Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick English
Biography and letters of Lt Col Frederick English, Royal Engineers
‘Cad’ means a junior assistant or odd-job man.
Governor MacGregor was indeed a ‘great sufferer from old wounds’. The Clan Macfarlane website relates that ‘he was wounded in seven places when treacherously attacked, with his own sword sheathed, while receiving the surrender of Fort Talneir in India in 1818: receiving severe kris wounds in the left shoulder, left side, and in two places ...
Admiral Sir Francis and Lady Collier were Hampshire neighbours. The admiral had served as a midshipman on Nelson’s Victory, was an ADC to Queen Victoria, Superintendent of Woolwich Dockyard, and Commissioner at Greenwich. He died in command of the China station in 1849. Lady Collier, the admiral’s second wife, was the daughter of Thomas Thistlethwaite MP, of Southwick Park, Hampshire. The ...
It would be a perfect treat my dear Kate to see your hand writing again of a late date. The Schooner I stated in my last letter as missing with letters for me on board I understand has reached Demerara. This intelligence came by a Brig from thence which anchored in the Bay yesterday and reported to the house of Cavans, & so when I dined with the representative Mr Torrance of whom I have written ...
Not dated at head, but begun at Barbados on 10 June 1837
The places mentioned in Major Gordon’s letter are in Dublin.
For the capture of foreign slave ships, see letter 22.
At last my dear Kate, all your letters have reached me. On the 8th Inst the Schooner so long absent returned and anchored in the Bay. Thus the mistery is explained. Yours of the 29th March conveys the ...
A Cure for the Heartache is a comedy in five acts by Thomas Morton. It had its premiere at Covent Garden in 1797.
No letters my dear Kate by the last Packet which came to anchor on the 15th Inst. I have been so much accustomed to the same disappointment that I begin now to be doubtful of receiving news from home when the vessel appears in sight, and do not rejoice as I used to. This time ...
Not dated at head, but marked on cover ‘Barbados nineteen July’
It appears to me my dear Kate that I have more than usual to write to you about. Nevertheless, when you have got thro my letter very little out of the usual subject will be forthcoming more than commonly to interest you I suspect, and the feeling that I enjoy of having much to write upon is owing to the spirits the change of climate ...
Here we have the first indication of the friendship between English and the Rt Revd William Hart Coleridge, Anglican bishop of Barbados and the Leeward Islands. Coleridge, a nephew of the poet, had been in the West Indies since 1825, working to reposition the established church in the anti-slavery camp. Historically, the Church’s mission had been to the white population, and any change was ...
The Britannia, a sugar ship, was saved. She was enclosed with planks – ‘imboarded’ – and towed away for repair.
In June 1837, African soldiers of the 1st West India Regiment mutinied at St Joseph, Trinidad, setting fire to buildings and raiding an arms store. Their officers, aided by the militia, subdued them, and the ringleaders were executed.
You will be weary my dear Kate – the Packets ...
Captain Martin was a member of a wealthy family of planters in Antigua. His father-in-law, Sir Reynold Abel Alleyne, was the head of a planter dynasty dating back to the first settlers in Barbados, and at that time speaker of the House of Assembly.
‘Tasty’ was used where we would now say ‘tasteful’.
And now my dear Kate, what have I to scribble out of the usual routine that will be acceptable? ...
Now for a scribble my dear Kate for the Packet sails tomorrow, but what shall I write to the good wife? So little has taken place since the departure of the last vessel, and the want of the Wickham budget I feel exceedingly. It appears a systematic arrangement at our office to forward the letters once a month. I do not think it occurs from any mistake or their reaching the office too late. In the ...