31. George and Ann Crump of West Bengal, British India

Crump would have been a nickname for a hunchback or cripple. It perhaps comes down from a West Midlands dialect and is commonest in Herefordshire. Holland is habitational, and could refer to Lincolnshire or the Netherlands.

Our family was in India; our link back to the UK seems to be via Samuel Crump (1749). Jean Andrews has established that he joined the 1st Native Volunteer Regiment of the EIC Army in 1782, and was posted to Tamil Nadu. He was promoted to a Lieutenant in 1790, was invalided out in 1791, and died in Royapuram, a fishing community in Madras in 1819. Royapuram has some of the oldest colonial buildings in southern India, notably the church of St Peter, and the railway station, but they are too young for our purposes!

Kasimedu, Royapuram (by Saurabh Chatterjee)

Samuel's son George Crump (1770-1824) was born in India. He married Elizabeth Dupont whose family goes back to England via Rev John Dupont (1703) and Frances Jefferys (1695), whom he married in 1731 in Ashwell nr Baldock, Hertfordshire. My photos of Baldock are here.

Before that, the family went back to France, as my cousin Jean Andrews has uncovered (thanks, Jean!). With echoes of the Larard and Le Brun families, the Dupont family (originally Du Pont, with a meaning like our Bridger family), were Huguenots from Die, Drôme in south-west France.

The most illustrious of the clan was Pierre du Pont, son of a watchmaker from a Burgundian family. Burgundy is 150 miles+ away from Die, and there is no proven relationship, but they do have a good story. Apparently, Pierre switched sides during the French Revolution, defended Marie Antoinette from the mob, escaped execution when Robespierre was killed, fled to America - and founded one of the United States' most successful and wealthiest business dynasties of the C19 and C20. Roosevelt married one of them.

St Mary Magdalen (credit)

Like other dissenting refugees in our family, our John Dupont fled mainland Europe a hundred years earlier, probably around 1685. Jon's son, César Dupont, calico printer, married Susannah Jonot at St Mary Magdalene, Old Fish Street, in the City of London. (This church was demolished after a fire in 1886, and is now under Old Change Square.)  Their son John was born in 1704. Jean has found that the family moved to Middleham, Yorkshire, while John was in his teens. My photos of Middleham are here. John was educated at Kirkleatham School (45 miles away). At some point César became been the owner of Temple Farm, near Aysgarth in Wensleydale (9 miles from Middleham), built on the site of a preceptory of the (Catholic) Knights of St John. All this indicates that even as refugees, the Dupont family retained wealth and influence.

Aysgarth Falls (my photo)

John went on to Trinity College, Cambridge, where - presumably - he studied law, as Jean has found that he was admitted to Middle Temple in 1725. He stayed local and went into the Church, being ordained Deacon in Ely in 1730, and appointed Curate of Guilden Morden in Cambridgeshire.  When he married Frances Jefferys the following year, he was ordained as a priest and appointed curate to his father-in-law, the Rev Francis Jefferys, Vicar of Wimpole. Wimpole is about 10 miles south-west of Cambridge. My photos of Cambridge (including Trinity) are here. The church is next to Wimpole Hall, and was part of the estate at this time. By coincidence, I was meant to be visiting Wimpole Hall (now in the hands of the National Trust) about now, had it not been for the Coronavirus lockdown, so photos of my own will follow!

Wimpole Hall (credit)

When John married, he took over Temple Farm; he was also gifted the position of Vicar of Aysgarth by his old College, Trinity. At the time Aysgarth was one of the biggest parishes in England and he was the Vicar there from 1733 until his death in 1768, living all that time at Temple.  His stipend was a princely £39 a year and his father Cesar granted him a further £200 a year. (Again, this information is from Jean.) 

Unsurprisingly, he was virulently anti-Catholic. Our MacDonald ancestors would not have approved of his sermon when Bonnie Prince Charlie marched past a few miles away, nor of the church bells ringing after Culloden!  

Temple Farm (you can stay there)

In 1759, John was also appointed a Domestic Chaplain to Thomas Hay, the 9th Earl of Kinnoul, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. If you thought some of my sentences were on the long side, try the concluding sentence from one of John's sermons:

"And if these holy Dispositions should this Day forward universally prevail may then flatter ourselves upon grounds that God will be intreated for finful Land and will again go forth our Fleets and Armies and that our Garner shall again be full of all Manner of Stores that the succeeding Campaign will be successfully and vigorously pursued as make our Enemies tired of a War their Encroachments and Insolence brought upon them that a glorious lasting Peace will succeed the Conclusion it and that the Diadem of our gracious will flourish and shine with greater Glory on his ILLUSTRIOUS HEAD." 

Given such views, it is perhaps unsurprising that two of his sons joined the EIC army. One was also called John. John Jr. married Susanna Leonora D'Veer (1752) in 1793, by which time he already had three daughters, including Elizabeth. He died in 1807 in Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu, India. Scratching around for clues to his life and army career, the following came up:

"Captain Dupont finding Tippu Saib's party had made their lodgment good ordered a retreat into the citadel, which was effected without loss." [Hickey's Gazette No. 47, November 1780]

"After the defeat of Col. Baillie's army [at the Battle of Pollilur, 1780], [Sultan] Hyder returned to the Siege of Arcot [1780]; he took the pettah by storm on the 1st of November [1780] and the fort surrendered four hours after. Captain Pendergrass commanded but being disabled by a wound towards the end of the siege he was succeeded by Captain Du Pont who delivered up the place. He says he was forced to it by the Nabob's people refusing to fight." [Extract from a letter by General Munro]

"Mrs Susanna Leonora Dupont, the wife of Lieut. -Colonel John Dupont, Commandant of Cuddalore, who was on the 14th Dec. 1801, brought to bed of twin daughters and
the 16th she died of a mortification, aged 24 years and 2 months." [Monument in Madras]

"Lieut-Colonel John Dupont, Commandant of Cuddalore, 67 years 3 months and 4 days. When living respected by the wealthy and poor, and his loss regretted. What can be said more?" [Monument in Madras]

Jean, of course, has uncovered his military record. He was made Lieutenant in 1770, Captain in 1778, and Lieutenant Colonel in 1790. He was invalided in 1791, but continued to serve as Commandant of Fort St David, Cuddalore until his death in 1807. 

Fort St David was acquired by the British in 1690, along with the villages within a cannonball's shot of the fort. In 1746 Fort St David became the second centre of British power in southern India. It withstood the French at the Siege of Cuddalore, and the Siege of Arcot [1751] under Clive of India. This siege marked a sea change in the British experience in India. Clive met his wife, Margaret Maskelyne there - she was from Swindon! In 1758 the French captured the Fort, but abandoned it two years later to Lt-Gen Eyre Coote, who helped Clive recover Madras from the French. In 1782 the French retook the fort and held it until the Peace of Paris, which ended the American War of Independence, and brought peace between European belligerents across the colonies. With the end of the French threat, it was abandoned and fell into ruins. The Hindu has a recent picture. This suggests that Dupont was one of its last commanders.

Our George Crump was a Lieutenant posted locally and married John's daughter Elizabeth. His son, George Samuel Crump (1798) married Ann Matilda Holland (1799) in Calcutta (now Kolkata), West Bengal, India in 1828. The marriage was in the cathedral, and George Samuel is described as a 'gentleman'.

Calcutta Cathedral (credit)

The couple had three children:

• 48.1.1 - M E Crump (1826). This child died in 1827.
• 48.1.2 - George Theophilus Crump (1828)
• 48.1.3 - James Dupont Crump (1830)

More on these individuals in Chapter 48.

Ann died in 1880. Samuel died in 1889 at Calcutta. Jean discovered, and visited, the substantial family tomb, which still exists in Calcutta.

Jean Andrews at the Crump tomb, Calcutta.

George was described on his death certificate as a government pensioner. He left a detailed and god-fearing will, stipulating how his house and worldly goods should be disposed of (mostly to the church, as his family had "behaved very shamefully negligent" towards him). Notably, the neatly written text is underlined when he stipulates that his dogs should be given to those who desire to have them but they may not be destroyed or brutally tuned out of doors. Likewise, his black milk cow was on no account to be sold to a Musselman or butcher but to a Hindoo man or woman!

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