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A seven-generation India link
WHOEVER WOULD think you'd discover a seven-generation British connection with India that started in Madras, while sitting in Chettinad in Tamil Nadu's deep south with a group from around the world. But that's serendipity for you.
M. V. Subbiah of the Murugappa Group was hosting a week-long cultural holiday in Chettinad for friends, introducing to around 70 business leaders, leading professionals and scholars from all over India, the U.S., the U.K. and a couple of other countries that enclave of 75 villages which once was so closely linked with the business fortunes of colonial territories from Mauritius to Cochin-China. And I was there to tell some of that story. But Madras seldom lets me get away from its stories of the centuries and that's how I found myself listening to one more, this time narrated by Julia Scott, whose husband John is with the U.N.
Julia began her story by saying, "You must know my Great Uncle Algernon Yorke," to which I replied, "Of course! He's the one who first owned a car in Madras, wasn't he? Around 1906, wasn't it?" "I was sure you'd know him," Julia responded and, as we laughed together over knowing a man long before our time, added, "You had to; after all, you wrote the Parry story and he would have figured prominently in it, wouldn't he?"
Indeed, Algernon Joseph Yorke was one of the most dynamic Partners in the story of the second oldest surviving business house in India and one of the oldest in the world. Joining the Company in 1878, he served it in Madras till 1909. A Partner from 1889, he was Senior Partner from 1900 till his retirement from its London office in 1916. Known in the business world as an impatient man, eager to get on with new projects, he, curiously, turned down W. H. Oakes' invitation in 1906, to team with him on launching Madras's first motor car business. But that didn't stop Yorke, who was on furlough in London at the time, getting Oakes to order a car for him that he brought back to Madras. It was in this car that in 1908 Yorke did a pioneering Ooty-Madras journey via Bangalore and Mysore.
Yorke's love for action and the motor car had him joining the Anglo-American Motor Ambulance Corps as a driver at the age of 59 and serving near the trenches in France on a pay of one sou a day! In subsequent retirement, Julia Scott completes the record, he spent his time sailing, riding and motoring and getting his nephews, nieces and great nephews and great nieces interested in being on the move and in falling in love with India.
And there were a number of them, I must tell you, smiled Julia, as she began the story of Catherine Anna Hawkins, who was born around 1810, married Capt. James Yorke and had 22 children, 14 of whom survived into adulthood. Algernon Yorke was one of her sons. His son, H. B. Yorke, and another of her grandsons, Algernon George Batley, also served Parry's, the latter becoming a Partner just before the Great War.
The seven-generation connection, however, began through kin of Catherine Anna Yorke. The daughter of Canon Charles Hawkins and Augusta Cockburn, her uncle Caesar Hawkins was in the Madras Army and was a member of the delegation that returned to their father Tipu Sultan's sons, held hostage by Lord Cornwallis in Madras in the 1790s. The family has to this day, a sword gifted to Hawkins by Tipu Sultan inscribed with his thanks. Maternal uncle George Cockburn, who went on to become an Admiral and First Sea Lord, served under Arthur Wellesley, later the Duke of Wellington, in the Madras Presidency and, in 1812, sailed against Washington, then, in 1815, took Napoleon to St. Helena.
But, as Julia Scott comments with a chuckle, "It was not entirely a rogue's gallery; there were teachers and missionaries too". Great Aunt Sybella lived and worked in the villages of Bengal and died there, the only member of the family to die in India. Julia's father and mother worked for years in India, where he was the chaplain of St. Paul's Cathedral, Calcutta, and she was a teacher. Julia herself, born and educated in India as a Boulton, was evacuated to St. Hilda's, Ooty, "for the duration", when the Japanese threatened the northeast. "And in recent years, my three children and their cousin have served in India, Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. They too look forward to our links with this part of the world continuing with each new generation."
S. MUTHIAH
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