After Vere PACKE left permanently around WW1, The PACKE BROTHERS company were absentee landlords who owned major parts of the West Falklands right the way up to 1983 - after the 1982 Falklands War the company was dissolved and the land sold to the FI Government who then split it up as part of a Land Reform and allocated land to the born & bred Falkland Islanders who actually lived there and in many cases, who had worked that very land all their lives.
Captain RC, back in the 1850's, started off with land in the East Falklands, at Port Harriet and at Fitzroy camp (my father was born at Fitzroy!) but then moved on to their principal holding in West Falklands where they farmed at Fox Bay East & Dunnose Head. This was their largest concern. A PACKE also owned Port Louis (East Falklands) but I'm not sure who or when; I think they actually lived there - it may well have been Vere.
As to Captain RC's military career. I rather think he 'became a soldier for the stipend! Perhaps to afford his adventures or hobbies? He purchased his way up the ranks - under the very archaic British system:
http://www.sfu.ca/~allen/army.pdfHe started at the bottom in 1841 and stayed there for just under 6 years when in the space of 9 mths in 1847, he purchased his way from Ensign to Lt to Captain. From the London gazette:
1/6/1841: RC PACKE, Gent., to be Ensign, 34th Foot, by Purchase
3/2/1847: RC PACKE was promoted Ensign to Lt, 34th Foot, by Purchase
12/2/1847: RC PACKE was promoted Lt to Cptn, 34th Foot, by Purchase
Could be wrong, but I would be very surprised if he ever saw many (any?) minutes of 'action' or inside a barracks as a 'soldier'.
I don't believe he was ever in the Falklands as a serving soldier. If he was ever, it would have been between 1841 and 1848 and he would have left by 1848 at the latest. In his tenure as the military Lt Governor, Moody pre-1848 apparently had among his merry men some Infantry - but later the men were almost exclusively RN sappers and Engineers, not corps or infantry. RC is noted as going to the Islands in 1849 on the ship "Lalla Rookh". This was not a 'troop ship' . I believe the ship went via NZ (this was a common route) (or that he swapped ship in NZ ) and that he has been recorded as "Captain Parker" on board the Lalla Rookh manifest, here:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~shipstonz/auckland1.htmlIn 1849, the new 'military' force on the islands was a garrison of settlers taken from 30 time-expired Chelsea Pensioners and their families, arranged by the outgoing Governor Richard Clement Moody in 1848. These pensioners arrived in the Falklands on the ship "Hebe" (I think) and RC was not one of their number. These settlers were supposed to be permanent, but a good number were so unhappy that in 1857 those who wished to, were granted leave to return to the UK. In 1858, the British government had another go this time raising a company called the Falkland Islands Company Garrison, made up from Volunteers from the active Army and which comprised of 40 men and families who came on a fixed term of 6 years. They left in 1864 (some of them stayed on as settlers though). I believe this 1858 lot all came to the Islands at the same time on the ship "Ealing Grove' Their leader was Cptn. Charles Compton Abbot of the 47th Foot (and one of his men was my 4xgt-gfather who was definitely on the Ealing Grove with is wife & daughter). I have an incomplete list of 30 names of this 1858 detachment & RC is not included - but in any case, he is likely to already have been in the Falklands for some years by 1858.
As a Gentleman landowner/farmer with his purchased title of Captain, RC would very definitely have entertained CC Abbot, the leader of the Garrison in the Falklands - there wasn't much of a society life there, and I'd say any chance to engage in a bit of English society hob-nobbing would have been seized upon.
I hope this is is of interest and helps your picture of the PACKEs!
Cheers
AMBLY
