Borthwicks in India - Data for Researchers

  

 

 

 

Borthwicks in India

 


Early Borthwicks in India / Births, Deaths & Marriages / Directories / The British Army in India / Borthwick Writers on India / Other Professions / Census Returns / Commonwealth War Graves / Rootsweb Databases / Lost Borthwicks


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While searching for my own family I have found, or been given, a good deal of information about other Borthwicks, not connected to mine. As well I have collected a great deal of data in the course of my research. This has led to a world-wide One Name Study of BORTHWICKs. One specific aim of my research is to help Borthwick researchers around the world.

The information on these pages is both from my own research and from a number of very generous genealogists on the Rootsweb Mailing Lists 2000-2001. I am especially indebted to Ray Osborn for sharing his research on Borthwicks in India.

Some of the information on this page has not been finally formatted. I am posting it "as is" in order to quickly make it available to researchers and will improve the formatting etc when time permits.

And finally, there are also pages on this site for Borthwicks in Australia, Canada, England, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa and the USA. I will add more as I gather information.

If you would like to see more about my own Borthwick family, descendants of John Borthwick & Elizabeth Dinwoodie, the best place to begin is here.


Early Borthwicks in India

John Borthwick, 1779. Halsey Borthwick refers to a John Borthwick, Lieutenant in the 73rd Regiment, 1st Battalion, Highlanders, McLeods, 1st Colonel John Lord McLeod. He went to India in January 1779. According to Halsey this John Borthwick had changed to the 71st Regiment in 1786. Was he the very first Borthwick to arrive in India?

John BORTHWICK, 1819. Ray Osborn's ancestor John BORTHWICK (1801-1864) joined the Indian Army in Edinburgh in 1819 and Ray has his ancestry (from the Dalkeith area of Midlothian) plus virtually all his descendants down to about 1890 or so - in India. John Borthwick was a Sgt 66th NI Barrackpore 1833; Conductor of Ordnance, Fort William 1845; Asst Commissary & Barrack Master, Lucknow 1863. He married Mary Helen Southgate JAMES (nee SOUTHGATE, step-daughter of Henry JAMES (Station Clerk, Barrackpore) 1833. Later John EMERY(1830-1864+) Sergeant 66th NI 1858, Garrison QMS Fort William 1864-1868+, married Mary Ellen BORTHWICK (daughter of John) c1854. Ray would love to hear from anyone with connections to his family. Ray's family tree is posted on these pages. Please email me if you think you have a connection and I will arrange contact with Ray. Ray doesn't believe there were any Borthwicks in India before "his" John went from Edinburgh in 1819. Ray found no entries in the Bengal BDM indexes before John's marriage - but hasn't checked the Bombay or Madras indexes in this way. If Ray's guess is correct then the John Borthwick of the 71st Regiment must have left India without descendants.

Searching for Vanessa King! Vanessa King's great-great-grandfather can be found on Ray Osborn's family tree. However Vanessa is no longer at her old email address and we have been unable to tell her about this connection. Vanessa's ancestor was John Henry Borthwick who married Charlotte Farrell. According to Vanessa he lived in Bengal in India during the latter half of the nineteenth century, however another descendant believes that John Henry lived in Bangalore. He worked as a Custom House Officer in India. He had three children, Samuel, Edith Emma, and another girl, Edith Emma Borthwick - recorded on Ray Osborn's family tree as Emma Alice Bridget Borthwick - was Vanessa's great-grandmother. If Vanessa or anyone who knows her reads this please get in touch with me as we have found other members of this family in four different countries!

Another John Borthwick went from Edinburgh to Bengal with the Army in 1850, on the same ship as John Emery (above) who later married the daughter of John Borthwick, 1819. Were these two John Borthwicks related?

Borthwicks of Bombay. Nick Borthwick in New Zealand comes from a line of Borthwicks, about five generations long, from Bombay, India. Nick's family history is very hazy as to its origins. The story heard most often is that his great-great-great grandfather was a Scotsman who arrived in India with the East India Company, was supposedly in the British Army Band, and stayed in India the rest of his life. Nothing unfortunately is known of his name or any other details. The only other Borthwicks Nick's family has heard of in India, live in a town called Kanpur, near the capital new Delhi.

Captain Borthwick, 1829. Ratlam is one of the important Districts of Madhya Pradesh, situated in the North West part of the State, "The MALWA" Region. The New Town of Ratlam was founded by Captain Borthwick in 1829 with regular and broadened streets and well built houses. Ratlam was once one of the first Commercial Towns in Central India being the centre of an extensive trade in opium, tobacco and salt. It was also famous in Malwa for its bargains called Sattas. Before the opening of the Railway Line to Kahndwa in 1872, there was no better mart than Ratlam. For more information about Ratlam please follow the link... Who was Captain Borthwick? Was he a member of one of the families mentioned on this page?

Emma Caroline Ellen Borthwick, born India about 1840. Her father was William and her mother Nancy (nee Rossenrode). Emma married Alfred Maiden after his family were all killed in a cyclone in Masulipatnam in about 1864. They had 8 children and migrated to Australia in 1880. She was 20 yrs younger than he. Descendant Julie Evans would love to hear from anyone who knows of Emma Maiden, nee Borthwick. Please email me and I will put you in touch with Julie.


Borthwick Births, Deaths and Marriages in India

The following data from Bengal records has been very generously contributed by Ray Osborn whose Borthwick family is mentioned above. Ray advises that he would be happy to communicate with anyone who is connected to any of these Borthwicks in India.

Year	Surname	Forenames	Vol	Page	Event	Presidency
1833	BORTHWICK	John	36	4	Marriage	Bengal
1846	BOTHWICK ?	Jane S.	100	27	Baptism	Bengal
1850	BOTHWICK ?	Margaret V.	100	27	Baptism	Bengal
1854	BORTHWICK	Mary Ann	86	425	Burial	Bengal
1856	BORTHWICK	John	90	466	Marriage	Bengal
1858	BORTH ?	        Heny A.	94	216	Baptism	Bengal
1859	BORTHWICK	Mary H.	95	25	Baptism	Bengal
1859	BOTHWICK ?	John	95	281	Burial	Bengal
1859	BIRTHWICK ?	John A.	96	218	Baptism	Bengal
1863	BORTHWICK	Emma A. B.	106	48	Baptism	Bengal
1863	BORTHWICK	Edward G. S.	106	49	Baptism	Bengal
1864	BORWICK ?	John	108	166	Burial	Bengal
1864	BORWICK ?	Thomas	110	194	Burial	Bengal
1865	BORWICK ?	John	113	341	Burial	Bengal
1866	BORTHWICK	Mary J.	115	32	Baptism	Bengal
1866	BORWICK ?	Robert	116	131	Burial	Bengal
1867	BORTHWICK	Mary A.	122	113	Burial	Bengal

Note the gap here ...  1867-1895

1895	BORTHWICK	Evelyn John Evate	10 Oct	0	Birth	Bengal
1899	BORTHWICK	Beryl Inez	24 Oct	0	Birth	Bengal
1899	BORTHWICK	Catherine Ruby Merlin	Jan	0	Birth	Bengal
1900	BORTHWICK	Ivy May	14 Oct	0	Birth	Bengal
1900	BOTWICK	Peter	187	59	Marriage	Madras
1900	BOTWICK	Matthew	87	58	Marriage	Madras
1901	BORTHWICK	Susan	89	46	Marriage	Madras
1902	BOTHWICK	Cecilia	91	59	Marriage	Madras
1902	BORTHWICK	Francis	91	142	Marriage	Madras
1902	BORTHWICK	Andrew Wm	91	176	Marriage	Madras
1902	BORTHWICK	Alice Jane	92	41	Marriage	Madras
1903	BORTHWICK	Samuel	93	91	Marriage	Madras
1904	BORTHWICK	Frederick Joseph	92	2	Marriage	Madras
1909	BORTHWICK	Ruth Winifred	105	45	Marriage	Madras
1910	BORTHWICK	Stella A.	107	33	Marriage	Madras
1910	BORTHWICK	William	Regt	32704	Marriage	Madras
1911	BORTHWICK	Florence G.	110	117	Marriage	Madras
1917	BORTHWICK	Samuel	121	20	Marriage	Madras
1918	BORTHWICK	Birdie B.	123	211	Marriage	Madras
1919	BORTHWICK	Anthony C.	126	210	Marriage	Madras

 

And one of Ray's messages to the India List provides some excellent advice about genealogical research in that country:

" I'm no expert but have gained a few insights and drawn a few conclusions over the past ten years about what can be expected from Indian BDM records - and which might be helpful to new members of the List? The percentage of BDMs that appear in official records of India is no higher - and probably in some periods a lot lower - than was the case in England. For whatever reasons, there were many periods in English history when only 60-80% of marriages or births were blessed by the Church, or even - from July 1837 - registered with a Civil Authority. I feel sure that conditions in India in the last century did not help? However it has always been far less likely for a person to escape being buried, even if, in India, by an Army officer(which I have found to be done) rather than the minister of a church. Thus there is a greater chance of finding a record of such an event and why I've come to use Burial records (even though they lack detail) as an indicator of the location of a person, his/her age, occupation or employer - and thus perhaps his family - at one point in time. But the actual Indexes and BDM records that we rely on are also subject to error. They are in fact only transcripts from Church registers, submitted at intervals to London - sometimes long after the event - though after about 1858 they include births and marriages registered with Civil authorities too. With events taking place in the remotest areas of India, if indeed "marriages" were not de-facto and births concealed, it's easy to understand that some people might not choose to have their position (a marriage or a child's birth) "regularised" later, when they arrived in some more civilised place? My 2xgreatgrandmother was born on the Frontier in 1837 but I only found this out indirectly because she was baptised at Fort William in 1859 in the same ceremony as my greatgrandad! In addition, that child was born in 1858 - during the Mutiny - but the baptism was not till nearly a year later. I've also found that many of the deaths that occurred during the Mutiny did not appear in burial records until 1859, long after the events. Rather like the dead in other wars, whose records have often been indexed in the year following the end of hostilities. The final point to make is that these records are only of Christian events, both Conformist and Non-conformist - and later British Civil registrations - and take no account of ceremonies conducted by other faiths or under other local juridictions. Ray Osborn Rotorua, NZ

From the LDS site a couple of other possible Borthwicks in India can be gleaned (noting however that this information may not be reliable at all and should be carefully checked. For example one entry is for Edith Emma Borthwick, mentioned above, whose true name was apparently Emma Alice Bridget.)

  • Alice Harriet Martha BORTHWICK Sex: F Event(s): Birth: 26 Aug 1875 , West Bengal, India Parents: Father: Reuben BORTHWICK Mother: Selina Whilhelmina
  • Edith Emma BORTHWICK Sex: F Event(s): Christening: Abt. 28 Nov 1883 Kidderpore-Calcutta, West Bengal, India Parents: Father: John Henry BORTHWICK Mother: Charlotte
  • Mary Jane Sex: F Event(s): Christening: 19 Mar 1866 India Office Ecclesiastical Returns-Bengal Presidency, Misc, India Parents: Father: John Henry BORTHWICK Mother: Charlotte

Directories

 

 


The British Army in India

This page is part of the Family History in India website which is designed to help people trace their British, European and Anglo-Indian family history in colonial India. This particular page is a transcription of the medal roll for the Indian Mutiny 1857-1859. It lists all men who served in the British Forces in India during this period, whose surname begins with Bi - Br. This list was kindly compiled by Kevin Asplin who personally transcribed the details from the original medal rolls. If you would like details of the casualty status of any individual (e.g. Wounded, Dead) or clasps for the medal for individuals, then please email Kevin and ask for details. Kevin is also able to undertake extended research on your British military ancestors for a reasonable fee. If you would like to purchase the complete list of the Indian Mutiny Medal Roll, with all 50,700 names, there are further details at the Family History in India Bookstore.

Indian Mutiny Medal. The following Borthwicks were awarded the Indian Mutiny Medal - British Forces:

Borthwick Angus Private 42nd Foot (Royal Highland)
Borthwick James Private 78th Foot (Highland)
Borthwick John Corporal 78th Foot (Highland)
Borthwick Michael Andrews Lieutenant 37th Foot (North Hampshire)
Borthwick Walter Quartermaster 7th Hussars (Queen's Own)

The Militia List for Eskdale includes Cpl John Borthwick, 78th Foot (2nd Bn Seaforth Highlanders). Dangerously wounded at Lucknow. Died of wounds 26 Sep 1857 (Indian Mutiny Casualty Roll)

Officers of the 9th Madras N.I. from the East-India Register, 1850. Information organised as follows - 1. Date of appointment to Army 2. Name 3. Date commissioned to current rank in regiment 4. Ditto to rank in the Army (where applicable) ------------------------ Ninth Regiment Native Infantry. Stationed at Kamptee. Arrived March 1846 1798 Colonel John WOULFE ; 2 June 1831 ; Maj.-Gen. 28 June 1838 ; On furlough ... Captains 1826 William BORTHWICK ; 31 Mar 1845 ; 13 Oct 1842

Madras Military Fund - Personal Information on Fund Applicants. LDS Microfilm No. 1866806 http://users.synflux.com.au/~sylcec/MMF400.PDF 394 BORTHWICK William d 24 Jan 1874 Cumberland WINFIELD Lucy Lt. Col. Madras Army m, b x 1 58 BORTHWICK William d 26 Jul 1867 Longholkm MAXWELL Maria A Colonel m IOR Ref: L/AG/23/10/11:

Index of Personal Records, India Office (Microfiche No.6031227 - 6031240) includes BORTHWICK, Lt. Alexander. Was this Alexander Hay Borthwick?

OTHER

"Crossing the Bar"- Summary Tributes and Obituaries of Fleet Air Arm Personnel includes an entry for Commander Jason BORTHWICK RVNR Fighter Direction Officer on wartime aircraft carriers). Joined RNAS Yeovilton 1941, then pioneered Naval Fighter Direction, on HMNS Victorious in Operation Pedestal. Served on Admiral Ramsay's staff for the D-Day landings in Normandy in June 1944. Then organise fighter direction in Indian Ocean operations, including the invasion of Rangoon in May 1945. Source: The Daily Telegraph, 14 February 1998


Index to Cadet Papers 1787~1859 held at the O.I.O.C

Borthwick Alexander IOR/L/MIL/9/108/514 1951682
Borthwick Alexander IOR/L/MIL/9/116/443 1951710
Borthwick William IOR/L/MIL/9/115/81 1951685
Borthwick William IOR/L/MIL/9/168/339-45 1951927

Index to personel records, India, at O.I.O.C

BORTHWICK, Lt. Alexander


Borthwick Writers on India

A Brief History of Classical Dance from South India The following is excerpted from Jon Borthwick Higgins' Ph.D. thesis THE MUSIC OF BHARATA NATYAM VOLUME I, 1973, 3-9 pp.

Soul by Manuela Dunn-Mascetti, Arunima Borthwick. ... Kerala by Maya Kaimal; Curried Favors : Family Recipes from South India by Maya Kaimal MacMillan; A Taste

Travels in India by Ramona Borthwick. I spent 5 weeks in India during winter '99... it was to be a wonderful trip. First, I journeyed to the incredibly colourful and hospitable desert state of Rajasthan, then to the palm fringed beaches of warm and languid Goa. I finally set base on home turf - Bombay, Maharashtra. http://www.leitmotif.com/india99/

Dr Meredith Borthwick, who was Acting Assistant Secretary of the East Asia Analytical Unit, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade authored Changing Role of Women in Bengal 1849-1905 (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1984).

John Borthwick Gilchrist:

Early in the 1780s a young Scot, John Borthwick Gilchrist, arrived in Bengal and became interested in the Urdu (Hindoostanee / Hindustani) language. He requested permanent retirement from the EEIC�s Medical Service in order to devote himself to production of a diglot dictionary. This I have discussed in the Fall 1978 JLH cover article (13:466-468). Gilchrist began publishing in the late 1780s, but it was 1 August 1798 when he signed his preface. On page xlii of the preface to A Dictionary, English and Hindoostanee . . . (Calcutta: several publishers, 1787-1798), Gilchrist wrote clearly that Shepperd not only helped him with the Urdu types but had assisted Charles Wilkins through the entire process of making and using non-Western types�with not a word of thanks. click here for more

and on another site by Katharine Smith Diehl of Texas, USA:

John Borthwick Gilchrist (1759-1841), graduate of George Heriot�s Hospital, Edinburgh, assistant surgeon in the East India Company�s Medical Service, landed at Bombay in 1782, then traveled overland with the troops to the east of North India. He halted with them when they finally settled in the indigo plantation center about 500 miles northwest of Calcutta�and unsuccessfully managed a plantation. Unable to talk to field hands, village neighbors�or even to Indians in the army concerning their ailments�he began studying the language known as Hindustani: we call it Urdu. By 1785 he requested, in 1787 was granted, a year�s leave from duty to work on his language dictionary. He never returned to the Medical Service. Instead, language study, writing, and dictionary publication, while resident so far from his Calcutta printers, took all of his time and more than all of his money. The first advertisement (1786) announced A Dictionary English and Hindoostanee. To which Is Prefixed a Grammar of the Hindoostanee Language. By John Gilchrist . . . Calcutta: Printed by Stuart and Cooper. M.DCC.LXXXVI. Government promised to take 150 sets at forty rupees each: the price rose eventually to sixty rupees. Distributed by fascicles, it was completed in 1798, transliterated and in persian letters. (continued ....)


Other Professions

In a publication on Plant molecular biology in India � The beginnings there is a paper on Plant physiology and molecular biology at Delhi Studies at the Department of Botany, Delhi University (1960s�1980s). This notes that because of early contacts with H. Borthwick and S. Hendricks, work was also undertaken on isolation of phytochrome in wheat and red-light-induced calcium influx in wheat protoplasts 32 . Was H Borthwick a scientist in India?

A Mr Borthwick taught at Loyola College, Madras, India in the 1970s.


Census Returns - Miscellaneous

 

 

Again, Ray Osborn's advice:

Most of my strays are extracted from the English Census Returns, where, in many cases, Place of Birth has been stated as "India - East Indies". In some cases only East Indies has been entered and the Superintendant Registrar has crossed this out and written "India". There are also many examples like "East Indies - Calcutta" or "East Indies - Dinapore", etc., so I'm quite happy with my interpretation.


Commonwealth War Graves, Debt of Honour

The Commonwealth War Graves, Debt of Honour site lists many Borthwicks from around the world. However, there are no Borthwicks with India as their nationality listed on the Commonwealth War Graves, Debt of Honour.

HAROLD MALCOLM BORTHWICK Corporal 7535789 Royal Army Medical Corps who died on Sunday 24 December 1944 . Age 37 . Additional Information: Son of Matelda Borthwick; husband of Gladys Elizabeth Borthwick, of Pudupet, Madras, India.


Rootsweb databases

There is much on Rootsweb of great interest to Borthwick researchers. I've begun to extract and summarise some of this but have a long way to go. I will post as I manage to to this.

First, on an In Memoriam page for Anglo-Indian family members who have passed away since India's Independence (1947) there is an entry for Sennen Hickman from Hubli. Born: Quilon, July 30, 1912 Died: Toronto, July 25, 2001. His wife was Maude (nee Borthwick). He was a telegraph operator with the British-Indian Railways in Hubli; a talented singer and church choirmaster; moved his family to England in 1960; and finally settled in Toronto, Canada in 1971.


Lost Borthwicks

Family of Agnes Rice Borthwick, born on 28.10.20 in the Govan area of Glasgow. Her mother was Elizabeth Rice married to Robert Borthwick. In about 1928 her parents left Scotland to live in India , leaving Agnes with her grandmother. Agnes died in Invernein Scotland in 1996 and her daughter is searching for information about members of the family. Please email me if you are able to help.

John Bryant, a member of the India Mailing List, is trying to track down a number of people with associations with Bangalore, and one of those is a Connie Borthwick.

Mary Anne Gourley is searching for anyone in India with the name Bell Borthwick. This family would have been in Calcutta in the region of 1870 to 1880.



Copyright 2001, Ann Carson. All rights reserved.
Page: Borthwicks in India
Uploaded: 23January 2002
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