Eleanor (du Bois) Hall (abt. 1790)

Born about 1790 in India

Ancestors

Wife of Thomas Hall — married Mar 1803 in Fatehgarh (Futtyghur), northern India

Descendants

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Biography

Ellen (Eleanor) du Bois was born in about 1790 in northern India. According to a marriage announcement in 1803,^[1] she was the youngest daughter of Simpson du Bois, a military officer in the East India Company's Bengal Army.

Her birth date is unknown and her baptism record has not survived. Four elder sisters were baptised in April 1788 (Mary, Jane, and Anna) and August 1789 (Eliza)^[2] and her mother Mary died aged 23 in 1791, from complications after the birth of her seventh child.^[3] It may have been the norm among Bengal military families to delay baptism until a child was old enough to travel, so it is possible that Ellen was born a few years earlier than 1790. However, the fact that her mother had given birth to seven children by the age of 23 suggests that it was also the norm among military families for girls to marry very young, so it is plausible that Ellen was only 13 at the time of her marriage.

Ellen's husband Thomas Hall was an officer in the 13th Bengal Native Infantry. They had at least six children, of which four certainly survived to adulthood.^[4] Charles Henry was born in December 1803 and baptised in May 1804 in Cawnpore.^[5]. Eleanor Eliza was born in August 1807, Margaret Jane in September 1808, and Thomas in December 1809, all baptised in May 1810 in Delhi.^[6] John WIlliam was born in January 1820 in Calcutta.^[7]A younger daughter, Mary Anne, was married in India in 1836.^[8] Eleanor and Jane were married in India in 1823 and 1824.^[9]

Thomas Hall retired from the EIC service in 1834. In 1841 he was living in Fulham, Middlesex (London),^[10] but Ellen was not with him on the night of the census. In 1851 he was living in Kensington, but Ellen was staying a mile away in Paddington in the household of Peter Jacob Paul, an eminent Indo-Armenian lawyer.^[11] She gave her age as 59, remarkably young for a woman who had been married for 48 years. In 1861 an Eleanor Hall, aged 62, was a lodger in the household of George Cobham, a builder, in Gravesend, Kent.^[12] This was probably our Ellen Hall, even though she had miraculously aged only three further years since 1851. In his will of 1856, Thomas Hall left to his wife a lifetime interest in a property in Mayfair, but he did not mention her by name.

Beth Baxter, 24 January 2015

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Sources

1. ↑ Asiatic Annual Register, vol. 5, p.152: March 1803. At Futtyghur, Lieut. Chas. Whitfield, of the 13th regiment native infantry, to Miss Ann Dubois, daughter of Major Simpson Dubois, of this establishment. Same place, Lieut. Thos. Hall, of the same regiment, to Miss Ellen Dubois, youngest daughter of Major Dubois.
2. ↑ British Library EIC records N/1/4 f.57 and N/1/4 f.73.
3. ↑ M. Derozario (1815) The Complete Monumental Register: Containing All the Epitaphs, Inscriptions, &C. &C. &C. in the Different Churches and Burial-Grounds in and about Calcutta. P. Ferris, Calcutta.
4. ↑ John, Eleanor, Jane and Mary Ann are mentioned in Thomas Hall's will of 1856.
5. ↑ British Library EIC record N/1/7 f.6.
6. ↑ British Library EIC record N/1/8 f.300.
7. ↑ British Library EIC record N/1/11 f.343.
8. ↑ East India Register, via FIBIS database.
9. ↑ British Library EIC records N/1/12 f.515 and N/1/13 f.185
10. ↑ 1841 UK census.
11. ↑ 1851 UK census: Ellen Hall, 59, married, visitor, born in East Indies.
12. ↑ 1861 UK census: Eleanor Hall, 62, widow, fundholder, born in Calcutta.