Paul Unwin

Ancestors

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Biography

Born in Islington 1969 Married Nicola-Jane Kingdon 1999

Where my Ancestors Come From

My parents' personalities were clearly shaped by their differing backgrounds. My Father was archetypal working class and this contrasted with my Mother's experience of being raised in a well to do family that lost all of its wealth after forced migration.

Many of my Father's ancestors lived in and around Cambridge. During my undergraduate years, I became familiar with the same streets as these forebears. I didn't live in East, Burleigh, Gwydir or Sturton Streets, but beng close to college I was familiar with them.

My Father's Unwin and Willson ancestors, had urbanised to Cambridge moving there for industrial work with the likes of Simplex and for domestic service in the University colleges. William Herbert Willson (2G Grandfather) spent some of his life as a boatman, residing on Robinson Crusoe Island on the river Cam. His life ended sadly in Great Yarmouth. Whilst the coroner pronounced an open verdict, his death is likely to have been the result of suicide. On his final night he penned a two word note "Goodbye, Goodbye" to his wife Georgina, and mailed it only a matter of hours before he is thought to have gone missing. Georgina subsequently outlived him by 34 years. ^[1]

Earlier rural generations (Challis, Jackson, Webb, Ellis, Sherman, Clark, Pain) laboured on farms in the Cambridgeshire villages of Gamlingay, Shudy Camps, Castle Camps, Hatley St George, Great Gransden, and Great Willbraham. As agricultural workers, many were illiterate and several were illegitimate. William Unwin bucked the trend and developed a trade, becoming a carpenter. An interest in furniture making and restoration is something that my Father and I both inherited, but neither of us developed the higher order skills necessary to make a good living from it. My paternal Grandfather: William Harry Arthur Unwin would eventually migrate the short distance West from Cambridge to Luton, lured by jobs at Luton Motors. The sons who achieved adulthood followed him into the Vauxhall plant. The eldest: Mac stuck at it, and carved out a highly successful career with GM and AC Delco. The younger (my Father: Jim ) . . .didn't, and made many changes of direction, perhaps only finding his calling in his final decade.

Whilst my Father's ancestors stayed put, in and around Cambridge and Bedford, my Mother's ancestors were geographically more diverse. As well as England and Northwestern Europe my maternal origins also emanate from North India (4%) South India (5%), Ireland (3%) and Scotland (3%)

So when I grow a beard, rather than resembling a trendy hipster, I look distinctly middle eastern. Many a young student of mine has asked " Sir . . . where are you from?" The irony is not lost on me, as my father's scrape with Egyptian fighters whilst he was posted to Suez in 1953 nearly put paid to both of us. I suppose he could be excused for calling his assailants terrorists as they did nearly kill him, but I can't escape the discomfort arising from the whiff of empire, apparent, briefly here, in my Father's but deep throughout my Mother's ancestry. I refuse to label them as terrorists. They were justifiably, fighting both British and French colonialism.

My maternal great grand parents' Nicholas and Bamford ancestors were both established in India before the British Raj (ie 1858); The Bamfords in Bombay and the Nicholas' in Madras/Chenai.

Walter Cecil Bamford's start was far from auspicious. His father: James Bamford died in 1897, the year his ninth child Terence was born. Mary Jane, his wife will have been faced with the prospect of raising nine children on her own. She lasted a mere 2 years of widowhood, dying in 1899. Most of the nine children all of whom were under the age of 17 will have had to have gone into Catholic orphanages. Walter the second eldest was 16.

The Bamfords were established in India from 1841 when James Bamford (I) travelled to India from Rochdale as a gunner with the 1st Battalion Artillery of the Honorable East India Company. Both James Bamford I (b1821) and his son James Bamford II (b1846) married the daughters of senior military officers from families long established in India. As soldiers, the men of these Hayter, Wilkie and White families were battle hardened and lucky to have survived hand to hand combat at the likes of Mudki, Ramnagar, and Chillianwalla. Whilst many of these men died from injuries received in battle, their contemporaries, spouses and children were more likely to have died fom Cholera especially as a result of the 3rd pandemic (1846-1860).

Ironically the Nicholas family who were long established in Madras (since the early days of Fort St George), managed the growing city's water supply! By the 1930's their 150 year stewardship of the Seven Wells Water Scheme was up. Lena Nicholas having married Walter Cecil Bamford moved with his work for the Post and Telegraph, so their daughters were born at different stops of their travels around British India: Tessa in Rangoon (1916), Eleanor in Madras (1920), Fay in Assam (1921) and Sheila in Delhi (1924). By the 1930s the Walter Cecil Bamfords were permanently based in the new capital New Delhi, living very comfortably, initially at the government owned #9 Raisina Road, then, from 1932, at #15 Ratendone Road, where Walter Cecil designed and built his own bungalow, within the affluent Lutyens Bungalow Quarter. Walter Cecil died in 1943. His remaining family saw out the War here in the company of a stream of billeted US Army officers. Walter's widow Lena and four daughters left this home and India just before Indian Independence, all travelling to the UK in two family groups in 1946 and 1947.

For this dark skinned Anglo-Indian family integrating into the UK was not always straight forward. England did not offer a full and wholesome welcome, and uncertainty regarding the citizenship rights for those born in India persisted into the mid 1980s. Some of the extended Nicholas family were too long established in India and were not afforded entry to the UK due to the 1948 British Nationality Act. Those unable to resettle in the UK either remained in India, or settled in Canada, USA and Australia.

Nicholas descended families returning to England had their own tale about why they were in India in the first place. Perhaps as a means of explaining to the pasty faced natives that on returning to the UK, they had justification to be there. Their story explained that an Irish horse thief/advernturer named Nicholas absconded from Ireland and migrated to India, where he would become synonymous with the "Seven Wells". I am not sure that any of us who were hearing the story 200 years later understood what the Seven Wells were. It wasn't really explained by my Grandmother Eleanor and likely that she didnt know either. This vague story of an Irish adventurer horse thief kept traction and was passed on orally through the generations to the extent that Nicholas progeny based in India, Australia and England all share a similar tale. Only now, with a number of distant cousins researching our family ancestry and with the benefit of the Internet (Wikipedia and WikiTree) is the story starting to coalesce.

Water to the Fort St. George, Madras (now Chennai), and the expanding city surrounding the fort was supplied by the Seven Wells (known locally as 'Yezhu Kinaru') pumping station located on what is now called Old Jail Road. An early skirmish of the First Anglo-Mysore War occurred in 1767, when Nawab Hyder Ali of Mysore fought the British on the outskirts of Madras, his troops tried to poison the Fort's water source. However, the plan was averted by an Anglo-Indian, my ancestor thought to be named John Nicolas. In return, Nicolas was made the Superintendent of Seven Wells Water Works by the British government when the pumping station started supplying water again from 1772. Thus the first organised water supply in Madras/Chenai began with the Seven Wells scheme. In addition to the inherited authority to head the pumping station for 150 years, Nicolas was given a house, horse and a palanquin (an Indian form of Sedan Chair or Litter). The last Nicholas custodian, Evelyn Nicholas (my great great grandfather) inherited the authority from his elder brother (Edmund Alban ) and held it from 1905 until it elapsed in 1925, but by then most of the City's water was then supplied by a much larger scheme fed by Red Hills Lake, completed in 1872.

By comparison my maternal grandfather's backstory shows how easy it is for tales of tragedy to be lost. Bill Howe talked little of his family but his background featured significant childhood trauma that he seems not to have shared - at least not with his children. His recounting of events had him migrating to India age 12, but his recollection conveniently missed a decade. Instead, his move to India was made in 1916, when he was 3. Soon after the family's arrival in northern India his mother Rosa gave birth to his younger brother Horace (Eddie) , but within 6 months she had died. His father William Edwin Dolling Howe soon remarried and Bill and Eddie were subsequently raised by his aunt Laurine, William's new wife's (Myrtle ) childless elder sister. Bill never spoke of this abandonment by his father nor the loss of his younger brother (Eddie) when he was 9. Bill is unlikely to have been aware of the tragedy of his mother's short life. Just as Bill had, Rosa, had been abandoned by her parents and was raised with one of her sisters in a Children's Home in Chadlington, Oxfordshire, some 150 miles away from her mother based in Kent This abandonment is explained by the apparent mental breakdown of Rosa's Father: Thomas Smitham who eventually died in 1920 after 16 years confined in the Kent Lunatic Asylum, Maidstone. By the time of his death his wife had lived a decade as a widow in Canada together with his three youngest children.

My paternal Howe ancestry hailed from Moretonhampstead and North Bovey, Devon and lived there for 10 generations from the 1600s all the way through to the mid 1850s. It was William Coleridge Howe (the 3rd of 6 Williams) who made the move away from his ancestral home in Devon to Stepney, London.

So stories of status and adventure gain traction through generations whilst those of tragedy remain unspoke of. Perhaps its natural to want to share the blood of those who have made notable achievements? The Anglo-Indian part of my family tree is where the achievement lies. My maternal ancestry dominated by service for the Raj in India is where we find the medics, majors, musicians, writers, engineers, MBEs, knights, and papal knights!

But most enlightening is finding tales of tragedy that have been lost to time. Two of my eight 2G Grandfathers seem to have had major mental health breakdowns, one of which resulted in likely suicide, the other resulting in 2 decades spent in a Lunatic Asylum. My 3G Grandmother Ann White died in 1840, the victim of a house fire which completely destroyed the grand home she shared with her "eccentric" daughter.

James White (3GGf) was descended from the St Aubyn Baronetcy. James' father Sir Michael White (4GGF ) was a highly decorated British soldier who was knighted and nominated Aide-de-Camp to Queen Victoria. His success was tempered by the fact that he outlived all of his children, with 4 of his 5 sons dying from wounds suffered in battle in India. It is through this St Aubyn Baronetcy that I find my 16th Great Grandmother Elizabeth Woodville aka "The White Queen" husband to Edward IV and mother of Edward and Richard: The boys in The Tower.

Jemima Russelll , one of my paternal GG Grandmothers was born a Jackson. Through the paternal Jackson line I am related to the grandmother of one of the Pilgrim fathers: Elizabeth Tilley (1st cousin 11 times removed). The number of direct descendants of Elizabeth is significant as she had 10 children, all of whom went on to have large families. It is suggested that her family is one of three that provide the majority of the 3m descendants of the Plymouth Colony.

Military Research - TO DO

A large number served in British and Indian military. I am interested in investigating the military records for the following @ Kew

Ron Howe- Warrant Officer - RAAF - Korea

John E Freeman- 242592 Sqn Ldr - RAF - Served Woomera

Thomas Smitham- 20215 Sapper - Royal Engineers - Served Gibraltar

William Edwin Dolling Howe - 19674 Private - Royal Engineers

Military Records for following requiring interogation @ India Office Records

Ron Howe- Flying Officer - Royal Indian Air Force WW2

John E Freeman - Major - Royal Engineers India

Walter Cecil Bamford - 1617 Indian Army Govt Tele Dept - WW1

James Bamford- Gunner - 1st Batt Artillery Honourable East India Company

Evelyn Nicholas- 4th Battalion Kings Royal Rifles - Served at Lushai

James White - 11th Dragoons then European Artilllery - died Meerut

Sir Michael White- Colonel - 3rd Kings Own Light Dragoons/14th Light Dragoons - served Chillianwallah

Robert White - Major - 27th (later renamed 24th) Dragoons

Robert Hayter- Private - Bombay European Regiment

Robert Wilkie- Sergent -

James Mylne- Major - 11th Light Dragoons - died Meerut/Landour

Ancestor Surnames

P Unwin (Castle Camps, Cambs, then Cambridge) P Howe (Moretonhampstead, Devon then Stepney) GP Sherman (Great Gransden Cambs) GP Bamford (Madras, India) 1GGP Wilson (Cambridge) 1GGP Russell (Gamlingay, Cambs) 1GGP Smitham/Smithyman (Kent) 1GGP Nicholas (Madras, India) 2GGP Unknown 2GGP Hull (Cambridge) 2GGP Hayden (Eltisley, Cams) 2GGP Jackson (Gamlingay, Cambs) 2GGP Murcutt (St George in the East, London) 2GGP Johnson (Gillingham, Kent) 2GGP White (Bombay, India via Aden) 2GGP Leslie (Sutton Coldfield, Warks) 3GGP Unknown 3GGP Briggs (Cambridge, Cambs) 3GGP Hyde (Cambridge, Cambs) 3GGP Hull (Cambridge) 3GGP Clark (Hatley St George) 3GGP Hedge (Hunts) 3GGP Askem (Potton, Beds) 3GGP Webb (Gamlingay, Cambs) 3GGP Dolling (Isle of Wight) 3GGP Shaboe (Stepney) 3GGP Unknown 3GGP Cawley (Dovercourt, Essex) 3GGP Wilkie (Madras, India) 3GGP Hayter (Bombay, Wiltshire) 3GGP Raymond 3GGP Unknown

Research Progress

Gen 1 1/1 Gen 2 2/2 Gen 3 4/4 Gen 4 8/8 Gen 5 15/16 Gen 6 29/32 Gen 7 51/64

Advance Directive

To aid WikiTree in the administration of my account should I be incapacitated, or in the event of my death, I hereby give permission for all private profiles I'm managing to be transferred to the following WikiTreers, whether or not they are currently on the Trusted Lists: Tim Howe Howe-11733 Mick Howe Howe-6587 Margaret Ferrick Royer-1398 Ben Molesworth Molesworth-181 DK Clews Clews-14

Sources

• http://millroadcemetery.org.uk/willson-georgina/
• https://www.familysearch.org/discovery/famousrelatives
• https://swarajyamag.com/culture/the-history-of-providing-drinking-water-to-chennai-madras
• https://amp.en.google-info.in/42283356/1/old-jail-road-chennai.html
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Jail_Road,_Chennai
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Mysore_Wars
• http://our-genealogy.co.uk/HoweTreeMoretonHampstead.shtml
• https://www.familysearch.org/tree/pedigree/landscape/LRDN-FZ5
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Aubyn_baronets
• https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.278444
• https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/gazetteer/pager.html?objectid=DS405.1.I34_V16_386.gif