As I've been looking at records of the life and career of Sir John Campbell (1780 to 1863), many times I've wondered about money. I first found him because I've been looking at Charles Street, Berkeley Square in London, a prestigious address with many poobahs as neighbours, and that's where he lived in the last decades of his life. My lingering question was, how could he afford it?
Sir John's father, William Campbell, was a Commissioner of the Navy, a high-ranking civil servant, but not necessarily a wealthy man once the benefits of his office (notably, a house) were removed.
Sir John's two sisters married two brothers of the Onslow family, who themselves have an illustrious pedigree. However, any Onslow family wealth and land would have bypassed Elizabeth and Marianna Onslow nee Campbell and passed to the male heirs.
Sir John did enjoy some hospitality from his sister Elizabeth and her husband, Reverend George Onslow. In the 1841 census, we find Sir John and "Elise", whom I assume to be Sir John's daughter Elizabeth, with the Onslows at their family home, Dunsborough House in Send, Surrey. I've taken this to be either the normal reciprocal visiting among family members or a temporary residence for Sir John and Elizabeth. At some point during or after 1834, Sir John returned from his stay as a prisoner of war in Portugal. During his absence, his only child Elizabeth may have been sent to stay with the Onslows, and perhaps Sir John joined her there.
Website for The Wey Valley, with a picture of Dunsborough House and interesting history about the villages of Send and Ripley
So, I've ruled out inherited wealth, but I should look for the will of Sir John's father and also of Sir John's siblings, just in case there is a pot of gold somewhere. It's unlikely any siblings transferred any wealth to him. I think each had a family of his or her own to care for.
Sir John's first wife, the young Portuguese lady Dona Maria Brigida de Faria e Lacerda has a noble-sounding name and it wouldn't surprise me if her family had a prominent position in Portugual. However, she married out of her society and went to England, where she died young. Sir John was persona non grata in Portugal after supporting the losing side in the War of the Two Brothers (and being a noted prisoner of war following it). Also, I have always had the impression that being an army officer in his day was not usually a way to get rich. I suppose perhaps there were occasional opportunities for plunder, but he hardly seems to have been in the right place and time for that, at least not at the latter stage of his Army career.
Having written off these various sources, I took a closer look at who owned 51 Charles Street and how Sir John came to live there at all.
Showing posts with label portugal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label portugal. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Summoned by loyalty, a soldier returns to the field, but for the wrong side
In 1824, Sir John Campbell found himself, at the age of 44, a widower with a 6-year-old daughter, and in mourning for his 3-year-old son. Before the year was out, he had resigned from the army, where he had distinguished himself in fighting in Portugal during the Peninsular Wars of the early 19th century. He and young Elizabeth were apparently living quietly in London. Then everything changed, again.
Sir John's late wife, Dona Maria Brigida do Faria e Lacerda, was Portuguese and I suspect from a good family. Sir John himself was friends with the royal family, or at least, part of it. By the late 1820s, Portugal was in a crisis over succession, which was a fight between one brother (Dom Pedro) favouring a constitutional monarchy and reform, and the other (Dom Miguel) wanting to stay with an absolute monarchy. It turned into a civil war.
The story of the Portuguese War of the Two Brothers is complicated. The highlights, for my purposes are simple enough, though.
British soldiers fought on both sides! Their leaders were officers who had been brothers in arms in the earlier Peninsular Wars. Men on both sides held knighthoods in both England and Portugal. All of them were at least notionally fighting illegally, according to the Foreign Enlistment Act.
To make things a little awkward for me in the research department, there were too many Campbells around, officers with the KCTS decoration, who served in the Peninsular Wars and possibly in this Portuguese civil war. Anyone who decides to study the story more closely will need to be cautious. I can only hope I am not getting the facts too confused.
There is no doubt that Sir John Campbell of my story, the man who eventually lives at 51 Charles Street, was at the head of the Miguelite forces, as they were called. He supported the absolutist cause whole-heartedly. On the other side were Admiral Sartorius and then Sir Charles Napier. Their respective forces were a mixture of English and Portuguese, and not professional soldiers, but what we might charitably call a motley crew.
A few brief glances at some of the debates in the House of Lords and the Commons after the war ended indicates that the British politicians were not in unanimous support of either side in the Portuguese war. Again, this is an over-simplification, but Sir John became something of a political football.
In the early days of the war, his side did well, but then the tide turned. Sir John was captured on board a ship (apparently leaving Portugal) with some allegedly incriminating papers. Papers or no, his side had lost. He became a prisoner of war.
This was an unpleasant imprisonment. Reading between the lines, I suspect there was a good deal of seeking revenge involved, because in some quarters the Miguelites had a reputation for being barbaric to their own prisioners. English visitors to Portugal after the war, in the early 1830s, reported seeing Sir John behind the bars of the prison compound.
His appeals to the English government for help went unanswered, on the basis that he was fighting in a foreign war on foreign soil, not in a British cause.
Why did he do it?
I've read that Sir John was a personal friend of Dom Miguel from his earlier time in Portugal, and I assume that the granting of the honour of KCTS, whenever that was, cemented that friendship. Sir John's politics must have been conservative, which mattered a great deal against the backdrop of the Reform movement in England.
He was held for at least nine months, much of which was apparently in solitary confinement. The degree of deprivation is in the eye of the beholder, but certainly it was a hard time, during which he was abandoned by his country.
I'm a little surprised that he was ever allowed to return to England. Having fought for the losing side in a battle that put British soldiers against each other, he could have been called treasonous without a huge stretch of the imagination.
I suspect what saved him was the fact that no one had clean hands.
By the time he returned to England in about 1834, his daughter was 16. He had been away from her for a few years (at least).
Here was a man who had spent much of his life achieving honour and glory as a soldier, only to end up disgraced. In the Commons debates, reference was made to his having a Portuguese wife (with the implication being that his loyalty wasn't to Britain), but no one pointed out that Maria Brigida had been dead for ten years.
He'd lost his wife and son, had hardly seen his daughter, had fought on a losing side and been imprisoned, and could probably never return to the country he must have come to love, Portugal.
He had reason to be a bitter and disappointed man, and maybe he was. Or, maybe he was so convinced of the rightness of his cause that he spent the rest of his life deploring the wrongs done to him. I don't know. The dictionary of biography says he lived a quiet life.
The quiet lasted until 1863, some 20 years after the civil war ended. It was then succeeded by that quiet which comes to us all, one day.
The first book, by Shaw, is about the War of Two Brothers. The other two books are from the Duke of Wellington's earlier experiences in Portugal. I have written before that Sir John Campbell was mentioned favourably in dispatches by Wellesley, late the Duke, but this may not be true, or it may be true but some of the mentions may refer to other Campbells. I post links to some of the books here in case anyone is interested in finding out more.
Sir John's late wife, Dona Maria Brigida do Faria e Lacerda, was Portuguese and I suspect from a good family. Sir John himself was friends with the royal family, or at least, part of it. By the late 1820s, Portugal was in a crisis over succession, which was a fight between one brother (Dom Pedro) favouring a constitutional monarchy and reform, and the other (Dom Miguel) wanting to stay with an absolute monarchy. It turned into a civil war.
British soldiers fought on both sides! Their leaders were officers who had been brothers in arms in the earlier Peninsular Wars. Men on both sides held knighthoods in both England and Portugal. All of them were at least notionally fighting illegally, according to the Foreign Enlistment Act.
To make things a little awkward for me in the research department, there were too many Campbells around, officers with the KCTS decoration, who served in the Peninsular Wars and possibly in this Portuguese civil war. Anyone who decides to study the story more closely will need to be cautious. I can only hope I am not getting the facts too confused.
There is no doubt that Sir John Campbell of my story, the man who eventually lives at 51 Charles Street, was at the head of the Miguelite forces, as they were called. He supported the absolutist cause whole-heartedly. On the other side were Admiral Sartorius and then Sir Charles Napier. Their respective forces were a mixture of English and Portuguese, and not professional soldiers, but what we might charitably call a motley crew.
A few brief glances at some of the debates in the House of Lords and the Commons after the war ended indicates that the British politicians were not in unanimous support of either side in the Portuguese war. Again, this is an over-simplification, but Sir John became something of a political football.
In the early days of the war, his side did well, but then the tide turned. Sir John was captured on board a ship (apparently leaving Portugal) with some allegedly incriminating papers. Papers or no, his side had lost. He became a prisoner of war.
This was an unpleasant imprisonment. Reading between the lines, I suspect there was a good deal of seeking revenge involved, because in some quarters the Miguelites had a reputation for being barbaric to their own prisioners. English visitors to Portugal after the war, in the early 1830s, reported seeing Sir John behind the bars of the prison compound.
His appeals to the English government for help went unanswered, on the basis that he was fighting in a foreign war on foreign soil, not in a British cause.
Why did he do it?
I've read that Sir John was a personal friend of Dom Miguel from his earlier time in Portugal, and I assume that the granting of the honour of KCTS, whenever that was, cemented that friendship. Sir John's politics must have been conservative, which mattered a great deal against the backdrop of the Reform movement in England.
He was held for at least nine months, much of which was apparently in solitary confinement. The degree of deprivation is in the eye of the beholder, but certainly it was a hard time, during which he was abandoned by his country.
I'm a little surprised that he was ever allowed to return to England. Having fought for the losing side in a battle that put British soldiers against each other, he could have been called treasonous without a huge stretch of the imagination.
I suspect what saved him was the fact that no one had clean hands.
By the time he returned to England in about 1834, his daughter was 16. He had been away from her for a few years (at least).
Here was a man who had spent much of his life achieving honour and glory as a soldier, only to end up disgraced. In the Commons debates, reference was made to his having a Portuguese wife (with the implication being that his loyalty wasn't to Britain), but no one pointed out that Maria Brigida had been dead for ten years.
He'd lost his wife and son, had hardly seen his daughter, had fought on a losing side and been imprisoned, and could probably never return to the country he must have come to love, Portugal.
He had reason to be a bitter and disappointed man, and maybe he was. Or, maybe he was so convinced of the rightness of his cause that he spent the rest of his life deploring the wrongs done to him. I don't know. The dictionary of biography says he lived a quiet life.
The quiet lasted until 1863, some 20 years after the civil war ended. It was then succeeded by that quiet which comes to us all, one day.
The first book, by Shaw, is about the War of Two Brothers. The other two books are from the Duke of Wellington's earlier experiences in Portugal. I have written before that Sir John Campbell was mentioned favourably in dispatches by Wellesley, late the Duke, but this may not be true, or it may be true but some of the mentions may refer to other Campbells. I post links to some of the books here in case anyone is interested in finding out more.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
The young Portuguese bride of Sir John Campbell: Dona Maria Brigida
I have mentioned a few things about Sir John Campbell, KB, KCTS, and left off suggesting that the KCTS (Knight Commander of the Tower and the Sword, Portugal) shaped his life.
As far as I can tell, Sir John Campbell stayed in Portugal after the Peninsular Wars, on loan to the Portuguese army until 1820. He left when the constitutionalists started to become too heated. When he returned to England, he lived in Baker Street with his Portuguese wife, Dona Maria Brigida do Faria e Lacerda, and Elizabeth, their daughter, who was born in Lisbon in 1818.
Sir John and Maria Brigida were married in 1816. She was 18 years old. He was 36.
Upon their return to England in 1820, or perhaps shortly before, their son, John David Campbell, was born. Elizabeth and John David are the only children I know of in this family.
Sir John was given what sounds like a reasonably quiet job in England, in command of the 75th Regiment of Foot while they were at home and not off fighting abroad. This is a famous regiment (the Gordon Highlanders) but during Sir John's tenure, I have the impression nothing much happened. (Another avenue for the eager military historian to pursue.)
I wish I could draw the curtain here and say they lived happily ever after. At this point, Portugal was experiencing unrest but not war, and Sir John had a comfortable family life in London, from the sounds of it.
Alas.
Some day I would like to go to the Parish Church in Marylebone.
View Larger Map
I've seen it from the outside without knowing (nor, at that time, caring) but haven't gone in.
As far as I can tell, there is still a plaque on the east wall, reading as follows.
Having lost his wife and little boy between 1821 and 1824, Sir John retired from the army and sold his commission by the 1st of October, 1824. Thus he and young Elizabeth (only 6 years old when her brother died; motherless since age 3) were apparently left alone.
There is always the possibility that Sir John married a second time during this period. I have found no mention of such an event, however, and the notes in biographic sources are consistent in saying he had two wives.
At this point my impression of Sir John is that he was living quietly and was enjoying a life of reasonably high social standing. His sisters and brothers appeared to have married well, and he probably had good family connections on his mother's side (the Pitcairns). I would say the same of his father's, but I haven't been able to trace them back with any confidence.
Things were about to change, and the KCTS was going to make a big difference in Sir John's life.
As far as I can tell, Sir John Campbell stayed in Portugal after the Peninsular Wars, on loan to the Portuguese army until 1820. He left when the constitutionalists started to become too heated. When he returned to England, he lived in Baker Street with his Portuguese wife, Dona Maria Brigida do Faria e Lacerda, and Elizabeth, their daughter, who was born in Lisbon in 1818.
Sir John and Maria Brigida were married in 1816. She was 18 years old. He was 36.
Upon their return to England in 1820, or perhaps shortly before, their son, John David Campbell, was born. Elizabeth and John David are the only children I know of in this family.
Sir John was given what sounds like a reasonably quiet job in England, in command of the 75th Regiment of Foot while they were at home and not off fighting abroad. This is a famous regiment (the Gordon Highlanders) but during Sir John's tenure, I have the impression nothing much happened. (Another avenue for the eager military historian to pursue.)
I wish I could draw the curtain here and say they lived happily ever after. At this point, Portugal was experiencing unrest but not war, and Sir John had a comfortable family life in London, from the sounds of it.
Alas.
Some day I would like to go to the Parish Church in Marylebone.
View Larger Map
I've seen it from the outside without knowing (nor, at that time, caring) but haven't gone in.
As far as I can tell, there is still a plaque on the east wall, reading as follows.
"To the memory of
Dona Maria Brigida do Faria
E Lacerda
Wife of
Sir John Cambell, K.C.T.S.
Lieut Col in the British, and Maj Gen in the Portuguese Service.
She died much lamented
on the 22nd Jan 1821, in the 24th Year of her age;
Her remains are deposited in a vault of this Church.
Also of
John David Campbell
Son of the above who died 28 May 1824
Aged 3 years and 9 months"
http://www.archive.org/stream/miscellaneagene01howagoog#page/n31/mod e/2up
Having lost his wife and little boy between 1821 and 1824, Sir John retired from the army and sold his commission by the 1st of October, 1824. Thus he and young Elizabeth (only 6 years old when her brother died; motherless since age 3) were apparently left alone.
There is always the possibility that Sir John married a second time during this period. I have found no mention of such an event, however, and the notes in biographic sources are consistent in saying he had two wives.
At this point my impression of Sir John is that he was living quietly and was enjoying a life of reasonably high social standing. His sisters and brothers appeared to have married well, and he probably had good family connections on his mother's side (the Pitcairns). I would say the same of his father's, but I haven't been able to trace them back with any confidence.
Things were about to change, and the KCTS was going to make a big difference in Sir John's life.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Knight Commander of the Tower and Sword, Portugal: the honour that shaped a life
Sir John Campbell's entry in the Index of Wills and Administrations after his death in 1863 identified him as Knight Commander of the Order of the Tower and Sword of Portugal. What did this mean? It certainly did turn out to be handy in tracking him for at least part of his life.
In The Peerage, Baronetage, and Knightage, of Great Britain and Ireland, including all the titled classes, by Charles R. Dodd, 1845 (Google e-book copy), at page 70, I found a fairly detailed entry for Sir John.
What a treasure trove!
Here is the new information. It is a repetition of what the clipping says, broken into points for follow-up.
I had earlier thought of Sir John as a retired military man of 80 growing old with his 80-year-old wife, and assumed they had been together forever. Turns out, both had been married before.
There are connections to Portugal, an earlier wife, high ranks and honours in both British and Portuguese military, lots of action in battles, command of the 75th in England, and a hint of something out of the ordinary "whose cause he espoused".
Order of the Tower and Sword
This Portuguese honour was dormant for some time, though it dates back to 1459 according to a history by Jose Vicente de Braganca.
In 1808, the Prince Regent used this as the only non-religious Portuguese honour the British could accept, to reward those who had helped the Portuguese royal family escape from Napoleon's soldiers, who had invaded Portugal, to Brazil.
It is a high honour, still in use.
Sir John was made K.C.T.S. in 1820. To understand the significance of the dates of various events in Sir John's life requires a quick and superficial romp through Portuguese history. I know I will get some of this wrong. If you'd like to offer an explanation or more information, please do! Use the comments form at the end of the post and you will be my new best friend. This was a complicated time and place and I can only gloss over it.
Portugal and Britain by the Methuen Treaty of 1703 had established a mutually beneficial trading alliance, with port flowing north and textiles coming south. From time to time on Charles Street I have run into Portuguese wine merchants, especially with Thomas March, whose parents (March and Gonne) both came from families trading in wine (port) in Portugal. The British merchant colony at Oporto is what most trails lead back to when looking at Brits in Portugal in the 1700s and the first decades of the 1800s.
The 18th century in Europe was a time of upheaval, when liberals pressured the absolute monarchs for more freedom. The French Revolution is perhaps the best-known example.
In the early 19th century, Portugal was allied with England against France and Spain. The Portuguese royal family, as mentioned earlier, fled to Brazil when Napoleon's forces invaded. So did approximately 10,000 other people, apparently, effectively removing all Portuguese leadership and leaving behind a Portuguese-British protectorate.
Sir John fought on the British-Portuguese side against the French and Spanish in the Peninsular Wars. He was mentioned favourably in the (later) Duke of Wellington's field dispatches more than once. This probably supported the granting of his British knighthood in 1815.
After the Peninsular Wars, when Portugal was quieter, Campbell remained there and helped build up the Portuguese army. He married Dona Brigida of Lisbon in 1816.
The political climate in Portugal began to heat up again around 1820, with anti-absolutist factions gaining power. I sense that it was of his own accord that Sir John decided to leave Portugal. Whether he already held the KCTS at this point I don't know, but it's possible. That fits with his later loyalty to Dom Miguel, loyalty which I suggest shaped the rest of Sir John's life.
The Portuguese royal family was divided in its opinion about how absolutist to remain. This led to the War of the Two Brothers (1828 to 1833), with one brother, Dom Miguel, attempting to push back all reforms and hold on to absolute power. To cut a long story short, Sir John backed the wrong horse, as I will explain in more detail next time.
You can subscribe to this blog and get the new posts by email or in your RSS reader. Be my guest!
I have not read the books below. The first one is highly regarded but (this is the honest truth) my dog ate it before I could read it. The second and third are texts I would like to have a peek at, especially the last one, a first-hand account of The War of the Two Brothers by a British lady in Oporto. It's out of print but I wanted to make its existence known.
Siege lady: The adventures of Mrs. Dorothy Procter of Entre Quintas and of divers other notable persons during the siege of Oporto and the War of the Two Brothers in Portugal, 1832-1834
In The Peerage, Baronetage, and Knightage, of Great Britain and Ireland, including all the titled classes, by Charles R. Dodd, 1845 (Google e-book copy), at page 70, I found a fairly detailed entry for Sir John.
What a treasure trove!
Here is the new information. It is a repetition of what the clipping says, broken into points for follow-up.
- Father was William Campbell, Commissioner of the Navy Board.
- Mother's maiden name was Pitcairn.
- Mother's father was Major Pitcairn of the Marines, killed at Bunker's [sic] Hill.
- 1780: Born 1780 (this is a little more precise that the census, which estimated 1781).
- 1800: Entered the army in 1800.
- 1806: Became Captain of 7th Hussars in 1806.
- 1807: Was exchanged into the 10th Foot [I assume that is 10th Regiment of Foot] and was a Brigade Major in 1807 in the expedition under General Crawfurd.
- 1808: Military service in 1807 and 1808: Miserere, Buenos Ayres, Roleia, Vimiera.
- 1808: With cavalry under Lord Anglesey in 1808 at Sahagun and Benevente.
- 1809: Portuguese army 1809 as a British Major and a Portuguese Lieutenant-Colonel.
- 1810: In all campaigns in peninsula and Pyrenees before and after 1810.
- 1810: Around 1810 became Colonel of 4th Cavalry.
- 1811: In 1811 became Lieutenant-Colonel in British army, but was apparently serving with the Portuguese at the time.
- 1815: Created Knight Bachelor, his English knighthood, in 1815.
- 1816: Married a Portuguese lady in 1816, Dona Maria Brigida de Faria e Lacerda, of Lisbon.
- 1820: Sometime between 1810 and 1820, became a Major-General in Portuguese military.
- 1820: Stayed a Major-General till 1820, at which point he was Deputy Quarter-Master General of the Portuguese army.
- 1821: From 1821 to 1824, commanded 75th Foot (British).
- 1824: In 1824 sold his British commission (as a Lieutenant Colonel).
- 1820: Date unclear, perhaps 1820, became a Portuguese Lieutenant-General. This rank was given by "Don Miguel, whose cause he espoused."
- 1820: In 1820, received the order of the Tower and Sword of Portugal.
- 1842: Married again in 1842, the relict of Major-General Sir Alexander Dickson, K.C.B. (Presumably this wife is Harriet Maria, with Sir John in 1851 and 1861.)
- 1845: In 1845 (date of the book), he was living at 51 Charles Street.
I had earlier thought of Sir John as a retired military man of 80 growing old with his 80-year-old wife, and assumed they had been together forever. Turns out, both had been married before.
There are connections to Portugal, an earlier wife, high ranks and honours in both British and Portuguese military, lots of action in battles, command of the 75th in England, and a hint of something out of the ordinary "whose cause he espoused".
Order of the Tower and Sword
This Portuguese honour was dormant for some time, though it dates back to 1459 according to a history by Jose Vicente de Braganca.
In 1808, the Prince Regent used this as the only non-religious Portuguese honour the British could accept, to reward those who had helped the Portuguese royal family escape from Napoleon's soldiers, who had invaded Portugal, to Brazil.
It is a high honour, still in use.
Sir John was made K.C.T.S. in 1820. To understand the significance of the dates of various events in Sir John's life requires a quick and superficial romp through Portuguese history. I know I will get some of this wrong. If you'd like to offer an explanation or more information, please do! Use the comments form at the end of the post and you will be my new best friend. This was a complicated time and place and I can only gloss over it.
Portugal and Britain by the Methuen Treaty of 1703 had established a mutually beneficial trading alliance, with port flowing north and textiles coming south. From time to time on Charles Street I have run into Portuguese wine merchants, especially with Thomas March, whose parents (March and Gonne) both came from families trading in wine (port) in Portugal. The British merchant colony at Oporto is what most trails lead back to when looking at Brits in Portugal in the 1700s and the first decades of the 1800s.
The 18th century in Europe was a time of upheaval, when liberals pressured the absolute monarchs for more freedom. The French Revolution is perhaps the best-known example.
In the early 19th century, Portugal was allied with England against France and Spain. The Portuguese royal family, as mentioned earlier, fled to Brazil when Napoleon's forces invaded. So did approximately 10,000 other people, apparently, effectively removing all Portuguese leadership and leaving behind a Portuguese-British protectorate.
Sir John fought on the British-Portuguese side against the French and Spanish in the Peninsular Wars. He was mentioned favourably in the (later) Duke of Wellington's field dispatches more than once. This probably supported the granting of his British knighthood in 1815.
After the Peninsular Wars, when Portugal was quieter, Campbell remained there and helped build up the Portuguese army. He married Dona Brigida of Lisbon in 1816.
The political climate in Portugal began to heat up again around 1820, with anti-absolutist factions gaining power. I sense that it was of his own accord that Sir John decided to leave Portugal. Whether he already held the KCTS at this point I don't know, but it's possible. That fits with his later loyalty to Dom Miguel, loyalty which I suggest shaped the rest of Sir John's life.
The Portuguese royal family was divided in its opinion about how absolutist to remain. This led to the War of the Two Brothers (1828 to 1833), with one brother, Dom Miguel, attempting to push back all reforms and hold on to absolute power. To cut a long story short, Sir John backed the wrong horse, as I will explain in more detail next time.
You can subscribe to this blog and get the new posts by email or in your RSS reader. Be my guest!
I have not read the books below. The first one is highly regarded but (this is the honest truth) my dog ate it before I could read it. The second and third are texts I would like to have a peek at, especially the last one, a first-hand account of The War of the Two Brothers by a British lady in Oporto. It's out of print but I wanted to make its existence known.
Siege lady: The adventures of Mrs. Dorothy Procter of Entre Quintas and of divers other notable persons during the siege of Oporto and the War of the Two Brothers in Portugal, 1832-1834
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Maud Gonne and Thomas Charles March and the English wine merchants who brought us port
Who were these people?
OK, apologies to those of you who've been religiously keeping score. The rest of you, go back and read every single post since January 2011.
Oh, all right, I'll make it easier.
1. I recently figured out (the penny dropped) that I come from a vampire bloodline.
2. Decided to see if Bram Stoker (author of Dracula) was influenced by my vampire family.
3. Looked Bram and family up in the census returns for 1881, 1891, 1901, and 1911, when they were in England.
4. Obsessively started figuring out not just where the Stokers lived, but who lived with them: the servants.
5. This led me to a man named Charles Jarrald, whose wife was the Stoker's nursery nurse in 1881. Charles was dead by then; his wife was a widow working for the Stokers.
6. Going back 10 years, I found Charles working on what turned out to be a pretty posh street. He was a servant at No. 27 Charles Street, Berkeley Square.
7. Since the street was crammed with the upper class in 1871, I decided to do a house-by-house analysis, starting at No. 1.
8. To keep everyone from falling asleep, I also decided to play Six Degrees of Separation with the people in the houses, figuring out how close the people are to (a) Queen Victoria and (b) Dracula, or at least, Bram Stoker.
9. At No. 1 Charles Street, was the family of Thomas Charles March, an interesting enough fellow who was one of the top non-political servants in the Royal Household of Queen Victoria, having a career that went from about 1840 (ish) to his death in 1898.
A few notes on the March family and the connection to Maud Gonne
Thomas Charles March was the second of six children, three boys and three girls.
His two brothers had equally distinguished careers, it appears, and at least one brother (George) moved in high society circles.
The parents, Thomas March and Mary Anne nee Gonne, were both born in Portugal in the late 1700s. I am fairly certain both fathers were wine merchants and also that both families were well off.
Thomas the father was a bankrupt, with a wife and six children, in the mid-1830s. This led to a lawsuit, which is a reported case I found online. It was all intra-familial and a little complicated in its details, but essentially Thomas's creditors (also family) tried to get the money Mary Anne brought with her as a marriage settlement, and which had been set up in a sort of trust to generate income for her and the children. The interesting social background is the law and attitudes about married women having property (or not). Also there is some ongoing intrigue and political scheming between Portugal and England during the period. Thomas's bankruptcy may have been the result of the Portuguese kicking the English merchants out. (I know very little about this but it's fascinating history.)
One of Thomas Charles March's sisters married a clergyman from a noble family in Yorkshire, and another sister lived with them at least for a time. The married sister and her husband had at least two sons.
I sort of lost the third sister and hope she will turn up one day.
The brother George worked in the diplomatic service, I think.
Now to switch to Maud Gonne, known variously as a political radical, Ireland's Joan of Arc, the mystic lover of the poet William Butler Yeats, and the mother of Nobel Peace Prize winner Sean McBride. You may have recognized the same last name, Gonne, as the mother of Thomas Charles March, Mary Anne nee Gonne.
At one point, when Maud was being attacked for her political views, she mentioned in a letter that eventually questions of her ancestry would be cleared up, and that her great-grandfather had been William Gonne, a wine merchant in Portugal.
I haven't constructed a chronology, and it's getting a bit too complicated to pursue it just now, but that William Gonne would fit the generation of Mary Anne's father, whose name wasThomas Gonne. INCORRECT! Correction: Her father's name was William Gonne Esquire, possibly the same William Gonne as was Maud's great-grandfather.
Scholars of Maud Gonne, please, jump in any time and leave a comment if you know more about Maud's exact family tree. I am a lazy researcher working my way down the street, long before Maud was born, and not even the street where she lived. My Maud Gonne contribution may have to end here.
The Gonne and March families in the wine trade in Portugal would have been shipping port to England. A notable contribution to life there, wouldn't you say? I also suspect that the merchant community in Oporto may have done a little soft espionage on the side. Just a thought.
One more coincidence. Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee was in 1897. Maud Gonne protested against it. Her distant cousin, Thomas March, may have supervised the organizing of it, given his senior position within the staff of the Royal Household. Whether these two acknowledged each other as relatives, I don't know.
Thomas March is the first of many interesting people we will meet on Charles Street in 1871. His story starts with Thomas March of 1 Charles Street: One degree from Queen Victoria.
This article is one in an ongoing series, starting with Bram Stoker, author of Dracula in public records: BMD (Birth, Marriage, Death).
Next: We leave No. 1 Charles Street, and move along to No. 2. On census night in 1871, this house was occupied by Henry Fleming and two servants.
No. 2 Charles Street, Berkeley Square, Mayfair, London, in 1871.
OK, apologies to those of you who've been religiously keeping score. The rest of you, go back and read every single post since January 2011.
Oh, all right, I'll make it easier.
1. I recently figured out (the penny dropped) that I come from a vampire bloodline.
2. Decided to see if Bram Stoker (author of Dracula) was influenced by my vampire family.
3. Looked Bram and family up in the census returns for 1881, 1891, 1901, and 1911, when they were in England.
4. Obsessively started figuring out not just where the Stokers lived, but who lived with them: the servants.
5. This led me to a man named Charles Jarrald, whose wife was the Stoker's nursery nurse in 1881. Charles was dead by then; his wife was a widow working for the Stokers.
6. Going back 10 years, I found Charles working on what turned out to be a pretty posh street. He was a servant at No. 27 Charles Street, Berkeley Square.
7. Since the street was crammed with the upper class in 1871, I decided to do a house-by-house analysis, starting at No. 1.
8. To keep everyone from falling asleep, I also decided to play Six Degrees of Separation with the people in the houses, figuring out how close the people are to (a) Queen Victoria and (b) Dracula, or at least, Bram Stoker.
9. At No. 1 Charles Street, was the family of Thomas Charles March, an interesting enough fellow who was one of the top non-political servants in the Royal Household of Queen Victoria, having a career that went from about 1840 (ish) to his death in 1898.
A few notes on the March family and the connection to Maud Gonne
Thomas Charles March was the second of six children, three boys and three girls.
His two brothers had equally distinguished careers, it appears, and at least one brother (George) moved in high society circles.
The parents, Thomas March and Mary Anne nee Gonne, were both born in Portugal in the late 1700s. I am fairly certain both fathers were wine merchants and also that both families were well off.
Thomas the father was a bankrupt, with a wife and six children, in the mid-1830s. This led to a lawsuit, which is a reported case I found online. It was all intra-familial and a little complicated in its details, but essentially Thomas's creditors (also family) tried to get the money Mary Anne brought with her as a marriage settlement, and which had been set up in a sort of trust to generate income for her and the children. The interesting social background is the law and attitudes about married women having property (or not). Also there is some ongoing intrigue and political scheming between Portugal and England during the period. Thomas's bankruptcy may have been the result of the Portuguese kicking the English merchants out. (I know very little about this but it's fascinating history.)
One of Thomas Charles March's sisters married a clergyman from a noble family in Yorkshire, and another sister lived with them at least for a time. The married sister and her husband had at least two sons.
I sort of lost the third sister and hope she will turn up one day.
The brother George worked in the diplomatic service, I think.
Now to switch to Maud Gonne, known variously as a political radical, Ireland's Joan of Arc, the mystic lover of the poet William Butler Yeats, and the mother of Nobel Peace Prize winner Sean McBride. You may have recognized the same last name, Gonne, as the mother of Thomas Charles March, Mary Anne nee Gonne.
At one point, when Maud was being attacked for her political views, she mentioned in a letter that eventually questions of her ancestry would be cleared up, and that her great-grandfather had been William Gonne, a wine merchant in Portugal.
I haven't constructed a chronology, and it's getting a bit too complicated to pursue it just now, but that William Gonne would fit the generation of Mary Anne's father, whose name was
Scholars of Maud Gonne, please, jump in any time and leave a comment if you know more about Maud's exact family tree. I am a lazy researcher working my way down the street, long before Maud was born, and not even the street where she lived. My Maud Gonne contribution may have to end here.
The Gonne and March families in the wine trade in Portugal would have been shipping port to England. A notable contribution to life there, wouldn't you say? I also suspect that the merchant community in Oporto may have done a little soft espionage on the side. Just a thought.
One more coincidence. Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee was in 1897. Maud Gonne protested against it. Her distant cousin, Thomas March, may have supervised the organizing of it, given his senior position within the staff of the Royal Household. Whether these two acknowledged each other as relatives, I don't know.
Thomas March is the first of many interesting people we will meet on Charles Street in 1871. His story starts with Thomas March of 1 Charles Street: One degree from Queen Victoria.
This article is one in an ongoing series, starting with Bram Stoker, author of Dracula in public records: BMD (Birth, Marriage, Death).
Next: We leave No. 1 Charles Street, and move along to No. 2. On census night in 1871, this house was occupied by Henry Fleming and two servants.
No. 2 Charles Street, Berkeley Square, Mayfair, London, in 1871.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)