Adelphi Hotel Calcutta 1880s - 1900

[Jackal9]

Hi all

One of my ancestors Laura Elizabeth Browne (then Laston, Cook and finally Madden) managed the Adelphi Hotel in Calcutta on Waterloo Street. This was from when she arrived there in 1885 as Laura Laston to the late 1890s. Her husbands during this time were William Isaac Cook and then Travers Edward Madden, Indian Army.

I would really like to find her on a passenger list in 1885 either leaving the UK or arriving in India, to see if she went with anyone else. However, very hard to find.

Her life in India is well represented in the Harry Hobbs book John Barleycorn Bahadur under the Adelphi Hotel. However, I am constantly on the search for more information on the hotel, pictures as generally very little information exists on the hotel.

If anyone has any suggestions on this period or potential resources I'd be very grateful.

Thank you

[KGarrad]

Have you tried www.fibis.org? Families in British India Society.

Marriage to W I Cook on 7 November 1886 at Calcutta.
Marriage to T F Madden on 8 August 1894 at Christ Church, Mussoorie.

[ShaunJ]

Did you see that she was married twice to William Isaac Cook? Firstly at St John's Calcutta on 7 November 1886, when she was recorded as a spinster, daughter of John Henry Browne Laston, and then again in Camberwell on 21 April 1891 as a widow, daughter of John Henry Dolbin Browne. .

Per John Barleycorn Bahadur (page 286) she was one of three young women brought out to India by Cook in 1885.

[Jackal9]

Yes the first marriage she was actually still married to Samuel Laston. Presumably her fathers name listed as Laston to possibly hide that. Then married again in the UK in 1891 as you say, which is after Samuel Lastons death in 1888. All very strange, but then her life was quite something!

The mystery is why she went to India in the first place, she was leaving behind her family and more importantly her son of no more than 2 years old. Was it for love, money or to escape?! I'd really like to know who she travelled with.

[ShaunJ]

The fastest route to India was by cross-channel ferry to France, by train to a Mediterranean port and then by steamer through the Suez canal, so you may not be able to trace passenger records for her departure from the UK.