death: ‘Mr. P. Ferris - in his age 55 years - formerly Editor of Calcutta weekly newspaper, The Morning Post and owner of Calcutta Biblioteck-circulating Library and during the last years reduced to the necessity of keeping a sort of school at this place for Boys and Girls’.

The references in the obituary to the two other initiatives, the Calcutta Bibliotek circulating library and a school, are interesting as no other records of them appear to exist. There was however a Calcutta Library Society with its own lending library, which was established in 1818.  It is perhaps possible that this may be the ‘Bibliotek’ referred to in the obituary, but Ferris’s name does not appear in records as one of its founders.

Karen Stapley,
Curator, India Office Records

Further Reading:
Paul Ferris, Memorial at Fort William Burial Ground
‘Glimpses of Serampore (1810-1820)’, published in Bengal Past and Present, Vol. 46 1933 Jul-Dec. British Library Shelfmark: Ac.8603
Hicky’s Bengal Gazette: PENN.NT330 NPL
Calcutta Morning Post: Asia, Pacific & Africa SM 32