British in India

[Kit]

I have some Indian blood in me due to some of my Dad's line moving to India and reproducing. Some men remained with their wives, some should hang their heads in shame at their behaviour towards their woman and children.

It has taken me some time to work out where the Indian connection is in some places. The new batch of records released on FMP have meant I have found the surname of my 4g grandma Elizabeth.

I'm not going to tell the story here but she had to give an affidavit in which she stated that she thought the noise she could hear was the natives celebrating a holy day.

Would this mean that she was English? I'm just thinking that if she was Indian or part Indian she would know when the holy days were.

[Nell]

It would mean she wasn't brought up in the religion which was celebrating the holy day (if it was a holy celebration and not a wedding or a riot!).
Do you know which part of India it would be? There are many religions in India and someone who was English would probably not know about the intricacies of all of them.

[Kit]

It was a riot Nell but when she first heard the noise she didn't know that.

The place I have in my notes is Bhungowangloah. I'm not sure where that is, but FMP has the presidency as Bengal for the births of the children. Not sure if that helps.

[Janet]

Googling that place name Bhungowangloah brought me just one hit which I'm sure you must have seen too, Toni. It does reinforce the location as Bengal though.

http://www.law.mq.edu.au/research/colonial_case_law/colonial_cases/less_developed/india/minor_cases_india/

Minor cases India
The Bombay Times, 15 July 1840

BENGAL.

HURKARU, June 29.

FORGERY. - Thomas Manson, against whom a case of forgery on the house of McKenzie, Lyall and Co. was not long ago discovered, which case is yet to be sent up to the Supreme Court, has, it appears, been committing forgery in more than one-quarter. It has just been brought to the notice of the police, that he has played the same trick on the house of Messrs. Cockerell and Co. He succeeded in passing off a forged document, purporting to be a draft, drawn by Mr. Clark, the well known Indigo Planter of Bhungowangloah, for the sum of two hundred rupees, on the house of Cockerell and Co., and in favour of himself. The forgery has recently been discovered by Mr. Clark himself, to whom the draft had been sent in the course of accounts.

The Times, 4 December, 1846
JUDICIAL COMMITTEE OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL.
(Present, - Lord Brougham, Lord Langdale, Mr. Pemberton Leigh, Dr. Lushington, with Sir E. H. East and Sir E. Ryan as assessors.)
MUMMI RAM AWASTY v. SHEO HUGHN AWASTY.
In the course of this suit, which was commenced in January, 1815, in the Provincial Court of Patna, in India, the appellant had entered into a compromise upon an agreement that he should do what amounts to the same thing as entering satisfaction on the record in the courts of this Country in consideration of a payment of 2,000 rupees. This step, however, the appellant had afterwards refused to take, and now came asking to have various decisions of the courts in India set aside, by which he had been called upon to enter satisfaction before payment of the money.
Lord Langdale, after describing the various steps by which this case had travelled through a series of courts in India, dismissed the appeal, observing that the plaintiff merely demanded to be exempt from what was unpleasant to him to do, and upon doing which there was no ground to think that the money would not be paid over to him. The question of costs was reserved, in order that the Court might have time to look into the precedents on the question, whether the appellant, having been admitted to sue in forma pauperis, in the courts below, could claim the benefit of such admission in the court of appeal without an order to that effect from the latter court.
Mr. L. Wigram, Queen's Counsel, and Mr. Moore, appeared for the appellant; Mr. C. Buller, Queen's Counsel, Mr. Jackson, and Mr. Forsyth, for the respondent.
The case was set down for hearing in this court on the 16th of March last.

Published by Centre for Comparative Law, History and Governance at Macquarie Law School

Then I got curious about "Hurkaru" and found some indications that the Bengal Hurkaru was a Calcutta newspaper. If you Google just Bengal Hurkaru, you'll see what I mean. There seems to be a lot of material there from Trove, the British Library and our Library of Congress among others.

I suppose you might already have mined these digitized newspapers for your surnames?

[Kit]

Yes, I've seen this Janet. The Mr Clark is mine.

I've not looked at Trove as I thought it had only aussie papers but I'll double check.

I've just been googling names and places or occupations so far. I haven't yet found out what happened at the trial.