Elizabeth Anne CAMERON
- Born: 12 Feb 1822, Douglas, Isle of Man, England
- Christened: 10 Mar 1822, Kirk Michael, Isle of Man, England
- Marriage (1): Andrew Knox BLACKALL on 1 Jun 1865 in Bath, Somerset, England 1
- Died: 19 Feb 1871, Dharmsala, Bengal, India aged 49
- Buried: St.John in the Wilderness, Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, India
General Notes:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=71694071
http://ld-indiadave.blogspot.pt/2011/06/mystery-time.html
These are from the church of St.John in the Wilderness. The last one is a memorial for Lord Elgin. Fine. It's the others that intrigue me.
The stone cross is for a Surgeon Major John Duncan Crawford ( born Ballyshannon 20/04/1804, died Dharamsala 16/05/1872). The other is for Elizabeth Anne born 12/02/1822 in Douglas, IOM, died here 19/02/1871, married to Andrew Knox Blackall - no military rank given, no title, no letters after his name, nothing to say who they were or why they were here. So I tried to do some research with little to show for it.
I can't find either of them in records on the internet. That is with a curious exception - a letter from a Mr. Crawford to a medical journal dated in the 1890's asking if they knew anything of Andrew Knox Blackall, whose portrait hung in Worcester Infirmary. It said the portrait was by Joshua Reynolds - unlikely as he died before 1800. Was Mr Crawford a relative of the Surgeon major (son?)? Is Knox a middle name rather than part of the surname.Watch this space.
Imagine being born into a relatively privileged family in Douglas, formal education, marriage to someone of note possibly and then being shipped out into the corners of the Empire near the infamous Northwest Frontier.
No antibiotics, no anti-malarials, no electricity, no internal combustion engine, no radio or telephone. Very few buildings made of anything but wood and mud. A garrison town established only a couple of years after the fall of the kingdom of Punjab and a couple of years before the War of Independence (or Mutiny depending in your point of view). Why on earth were they here? Medic? Preacher? Merchant? To be here in February was not to escape the hot season. It's cold and wet at that time of year. I'm curious enough to go on looking although there are some who are more experienced at this than me.
Elizabeth married Andrew Knox BLACKALL, son of Lieut. Gen. Robert BLACKALL and Elizabeth CHADWICK, on 1 Jun 1865 in Bath, Somerset, England.1 (Andrew Knox BLACKALL was born in 1821 in Ludhiana, Punjab, India and died on 26 Sep 1891 in Worthing, West Sussex, England.)
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