Ian Smith discovers his family ties to the last days of the Raj
Ian Smith uncovered some surprising individuals and events, tightly bound with the history of the continent he grew up in, he tells Claire Vaughan
The year is 1940 in Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh – the final years of the Raj. The Smith family are waiting outside their house for a car to take them to their daughter’s christening. As they stand chatting in the heat, their two-year-old son wanders off. Unnoticed, he begins to investigate the undergrowth. He crouches down and picks up a stick, jabbing the vegetation with it. Suddenly a cry goes up behind him. Several people rush over including a portly Indian gentleman dressed in white wearing a turban who plucks the toddler from his game. Moments later, there’s a cheer as two of the boy’s other saviours emerge from the bushes, triumphantly holding crossed sticks aloft – a cobra dangling between them.
His encounter with a deadly snake is one of WDYTYA? Magazine reader Ian Smith’s earliest memories of his early life in India. He recalls, too, the vivid colours and bustle of life in Moradabad, watching fruit bats swooping at dusk, the lilting Indian lullaby his ayah (nanny) used to sing to him, his mother’s badminton games and the bridge parties his parents hosted on the veranda.
Sixty five years later, Ian embarked on a quest to see what lay hidden in his heritage – and discovered generations of ancestors whose stories were entwined with the history of the British in India.
The Smiths’ privileged lifestyle was not to last. A shadow fell with the end of the Raj and Indian Independence in 1947, coinciding with Ian’s father, George, being invalided out of the army. The family struggled to survive on his pension. “We couldn’t live on tick any more and we were chucked out of our home,” says Ian. “My mother had to sell her wedding ring to feed us all. The humiliation was severe.” Convinced they would have better prospects in England, the family moved to London in 1952.
Ian has written a personal account of his heritage and life in India: The Bitter End of the British Raj. “I began to write about it because I thought my children should know – it’s such a complicated beginning.
“When my wife initially suggested I research my family history, I thought I can’t do that. I was born and brought up in India, it’s going to be really difficult – plus my name is Smith.”
His grandmother, Daisy Constance Pearce, had always maintained they had an illustrious forebear and this was the push he needed to start his inquiry: “She said we were blood relatives of Sir William Pearce, the shipbuilder and owner of the Fairfield Shipbuilding yards. I thought: ‘Well, I’ll just try and find out something about him.’ And, lo and behold, there was masses of information.”
Lesley Pearce, a relative who’d researched his Pearce lineage, filled in the gaps for Ian. “He explained that we could claim a direct blood relationship with Sir William. My grandmother was his third cousin, so she was right all along.”
We couldn’t live on tick any more and we were chucked out of our home
After the death in 1888 of Sir William, one of the richest men of his day, his wife bequeathed the Mitchell Library and the Pearce Institute to the city of Glasgow. His son, William George Pearce, left the family fortune to Trinity College, Cambridge.
Anglo-Indian heritage
Keen to see what further surprises lay in store, Ian turned his attention to the other branches of his family. The more he uncovered, the more he began to understand the role his ancestors had played in India.
Her marriage certificate revealed that his maternal grandmother’s maiden name was Clarice Margaret Halfhide. He managed to trace her ancestry back to her grandfather Robert Sampson Halfhide, born in Fort William, Calcutta, in 1813. The birth records (available online at the India Office Family History Search website) showed that his parents were Benjamin Halfhide, a Captain in His Majesty’s 17th Foot Regiment, and his wife Elizabeth (née Peacock).
Ian began digging further and turned up the army records for Benjamin at The National Archives (TNA), which revealed a colourful military career. He had arrived in Calcutta with a heavily pregnant Elizabeth and their two children, on an East India Company ship, the Metcalf, a month before Robert was born. Benjamin took part in the Nepal campaign of 1814-15 and then the Aracan (Burma Campaign) of 1824-26. Later (by purchase) he rose to the rank of Brigade Major in the 44th Queen’s Foot Regiment at Fort William. He had seven children with Elizabeth. She died in 1822 and he then married Elizabeth Kinchant, daughter of a civil servant, and had two children with her.
Benjamin’s roots, Ian discovered, lay in Merton in Surrey. His father was James Halfhide, the owner of Merton Abbey Gatehouse. “My son lives just half a mile from there now,” chuckles Ian. “James lived there from 1788 to 1804. The family imported calico from India and printed it with the designs of the day. Halfhide & Sons went bankrupt in 1804.” While researching James Halfhide’s family, Ian uncovered a link to one of the most iconic naval men of the 18th century. “I came across an archaeologist at the London School of Archaeology who was studying the gatehouse. He sent me a link to the website – the Nelson Trail. Lord Nelson had lived next door to James Halfhide and in 1801, he bought a strip of land from my ancestor to enlarge his estate.”
But researching the life of one of his forebears, Ian learned that you can’t always trust army records. “I knew my maternal grandfather, Frederick James Thompson, was born in 1888 in Croydon. I wrote to the tea companies in Calcutta because he worked there as an engineer. Somebody at TNA was researching Indian railways so I contacted them. He wrote back and said there was an entry in Thacker’s Indian Directory showing that Frederick had been an engineer from 1918-21 at three tea plantations in Darjeeling, where my mother Marion was born. I knew my grandfather had been in the army and in the end, I tried the army records at TNA.” However, these contained several red herrings, including that he studied at the Bishop Whitgifts Grammar School in Croydon, then at the Central Polytechnic in London. When Ian followed this up he found both to be untrue. Other details about what Frederick was doing before he went to India also proved difficult to substantiate.
Predictably, it was his Smith branch that posed the biggest teaser – and in particular his great grandfather, George Smith. “I found his marriage to Jane Huntley on the IGI, but trying to trace his roots bogged me down for quite some time.” Finally, Ian approached the Families in British India Society (FIBIS) to see if they could help. An enterprising researcher there tried everything to track George down without luck. Then after three years, Ian received the news he’d been waiting for. She emailed Ian saying she’d found George Smith! She had been looking for
To his astonishment, she told him it was his great grandmother
another Smith in the pension records and came across George. It turns out he and his wife were sent to Rangoon, Burma. They had four children – one of whom was my grandfather, George Frederick Smith. George senior died there in 1888.”
The records showed that George was born in Bexley Heath, Kent, in 1846 and had worked at the Woolwich Arsenal before he joined the Royal Artillery. He was a sergeant and transferred to the Indian Ordnance Corps. He rose to the rank of conductor. “That put the tin hat on it for me!” says Ian. “I now knew where he came from – and that he worked at the Woolwich Arsenal. When my family arrived here in 1952, we stayed in a halfway house in Plumstead. George would have walked those streets. I’ve stood at the arsenal gates many times. Little did I know that my great grandfather worked there!”
But there was a bigger surprise to come. When they heard he was researching the family tree, Ian’s siblings sent him lots of material, including two wedding photos. “I noticed an Indian lady in one of father and mother’s wedding in Moradabad,” says Ian. He asked round the family, but no one had any idea who she was. That is, until a relative from the Pearce branch came to visit. Ian showed her the photo and she asked her mother about it. To his astonishment, she told him that it was his great grandmother, Jane Pearce (née Lindsay Smith).
From the early 18th century, The East India Company (EIC) realised that the caste system in India was creating a barrier to its expansion plans. In addition, British people coming out to the colony succumbed to the heat and endemic disease and many died. So the EIC encouraged marriages between its employees and the native population to try and create a resilient workforce. In return, it paid mixed-race couples a silver coin called a pagoda for each Christian child resulting from the union. These children became known as Eurasians or Anglo-Indians.
Jane, born in 1864, was just such a child. The records show she was the daughter of William Lindsay Smith, who was born in Arbroath. “A corporal in the 92nd Foot Regiment, he fought in the second Afghan campaign from 1878-80 and was wounded. He was repatriated to Scotland where he died of his wounds.” He must have married an Indian woman, but Ian has been unable to uncover her name.
So what did this discovery mean for Ian? “Living in India, you always had a suspicion that you might have Indian blood, but back then if you were an Anglo-Indian in India, you would never tell anyone.
“I was told that I was born under a British flag, under British rule, and that all my lineage on my paternal side was English – and as such, I was British.”
Uncovering his family history clearly had a huge impact on him. “It’s established a sense of belonging in me. I knew I had to belong somewhere – it wasn’t in England. When we returned here, I was sharply reminded that I wasn’t an Englishman, but now I know I’m an Anglo-Indian. These are my roots!”