Robert, Frederick's Third Son
Local directories and other sources in the India Office Library show that Robert joined the General Post Office in Calcutta in 1832 at the age of 17. He started as an assistant and worked his way up to Superintendent of the Stamp Office. He married Rosalia Gomez (date unknown) and at the time he made his will in 1882 he had three sons and two daughters. [1]
Robert lived to the ripe old age of 75. He'd retired from the Post Office in 1862 aged 47 and set himself up as the proprietor of the "Widows and Orphans Water-Filter Boat", which he ran until he died of paralysis in 1890.
Bathing Ghat on the Hooghly River, c.1915
There were apparently several boats used, at a guess, to provide fresh water supplies to ships docking in the harbour. Robert requests that he be buried "in the Vault of my deceased father Frederick Deefholts in the Catholic Cathedral in Portuguese Church Lane in Calcutta" and his certificate of burial says that he is buried in the Roman Catholic Burial Ground (Catholic Cathedral), Circular Road. It is not clear whether these are in fact two ways of describing the same place, but what is certain is that the vault is no longer in the cathedral churchyard. [2]
Documents at the India Office Library show that Robert's eldest son, Robert Horatio, was born in 1837 or 1838. He joined his father at the Post Office as an Assistant in the Shipping Department in May 1855, earning the princely salary of Rs 20 . By 1859 he had been promoted to "Preparer of Services Accounts, GPO", and his salary had risen to RS 80. [3] He appears in Directories for the first time in 1857, living at his father's house at 7 Emambaug 2nd Lane, moved out to 2 Goreeamah's Lane in 1862 and settled at 17 Lower Chitpore Road in 1871, living there until at least 1900. The move in 1871 may indicate the date of his marriage to Lavinia Pulcheria Coutts, since according to her will she owned a majority share in the house. He retired in 1886. Lavinia died in 1903 of chronic dysentery, he lived on until 1924 when he died of senility at the age of 89. They had no children.
Robert's second son, Lewis Theodore, was born in 1841 and married Melenthia Rose Coutts in 1865. The photographs below probably date from around the time of their marriage. They are known to have had two daughters, Beatrice Eugenie, born around 1868, who married Percival Seymour Fegredro in 1897; and Leonie Mary, born in 1871. They possibly also had a son, Louis or Lewis Joseph born four years earlier and another (intermediate) daughter.
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Lewis
Theodore Deefholts |
Melenthia Rose Coutts |
According to the Directories, Lewis Theodore was an Overseer at the Public Works Department from 1866 to 1877, first in Burdwan District, Howrah, where he worked on projects at Moisraka, Burhie and Kandea. He was promoted to Supervisor in 1879, working at Burdwan, Jessore, Chittagong, Ranee Gunge, Chinsurah, Sahebgunge and Purneah. Melenthia died in 1887 aged 43 and was buried at Bandel Convent, at Hugli. [4] Lewis returned to Chinsurah in 1893 as a Sub-engineer, retiring in 1896. He died of fever in Moogheehatta in 1897. Leonie Mary died (unmarried) in 1905 of Chronic Intestinal Obstruction.
Louis Joseph became a teacher and Post Office clerk, and married Augusta Barbara Vogel in 1891. It is believed that they were the parents of Robert Augustus, born in 1893. He was known as Robin, and worked as a “licensed measurer” at the Measurer’s Department - possibly something to do with pharmacy or weights and measures? He married one Ida Blanche Waddel in February 1917 and their son, Robert Eric, was born in September of the same year. Robin died ten years later of opium poisoning at the age of 34. Louis Joseph may also have been father to David Deefholts (“son of Joseph”) born in 1896 and a daughter, Bride, born in 1897, who married a James Smith in 1915. Louis Joseph died of diabetes and gangrene of the foot in 1904 at the age of 37, leaving 16,420 rupees to his 33 year old widow. She remarried a couple of years later at the age of 31!
Charles Frederick - Robert's third son - was born in Calcutta in 1848. In 1875 he became a Pleader, first at the Calcutta High Court and later in the Small Claims Court at Calcutta, moving to Kidderpore in 1883 and to 14 Chapel Road, Hastings in 1890.
The Calcutta High Court, c.1915
Reg's son Leon recalls his father telling him that "one of the earliest of the family in India lived at Hastings, Calcutta and because of his fastidious dress habits was called the Duke of Hastings!" This could well have been Charles Frederick. He and his wife Ann (nee St Romaine) had at least seven children.
Although there is no record of Charles and Anne’s marriage in the Ecclesiastical returns, there is a record of their first daughter, Etheline Marie, born in 1874. She married a Mr Edward McGrath (father of her younger sister's husband) in 1914, she aged 40, he aged 62. They lived in Hastings. The marriage was witness by her brother James Percival. Note too from Robert’s will that he bequeathed 10 shares in the Great Eastern Hotel to his beneficiaries and that Charles’ elder sister, Elvira Caroline, also married a St Romaine.
Charles and Anne's second child, James Percival, was born in 1876. He married Minnie (Millicent) Turton in 1903, at that time working for the Salt Revenue department of the Bengal Secretariat at Tundok (?) district, Midnapore. The following press report appears in The Statesman, Calcutta, the same year:
FEBRUARY 10, 1903
Illicit Manufacture Of Salt. — For some time past there has been reason
to believe that the wholesale illicit manufacture of salt has been common in
the Howrah district. To test this suspicion Inspector J. Deefholts, of the
Detective Salt Department, 24-Pergannahs, was recently deputed to Howrah, with
the result that in the course of a few days, he placed 82 cases of illicit manufacture
before the Courts, the fines inflicted amounting to Rs 950. [5]
James Percival's great-grandson, James Ian Frederick, gives the following biography:
JAMES PERCIVAL DEEFHOLTS: Second son of Charles and Ann Deefholts. Born 17/5/1876. Married Minnie (Millicent) Turton on 21/1/1903, the daughter of William Cecil Turton, a minister born in Birkenhead England. He was attached to the Fusilier Regiment as chaplain. James & Minnie had two boys and four daughters, all born in India. Was Superintendent of Excise and Salt. [5]
According to the records James and Minnie had at least eight or nine children. Mignonette was born in 1904 and died the same year of enteritis. James St Clair, who was born in 1905 at Funlook, also died in infancy at the age of 4 months, of convulsions. Dorothy Inez was born the following year and survived to marry a Herbert Bird in 1933.
Next was Frederick Robert Edmond, "Born 24/2/1908. Deceased 1968. Married Mercy Elizabeth Howe (born 13JAN1908, the daughter of Walter Eugene Howe, of English and Welsh descent). Occupation Conductor Bengal Nagpour Railway - Karagpur. Had two children - James Ian Frederick and Dorothy Ursula. Migrated to Australia 1959." James was born in Chandernagore in 1930, migrated to Australia in 1953 and married Helen Phillippa Braund in 1958. They had three children Phillippa, Peter and Ian). He is a JP. Dorothy married a Mr John Martin and had five children. [6]
A gap of five years followed until the birth of M. Teresa in 1913. Next was Sybil Enid in 1915 [408/62]. She married a Patrick Burns in 1935 at the Bandel Church in Hooghly. [563/36]. 1916 saw the arrival of Dulcia May. Finally, Gladys Rose was born in 1919 [583/48]. She married a Kenneth McCready in 1937.
Charles Frederick and Ann's third child, Marie Blanche, was born in 1877 and died of Bright's Disease in 1907. The fourth, Eugenie Marie, was born in 1879 and married Michael McGrath in 1911 (as mentioned above, her elder sister married Michael’s father three years later!). No further descendants have been traced.
The fifth child was Ernest Charles Raymond, born in 1881. He married a Miss Davidson in 1909 and had three children: Roch Edmond, born 1910; Norman, and Alice N., born 1915. According to Norman, Roche worked for Wireless & Cable in Bombay, and both Roche and Alice died before 1992. Norman gave his father's name as Norman Ernest and his mother's maiden name as Davidson. No further descendants have been traced.
Charles Frederick's sixth child was Marie, born 1883. This was possibly "Mabel, daughter of Frederick" who married a Mr Alfred Augustin in 1901 (son of Edwin Augustin and whose brother, Cecil Claude, married Anne Caroline and witnessed the marriage of Ernest Charles). Seventh was Mathilda Marie, born in 1885 and married an Edwin Stuart in 1910. No descendants have been traced. Charles Frederick died in 1906, aged 58, of Pulmonary Phthisis. His younger sisters, according to Robert's will, were Elvira Caroline (born 01Sep1845) who married a Mr St Romaine; and Henrietta (date of birth unknown) who married a Mr Lumsden. No descendants traced.