Yet more on Helen Davidson (Paton) Wallace, Charles Paton and family!
Charles Paton's wife was his first cousin Christian Henderson, christened at Rathen, Aberdeenshire 29 July 1802, eldest child of Alexander and Christian (Paton) Henderson. Somewhere on FIBIS is a record of Christian's voyage to India in 1819 with her just-younger sister Mary Forbes Mackenzie (who married John Mackenzie, Esq., of Calcutta in 1822; a younger sister, Helen Henderson, is likely to have been the person who came out to India but died there unmarried). Christian was married at Calcutta to her cousin Charles Paton on 15 April 1820, and bore four daughters in quick succession. At least one of her daughters (Helen Davidson Paton) was born at Ballygunge, then and now (I'm told) an upscale area of Calcutta. Childbearing and tropical diseases soon did for Christian, who died at Akyab, Arrakan (on the west coast of Burma) 21 Aug. 1827, of a fever.
When I first saw Charles Paton's will I saw the legacy to his one son and thought "Hmmm, losing no time in the short time he had left," but it's clear from the India Office records Annie has also found that John William Paton was born before his father's marriage in 1820. While Charles did have something of an extracurricular life, he seems to have provided for the resulting children--he would hardly have left the care of his four legitimate little daughters to their older half-sister Jane Ryan (Paton) Martin (1809-1864), had he not already made arrangements for her! He had two known illegitimate children in India--Elizabeth Young Paton at Meerut in 1816, and John William Paton in Calcutta in 1819 (as Annie found). Elizabeth Young Paton was too young to marry in 1830, so likely had died; Charles asked his male executors Joseph Calder, Robert Cunningham Paton, and William Henderson to provide for John William; whatever became of him, I wonder? After Charles Paton's death, the Martins--who were to have plenty of children of their own--seem to have sent some or all of the four little girls to Scotland for schooling. I may have seen Helen and Jessie at a school in Old Machar, Aberdeenshire (although birthplace was given as Scotland, everybody's on the page was). Of course Helen had returned to India by 1845. She was "of Park Street" in her marriage record at St. Andrew's Kirk, Calcutta; wonder whose house she was married from? That too would be of interest.
Daughters of Charles and Christian (Henderson) Paton were:
1. Mary Nicol Paton (1821-1834), bur in Lonmay kirkyard--far from her native tropics--with her double great-grandparents William and Christian (Scott) Paton.
2. Christian Mackenzie Paton (1823-1857), later of Cawnpore; she, her husband Col. Edwin Montagu Rees Wiggens (1819-1857; m. 1841) and their two youngest children were all killed in the Indian Mutiny.
3. Helen Davidson Paton (1825-1913), d. Chatham Kent 5 Feb 1913. Very short death notice, THE TIMES, 7-8 Feb 1913, p. 1 ("WALLACE.--On the 5th inst., at Chatham, HELEN DAVIDSON WALLACE, widow of the late Alexander Wallace, Esq., of Peterhead, afterwards of Calcutta, and daughter of the late Capt. Charles Paton, East India Company's service, in her 88th year"). She is seen in 1881 (already a widow), a visitor in the Fraserburgh household of her Paton cousin Mary Forbes Wemyss (c1810-1882); in 1891 and 1901, boarding in Paddington, London. My paternal grandmother Hilda Margaret Rose (Thomas) Otto (1869-1952) last saw her Aug 1910 Rochester, Kent after the funeral of Hilda's mother, Mrs Wallace's eldest daughter Christian Jeannette (Wallace) Thomas (1846-1910). Helen was seated in the Thomas parlor, eating little cucumber sandwiches from a glass plate someone had made up and brought over to her. Her estate, settled in June 1913 by her son Charles William Wallace Esq, came to £4007, 11s. 4d.
4. Elizabeth Jessie Paton (1827-1880) d. Kensington, unm; left most of her property to niece Louisa Julia Wiggens (1851-1904 unm). One of her two executors was the Fraserburgh solicitor George Wallace, parents known but relation (if any?) to Alexander Wallace is unknown.
Extracts from Charles Paton's journal of an 1827 trip from Akyab to Dalet [sic] published as "Journey to Datel [sic] in 1827" in JOURNAL OF THE BURMESE RESEARCH SOCIETY 28:228-31 (not seen), cited in Dr Jacques P. Leider, "Arakan around 1830--Social Distress and Political Instability in the Early British Period," ARAKAN RESEARCH JOURNAL vol 2, online at
www.narinjara.com. Charles Paton and his early fellow Sub-Commissioners in Arakan tried to introduce the Bengali "zamindar" taxation system, a dismal failure in Arakan (which has now renamed Rakhine state by the current government which changed Burma to Myanmar, Rangoon to Yangon).
With best wishes,
Julie
