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Archiver > INDIA > 2001-01 > 0979164057


From: "Malcolm Bradbury" <>
Subject: [India-L] Female Asylums
Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 22:00:57 -0000


Wiith all the recent correspondence reference female asylums,Listers might be interested in my story!
My great grandmother, Mary Matilda Savage, was born in Kirkee on 7Mar 1854. Her father was either John or William Savage and it is thought that he was a Sapper in the Bombay Sappers & Miners. At some stage my great grandmother and her sister became orphans. Their Father was alledged to have been killed at the Battle of Bushire but I can find no evidence of this fact. However my great grandmothers granddaughter who is still alive and well at the age of 87, clearly recalls her grandmother telling her that she and her sister were orphans in an orphanage run by French Roman Catholic Nuns [ She is not certain in what city or town but thinks it was Poona/ Kirkee].
My Great grandmother said that European men used to visit the Orphanage with the object of selecting a bride.
On the 24 Sep1869 at Poona at the age of 15 she married a GIPR Engine Driver who was 22years old [ It clearly states his trade as an Engine Driver on the marriage record ] who had asked and received the Mother Superiors permission to marry my great grandmother
My great grandmother told her granddaughter that her husband was a brute of a man. He was a drunkard who regularly beat her and would drag her about the house by her hair!
On the 24 Sep1869 he died at Jubblepore of heat appolexy. He was 26 years old. My great grandmother said that as she stood by his grave at his burial she was dry eyed and all she could think was at last she was free!
She subsequently married another GIPR Engine Driver. He had come out to India at the age of 16 with his father who had been accepted by the GIPR Board in London on 16Jun 1865 as an Engine Driver
This 2nd marriage was a very happy and contented one. They had 5 girls [ one of whom was my grandmother ] and 2 boys.
The marriage lasted 47 years when my great grandfather died at Jubbelpore in 1922 at the age of 73.
He was apparently a a very respected and well liked person by all of the railway community in Jubbelpore to the extent that on his death the railway staff closed the works for two days as a mark of respect.
No doubt other orphans found happiness in thier marriages arranged through the orphanages but in my great grandmothers case this was clearly not so.

Malcolm Bradbury
Cheshire Uk


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