Category Archives: younger son

Y is for younger sons

29 Saturday Apr 2023

Posted by in A to Z 2023, Mainwaring, younger son

≈ 10 Comments

In “Gentlemen of Uncertain Fortune: How Younger Sons Made Their Way in Jane Austen’s England” the historian Rory Muir wrote:

Not all gentlemen were rich; indeed, many had little money of their own and had to pursue a career. The eldest son would normally inherit the family estate, while the daughters and younger sons would receive no more than a start in life. The girls would be introduced into society where they might find a husband, and they would receive some money either as part of their marriage settlement or as capital on which they might contrive to live as a spinster. The younger sons would be helped in the first steps of their career, educated for the Church or the law, or found a place in the army or the navy, and they too would be given or inherit a little capital. Their father, and when he died their eldest brother, would continue to use whatever influence he possessed to help them along, but their success would largely depend on their own endeavours and their good fortune.

Muir argues that younger sons had few choices:

  • The Church. This was safe for the unambitious, but life for most clergymen was humdrum and often poorly rewarded financially.
  • The law offered better rewards but competition was fierce and it was often a struggle in the early years.
  • The navy was a cheaper choice. Boys joined at the age 14 or so without the expense of school or university.
  • The army was more expensive as commissions for each rank were purchased, though this was sometimes waived in times of war.
  • Manufacturing and trade were socially acceptable.
  • Medicine in the early nineteenth century had a lower status than the law.
  • There were desirable positions in Government service, but for these there was fierce competion.
  • India and the colonies were unlikely to produce great personal wealth although there were exceptions

My Georgian and Victorian male relatives, at least most of those I have written about, made their careers as officers in the army and navy or in the colonies as settlers and administrators. The younger sons, prevented by the custom of primogeniture from inheriting any large part of their father’s estate, gave their talents and energies to building the Empire.

There were risks in this, and many died young, but more than a few managed to make a good living abroad, with large families and substantial incomes otherwise unachievable.

My Mainwaring ancestors provide a good example. Rowland Mainwaring (1782-1862), my 4th great grandfather, was the younger son of a younger son. His father was an army officer. Rowland joined the navy at the age of 12 as a ‘young gentleman’ midshipman. His three brothers all joined the East India Company. Four of Rowland Mainwaring’s sons joined the navy, two became clergymen, two joined the East India Company or the India Civil Service, three joined the army, six emigrated to New Zealand, South Australia or India. None chose the occupations of law, trade, manufacturing, or medicine.

As for Mainwaring’s daughters, two died young, one married an army officer and the other a clergyman, so allying themselves, unsurprisingly, with the class occupied by their brothers.

Rowland Mainwaring married three times and fathered 17 children:

  1. Rowland Mainwaring (1811-1826) entered the Royal Navy aged 13. (He died in Sydney of dysentery at the age of 15.)
  2. Sophia Henrietta Mainwaring (1815–1871) married an army (militia) officer.
  3. Edward Pellew Mainwaring (1815–1858) joined the navy at the age of 15 (he left when he was 20). He was the heir apparent to the family estate ‘Whitmore’.
  4. Gordon Mainwaring (1817–1872) was first a cadet at Addiscombe Military Seminary, military school of the British East India Company. He then joined the the 53rd Bengal Native Infantry Company, but soon resigned and emigrated to South Australia. In 1858, his elder brother died with no sons and Gordon became the heir to the family estate ‘Whitmore’, which he inherited in 1862.
  5. Paulina Mary Mainwaring (1818–1825) died young.
  6. Charles Henry Mainwaring (1819–1878) clergyman became rector of Whitmore.
  7. William Arthur Mainwaring (1822–1854) joined the army, becoming a Captain of the 79th Highlanders.
  8. George Mainwaring (1824–1850) joined the army, became a Lieutenant of the 85th Light Infantry, then emigrated to South Australia.
  9. Mary Anne Mainwaring (1828–1865) married a clergyman.
  10. Karl Heinrich August Mainwaring (1837–1906) joined the navy, rising to the rank of Captain. He became harbour master in Jamaica. He retired to the island of Jersey.
  11. Randolph Mainwaring (1839–1902) was educated at University College, Oxford. In 1865 he emigrated to New Zealand, where he worked with several of his brothers for a few years on Manipouri Station, South-West Otago. He became a journalist.
  12. Eugene George Henri Mainwaring (1841–1911) was articled to a Civil Engineer. He farmed with his brothers in New Zealand and then worked as a civil engineer in New Zealand.
  13. Laura Chevillard Mainwaring (1843–1843) died young.
  14. Frederic Mainwaring (1844–1922) went with his brothers to New Zealand. He became a Council clerk there.
  15. Guy Mainwaring (1847–1909) joined the navy, where he rose to the rank of Rear Admiral.
  16. Horatio Mainwaring (1848–1913) entered the Indian Civil Service in its Woods’ and Forests’ Department.
  17. Algernon Mainwaring (1852–1926), educated at Lincoln College, Oxford, became a Clerk in Holy Orders.

As Muir suggests, some of the sons of Rowland Mainwaring were indeed helped in the first steps of their career, some were educated for the Church, and some found a place in the army or the navy. They inherited very little capital from their father. Their success did depend on their own endeavours and good fortune.

Gordon Mainwaring
Guy Mainwaring
Randolph, Eugene, Frederic, and Horatio Mainwaring
The youngest son of Admiral Rowland Mainwaring, Algernon, with his widowed mother, Laura Mainwaring
Some of the sons of Admiral Rowland Mainwaring

Related posts

Wikitree: Rowland Mainwaring (1782 – 1862)

Rowland Mainwaring married three times and had 17 children

Rowland (28) married Sophia Henrietta Duff (~20) (~1790 – 1824) on 31 Dec 1810 in Stoke Damerel, Devon, England. Their children were:

  1. Rowland Mainwaring (1811 – 1826)
  2. Sophia Henrietta (Mainwaring) Coyney (1813 – 1871)
  3. Edward Pellew Mainwaring (1815 – 1858)
  4. Gordon Mainwaring (1817 – 1872)
  5. Paulina Mary Mainwaring (1818 – 1825)
  6. Charles Henry Mainwaring (1819 – 1878)
  7. William Arthur Mainwaring (1822 – 1854)
  8. George Mainwaring (1824 – 1850).

Rowland (43) married Mary Anne Clark (41) (1785 – 1835) on 15 Nov 1826 in Preshute, Wiltshire, England. Their daughter was Mary Ann (Mainwaring) Vaughan-Hughes (1828 – 1865).

Rowland (53) married Laura Maria Julia Walburga Chevillard (~24) (~1812 – 1891) on 11 Nov 1836 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Their children were:

  1. Karl Heinrich August Mainwaring (1837 – 1906)
  2. Randolph Mainwaring (1839 – 1902)
  3. Eugene George Henri Mainwaring (1841 – 1911)
  4. Laura Chevillard Mainwaring (1843 – 1843)
  5. Frederic Mainwaring (1844 – 1922)
  6. Guy Mainwaring (1847 – 1909)
  7. Horatio Mainwaring (1848 – 1913)
  8. Algernon Mainwaring (1852 – 1926).

C is for Ceylonese coffee

04 Tuesday Apr 2023

Posted by in A to Z 2023, Cavenagh, younger son

≈ 11 Comments

The British Empire provided direct employment for several of my forebears, as administrators, soldiers, magistrates, and missionaries.

For others, the Empire (like the Pax Romana of earlier times), meant opportunity for trade and enterprise somewhere within the shelter of the red on the map.

One of the latter was my great great grandfather Wentworth Cavenagh (1822–1895) who in the 1840s left his home in Ireland and travelled the world becoming, successively, a farmer in Canada, a coffee planter in Ceylon, and a gold miner in Victoria.

He seems to have trained in Wexford as a pharmacist, but when the economy collapsed with the potato famine of the 1840s Cavenagh realised there was no future for him in Ireland. He emigrated, to find employment where employment might be found, moving on when better prospects came in view.

His attempt at farming in Canada appears to have been not entirely successful, and we find him next far from the frozen north, in the British tropical possession of Ceylon, involved in the coffee industry.

Wentworth Cavenagh’s travels

Today the main export crop of Ceylon (Sri Lanka, ‘Resplendent Island’) is tea. In Cavenagh’s day Ceylon was known for its coffee.

The Dutch had begun coffee cultivation in Ceylon as early as 1740, though never on a large scale. The British took control of the island in 1815, but it was not until the 1820s, when plantations were established in the hilly central-south country more suitable for the crop, that planting and production substantially increased.

Over the next two decades planting grew substantially, and by 1850 coffee was the most important component of the Ceylonese economy.

The abolition of slavery in the West Indies in 1834 meant a sudden decline in coffee production there. Ceylonese coffee exports filled the gap, with the British selling land acquired from Kandayan rulers and importing labour from southern India.

Plate from Ceylon, Physical, Historical and Topographical, titled “The Coffee Regions. Badulla“. Page 266 retrieved through archive.org

Unfortunately, in 1869 coffee plantations in Ceylon and other parts of Asia were devastated by leaf rust. Coffee never recovered its former importance as a crop in Ceylon, and by 1900, it had been almost entirely replaced by tea.

I do not know exactly when Wentworth Cavenagh was trying his hand at coffee planting in Ceylon. It was probably in the late 1840s or early 1850s.

Wentworth was the third surviving son of James Gordon Cavenagh, an Irish surgeon in the British Army. His oldest brother Matthew remained in Ireland, and his second brother Orfeur joined the British Army. It was a familiar pattern, with the oldest brother inheriting the estate and the others finding their own way in the world and, “in a fit of absent mindedness”, helping to build an Empire.

RELATED POSTS

Wikitree: Wentworth (Cavenagh) Cavenagh-Mainwaring (1822 – 1895)

Mainwaring younger sons go to India

27 Thursday Jan 2022

Posted by in army, India, Mainwaring, younger son

≈ 2 Comments

Rowland Mainwaring (1745 – 1817), one of my fifth great grandfathers, was the fourth of the five sons of Edward Mainwaring (1709 – 1795) and his wife Sarah Mainwaring nee Bunbury (1709 – 1798). As a younger son, Rowland was unlikely to inherit the Mainwaring estates. Expected to make his own way in the world, he joined the army, becoming a captain in the 1st Regiment (Royal Scots) and later a major in the Staffordshire Militia.

Rowland married twice. His first wife, Elizabeth Mills of Barlaston, died soon after their marriage in 1777. There were no children. In 1780, three years later, he married Jane Latham, daughter of Captain Latham (d. 1762) of the Royal Navy. From this second marriage there were seven children, with four sons:

  • Edward Henry Mainwaring 1781–1807
  • Rowland Mainwaring 1782–1862
  • Thomas Mainwaring 1784–1834
  • Charlotte Margaretta Mainwaring 1785–1836
  • Elizabeth Mainwaring 1787–1869
  • Susannah Jane Mainwaring 1788–1871
  • George Mainwaring 1791–1865

Three of the sons joined the Honourable East India Company. Rowland (junior) enlisted in the navy.

Edward Henry Mainwaring

Edward Henry Mainwaring began his military career in the Staffordshire militia. In 1795, at the age of fourteen he became an ensign without purchase in the 13th Regiment of Foot (Light Dragoons). He became a lieutenant by purchase in 1796 but retired 9 months later. He is recorded as a cadet in the Bengal Army, appointed ensign from 23 September 1797. On 10 September 1798 he was made a lieutenant. He died unmarried in 1807.

Deaths

July 22 1807 At Dacca, in the East Indies, Lieut. Edward Henry Mainwaring, of the 3d Regiment of Native Infantry, eldest son of Rowland M. esq. of Northampton. While out at exercise he complained of a sudden attack in the head, and died in a few minutes, in consequence of a rupture of a blood-vessel in his brain.

Death notice in The Gentleman’s Magazine of 1808

Rowland Mainwaring

I have written elsewhere about Rowland’s career:

Thomas Mainwaring

Thomas Mainwaring was educated at Mr Kelly’s Northampton Academy, with emphasis on writing and accounts. In late 1800 or early 1801, at the age of sixteen, Thomas petitioned to become an East India Company Writer, the organisation’s most junior rank. He arrived in India on 23 August 1801.

A view of Calcutta from Fort William (1807). Aquatint from a set of prints published by Edward Orme. New arrivals sailing to the city first passed Fort William. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.
The Writer’s Building Calcutta in about 1860 photographed by Francis Frith. The building was where the writers (clerks) worked in Calcutta). Image from Wikimedia Commons.

At this time, a considerable part of the revenue of the British East India Company derived from its monopoly on salt. In the 1780s salt was its second largest revenue source, and in 1858 10% of its income was still from salt. Many of Thomas Mainwaring’s appointments were in the Company’s Salt and Opium Department.

  • 1804, 15 March Second Assistant to the Superintendent of the Western Salt Chowkies. (Chowkies are stations for collecting customs on all branches of trade)
  • 1805, 20 May Assistant to the Superintendent of Eastern Salt Chowkies
  • 1808, 2 August In Charge of the Office of Superintendent of the Eastern Salt Chowkies
  • 1810, 5 July In Charge of the Office of Superintendent of the Salt Golahs at Sulkea (A golah is a warehouse. Sulkea was opposite Calcutta on the west bank of Hooghly River; Sulkea was originally a place where salt was brought and stored in warehouses. Present day Salkia)
  • 1811, 1 November Sub-Secretary to the Board of Trade, Salt and Opium Department
  • 1814, April Nominated to Endorse Stamp Papers
  • 1815, 11 March Collector of Tipperah (the princely state of Tripura now located in the present-day Indian state of Tripura.)
  • 1815, 21 March Acting Superintendent of the Western Salt Chowkies
  • 1819, 1 March Collector of Juanpore (present day Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh)
  • 1824, 19 March Collector of Inland Customs and Town Duties of Calcutta
  • 1824, 8 July One of the Magistrates of the Town of Calcutta
  • 1831, 15 February Commercial Resident at Cossimbazar
  • 1835, 22 January Acting Salt Agent at Tumlook (present day Tamluk)
  • 1835 He was granted furlough to Mauritius and died on the way there on 6 May.

Deaths: On the 6th of May, on board the ship the Duke of Roburgh, on his way to the Mauritius, where he was proceeding for the benefit of his health, Thomas Mainwaring, Esq. of the Bengal Civil Service

English Chronicle and Whitehall Evening Post of 24 October 1835
Map of Indian places mentioned in the careers of Edward, Thomas and George Mainwaring

George Mainwaring

George Mainwaring was accepted as a Writer in 1807. His petition to join the civil service of the Honourable East India Company was dated 23 December 1806. He was about fifteen years old. He attended Haileybury College from 1807 – 1809. He was appointed to the company in 1810 and arrived in India on 30 July 1810. Some of his early appointments also included the administration of salt:

  • 1815, July 18: Assistant to the Salt Agent at Tumlook.
  • 1815, Oct 27: Officiating Superintendent of Eastern Salt Chowkies.

He became a Civil and Session Judge of Benares and agent to the Lieutenant Governor of Benares. He retired in 1841 and died in England.

Benares, A Brahmin placing a garland on the holiest spot in the sacred city. 1832 Lithograph, by the Anglo-Indian scholar and mint assay master James Prinsep. Image taken from Benares illustrated, in a series of drawings. Calcutta : printed at the Baptist Mission Press, Circular Road, 1830-1834. Image retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.
In 1832 George Mainwaring was Officiating Judge of the Provincial Court of Appeal at Benares

Salt agents in Bengal

In Bengal salt was not made by solar evaporation—the usual process—but by boiling concentrated brine, extracted from salt-rich soil by washing with seawater. Bengal salt was known as panga. The Bengal method followed a boiling process because Bengal’s extreme humidity made it difficult to crystallize brine by solar power alone and readily available fuel such as grass and paddy straw made panga production possible there. The brine was boiled for long hours in small earthenware pots at low temperatures producing fine white salt.

The interior of a boiling house in Tamluk, with two malangis (salt labourers) boiling brine with grass or paddy straw. Source: Notes on the Manufacture of Salt in the Tamluk Agency, by H.C. Hamilton, Salt Agent, Dated September 23, 1852, Appendix B, BPP, vol. 26, 1856.

At the end of the 18th century, the East India Company divided the salt-producing areas of Bengal into six agencies run under salt agents — Hijli, Tamluk, the 24-Parganas, Raimangal, Bhulua and Chittagong. In the early 19th century, to make the salt tax more profitable and reduce smuggling, the East India Company established customs checkpoints throughout Bengal and an inland customs line was built across India from 1803 to prevent smuggling of salt from coastal regions in order to avoid the substantial salt tax; it was initially made from dead thorny material.

The agents would contract with the malangis, salt labourers, and pay advances to them as well as supervise the entire process of salt production, the storage of salt in the Company’s warehouses, and its delivery to merchants. Agents were also required to be on the lookout for illegal production and smuggling. A chain of native officers at different stages in the production process enabled a salt agent to manage the entire scope of commercial activities within his region. The salt agents were responsible for producing the authorized annual quota; success or failure in production would determine the Company’s salt revenues. Salt agents were active in production. For example, salt agents advanced money to the malangis, the salt labourers, and occasionally helped the malangis procure fuels in order to prevent delay to production.

Relatives in high places

When looking at the Writers’ petitions for Thomas and George, in both cases I noticed that in presenting the nomination to Henry Strachey the petitioner was a grandson of Lady Strachey. Jane Latham’s widowed mother Jane Latham nee Kelsall (1738 – 1824), had married Henry Strachey in 1770. Henry Strachey was private secretary to Lord Clive from 1764. Jane Strachey nee Kelsall, was first cousin to Margaret, wife of Lord Clive.

From the petition by Thomas Mainwaring to join the East India Company (file viewed through FindMyPast)
From the petition by George Mainwaring to join the East India Company (file viewed through FindMyPast); Henry Strachey was a baronet from 1801 and hence his wife was now Lady Strachey.
Sir Henry Strachey. Image from the University of Michigan which holds many of his papers including correspondence with his wife Jane.

As younger sons of a younger son, Thomas and George Mainwaring did not expect to inherit the estate. A career was necessary and it seems their maternal grandmother’s second husband, Henry Strachey, helped with their introduction to the East India Company.

References

Wikitree:

D is for Durham Light Infantry

03 Friday Apr 2015

Posted by in A to Z 2015, Champion de Crespigny, Durham Light Infantry, military, Napoleonic wars, younger son

≈ 1 Comment

Major George Champion Crespigny, 68th Foot, was killed on 30 July 1813 in the Battle of the Pyrenees during the Peninsular War against Napoleon’s forces in Spain.

Major George Champion de Crespigny (1788–1813) by British School Date painted: c.1810 Oil on canvas, 76 x 65 cm Collection: Durham Light Infantry Museum from http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/major-george-champion-de-crespigny-17881813-46147 retrieved 24 March 2014

George was the son of Philip Champion de Crespigny (1738 – 1803) and his fourth wife Dorothea née Scott (1765-1837).  He was born in 1783 at Hintlesham Hall, Suffolk. He was the tenth of fourteen children. Three of his older siblings died before he was born.

On May 19 1804, at the age of twenty-one,  George became an ensign, a regiment’s lowest-ranking officer,  in the 13th Regiment of Foot by purchase.

Recorded in The Gazette (London Gazette), issue 15702, 15 May 1804, page 622


George’s father Philip had died the year before, on 1 January 1803.  His mother married Sir John Keane on 27 March 1804. In 1804 his surviving half-siblings and siblings were:

As a younger son, George was probably destined for a career in the church, army, navy or possibly  law. Although his father had been a lawyer, George chose the army. George had not been to Cambridge like his brother, so perhaps George was not suited to the career of a lawyer.

An ensign was the most junior commissioned officer. In 1871 the rank was replaced with 2nd lieutenant. The duties of the officer included carrying the regimental colours, the flag or ensign of the regiment.


In May 1812 George de Crespigny, Captain from the 68th Foot, became a captain in the 89th Foot. He exchanged with Captain Peter le Mesurier. (The Royal Military Chronicle VOL.IV May,1812 By The Duke of York pages 476-7)

On 17 October 1812 George, promoted by purchase to be Major, was back with the 68th Foot. ( The London Gazette Publication date: 10 October 1812 Issue: 16657 Page: 2065)

John Green, late of the 68th Durham Light Infantry, that is the 68th Regiment of Foot, wrote of his experiences in the Peninsular War from 1806 to 1815.

Green writes of the unnecessary strictness of a major when he, Green, was ill in the middle of July 1813.

Green, John. ‘Vicissitudes of a Soldier’s Life‘, 1827. Louth. page 171 retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/vicissitudesaso00greegoog#page/n185/mode/2up

The major is almost certainly George de Crespigny. Green records the death of the Major ten pages later in his account of this part of the campaign.

Major Crespigny was killed on the 30th of July. ( The London Gazette Publication date: 16 August 1813 Issue: 16763 Page: 1609)

John Green wrote of the 30th of July and the events leading up to it including “Pampeluna” (as the siege of Pamplona was called by Green), the division being stationed at “Marcelain” (Marcaláin is 11 kilometres or 2 1/2 hours walk north of Pamplona).

Green, John. ‘Vicissitudes of a Soldier’s Life‘, 1827. Louth. pages 179-181 retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/vicissitudesaso00greegoog#page/n193/mode/2up

Another modern account of the 68th Foot’s action may be found in “Notes on Wellington’s Peninsular Regiments: 68th Regiment of Foot (Durham Light)” by Ray Foster at http://www.napoleon-series.org/military/organization/Britain/Infantry/WellingtonsRegiments/c_68thFoot.html

21st June 1813 (after the battle at Vittoria)                                                                                                                
Present after battle (PAB) 484

Grant has been badly wounded so that Inglis will return for a while to hold the brigade and in fact will have it for a considerable time onward. There is much marching and counter-marching about the foothills of the Pyrenees in the Bastan Region during the next month ending with a night march in teeming rain to come up to the concentration of the army about Sorauren, for a while during all of this Inglis will be in charge of the whole of 7th Division but, when the CIC decides for the offensive on 30th July Dalhousie is back in command ready to send Inglis and his men forward and down into the Ulzama valley just west of Sorauren village, they meet General Vandermaesen’s  men who put up a stout resistance trading volley for volley in a sustained fire-fight which is only broken off when Soult’s men are streaming off in rear of these others who effectively become a rearguard as the whole enemy array attempts to disengage, going off to the rear at some pace. The Major of 2/68th one George Crespigny is shot through the throat and killed during the pursuit, a great relief it seems to most of his junior officers and men who saw him as a martinet, Captain Henry Irwin and Ensign John Connell fell seriously wounded and Lieutenant James Leith lightly so, of the men, three died and another sixteen were injured so that:

30th July 1813 (after the second battle at Sorauren)                                                                                                
PAB 461

 Foster’s theory of the reasons for the relief felt by de Crespigny’s men on his death is based largely on Green’s book. (email 6 July 2014)

Additional sources

Trove Tuesday: Cricket and the Duke of Edinburgh’s visit in 1867

14 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by in Champion de Crespigny, cricket, Hong Kong, Mainwaring, navy, Trove Tuesday, younger son

≈ 4 Comments

Duke of Edinburgh about 1867

In 1858 Alfred (1844-1900), the second son of Queen Victoria, joined the navy as a midshipman. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1863 and three years later, in 1866, gained the rank of captain, appointed to command the steam frigate HMS Galatea. In the same year Alfred was made Duke of Edinburgh in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list.

The Galatea sailed for the Mediterranean in February 1867 and then to Brazil on June 12 for a state visit to the emperor of Brazil. After two months at the Cape, the Galatea arrived at Adelaide on 31 October 1867 and commenced a royal tour of Australia. The Galatea visited Melbourne, Tasmania, Sydney and Brisbane.

On the Galatea were two of my relatives from two different branches of my family tree: Sub-lieutenant Guy Mainwaring (1847-1909) and Midshipman Philip Augustus Champion de Crespigny (1850-1912). When the ship arrived in Adelaide, she had 540 men aboard: 42 officers of all ranks, 46 boys, 70 marines and 382 blue jackets.1

The Royal navy frigate HMS Galatea sits moored in Farm Cove 1868. Picture: Daniel Solander Library at the Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney. retrieved from http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au

The Galatea fielded a cricket team and Philip de Crespigny played with them in Adelaide on 8 November 1867 against the members of the South Australian Cricket Club. The South Australians won the game but the commentary favourably noted de Crespigny’s bowling and batting.2

In March 1869 the men of the Galatea, including Philip de Crespigny, played against a team of Aboriginal cricketers. The game was over two days and was a draw with the Aboriginal team scoring 331 for 9 wickets against 293 with the loss of five wickets.3

Three masted sailing ship H.M.S. Galatea, ca. 1868 from the Archer Family Photograph Album now in the collection of the John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10462/deriv/39932

Mainwaring did not play cricket but did perform in the Galatea‘s theatrical entertainment. For example when the Galatea was due to depart Sydney in March 1869, Lieutenant Mainwaring appeared as Gimlet in a comedy performed for several hundred guests. The Sydney Morning Herald reported it as a “highly creditable performance”.4 He also appeared as the Ancient Mariner.5

A fellow officer, Lord Charles Beresford, danced the hornpipe. Later in the voyage while in Hong Kong, Guy Mainwaring and Charles Beresford were photographed together in costume. (This is the Charles Beresford who as Admiral became notorious for his bitter dispute with Sir John (Jackie) Fisher, First Sea Lord. )

 

Lord Charles Beresford and Guy Mainwaring, photographed in Hong Kong in 1869 while serving on HMS Galatea retrieved from the Library of Nineteenth Century Photography . Looking at other photographs of Beresford, it would seem that the bearded man is Guy Mainwaring.

 

Guy Mainwaring was my third great grand uncle. Philip Augustus Champion de Crespigny was my fourth cousin three times removed.

Guy Mainwaring retired from the Royal Navy with the rank of captain in 1895.

Philip was promoted to Lieutenant on 8 August 1874. As late as 1903 he appeared in the Navy List still with the rank of lieutenant but on part pay. He played first class cricket in England and his obituary in Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack mentioned that he played played for Hampshire v. Somerset at Bournemouth in 1880, scoring 2 and 3. It also mentions that he was on the Galatea.

The Royal visit was extensively reported. There are over 6,000 newspaper articles currently on the National Library of Australia’s digitised newspaper collection at http://trove.nla.gov.au which mention the visit of the Galatea and the Duke of Edinburgh in the late 1860s.

……….

Notes
1. H.M.S.S. GALATEA. (1867, October 31). South Australian Register (Adelaide, SA : 1839 – 1900), p. 2. Retrieved June 9, 2014, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article39180042 ↩
2. DUKE OF EDINBURGH’S VISIT TO ADELAIDE.—The Cricket match. (1867, November 26). Illustrated Australian News for Home Readers (Melbourne, Vic. : 1867 – 1875), p. 10. Retrieved June 9, 2014, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article60819944 ↩
3. CRICKET. (1869, March 4). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 – 1957), p. 5. Retrieved June 9, 2014, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article5817582 ↩
4. THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH IN SYDNEY. (1869, April 21). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 – 1954), p. 5. Retrieved July 13, 2014, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13179267 ↩
5. THE GALATEA FETE. (1869, April 15). Illustrated Sydney News (NSW : 1853 – 1872), p. 3. Retrieved July 14, 2014, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article63514477 ↩