Dr. Elsie Inglis

PART I

AMERICA

Among the records of the family from whom Elsie Inglis was descended there are letters which date back to 1740. In that year the property of Kingsmills, Inverness-shire, was in the hands of Hugh Inglis. He had three sons, George, Alexander, and William. George inherited Kingsmills, and the Inglis now in Inverness are descended from him. Alexander, the great-grandfather of Elsie, married Mary Deas, and about 1780 emigrated to Carolina, leaving his four children to be educated in Scotland, in charge of his brother, William Inglis. The portrait of Alexander, in the dress of the period, has the characteristic features of the race descended from him. The face is stamped with the impress of a resolute, fearless character, one who was likely to leave his mark on any country in which he took up his abode. There is an account of the property and estates of Alexander Inglis of Charleston ‘merchant in his own right.’ The account sets forth how the estates are confiscated on account of the loyalty of the said Alexander, and his adherence to, and support of the British Government and constitution.

In the schedule of property there occur, in close relation, these items: 125 head of black cattle, £125; 69 slaves at £60 a head, £4140; a pew, No. 31 in St. Michael’s Church, Charleston, £150; 11 house negroes, £700; and a library of well-chosen books, at a much lower figure. Alexander never lost sight of the four children left in his native land. In 1784 he congratulates his son David on being Dux of his class, and says that he prays constantly for him.

Mary Deas, Alexander Inglis’ wife, through her ancestor Sir David Dundas, was a direct descendant of Robert the Bruce. All that is known of her life is contained in the undated obituary notice of the American newspaper of the day: —

‘The several duties of her station in life she discharged as became the good Christian, supporting with exemplary fortitude the late trying separation from her family.’

Alexander’s restless and adventurous life was soon to have a violent end.

After their mother’s death, the three daughters must have joined their father in America. One of them, Katherine, whose face has been immortalised by Raeburn, writes to her brother David, who had been left in Scotland, to inform him of the death of their father in a duel.

The letter which Alexander Inglis wrote to be given to his children, should he fall in the duel, is as fresh and clear as on the day when it was written: —

‘My dear, dear Children, – If ever you receive this letter it will be after my death. You were present this morning when I received the grossest insult that could be offered me – and such as I little expected from the young man who dared to offer it. Could the epithets which in his passion he ventured to make use of be properly applied to me – I would not wish to live another hour, but as a man of honour, and the natural guardian and protector of everything that is dear and valuable to myself and to you, I have no alternative left, but that of demanding reparation for the injury I have received. If I fall – I do so in defence of that honour, which is dearer to me than life. May that great, gracious and good Being, who is the protector of innocence, and the sure rewarder of goodness, bless, preserve and keep you. – I am, my dear, dear children, your affectionate father,

‘Charleston,

‘Tuesday evening, 29 March 1791.’

The letter is addressed by name to the four children.

Katherine writes to her brother David in the following May: —

‘In what manner, my dearest brother, shall I relate to you the melancholy event that has befallen us. Our dear parent, the best of fathers, is no more. How shall I go on? Alas! you will hear too soon by whose hand he fell; therefore I will not distress you with the particulars of his death. The second day of our dear father’s illness he called us to his bedside, when he told us he had left a letter for us three and his dear boy which would explain all things. Judge if you are able, my dear brother, what must have been our thoughts on this sad occasion to see our only dear parent tortured with the most excruciating pains and breathing his last. We were all of us too young, my brother, to experience the heavy loss we met with when our dear mother died, we had then a good father to supply our wants. I have always thought the Almighty kind to all His creatures, but more so in this particular that He seldom deprives us of one friend without raising another to comfort us. My dear sisters and self are at present staying with good Mrs. Jamieson, who is indeed a truly amiable woman. I am sure you will regard her for your sisters’ sakes. You are happily placed, my brother, under the care of kind uncles and aunts who will no doubt (as they ever have done) prove all you have lost. How happy would it make me in my present situation to be among my friends in Scotland, but as that is impossible for some time I must endeavour to be as happy as I can. My kind duty to uncle and aunts. – I am, my dearest brother, your truly affectionate sister,

Thus closes the chapter of Alexander Inglis and Mary Deas, his wife, both ‘long, long ago at rest’ in the land of their exile, both bearing the separation with fortitude, and the one rendering his children fatherless rather than live insulted by some nameless and graceless youth.

David Inglis grew up in charge of the kind Uncle William, and endeared himself to his adopted father. He also was to fare to dominions beyond the sea, and he carried the name of Inglis to India, where he went in 1798 as writer to the East India Company.

Uncle William followed him with the usual good advice. In a letter he tells David he expects him to make a fortune in India that will give him ‘£3000 a year, that being the lowest sum on which it is possible to live in comfort.’

David’s life was a more adventurous one than that which usually falls to a writer. He went through the Mahratta War in 1803. He left India in 1812. On applying for a sick certificate, the resolution of Council, dated 1811, draws the attention of the Honourable Company to his services, ‘most particularly when selected to receive charge of the territorial cessions of the Peshwa under the Treaty of Bassein in the year 1803, displaying in the execution of that delicate and difficult mission, proofs of judgment and talents with moderation and firmness combined, which averted the necessity of having recourse to coercive measures, accomplished the peaceable transfer of a valuable territory, and conciliated those whose power and consequence were annihilated or abridged by the important change he so happily effected.’ David Inglis seems to have roamed through India, always seeking new worlds to conquer, and confident in his own powers to achieve.

One of the Napoleonic invasion scares alarmed the Company, and David, with two companions, was sent out on a cruising expedition to see if they could sight the enemy’s fleet. As long as he wrote from India, his letters bear the stamp of a man full of vital energy and resource.

The only thing he did not accomplish while in the service of the Company was the fortune of £3000 a year.

He entered a business firm in Bombay and there made enough to be able to keep a wife. In 1806 he married Martha Money, whose father was a partner in the firm. They came home in 1812, and all their younger children were born in England at Walthamstow, the home of the Money family. One of the descendants, who has read the letters of these three brothers and their families, makes this comment on them: —

‘The letters are pervaded with a sense of activity, and of wandering. Each one entering into any pursuit that came to hand. All the family were travellers. There are letters from aunts in Gibraltar and many other airts.

‘The extraordinary thing in all the letters, whether they were written by an Inglis, a Deas, or a Money, is the pervading note of strong religious faith. They not only refer to religion, but often, in truly Scottish fashion they enter on long theological dissertations. David Inglis, Elsie’s grandfather, when he was settled in England gave missionary addresses. Two of these exist, and must have taken fully an hour to read. Even the restless Alexander in Carolina, and the “whirlwind” David in India scarcely ever write a letter without a reference to some religious topic. You get the impression of strong breezy men sure of themselves, and finding the world a great playground.’

PART II

INDIA

John, the second youngest son of David and Martha Inglis, was born in 1820. His mother being English, there entered with her some of the douce Saxon disposition and ways. Though the call of the blood was to cast his lot in India, John, or as he was generally called David, appears first as a student. His tutor, the Rev. Dr. Niblock, wrote a report of him as he was passing out of his hands to Haileybury. Mrs. Inglis notes on the letter: ‘Dr. Niblock is esteemed one of the best Greek scholars in England, and his Greek Grammar is the one in use in Eton.’

‘Of Master David Inglis I can speak with pleasure and pride almost unmixed. I can only loudly express how I regret that I have not the finishing of such a boy, for I feel, and shall ever feel, that he is mine. He has long begun to do what few boys do till they are leaving, or have left, school, viz. to think. I shall long cherish the hope, that as I laid the foundation, so shall I have the power and pleasure of crowning my own and other’s labours. He will make a fine fellow and be a comfort to his parents, and an honour to his tutor.’

John Inglis received a nomination for Haileybury College from one of the directors of the East India Company, and went there as a student in 1839. There he was noted as a cricketer and a good horseman, and also for his reading. He knew Shakespeare almost by heart, and could tell where to find any quotation from his works. On leaving Haileybury he sailed for Calcutta, and was there for two years learning the language. He went as assistant magistrate to Agra. He married in 1846, and in 1847 he was transferred to the newly-acquired province of the Punjab. He was sent as magistrate to Sealkote, remaining there till 1856. He then brought his family home on three years’ furlough. With the outbreak of the Mutiny all civilians were recalled, and he returned to India in 1858. He was sent to Bareilly to take part in the suppression of the Mutiny, and was attached to the force under General Jones. He was present at the action at Najibabad, with the recapture of Bareilly, and the pacification of the province of Rohilcund. He remained in the province ten years till 1868, and during those years he rose to be Commissioner of Rohilcund. In 1868 he was made a member of the Board of Revenue in the North-West Provinces. As a member of the Legislative Council of India, he moved, in 1873, to Calcutta. From 1875 to 1877 he was Chief Commissioner of Oude.

The position Inglis made for himself in India, in yet early life, is to be gauged by a letter written in 1846 by Sir Frederick Currie, who was then Commissioner of Lahore. He had married Mrs. Inglis’ sister Katherine.

‘We have applied to Mr. Thomasen (Lieutenant-Governor of the N.W.P.) for young civilians for the work which is now before us, and we must take several with us into the Punjab. One whom he strongly recommends is Inglis at Agra. I will copy what he says about him. Sir Henry Hardinge (the Governor-General) has not seen the letter yet. “Another man who might suit you is Inglis at Agra; an assistant on £400, acting as joint magistrate which gives him one hundred more. Active, energetic, conciliating to natives, fine-tempered, and thoroughly honest in all his works. I am not sure that he is not as good a man as you can have. I shall be glad to hear that you send for him.”’

The letter was addressed to Inglis’ eighteen-year-old bride, and Sir Frederick goes on: —

‘Shall I send for him or not? I am almost sure I should have done so, had I not heard of your getting hold of his heart. We don’t want heartless men, but really you have no right to keep such a man from us. At the present moment, however, for your sake, little darling, I won’t take him from his present work, but if, after the honeymoon, he would prefer active and stirring employment, with the prospect of distinction, to the light-winged toys of feathered cupid, I dare say I shall be able to find an opening for him.’

Mr. Inglis’ wife was Harriet Louis Thompson, one of nine daughters. Her father was one of the first Indian civilians in the old company’s days. All of the nine sisters married men in the Indian Civil, with the exception of one who married an army officer. Harriet came out to her parents in India when she was seventeen, and she married in her eighteenth year. She must have been a girl of marked character and ability. She met her future husband at a dance in her father’s house, and she appears to have been the first to introduce the waltz into India. She was a fine rider, and often drove tandem in India. She must have had a steady nerve, for her letters are full of various adventures in camp and tiger-haunted jungles, and most of them narrate the presence of one of her infants who was accompanying the parents on their routine of Indian official life.

Her daughter says of her: —

‘She was deeply religious. Some years after their marriage, when she must have been a little over thirty and was alone in England with the six elder children, she started and ran most successfully a large working-men’s club in Southampton. Such a thing was not as common as it is to-day. There she lectured on Sunday evenings on religious subjects to the crowded hall of men.’

In the perfectly happy home of the Inglis family in India, the Indian ayah was one of the household in love and service to those she served. Mrs. Simson has supplied some memories of this faithful retainer: —

‘The early days, the nursery days in the life of a family, are always looked back upon with loving interest, and many of us can trace to them many sweet and helpful influences. So it was with our early days, though the nursery was in India, and the dear nurse who lives in our memories was an Indian. Her name was Sona (Gold). She came into our family when the eldest of us was born, and remained one of the household for more than thirty years. Her husband came with her, and in later years three of her sons were table servants. Sona came home with us in 1857, and remained in England till the beginning of 1858. It was a sign of great attachment to us, for she left her own family away up in the Punjab, and fared out in the long sea voyage, into a strange country and among new peoples. She made friends wherever she was, and her stay in England was a great help to her in after life. When I returned to India after my school life at home, I found the dear nurse of my childhood days installed again as nurse to the little sisters and brother I found there.

‘She was a sweet, gentle woman, and we never learnt anything but kind, gentle ways from her. By the time I returned she was recognised by the whole compound of servants as one to be looked up to and respected. She became a Christian and was baptized in 1877, but long before she made profession of her faith by baptism she lived a consistent Christian life. My dear mother’s influence was strong with her, and she was a reader of the Bible. One of my earliest recollections is our reading together the fourteenth chapter of St. John.

‘She died some years after we had all settled in Scotland. My parents left her, with a small pension for life, in charge of the missionaries at Lucknow. When she died, they wrote to us saying that old Sona had been one of the pillars of the Indian Christian Church in Lucknow.

‘We look forward with a sure and certain hope to our reunion in the home of many mansions, with her, around whom our hearts still cling with love and affection.’

In 1856 Mr. Inglis resolved to come home on furlough, accompanied by Mrs. Inglis, and what was called ‘the first family,’ namely, the six boys and one girl born to them in India. It was a formidable journey to accomplish even without children, and one writes, ‘How mother stood it all I cannot imagine.’ They came down from the Punjab to Calcutta trekking in dâk garris. It took four months to reach Calcutta by this means of progression, and another four months to come home by the Cape. The wonderful ayah, Sona, was a great help in the toilsome journey when they brought the children back to England. Mrs. Inglis was soon to have her first parting with her husband. When they landed in England, news of the outbreak of the Mutiny met them, and Mr. Inglis returned almost at once to take his place beside John Lawrence. Together they fought through the Mutiny, and then he worked under him. Inglis was one of John Lawrence’s men in the great settling of the Punjab which followed on that period of stress and strain in the Empire of India. His own district was Bareilly, and the house where he lived in Sealkote is still known as Inglis Sahib ke koti (Inglis Sahib’s house). His children remember the thrilling stories he used to tell them of these great days, and of the great men who made their history.

His admiration was unbounded for those northern races of India. He loved and respected them, and they, in their turn, gave him unbounded confidence and affection. ‘Every bit as good as an Englishman,’ was a phrase often on his lips when speaking of the fine Sikhs and Punjabis and Rajpoots.

Englishwomen were not allowed in India during this period, and Mrs. Inglis had to remain in Southampton with her six children and their ayah. It was then that she found work in her leisure time for the work she did in the Men’s Club.

In 1863, when life in India had resumed its normal course, Mrs. Inglis rejoined her husband, leaving the children she had brought back at home.

It must have taken all the ‘fortitude’ that Mary Deas had shown long before in Carolina to face this separation. There was no prospect of the running backwards and forwards, which steam was so soon to develop, and to draw the dominions into closer bonds. Letters took months to pass, and no cable carried the messages of life and death across ‘the white-lipped seas.’ Again, one of the survivors says: ‘I always felt even as a child, and am sure of it now, she left her heart behind with the six elder children. What it must have meant to a woman of her deep nature, I cannot imagine.’ The decision was made, and Mr. Inglis was to have the great reward of her return to him, after his seven years of strenuous and anxious loneliness. The boys were sent, three of them to Eton, and two more to Uppingham and to Rugby. Amy Inglis the daughter was left with friends. Relatives were not lacking in this large clan and its branches, and the children were ‘looked after’ by them. We owe much of our knowledge of ‘the second little family,’ which were to comfort the parents in India, by the correspondence concerning them with the dearly-loved children left in the homelands.