My interest in the family started when I came across a letter, which had been written in 1951/2 by Mabel Brownlow (who had married her cousin Henry Brownlow), to my grandmother Muriel Llewelyn-Jones. It seemed that the letter was in reply to some questions about the family history.
The relevant passage reads as follows.
“ In the 1790’s the then Earl Brownlow married a clergyman’s daughter. He tired of her, destroyed the church register and deemed the marriage had never taken place. She went to England and met a Mr Bainbridge and had two daughters by him Fanny (1803) and Isobel (1805). They were [ missing ] married and taught us children reading, writing and French. Mrs Bainbridge said she was lawfully married and she took for herself the name Brownlow and her son Charles.
Charles married a Miss Emily Halford, a Yorkshire woman. She was known in 1807. They went out to India he as a soldier in the East India Company, the only way to get to India in those days. Then he bought himself out and worked for the collecting in Assam.
At the same time that Charles Brownlow came to India Mr Tydd married Margaret Scottrell joined the army and they [missing] She had three children Fanny, (my mother) Alfred, Frank Tydd’s father and Georgina who married Swiss Uncle Nick (Roth ). These last had no children.
Arthur Brownlow married Frances Tydd in Calcutta. Their living children are – Florence Emily (your mother) Margaret Isobel who married Mr Charles Lee, Mabel Brownlow (myself) and Frank who never married.”
Mabel was writing this from Australia in her early eighties and with what access to documents I cannot tell.
A fascinating tale. My personal guess is that the story is in most parts true enough but perhaps a little romantisied. Perhaps she was employed as say the governess, entered into a relationship with the Earl or one of his sons, became pregnant and had to leave. Maybe she even truly believed that she was married. In the eighteenth century amongst members of that class there was a great fashion for “clandestine” marriages conducted at dead of night in romantic settings.
Over the years that followed I contacted other members of the family and this story was also known by them. It was clear that the family at least had always believed that there was an absolute relationship between their branch and the Brownlows in Ireland. One strand of particular interest was the idea that the church register had been burned. I was therefore particularly interested to see in the notes about Brownlow House, Lurgan that Shankill Parish Church was burned by a fire in 1792, around the particular date that Mabel has mentioned.
Of course a burned register cuts both ways. It destroys the evidence of a marriage and it also destroys evidence of no marriage.
Charles Brownlow is thought to have left for India in the period 1820-25. He married at St John’s Cathedral, Calcutta on 15th May 1835 Emily Mary Halford. Emily Halford turned out to have come from Rutland rather than Yorkshire. The ceremony was performed by Revt. T Robertson the junior Presidency Chaplain and the witnesses were I. Fountain, Robert Semester, Julia Sevestre, Susan Cattell (her sister) and Amelia F Nicholls. At the time of the marriage he was described as a clerk. In 1831-4 he was an Assistant with Thacker & Co. and in 1834 was living at Churan-gully, Calcutta. In 1837 he was described as a librarian. In 1838 he had set up as a merchant. He died on 8th May 1839 at Gauhati and was buried at Gauhati in the old cemetery.
Charles and Emily had six children.
1 Charles who was born and died in 1831
2 A second Charles who was born 19 August 1832 and baptised 1837 at St John’s Cathedral, Calcutta. He may have been the Charles Brownlow who was an assistant with J Burradile & Co of Cachar in 1861. He died either in Mauritius or in a storm in the Bay of Bengal. It is thought that he never married.
3 William Henry Brownlow born 1834 and baptised in 1837 at St Johns Cathedral, Calcutta. He may have been the W.H. Brownlow who was the Assessor and depute Collector of Income Tax at Durrung in 1861. He died 2nd February 1869 reputedly in a flood and was buried at the New Cemetery in Silchar.
4 George Fredrick Brownlow born 1838 at Kidderpore and baptised in 1839 at St. Johns Cathedral, Calcutta. I have no further information about him
5 Henry Halford Brownlow born 16th June 1835 and baptised along with the rest at St John’s Cathedral in Calcutta. They seemed to have saved them up for a job lot! He married first his cousin Emily Cattell who bore him one child Ellen Marion Brownlow who does not appear to have married and latterly worked with Dr Grahame’s Homes a charity providing communal homes for abandoned children who had been born of european fathers and muslim mothers in Kallimpong
He married secondly Ann Jones and had the following children
Ethel
Mercy Brownlow born 1868
Edith Emily Brownlow born 1866
Henry Halford Brownlow (jr) born 1867. He married his
cousin and Mabel was his daughter.
Annie Violet May Brownlow born 1871
Nina Blanche Halford Brownlow born 1875 who married a Mr. Blewitt
and died in 1952
6 Arthur Brownlow born 14th July 1836 and baptised in 1837 at St John’s Cathedral, Calcutta. In 1861 he was living at Cachar. He married Frances Tydd 23rd September 1868 by license in Dacca and the witnesses were Robert Robertson, Lt Col E F Smith, Fred Schiller and W Brannard. At the time of his marriage he was described as a tea planter. His wife came of a dutch family who had been out east with the Dutch East India Co for generations and in that time had acquired various tea plantations so that Arthur is described in 1897 as managing proprietor of the Bunigram Tea Estate at Sudanpora, Chittagong. He appears to have been a singularly dissagreable man and so when he was at his worst his wife would take long extended vacations to Switzerland. It was here that her children completed their education and I assume where my great grandmother acquired her excellent German.
Arthur Brown died in 1902. He had the following children: -
1 Lillian Kate Brownlow who was born in 1866
2 Frances Mabel Fleetwood Brownlow ( always known as Mabel) who was born in 1867 and who married her cousin Henry Halford Brownlow (jr) [see above] and had the following child
Dorothy Margaret Brownlow born 1892 who married the resplendently named Alfredo Rampazzotti who was a lawyer. They emigrated to Australia and had a daughter called Joy Rampazzotti. Despite the gift of a name such as this I have been unable to track down Joy’s family. I have been told by other members of the family who have also lost touch with this branch that Joy married and had at least two children.
Mabel lived until at least 1952.
3 Margaret Isabel Hope Brownlow born 1869
4 Arthur Francis Willingdon Brownlow born 1872.
5 William Herbert Nicholls Brownlow born 1873 and died 1875
6 Alfred Maurice Brownlow born 1875
7 Florence Emily Brownlow who was born in 1864. She married Robert Llewelyn-Jones another tea planter.
Florence Emily Brownlow had the following children.
1. Owen Arthur Llewelyn-Jones died 1926. He had no children.
2. Cyril Francis Llewelyn-Jones died 1926. He had no children.
3. Herbert Llewelyn-Jones who married twice and may or may not have had living children by his second wife. He used the surname Jones and managed tea plantations until at lease 1956 when at the age of sixty he retired.
4 Muriel Llewelyn-Jones born 1898 married Robert Douglas Baird in 1925. They had one child Barbara born in Darjeeling in 1926.
Florence Emily Brownlow was I understand a strong willed woman who had firm opinions. She seems to have quarreled with various members of the family at various times and to have alienated several of them.
She traveled with her daughter Muriel and son-in-law and granddaughter Barbara, to England in 1936. It would be difficult to say “returned” to a country she had never lived in.
Florence Emily Brownlow or Llewelyn-Jones died at Oakamore, Staffordshire in 1938. After this the family moved north to Kirkcaldy in Fife.
Barbara met Robert Macadam and married in 1955. They have two children. Myself, David Baird Macadam and my brother John. I married Valerie McKenzie Brown and have two daughter, Elizabeth Frances Roseanne Macadam and Victoria Emily Sarah Macadam. My brother John married Jacqueline Cowper and has a son, Christopher and daughter Helen.