England East India Company Records for Family History (National Institute)

Biographical Index of India Office Collection
Start first with this index of over 300,000 Europeans and their families who were in civil, military and non-official employ in India.

Army Purchase Commission 1871 In WO 74 are the registers of service of every officer who held a commission as of 1 Nov 1871, and applications from officers on Indian establishments 1871-1891 with the certificates of service attached. This material is indexed by regiment but not by surname.

Casualty Returns For soldiers see Muster Rolls; for officers from 1800-1895 there are.

Civil Registration The births, marriages and deaths of officers and men in the British Army in India are in the Overseas Indexes, typically in the Chaplains Returns.

Civil Service Appointments HEIC offered opportunities for employment in its civil service. The entry level was as a writer, (junior clerk/ book-keeper) from whence he worked his way up to factor and finally merchant. Many of the early writers were charity boys or of mean parentage who wrote good hands, but by the 1750s even the lowest rung of writer was much sought after by clergymen’s sons and impoverished aristocrats. Large amounts of records survive and are microfilmed from 1749-1857. Thus the original application, or petition, from Robert Dashwood survives in J/1/10/49.

CHART: Thomas Dashwood’s Writer’s Petition

In the List of Writers appointed for the East Indies in the Season of 1780 (IOR/J/1/10/106 and 107] Thomas Dashwood’s name appears in the listFor Bengal, whilst a relative, Robert Dashwood appears For Fort St. George. The document is endorsed by Honourable Warren Hastings, a prominent figure in India’s history at the time.

Commander-in-Chief’s Memoranda WO 31 The letters written in support of the purchase of a commission by Robert Dashwood were found in WO31/72 as follows:

CHART: Purchase of Ensign Commission Memoranda 20 Jun 1798—80th Foot 

This can then be followed up in the Army Lists and in later successive sections for the 80th Regiment of Foot Robert Dashwood can be seen as follows:


 * Ensign 20 Jun 1798
 * Lieutenant 10 Nov 1800
 * Captain 30 Oct 1806

Depot Court Martial Books These can be found starting at. Depot Registers of Recruits Lists of artillerymen 1811-1860, cavalrymen 1857-1860, and infantrymen 1801-1860 give recruit’s age, place of birth, former occupation and description, plus the regiment to which allocated. They are listed by troopship and not indexed, but may be accessible via a2a. Deserters from HEIC Army 1844-1851 Lists of these are in WO 25.

Directories
Contemporary directories had long columns for announcements of Marriages, Births and Deaths by year, month and day, thus in the Madras Almanac for 1827 can be found:

Discharge List from Indian Army
CHART: 1861 Discharge List Extracts The 23 columns are summarized in text form here.

Discharge Records
Regimental depot musters in WO 67 contain records of soldiers discharged on return from India before 1806. Those who took the unpensioned discharge option at the time the British Army took over in 1859-1861 survive, thus Madras Army Discharges for these three years are on 4 films starting at 1886124. The Victoria Hospital, Netley, Hampshire musters record discharges of men returning from India from 1863 and 1878 in WO 12. There is similar material in the muster rolls of the Gosport Discharge Depot, also in Hampshire, for 1862-1889 in WO 16. No musters for engineers in India survive, and only a few 18th century ones for artillery there, but most musters of infantry and cavalry in India from 1863-1889 are in WO 16.

Ecclesiastical Returns for Presidencies 1683-1948
There are about 1,000 volumes of these records with good indexes, and most are on film. The earlier christenings give the date of birth but not always the mother’s name, especially if a native country woman. The marriages are given after the groom’s names in the index, and actual entries show the names of both fathers. Many girls married at age 14-15, as was the custom amongst the natives of the country (personal communication from Ena Thomas, my Burmese/Indian/ Scottish aunt). Burials usually give the date of death. Examples of entries are below. Catholic registers are also available for the early Victorian period.

CHART: Bengal Ecclesiastical Returns Baptisms, Marriages, Burials 1755-1783 Each page signed by two chaplains: Gervas Bellamy and Robt Mapletoft

* 11 of the 15 marriages in 1755 were to ‘country women’.

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