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May 26 2007
Derek has entertained us with many stories of family history His School days and many other very interesting stories-It is all very well written and very interesting--please enjoy ---- #Five Tigers in Fifteen Minutes #Governors visit to Jowai/Haflong #TEA IN ASSAM & THE DELANOUGEREDES 23 December 2007 This
page is dedicated to Larry Brown who has reached the age of 70 and his
special friend Derek Perry has created a special tribute to Larry with a
short foreward by the David the Editor and now
Dereks tribute to his special friend Lawrenc Lawrence (Larry) Brown is an Irishman of 70 years, may he long continue to be one. The Irish are probably the most likeable race on earth. They are affectionate, endearing, erratic, fanatical, kind, loveable, stubborn, pig headed, generous, humorous and loquacious. I know this, my grandfather was Irish and I was taught by the native Irish, the Irish Christian Brothers at Shillong. I have known Larry for only about three or four years. Our common interest is our experience on tea estates in Assam and the Dooars, although our paths never crossed. We also share a passion for nostalgia and the sense of the absurd. Over those few years Larry has showered me with parcels containing books about North East India, CD's and DVD's of music of the Nineteen thirties, forties and fifties as well as recordings of all the best of Peter Sellars, The Goons, Tony Hancock and other memorable BBC shows. Usually the parcels come stuffed with tea bags from his beloved Madura tea estate in New South Wales. Larry will telephone me frequently to keep me informed with all his latest research and discoveries in the area of our great but dwindling brotherhood of tea planters. It is noticeable that after all his calls there is a sharp rise in the price of Telstra Tele shares. Here is an example of Larry's thoughtfulness. My wife Bev, goes down to collect the mail from our Maleny mail box, she is handed a long tube of about four foot long and four inches in diameter. It is from L. Brown on the Gold Coast. Mystified she brings it home and we search the contents. From out of the tube we extract a waist high shoe horn for geriatrics, which, to stop any suspicious rattling has been packed into the tube with about 5 kilos of Madura tea bags. Not only does Larry save me from bending down in my old age to prevent jamming my arthritic finger between heel and the back of my shoe but he has ensured that we will never be short of a cup of Madura best blend. Apropos of nothing, during one of our well into the night telephone calls, Larry mentions that he has found an old print of a celebrated painting titled, "When did you last see your father." The painting depicts a young Cavalier lad standing ram rod like on a footstool, bravely composed while facing his Puritan interrogators. In the background are his mother and sisters with other assortment of females distraught and weeping. I was able to share with Larry that I had seen the original hanging in the London Tate Gallery and also that it featured prominently in a book I had of the Stuart reign and that I had always admired the artists work. Then I thought nothing of it. A few months later, I met Larry for the first time when he came up to our home at Witta, up in the hills inland from the Queesland Sunshine Coast, to stay the night. It was love at first sight, in a brotherly sort of way, of course. Larry never comes empty handed. From out of the car boot he produces the aforementioned print together with two other period prints of equal interest and a healthy two year old tea plant in a large pot. He names the tea bush "Bruce" in recognition of my yet unauthenticated claim to be a descendant of the great Robert Bruce of Assam tea fame. When living in England after my tea days were over and again in Auckland New Zealand, I would often fantasise and drool over having a small holding of tea plants from which at maturity I could do my own picking and manufacture of black tea in a rudimentary sort of way. Thanks to Larry that dream is now a reality. I now have 30 reasonably healthy tea plants, my very own tea garden. Below are three latest photographs of this further example of Larry's generosity and help towards his mates. They are suitably captioned. Happy Birthday Larry
******************************************************************* Click Here to read the previous stories of Gentlemen
Jim Harper, We Three--Memories of Bob Struthers, _____________________ Many thanks to Derek for sharing with us his usual well written article --Thank you Sir
Names
L to R-- Bob Struthers, Not Known, Edna Smith, Graham Oldham,
L
to R --Harry Smith, Gerry Halnan, Paul Christie, Alan Gordon, Jean
Gordon, The
Andrew Yule Group________________________________
December 11 2006 “FIVE
TIGERS IN FIFTEEN MINUTES ”
or “FIFTEEN
TIGERS IN FIVE MINUTES” I have personal recollections of all my three great uncles, Louis, Arthur
and Charles and of course my grandmother, Mary, whose father was, Achille
de la Nougerede. They were
born in Assam between 1885 and 1890, from time to time they had all lived
in Shillong There could be no
more colourful, extrovert a group of characters, yet each one, quite
different in personality. All
of them possessed certain mannerisms that suggested they were a cut above
the people around them. In
the British India of the day, with their kind of inherited background,
this was not an unusual practice. Yet
they were all humane enough to be sympathetic to the needs of the ordinary
man, whose rights for justice and assistance where needed, they would
uphold with unquestionable fairness.
I hope that I inherited some of those compassionate traits, by
putting them to good use when dealing to the needs of the many garden
labourers it was my privilege to be associated with, during my time in
tea. Louis
Joseph de la Nougerede 1886
to 1961 The legendry Louis is the brother, who made a name for himself in the
Forest Service of Assam as the doyenne of wild life in all its form in
that region. He was born in
the year 1887, very little is known of his childhood and youth other than
that from an early age he was brought up by his father, Achille, to hold a
rifle and use it to amazing effect. Louis
had a unique understanding of the relationship between the mechanics of a
firearm and its target whatever was on the receiving end.
He possessed an uncanny split second ability to coordinate his mind
and eyesight on the object before squeezing the trigger with precise
timing, a gift given to very few. He
was courageous and fearless, characteristics, that together with his
firearm skills he put to very good use in the sport of big and small game
hunting, achieving a reputation second to none in the annals of the Assam
Forest Service. Louis loved nothing better than to be in the jungle pitting his wits
against a proscribed rogue elephant that threatened the lives of villagers
or tracking down a tiger that had found a taste for their domesticated
cattle. P D Stracey in his book titled, “Reade, Elephant Hunter” says of the
Delanougerede brothers and Louis in particular The
Delanougeredes were three brothers, all keen shikaris, whose homes were in
Shillong. One of them, Louis,
the eldest was a veteran forest officer when I arrived in Assam in 1930. The Nimrod of his time, a crack shot with gun and rifle and a
man about whom many stories had gathered, he practically lived with a
weapon in his hand. His hobby
was to take his .22 rifle and, “ just to keep his eye in” as he would
say, to try to nail insects to the walls of rest houses where he camped.
When at work his shot gun was always close at hand and in the
middle of his job of approving timber railway sleepers, he would catch it
up to bring down on right and left green pigeon flying by. Stracey goes on to describe an incident in a chapter “Kill or be
Killed”….Elephants are capable
of widely varying behaviour at times events can develop dramatically.
Louis Delanougerede, a great shot, had a thrilling battle with a
vicious and determined elephant in the Garo Hills.
He and a friend were tackling a very large makhana which
charged them repeatedly. Preparatory
to the charge the elephant would raise his head high, the` trunk coiled up
like the tip of tender young bracken, the ears fully spread, and then it
would come thundering down upon the hunters.
Louis’s companion would take a shot—he was being given the
chance by his host who was an accomplished shikari__and then they would
both make for cover in the tall grass.
This process was repeated three times.
Then thinking things had gone far enough, Delanougerede finished
off the elephant with a shot to the temple.
Why the elephant did not hunt them out of the grass or decamp once
and for all is a matter for speculation. Pat Stracey was a great friend of my parents and once when I was a very
young man, he selected me to play for his Cricket XI in a match at the
Garrison Cricket ground at Shillong.
He was a most ebullient skipper directing his troops from behind
the stumps with great aplomb. Pat had then reached the high point of his service career, as
Chief Conservator of Assam Forests. Here is an amusing story from a Louis de la Nougerede contemporary, as
told by Harold Cocksedge when they were serving together during the early
1920’s in the North East Frontier
Agency of Assam, Sadiya district. Cocksedge
was in service with the P.W.D. (Public works department)
Although in this story Cocksedge, refers to the hero as “Pongo”
Ponsonby, I have no doubt in my own mind as to who the real “Pongo”
is.. The Cocksedges were also
great family friends from Shillong. I
have heard this yarn told many times of an evening well after sunset when
the consumption of Hunt’s famous Mawphlang Rum began to take effect. ( I am indebted to Harold Cocksedge’s son Cyril, for this story.
Cyril and I were in School in Shillong during the early 1950’s,
our friendship continues to this day, Cyril and his wife Shelia, now live
in Sydney.) THE FOREST OFFICER AND THE GOAT Thomas Ponsonby—known to all and sundry as “Pongo” had been a
forest officer of the Sadiya Frontier Tract in the north east Assam.
He had been banished to the far out posts because he had offended
the ‘powers that be’ in the Assam Government and in consequence nursed
an acute sense of grievance which he attempted to drown in beer during the
day, switching to whisky as soon as the sun had set.
There was no doubt that he knew his job thoroughly and in fact
might have achieved brilliant success in his career but for his
unfortunate penchant for treading on the toes of his superior officers. On one occasion the Conservator of Forests paid an official visit of
inspection to Pongo’s Forest division and on their first day of their
tour together, they had a violent quarrel.
Arriving at the little outpost of Pasighat, where they were to
spend the night, the Conservator curtly warned Pongo that he wished to
make an early start next morning in continuation of the tour. Pongo, however, could not have cared less.
That night he went to dine with the Assistant Commandant of Assam
Rifles in charge of the outpost, and after hilarious evening, spent the
rest of the night with some other companions drinking until dawn. In the morning the Conservator was up early, ready to move off as
arranged, with all his kit loaded on the elephants. When Pongo failed to put in an appearance he was furious and
eventually had Pongo routed out and although he was still dressed in his
dinner jacket, he was made to mount his elephant immediately to proceed on
their tour. There followed a
long tiring day in the hot, humid jungle.
But Pongo was tough as whipcord; in spite of not having had a wink
of sleep, still dressed smartly but somewhat incongruously
in black tie and jacket, he went through the day without the least
sign of distress. In spite of his foibles, we, the officers of the Sadiya Frontier Tract,
were very fond of Pongo. Added
to his other virtues, Pongo was a superb marksman.
He held the record of having shot five tigers in fifteen
minutes…or was it fifteen tigers in five minutes ?
a record unsurpassed even in these jungles.
Although quick tempered, he was generous to a fault and was ever
ready to help a lame dog over a stile.
But let him be opposed or thwarted and he became a raging demon. When proceeding on tours of inspection in the Forest Department launch
along the forested banks of the river Brahamaputra, which he was obliged
to do frequently to check logging operations, it was Pongo’s custom to
call in at Saikhowaghat. This
small town was located at the end of a single line railway, the only link
of the Sadiya Frontier with civilisation.
Leaving the launch at the river ghat
he would walk up to the railway station, about half a mile away, to
see if there were any newcomers usually a tea planter on a sporting
mission, with whom he could meet in the Railway Refreshment Room (or by
himself if there was no one) for his invariable bottle of beer or two,
before resuming his journey. On the occasion when the following events took place, it had been
raining for several days and the earth roads, which were all that
Saikhowaghat could boast of, were churned into a muddy quagmire by the
bullock cart traffic. That
day, Pongo had very rashly, as it turned out, put on a pair of brand new
crepe soled shoes. After
struggling up to the station in the humid heat through a sea of mud, his
temper was not improved by the absence of companions from the incoming
train. So instead of his one
or two bottles of beer, our Pongo had about six to drown his
disappointment. Then not
quite steady on his legs, he moodily began to weave his way back to the
forest motor launch. However, fate in the shape of an immense goat, was waiting for him.
The goat was a magnificent beast and the pride of the neighbourhood.
It was treated as a pet and kept fed by the local shopkeepers just
as they did for the sacred cows and bulls that roamed the bazaar precinct
with impunity. This goat was
browsing peacefully by the road side in the bazaar, when Pongo blundered
into it. The mud, the new
slippery crepe soled shoes and the excess of beer he had on board made it
difficult for him to keep his footing.
In a fit of irritation he aimed a hefty kick at the goat for daring
to obstruct his path. Immediately
the universe exploded, the goat put its head down and launched itself like
a thunderbolt at Pongo, biff, and down he went, head over heels into the
mud. As already mentioned, Pongo had an extremely quick temper and this
immediately flared up at being subjected to such an indignity in the
middle of the bazaar. He got
hold of the goat, knocked it down, rolled over it, hit it, kicked it and
all but bit it. Then, leaving
it for dead, as he thought, he struggled to his feet covered in mud from
head to toe, but scarcely had he done so when the battering ram hit from
behind and down he went again. Once
more Pongo wrestled with the goat in the mire.
But he could make little impression, it seemed to be made of
India rubber. His
crepe shoes were of no use whatsoever
in trying to inflict damage to the creature and he had no other
weapon beside his bare hands. Again,
and again, after a severe struggle, he left the goat defeated, as he
thought, and again and again the goat sprang up and knocked him down.
He just could not keep his footing in the slippery mud against the
goat’s attacks, nor could he inflict sufficient punishment on the animal
to daunt its superb spirit. By this time both contestants were so covered with mud that it was
difficult to distinguish between them and a multitude of delighted
onlookers had collected, shrieking with merriment to see the great forest
officer sahib of their district struggling unsuccessfully in the mire with
their idol. It was the best tamasha (fun) the local people had ever witnessed, they roared and
shrieked with delighted laughter until their sides ached. At long last, having temporarily got the upper hand after a titanic
struggle he sat on the goat and recognising some of the logging
contractors amongst the spectators, was forced to seek their help to
enable him to get away from the terrible beast.
They held the animal down while Pongo scrambled to his feet and
made his best pace back to the motor launch with the cheers of the crowd
ringing in his ears. On his next visit to Saikhowaghat, Pongo took the precaution of donning
a stout pair of hobnailed boots. When
he met the goat he looked it straight in the eye and the goat stared back
at him, but both decided not to renew hostilities. Five
Tigers In Fifteen Minutes To the editor of the “Statesman”
Calcutta. Sir,__ This letter written by my great grand father, speaks for it self, and
corroborates the real identity of ‘Pongo’ Ponsonby in the goat story.
It is the only surviving record of anything written by Achille
Claude de la Nougerede, the original clipping is in the hands of Derek Perry
Front row seated : L to R The Khan Sahib. Mrs Singh. My mother Dorothy.
Mr Fletcher, Deputy Commissioner Cachar. Lady Reid. Sir
Robert. Mrs Fletcher. Mrs Pringle. Mrs Bignald.
Mrs Zaman. Mr Singh--in Front-The three chokras--Gerald Fletcher, Sheila Fletcher and
Derek Perry. 1942
Front row seated : L to R.
Khasi gentleman, Mrs Jones from the Welsh Presbetarian Mission. Sir Robert
Reid. My mother, Dorothy. Derek (squinting lad) Attractive
Khasi Lady*
The Rulers of the Raj enter Jowai Town
1939'
In foreground Left : Sir Robert Reid,
Governor of Assam with my father, Maurice St John Perry, SDO Jowai,
striding purposefully through the outskirts of Jowai Town, giving
the impression of two celebrity golfers about to approach the first Tee
for the start of the Jowai Open tournament. The hushed crowd
of Khasi fans can be seen waiting patiently for the first ball to
whistle down the fairway.
25, September 2006 THE EARLY YEARS IN INDIA 1787 - 1848 THIRD
REVISED DRAFT 1 05 2006 The germ of an idea for commemorating the Millennium in some special way
came to mind shortly after the celebration of my formal withdrawal from
the work force. The magic milestone of sixty five years, seen only as a
distant mirage during one’s youth, had inexorably crept into view, it is
now a living factual event. The
reality that the occasion coincided with the new age of millennium is only
of passing note. Of far
greater significance is the birth of a grand daughter Mia Eloise, a real
life, true living millennium baby. Now
that is something to celebrate
and record for the world to know about.
But there is another event of millennium significance that links
the birth of Mia Eloise to a colourful historical association with the
great sub continent of India. It
is the granting of a Royal Charter in the year 1600, by Queen Elizabeth 1,
to a group of London merchants giving them Royal approval to prosecute
profitable trade with the area known as the Indies.
The Royal Charter gave birth to The Honourable East India Company,
( HEIC ). That landmark date was to create an impact over the Mogul Empire
of India that at the time of the issue of charter could never have been
envisaged. So this millennium also celebrates the four hundred
anniversary of the HEIC and
later the Raj, whose influence was to have a profound affect on the lives
of my ancestors in India over a period of some two hundred years. This then, is a humble attempt at recording the history and parts played
by the Augier, Bruce, Delanougerede, Perry and Simpson family names and
their descendants, some of whom, for at least seven generations, served
variously in the commercial activities and civil administration of the
Raj’s Empire building, mainly in the Assam region of India. It may be
that at some time in the future, my grand children and their children will
recognise these notes as a treasure to be passed on, not to be lost to the
mists of the past but rather to keep alive the telling of the exploits of
their ancestors with India. It is necessary to delve into history of the very beginnings of the HEIC,
its development from remote commercial trading at outposts separated by
distance of the vast land mass of the Indian sub-continent, to acquisition
of territory that far surpassed the aspirations set out through the
original intentions of its charter. Then one can imagine the reasons that
provoked many to risk their lives by seeking adventure, possible fame and
with it, some promise of the fabled riches of the East.
It seems the European people were drawn inexorably like magnets to
the tantalising reports of fortune that could be grasped once a foothold
was established anywhere in the mysterious area of the East. As mentioned, celebrations of the millennium 2000 coincide with the
establishment of The Honourable East India Company by the issue of a Royal
Charter by Queen Elizabeth 1 on the 31st December 1600.
The occasion gave the body of merchants in the City of London Royal
approval to conduct a rich trade in fabrics and spices with the Indies.
Spurred on by the success of the Armada, 1588, English naval
confidence felt more than adequate at taking on the Portuguese monopoly of
trade in spices from the south coast of India and the Islands of Java and
Sumatra. The Company efforts
at achieving supremacy in wresting this lucrative trade from the
Portuguese and later the Dutch turned out to be disastrous.
Thwarted in the Spice Islands of the East Indies by the aggressive
Dutch, the Company quickly began to think of other ways of putting to good
use its Charter. The Company
then set up a small trading post at Surat on the West coast of India north
of Bombay and in 1615, King James 1, appointed Sir Thomas Roe as his
Ambassador to the Mogul Court of Emperor Jehangir at Delhi to secure
improved trading privileges elsewhere in India. From this small beginning, The Honourable East India Company, turned
from trading to ruling an Empire. It
is to servants serving that Company, and then the Raj, in areas of trade
commerce business and Government service, that today’s generation of
Augiers, Dawes, de la Nougeredes, Goulds, Hazels, Holcrofts, and
Perrys, trace the Oriental part of their hybrid ancestry. The transition from trading entity towards the establishment of supreme
rule over the once mighty Mogul Empire is one of the most remarkable
accidents of history. Up to the middle of the eighteenth century, the Company’s Indian
possessions were limited to the three settlements of Madras, Calcutta and
Bombay, each had a few satellite settlements dependent on it, and each was
in charge of by a Governor or President, hence the term Presidency which
continued to be applied to the provinces of Bombay and Madras until the
end of the Raj. From 1746 onwards, the rivalry of the French and the unsettled state of
India owing to the break up of the Mogul Empire made it necessary for the
Company to engage in military operations to protect its settlements and
trade. Thanks to the
leadership of the young Company servant, Robert Clive, who combined great
daring in war with a talent for intrigue, the French under the leadership
of Dupleix, and their Indian allies were not only defeated, but the
British in Calcutta became masters of the whole rich province of Bengal.
This however gave the Company a frontier to defend against
troublesome neighbours. It
was owing to repeated attempts to solve the frontier problems, rather
through any deliberate policy of conquest, that during the eighty years
following Clive’s final departure in 1767, the British flag continued to
advance, so that by 1857, apart from a few little French and Portuguese
territories, the whole of India had come under the Company’s sway. However, only part of the whole of India was ruled directly by the
Company; the rest consisted
of Indian states many of which were ruled by hereditary Rajas. Some of these had risen out of the ruins of the old Mogul
Empire and been brought under British influence by treaty, others
politically established from a background of intrigue, by the British
themselves, for the benefit of Indians supporting the Company’s cause. Originally, the three presidencies of Calcutta, Bombay and Madras,
headed by respective Presidents went about their affairs independent of
each other with each entity answerable to the Board of Directors in
London. Once the whole of
Bengal came under the control of the Company based at Calcutta and now the
largest and richest of the three Presidencies, a Governor General was
appointed to administer all three territories.
By the year 1770 Warren Hastings, was appointed the first Governor
General, heading a council whose members for reasons of their own, often
chose to be obstructive. Where
Clive established British power in India, Warren Hastings extended it and
consolidated it by successful wars against the Maharatas and also against
the French, who were once again giving trouble.
At the same time he laid down the foundations of the
administrative, judicial and financial systems of government.
He encouraged Indian education and championed the lot of the poor
Indian peasant, seeking a miserable existence at the bottom of the Hindu
caste system. Hastings achievements are all the more remarkable in view of the
constant and bitter hostility to which he was subjected by members of his
council. In particular the
notorious Philip Francis, with whom Hastings was obliged to fight a duel
to protect his reputation, was able to convince the British Prime Minister
of the day that Hastings should be answerable to Parliament for alleged
deeds of corruption. Following
Hastings return to London, he was ordered before Parliament and impeached,
a trial that dragged on for seven years.
Eventually Hastings was acquitted, but at terrible cost both
financially and to his health. His
is another tragic example of a hero accepted by the people of India but
vilified in his own country. It was about the time of Hastings’s struggles in Calcutta that the
first of two known ancestors arrived in India from France, they were
Pierre dela Nougerede born at Montbron 1723 and Pierre Augier born at
Aimee, in the area of Savoie, Grenoble in the year 1757.
There is little hard fact about the origins of Pierre dela Nougerede or
of the unsubstantiated claims of family connections with the French
aristocracy. One apocryphal
story describes the family known as Nougerede being rich land owners who
at some time in French history, by dint of a Royal command, lent
substantial funds to the King of France.
The King unable to repay the Royal loan is said to have appeased
the request for repayment by magnanimously granting the title of dela,
hence the name was changed to the more prestigious sounding dela Nougerede.
Small recompense for defraying the loss of all that loan money.
Pierre dela Nougerede came to Pondicherry, well before the Revolution of
1889 for reasons unknown, he may have been a trader or a soldier of
fortune or else exiled from French soil in disgrace for some indelicate
matter, but he remained in Pondicherry and died there in 1768. Little is known about the next two generations of his family.
There were wild confusing stories handed down by successive
generations of how the family escaped the French Revolution in France
during 1889 to come to British India.
If this were so then it suggests that perhaps there were other
members of the family still living in France at the time of the great
social upheaval who sought refuge in India.
Otherwise, the real truth of the story is probably that at the time
of the Revolution take over, when Pierre now in his grave for twenty one
years, his children with Royalist sympathies, finding their position
untenable, simply moved over the border into British India territory.
This may not be so simple as it sounds, for this act of defiance
against the new regime the dela Nougeredes may well have paid dearly with
the loss of money and property. Research into records in France, although limited, has not
revealed any association past or present with the name dela Nougerede.
After the Revolution of course, many people whose names were
remotely connected with land ownership or the aristocracy were obliterated
in the cruel widespread blood bath that followed. The Pierre relationship has been researched by Bernard Gallagher, a dela
Nougerede descendant presently living in England.
He has a single family tree that connects him back directly to
ancestor Pierre, but without reference to the off shoot branches of
descendants that would authenticate a relationship with our line of dela
Nougeredes. The gaps in the
puzzle are a mystery, they remain tantalisingly shrouded, although it is
reasonable to assume that our common ancestor must be Pierre. It also confirms our strong family traditional view that the
first dela Nougeredes originally settled at Pondicherry.
Maybe because of the stirring nature of the period in French
history and the possible association with ancient French gentry, the
Shillong dela Nougerede family of my lifetime which include my grandmother
Mary, 1885 to 1950, her brothers Louis, 1886 to 1961, Arthur, 1889 to
1959,and Charles, 1890 to 1969, always seemed to share an air that
suggested they were a special breed apart, born to be different.
Whether this came from a feeling of a perceived romantic
superiority or just a cavalier attitude to impress the Anglo Indian
culture in the social structure that existed then or a combination of the
two, will always be for me an intriguing question. The Augier connection is much more clear cut, thanks to brilliant
authenticated research into their genealogy by my Melbourne based cousin,
Douglas Augier and his good wife, Audrey. Pierre Augier probably chose to enter the French enclave of Chandanagore
situated on the River Hoogly some fifty or so miles north of Calcutta. The
records indicate that Pierre was resident in Chandanagore in the year
1787, he owns a property on the Rue de Paris before he later moved from
Chandanagore to establish a thriving business as an armourer, cutler and
gun smith at 51 Cossitollah Rd., Calcutta.
Later he acquired a further property situated on Weston’s Lane
Calcutta. Obviously Pierre is a man skilled in his trade for which he must
have been trained or apprenticed back in his home district of Savoie.
Quite soon after he moved to Calcutta he Anglicises his name from Pierre
to Peter. Pierre’s eldest
son is christened Mathieu, but sometime later changes his name to Matthew,
he was born in the year 1890 probably at Calcutta.
Pierre married probably for a second time, Ann or Annette, a lady
described as coming from Madras. It
is impossible for Ann or Annette to be the mother of Mathieu, there is a
record that Annette Augier died in 1820 aged 30 years and some months,
wife and mother of 7 children, making the year of her birth 1890 the same
year of Matthew’s birth. This
is the first of a series of examples of a young bride marrying a husband
very much older. Other records including Pierre’s last will and testament
indicate he had 10 children, which would suggest that by their dates of
birth, Pierre’s first three children were by union from a previously
unknown marriage. It is interesting to speculate why and how, Pierre Augier, came to be in
the French colony of Chandanagore so far away from home.
The timing of Pierre’s departure may have been due to the fear of
oppression from the gathering gloom of revolution which began later in
1787. To attempt a better appreciation of France’s trading and political
involvement with India, we should examine a little the history of the
French East India Company, Compagnie
des Indies Orientales. The father of the Compagnie des
Indies was a Jean Baptiste Colbert, who was given a charter to trade
with a capital of some fifteen million livres
tournois in the year
1664. A decade after the
company’s birth, Francois Martin established its Indian headquarters at
Pondicherry, some eighty-five miles south of Madras on the Coramandal
coast, subsidiary factories and trading posts were established at Surat
and Chandanagore. By the end of the century the French were soon competing
vigorously with the English for favourable trading terms with India’s
traders for their merchandise. By
seizing the Islands of Mauritius and Bourbon in the Indian Ocean after
1721, France was able to station a powerful fleet ready for swift action
against any Indian port. For nearly a hundred years the presence of the
French fleet was a thorn in the side of the HEIC hampering its mobility to
ply the seas without let or hindrance. Very often there was swift retaliatory action by the English with French
ships seized for booty and ransom of their cargo and crew.
Sometimes the passengers and crew were taken prisoner and obliged
to serve the HEIC as convicted labour. The two protagonists competing for the capture of the spoils in India
were the previously mentioned Robert Clive and Joseph Francois Dupleix,
both of whom quickly realised that all of India was ripe for imperial
conquest. Dupleix was the son
of his company’s director general, a statesman and gentleman with
tremendous foresight. It is a
great pity he was not served and supported better by his masters.
Both Clive and Dupleix understood the attitude to politics of the
Indian princes, and the acquisitive nature of these rulers who were
constantly scheming to expand into territories within the crumbling ruins
of the Mogul empire. As a
result of a power struggle in the Carnatic, South India, Clive won a
daring battle at Arcot which effectively destroyed the French led campaign
by the unfortunate Dupleix. Now
Clive became “King maker” in the south, while consolidating the
British influence there. The strength of his position in Madras and the South
encouraged Clive to enter the province of Bengal with astonishing success
for the fortunes of the East India Company.
Though Dupleix fought to continue his struggle, the French at home
lost confidence in their heroic empire-builder, who was recalled by his
directors in 1754 for wasting too much of their investment on unprofitable
ventures. Thus in the future
of British India, the French were allowed by treaty to retain only the
small French settlement colonies of Pondicherry in the south and
Chandanagore on the Hoogly near Calcutta in the province of Bengal,
together with a few satellite trading posts. As the following events taken from French historical records indicate,
the two French Colonies were constantly at the mercy of the superior
British influence surrounding their tiny borders. 1757
- The English seize Chandanagore, defended by Renault de Saint German. The triumph of Clive at the battle of Plassey delivers Bengal
to the English. The French
are dispersed, Courtin flees to Dacca.
Jean Law de Lauriston flees to Cassimbazaar, accompanied by
Anquetil-Duperron with a group of Officers and soldiers. 1761 - Jean Law and his troops are beaten at the battle of Helsa.
Law is made prisoner. Pondicherry defended by Lally Tollendal, falls to the hands of the
English. The city is entirely
razed, the church of the Capuchins is not saved. 1763 - The treaty of Paris
restores the colonies in India. 1773 - The new Royal administration dispossess the governor of most of
its capacities by the nomination of a intendant appointed as Director of
Finances, War, Navy and Justice. 1778
- The English for the second time seize Chandanagore.
One month later they seize Karikal, and three months later they
take Pondicherry. 1783 - The treaty of Versailles restores to France its possessions in
the Indies. 1785 - Effective
restitution to France of its establishments in India with privileges for
the Compagnie des Indies to
trade. 1787 - Benoit Mottet is named as director of Chandenagor. 1787
- Pierre Augier settles in Chandanagore. 1788 - The Lieutenant-Colonel Francois Emmanual Dehays de Montigny
replaces Mottet. 1790 - The French revolution brings sweeping changes to the
administration of its
establishments in India. Dehays
de Montigne is constrained to flee. He will end up finding refuge in
Calcutta. The creation of a
new revolutionary Parliament causes dissension between the committee at
Chandanagore City, managed by the Harbour Master, F A Blouet.. 1793
- The English seize Chandanagore, for the third and last time.
They name Richard Birch Governor. 1793
- Peter Augier, cutler and armourer, No 51 Cossitollah, informs the public
that among other services on offer, he has for sale double and single
barrel guns. Dated at Calcutta November 28th 1793 1802
-
The treaty of Amiens restores Chandanagore to France but is ignored by the
English as hostilities between England and France are resumed again. 1816
- Effective restitution of Chandanagore as well as the cabins of
Cassimbazaar, Dacca, Patna, Jougdia, and Balassore under the terms of the
agreement signed in Vienna. The definitive reasons for Pierre Augier wanting to leave his native
shores in France, to undertake a hazardous journey into unknown territory
is an intriguing one with few answers.
It is possible that Pierre was a master craftsman as a cutler and
armourer in his home town of Aime in the district of Savoie and may have
been recruited by the Compaignie des
Indoes Orientales, to ply his trade for the benefit of their soldiery
stationed initially on the Island of Mauritius and it is possible that he
later transferred to Chandanagore. There
is a recurring but unsubstantiated family theme, handed down, that
suggests Mauritius was indeed a first destination for Augier and possibly
even the Delanougeredes. It
would more than likely be, that the Island served the ships of the French
Navy their crews and passengers as a natural haven for rest and recreation
and re-victualling, during the course of their long arduous voyage, with
every reason for traders and passengers to elect to settle for some length
of time. It seems almost certain that Pierre Augier was able to settle and make a
comfortable living in Calcutta somewhere between 1787 and 1792, well
before hostilities began in Europe between France and England.
His eldest son Mathew (Mathieu) is born in 1790.
Pierre’s other children are Claude, John, Rosalie, Adelaide
Louisa, Sophie, Rose Lise, Claudine and Perrine.
Pierre’s eldest son Mathew marries Elise Dufour daughter of Col.
F Dufour of the French army, at St John’s Church, Calcutta on 26.10.1817
and we descend from this union. Mathew
and Elise Augier’s other children are Pierre, Joseph, Francis, Claude
Charles, Charlotte, Sophie, Adeline, Rosalie and Perrine.
Note the not unusual habit of handing down the previous generation
Christian names, which of course causes a great deal of confusion for the
researching genealogist. The circumstances of Pierre’s daughter, Rose Lise’s Marriage to
Francoise Marie Saint Ives is worth recording as it reflects the very
early age that young girls in their puberty were married to husbands who
were very often many years older. This
is a translation from French records held originally in the colony of
Chandanagore. In
the Year 1824, 6th November at 3.45 p.m. in the presence of
Antoine Le Franc, Leutenant of Police Chandanagore.
Francois Marie Saint Ives aged 39,
born Landereau in the year 1785 son of Francis Louis Saint Ives, negociant,
native of Orleans and Rose Augier, minor
aged 14 years born at Calcutta
on 28th September 1810 legitimate daughter of Pierre Augier,
armourer native of Amie in Tarrantaine in Savoie, living in Chandanagore
in the house in the Rue de Paris and his late wife Anne Augier, native of
Madras who died at Calcutta 3rd December 1820 The
father of Rose Augier has obtained an age dispensation ……… ( Words of the marriage service and details of the banns have been
omitted ) The
ceremony is held in the presence of the witnesses, Mathieu Augier, brother
of the bride aged 30 years (Verificatieur) at the Central Mint Calcutta,
living in Chandernagore at Rue de Traverse,
Fracois Frederic Cambanon, Captaine aux Longcours, aged 36 years,
living at Rue da Baz-bazase, Pierre Jean Moniot, merchant aged 30 years,
living at Rue de Paris, William Vincent advocates clerk aged 23 years
living in Calcutta staying in this town in Rue de Paris. These last three witnesses are the brother in laws of the bride, the
husbands of Rose Lise sister’s, Claudine, Sophie and Louisa
They all sign this marriage contract with the contracting parties
and the father, Pierre. Speed for the unions in marriage by parents must have been a prime
consideration in view of the very high mortality rate in those days.
What seems clear is not just the drive to continue the dynastic
line to ensure large families against the death attrition, but a
compulsion to select exclusively into French associations as a means for
maintaining purity of culture and race. This is very noticeable later in the next generations when
Augiers and Delanougeredes marry extensively with each other. The first occasion the dela Nougrede name appears in connection with the
Augier family, comes to us from the research of my distant cousins, Audrey
and Douglas Augier This is a
record of the marriage between Pierre Augier’s daughter Adelaide to
Louis Matthew dela Nougerede in 1815.
L M dela Nougerede also appears as a witness to his father-in-law,
Pierre Augier’s last will and Testament prepared in the year 1831. One
can only surmise that Louis Matthew is a second generation grandson of the
original Pierre of Pondicherry. This
assumption constitutes the great missing link.
To add to the confusing nature of this relationship, there exists a
second contemporary Louis Matthew dela Nougerede, who according to the
Gallagher tree is a verified grandson of Pierre of Pondicherry, he marries
a Sarah Mellor a year before Louis and Adelaide in 1814.
So, what is the relationship between the two Louis Matthews,
cousins, perhaps? The children from the marriage of Louis and Sarah are well defined, but
that of Louis and Adelaide Augier are a matter of conjecture as there are
no substantiated records. We
now believe that two of their sons were Louis Matthew ( another example of
generations carrying on the name, Louis) and Charles William. As previously described, the union between Matthew Augier (Pierre
Augier’s eldest son) and Elise Dufour in 1817, produced the following
offspring, Pierre, Claude, Sophie, Francis, Adeline, Charlotte, Perrine,
Matthew, and Rosalie. Two of
Matthew and Elises’s daughters were to be joined in matrimony with male
members of the dela Nougredes. Firstly
Charlotte is married to Jean dela Nougerede son of Louis and Sarah dela
Nougerede, then Rosalie Augier is married to Louis Matthew delaNougerede,
when he dies, she marries his brother Charles William.
In the case of Rosalie, we are confronted with the real possibility
of first cousin Augier and dela Nougeredes union, if Louis and Charles
really are the offsprings of Rosalie’s aunt Adelaide and Louis Mathew
dela Nougerede as seems likely. These
marriages if they stand up to be fact, are significant as they seem to
have set off a future spate of Augiers and dela Nougeredes intermarriage
down the generations as the families grew and proliferated. At this point is worth trying to speculate what kind of profession or
businesses our French ancestors were able to secure in those early days of
settlement in India. We
already know that Pierre Augier set up successfully as a Gun Smith in
Calcutta, his eldest son Mathew was appointed to a position in the Mint at
Calcutta probably as a consequence of an inherited training with the use
of metals. At the time of his
sister Rose’s marriage at age 14 in 1824, Mathew now aged 34, is
described as having the position of verificatieur
at the Mint.
This would I think be a senior position with very good prospects
for future promotion. French
residents living in British occupied Chandanagore of those days, would
have enjoyed relative freedom to move in and out of Calcutta.
Being of French nationality and possibly perceived to be of noble
background, would have worked to their advantage in Calcutta’s dominant
English high born society. The
French would certainly have been accepted as preferred partners to the
Indian born residents of mixed blood, Anglo Indians, with whom later
generations of Augiers and Delanougeredes would form unions, but whose
social positions then were sadly considered to be very inferior in the
superiority stakes and pecking order of the day.
The growth of the Anglo-Indian population (a term only recently
used for people of mixed blood; it was originally used for those of
English born and raised in India) led to an awkward confusion of the ruler
and ruled which was never resolved. In
1791, a new edict excluded the Anglo-Indians from the Company’s Military
and Civil Service except in the most subordinate and menial positions.
Later Governor Wellesley excluded these people from Government
House entertainment, and by 1835 inter-marriage itself was frowned upon.
So it was quite possible that apart from social acceptance, those
of French birth would have
doors opened to them for opportunities of business and trade not as yet
officially available to servants of the East India Company who were
prevented by their terms of employment not to compete directly in their
own right. This was to change
dramatically in 1833 when the British Government, at home, stepped in to
abolish the monopoly aspect of the HEIC’s charter, this move opened the
door for all private enterprise to compete freely on the open commercial
markets in India and China, hitherto the exclusive domain of HEIC trading.
Before the great dela Nougrede decision to enter Assam, which can be
estimated as being sometime between the year 1845-1848, there is a strong
family tradition that they were previously occupied with the manufacture
of indigo in Bengal and Bihar. During
the early part of the nineteenth century the East India Company began to
vigorously promote the cultivation and processing of indigo. The demand for blue dye in Europe, to satisfy fashionable
demand would become a very lucrative source of revenue for the East India
Company. However the process
of extraction was labour intensive and physically taxing for the workers
involved. Unfortunately the
manufacture of indigo led to very harsh exploitation of labour who were
secured to a regime of very low earnings which caused industrial unrest
and open rebellion during much of its history. It is very possible that male members of the dela Nougerede family were
employed as Managers or Overseers by the HEIC or else because of their
status as French nationals, were in fact granted licenses to establish
wholly owned indigo manufacturing plants.
If the latter is the case it would support the view that the family
possessed sufficient personal capital for investment into this kind of
venture. At some time a sense
of disenchantment with the prevailing culture of this difficult trade may
have set in, prompting them to cast their horizons elsewhere. A heaven
sent alternative presented itself, following the reports and
advertisements from the Official Calcutta Gazette, that land in large
parcels, was being offered in areas of Assam at favourable terms by the
Government, to attract settlers into that area to pioneer the manufacture
of tea with exciting prospects for profit.
Here at last was an opportunity for creating a lucrative life style
more in keeping with the traditional dela Nougerede way.
The dela Nougeredes were now in the grip of the ‘Tea Rush’ together
with many like minded adventurers, who had resigned their British Army or
Royal Navy commissions or official Government positions. One of them wrote. “
To those (and the class is numerous in Britain), who, possessing but a
moderate sum of money, wish nevertheless to maintain the position in life
to which they have been educated, to whom trade and the professions are
obnoxious, who having no military tastes or nautical tendencies are still
anxious to use the energy and enterprise which are said to belong to the
British/(French)
- to such, tea-planting offers
particular inducements.” How gentlemanly and easy it all sounded. When, how and in what numbers the dela Nougerede group arrived in the
first instance at the small town of Gauhati on the banks of the
Brahamaputra will never be known. It
is certain that after the initial dela Nougeredes foothold, there would
have been an influx into Gauhati of other close members of the family
including Augiers to chance their futures with the promise of this new
lucrative tea trade. The
Augier name features later as employees in the records of the Assam Tea
Company. Other relatives by
marriage appear as witnesses on dela Nougerede birth marriage and death
certificates recorded at Gauhati, they are St Ives, and Pinto.
What we do know from the inscription on Rosalie dela Nougerede’s
headstone, where she rests peacefully among the sweet scented pine trees
of Shillong, is that she entered Assam in the year 1848.
She was then seventeen years of age, married, and probably having
to cope with a number of children. A river journey from Calcutta to Gauhati during the 1840’s would have
been by early paddle steamer that carried masts and were rigged for sail
for use when the winds were favourable, it would have been a slow,
perilous and tedious journey taking up to eight or ten weeks. The prospects for settlement in this hostile land, was not
for the faint hearted, there were few if any comforts, life expectancy was
short, and there is sad testimony to this attrition by the many dela
Nougerede headstones, both of infants and adults that lie today in the
small Catholic cemetery at Gauhati. Gauhati was now burgeoning into the Government head quarters for civil
administration and military presence, as it gradually extended its
authority into the heart of Assam. Amenities
for the small but growing European population would be in short order, I
have been told that the dela Nougredes quickly established an emporium or
shop to provide for the needs of domestic comfort, all the provisions
coming up by river boat from Calcutta. Meanwhile they bought land in the town selecting the best sites. Soon
after the arrival they would have set out in paddle boats or dug outs
accompanied by a government surveyor to explore the tracts of tea within
the dense forest along the right bank of the Brahamaputra.
This was to mark out for purchase suitable tracts of land for the
propagation and manufacture of black tea leaf.
This all suggests that they were sufficiently well funded to make
these investments. Later about the year 1850 it is documented in the
Catholic History of Assam that, “the first Catholics who settled permanently in Gauhati, were a French
family Delanougrede in 1848. Two
brothers Charles William and Louis Matthew owned some tea gardens near
Gauhati and much land,- the site of the present Catholic Mission, was
donated by them”. Although
only Charles and Louis are mentioned here, it is known that not all the
dela Nougredes settled at Gauhati, others moved further up country towards
Dibrugarh to work the tea tracts located in those areas. All in all, it must be said that the dela Nougerede settlers showed a determination to be successful in this yet untried venture despite having to work to clear the dense tracts of tea with the help of only a limited resource of available labour, using very primitive methods. Clearly, there was a cavalier air of confidence about the approach to the Assam adventure, which has always been a basic feature characteristic of the dela Nougerede ethos. They would of course, have come into Assam enjoying the same status as any other European or British tea pioneer, yet proudly conscious of their distinct French flavour, perhaps unique from |
