48. George and Agnes Crump of British India and Burma

George Theophilus Crump was born in 1828 in Calcutta, India. His parents were George and Ann Crump.

Agnes McDicken was born in 1836 in West Bengal?, India. Her parents were Hugh and Ellen McDicken.

George and Agnes were married in 1851 in Fort St George, Madras (now Chennai, Tamil Nadu). He adds: He had worked as a proof reader for the predecessor of the Indian English-language newspaper The Statesman. 

Fort St George was completed in 1644 by the East India Company. It eventually spawned a new settlement which grew into the city of Madras.

Fort St George, 1858 (credit)

Madras was the capital of the Madras Presidency and thus became home to important commercial organisations. Breaking with the tradition of the closed and almost wholly British controlled system of the English East India Company, The Madras Chamber of Commerce was founded in 1836 by Fredrick Adam, Governor of the Madras Presidency The Madras Trades Association, established in 1856, gave the old colonial families still involved in the (by-then declining) textile and other trades, entry into the financial trade system. Queen Victoria issued a proclamation in 1858 by which India came under the direct rule of Britain.

Fort St George (credit)

The couple had seven children:

• 56.2.1 - Alice Belinda Crump (1852, Madras). Alice died in 1854.
• 56.2.2 - Hope Amanda Crump (1857, Rangoon)
• 56.2.3 - Florence Eleanor Crump (1860, Rangoon)
• 56.2.4 - Albert Crump (1861, Rangoon). Albert died in 1861.
• 56.2.5 - George Samuel Crump (1862, Serampore, West Bengal). George died in 1867.
• 56.2.6 - Anne Matilda Crump (1864, Ranikhet, Uttaranchal)
• 56.2.7 - Hugh Alexander Hardock Crump (1869, Allahabad)

More on these individuals in Chapter 56.

The birth places of their children, show that the family moved around a lot, perhaps indicating government or military service. Rankikhet is a hill station, which was used as a retreat from the heat of the Indian summer, and which was once proposed as the summer headquarters of government.

George died in Allahabad in 1873, aged 45. Cousin Jean Andrews tells me that he had had a serious drink problem and died of liver failure. His three daughters were already out at work or married. Relatives of the widow were able to take in Agnes but not her four-year old son Hugh, so he was put into La Martiniere school as an orphan. 

Next (George's siblings)