I have recently broken through a brick wall in my genealogical research and have found out what happened to my great-grand aunt, Laura Jane Williams. Join me in Part One: James and Laura Mackie as I research the social history of the family of Laura’s husband, James Mackie.
James Douglas Mackie
On 24 November 1885, James Douglas Mackie, the future husband of Laura Jane Williams and the son of Colour Sergeant David Douglas Mackie, enlisted with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, otherwise known as Princess Louise’s Regiment, at Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight for a term of twelve years.
James had just celebrated his fourteenth birthday that August and was still a half inch shy of five feet and weighed only ninety pounds. He had a dark complexion and like his father, he had blue eyes and dark brown hair. 1WO 97 – Chelsea Pensioners British Army service records 1760-1913, “WO 97 – Chelsea Pensioners British Army service records 1760-1913,” database, Find my Past (http://www.findmypast.co.uk: downloaded images 13 August 2016), Service record James Mackie Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (Princess Louise’s) – 91st & 93rd Foot.
It was not uncommon for young boys to join the army in the late nineteenth century, although the number of boys in any one regiment could not exceed two percent. The British Army hoped that by recruiting boys at a young age and allowing them to apprentice as soldiers, there would be a steady supply of well trained men once the boys reached the normal age of enlistment.
James Mackie was an obvious choice for the Army. He had lived in the army barracks for his entire life. His father, David Douglas Mackie, had himself enlisted at the age of 19 at Edinburgh with the 72nd Highlanders (The Duke of Albany’s Own) and had been a career soldier.
To understand why James enlisted at the age of 14, we first need to learn more about his father’s life in the army.
David Douglas Mackie
The 72nd Highlanders returned from India and their role in the Indian Mutiny in 1866, first stationed in Edinburgh and then ordered to Aldershot in England on 14 May 1867.
With their ranks depleted after their time in India, the 72nd Highlanders began actively recruiting in Scotland in July 1867, although they made it well known that they would not take any man for their ranks unless he was of ‘irreproachable character’.
David’s Enlistment
When the young shoemaker, David Mackie, enlisted in Edinburgh on the Saturday afternoon of 27 July 1867, he was promised £1 and a free kit from Sergt Major Anderson of the 72nd Foot. On the Monday following, David reported to Edinburgh Castle for his medical exam and was pronounced fit for Her Majesty’s service.
His medical certificate stated he appeared to be 19-years-old as he had attested, and that he stood 5 feet 9-1/2 inches tall. Should he ever be wounded or killed on the battlefield, it was noted that he could be identified from the mole on his left groin and the four letter tattoo on his left forearm.
At 11 o’clock the following Tuesday morning, David Douglas Mackie signed his oath of allegiance to the Queen and was official accepted into the 72nd Highlanders. 2WO 97 – Chelsea Pensioners British Army service records 1760-1913, “WO 97 – Chelsea Pensioners British Army service records 1760-1913,” database, Find my Past (http://www.findmypast.co.uk: accessed 13 August 2016), WO 97 – Chelsea Pensioners British Army service records 1760-1913, Box 3383, record 32.
Orders for Manchester
From Aldershot, the 72nd Highlanders were ordered to Manchester, arriving on Friday 1 November 1867, to provide security for the Special Commission for the trial of a group of Fenian prisoners charged with the murder of Police-sergeant Brett at Manchester on 18 September.
At the conclusion of the sensational trial of the ‘Manchester Martyrs’, William Allen, Michael Larkin, Michael O’Brien, were sentenced to death by hanging and the execution was scheduled for the morning of 23 November.
A detachment of the 72nd Highlanders and a squadron of the 8th Hussars supported almost 2500 regular and special police were present to discourage any possible last minute rescue attempt. The 72nd Highlanders were stationed on the roof of the New Bailey prison, armed with rifles.
Ireland
By mid January of 1868, the 72nd Highlanders were ordered to Ireland and arrived aboard the troopship Simoom, with 22 officers, 569 non-commissioned officers and men, 63 women and 67 children on Wednesday, February 5, having left Liverpool the previous afternoon.
They proceeded to Richmond Barracks in Dublin, their presence again required to provide extra security during upcoming trials of Fenian prisoners to take place in Sligo at the end of the month.
After the trial and some months in Dublin, a company of 72 Highlanders left for Limerick on 22 September to replace the 52nd Light Infantry who were leaving for Malta. Other companies of the 72nd Highlanders were stationed in Buttevant and Cork.
Marriage
Private David Mackie likely met James’ mother Hannah Power when he was stationed at Buttevant in Cork. He would have applied to his commanding officer for permission to marry around the time he learned that his regiment would be shipping out to India in February.
Permission was presumably granted for the pair married in Queenstown on 2 August 1870. Hannah was ‘on the strength of the army’ which usually meant that she could accompany David abroad. It was not to be, however, for Hannah fell pregnant almost immediately.
For wives not on the strength of the army, the new orders would have been devastating news. That August, not long after the 72nd Highlanders received their notice, one such woman advertised in the Cork Constitution, hoping to obtain free passage to follow her husband to India.
As the time grew nearer for their departure, the regiment began to swell with new recruits and there must have been some high spirited young men in camp who tried the patience of their commanding officers.
Riots in Cork
In mid November, a party of about 30 or 40 soldiers led by a new recruit of the 20th Regiment descended on a public house in Bridge-street and began beating the civilians who were enjoying themselves there. The altercation spilled out in the street and the police were unable to quell the riot. The soldiers, reportedly angered by the death of a soldier named Gibson who had been killed one night recently on his way back to the barracks, swung sticks or their belts, injuring any civilian who got in their way.
Eventually, a picket of about 100 soldiers from the 72nd Highlanders came from the barracks and rounded up the instigators, sending them back to the barracks, but not before the angry townspeople had inflicted some damage of their own. In the news the following day, it was reported that although many of the soldiers who attacked the civilians were known to the police, none were in custody, but passes to leave the barracks were very much restricted.
The soldiers involved in the altercation declared that they would not be satisfied until they had killed 20 civilians in revenge and the Mayor and magistrates of Cork along with the colonel of the 72nd Highlanders agreed that the men should be confined to their barracks and heavily guarded by military and civilian police patrols until the regiment left for India the following February.
The rest of the soldiers in the 72nd Highlanders were required to be in the barracks by nine o’clock each night.
The following week, a private in the 72nd Highlanders wrote to the Times in an effort to explain the situation from the soldiers’ point of view:
By December, passions had cooled and the soldiers began to prepare for their departure, selling off any possessions they could not take with them.
Departing for India
Finally, in late February 1871, it was time for their departure. The troopship Crocodile arrived in Cork Harbour on Saturday, 18 February and on Monday, the women and the baggage were to be taken aboard with the troops boarding the following day. But in the wee hours of Sunday morning, a last altercation took place between a soldier and one of the civilians of Cork.
At last, on 22 February 1871, David Mackie, along with the headquarters, staff and service companies of the 72nd Foot, Duke of Albany’s Own, Highlanders with a strength of 943 officers and men left Cork, bound for India aboard the steam troopship Crocodile for Alexandria, Egypt. From Alexandria, they would travel through the recently opened Suez Canal and the Red Sea, crossing the Arabian sea and landing at Bombay. The depot companies of the regiment remained at Cork, attached to the first battalion 20th regiment, awaiting orders from the Horse Guards.
Hannah, expecting a child, appears to have remained at home in Ireland.
Birth of James Douglas Mackie
James Douglas Mackie, the son of David and Hannah Mackie, was born the following August, and christened in the Catholic Church in Aghada, Cork, Ireland on 13 August 1871, with godparents Michael Fitzgerald and Mary Cadogan in attendance. 3Catholic Parish Registers, National Library of Ireland, Ireland. Published under the National Library of Ireland’s Terms of Use of Material made available on registers.nli.ie., “Ireland, Catholic Parish Registers, 1655-1915,” database, Ancestry (http://ancestry.co.uk : downloaded image 13 August 2016), James Mackey, son of David Mackey and Hannah Power, baptised 13 Aug 1871 in Aghada, Cork, Ireland; Catholic Parish Registers, The National Library of Ireland; Dublin, Ireland; Microfilm Number: Microfilm 04990 / 06.
Meanwhile in India…
Over in India, the 72nd Highlanders were settling in and were ordered to join the Delhi Camp from Umballa in December 1871. 4Greenock Telegraph and Clyde Shipping Gazette – Tuesday 05 December 1871
Early in 1875, dispatches from India told of the kidnapping of the bandmaster of the 72nd Highlanders by the Afridis who carried the man over the Khyber Pass, demanding £700 in ransom.
Mackie Family Reunited
The exact date that Hannah and baby James joined David in India is unknown, but by March 1875, not long after the bandmaster had been kidnapped, the family was together again.
It is possible that Hannah and James joined a party from the depot of the 72nd Highlanders consisting of one sergeant, forty-five rank and file, one woman and four children who left Ireland to travel to Bombay aboard the Euphrates in January 1875. 5Belfast News-Letter – Tuesday 05 January 1875
Birth of Catherine Isabella Mackie
James was four years old when his sister Catherine was born on 16 December in Bengal, India. The baby was christened the following month on 5 January 1876 in Rawal Pindee, a garrison town in the Bengal Presidency near Islamabad (now in Pakistan) where the Mackie family was presumably stationed.
Rawal Pindee
There were at least two barracks in Rawal Pindee. The Victoria Barracks was for the single men and the Roberts Barracks was located at West Ridge. The local bazaar was known as ‘Lalkurti’ which means ‘red shirt’, so named for all of the British soldiers stationed there and one of the local industries in Rawal Pindee was the Murree Brewery Company, founded in 1860 to slake the thirst of he soldiers.
There was also a station school for the children that James Mackie would have attended along with the other children of the regiment.
Sialkot
By October of 1876, the 72nd Highlanders were in Sialkot (or Sealkote) in the Lahore area of Bengal, where another cholera epidemic was raging. 6Cholera epidemics in Lahore, Rawalpindi and Pashawar were frequent in the last quarter of the nineteenth century Seven seizures and three deaths were even reported amongst the regiment but David, Hannah and James appear to have escaped.
Birth of Agnes Mackie
When James was almost 7-years-old, his sister Agnes was born in Sealkote on 2 June 1878, in one of the hottest months of the year, just before the wet season started. Temperatures in the area might reach 47C (117F) with average temperatures of 38C (100F) and the Kashmir area was suffering from a wide scale famine.
Not long after Agnes’ birth, the 72nd Highlanders were chosen to join the Afghan expeditionary force and were ordered to Kohat, as the second Anglo-Afghan War began. 7Edinburgh Evening News – Tuesday 12 November 1878
Coming Next: The Afghan War, Orders to Egypt and the Return Home to England
References
| ↑1 | WO 97 – Chelsea Pensioners British Army service records 1760-1913, “WO 97 – Chelsea Pensioners British Army service records 1760-1913,” database, Find my Past (http://www.findmypast.co.uk: downloaded images 13 August 2016), Service record James Mackie Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (Princess Louise’s) – 91st & 93rd Foot. |
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| ↑2 | WO 97 – Chelsea Pensioners British Army service records 1760-1913, “WO 97 – Chelsea Pensioners British Army service records 1760-1913,” database, Find my Past (http://www.findmypast.co.uk: accessed 13 August 2016), WO 97 – Chelsea Pensioners British Army service records 1760-1913, Box 3383, record 32. |
| ↑3 | Catholic Parish Registers, National Library of Ireland, Ireland. Published under the National Library of Ireland’s Terms of Use of Material made available on registers.nli.ie., “Ireland, Catholic Parish Registers, 1655-1915,” database, Ancestry (http://ancestry.co.uk : downloaded image 13 August 2016), James Mackey, son of David Mackey and Hannah Power, baptised 13 Aug 1871 in Aghada, Cork, Ireland; Catholic Parish Registers, The National Library of Ireland; Dublin, Ireland; Microfilm Number: Microfilm 04990 / 06. |
| ↑4 | Greenock Telegraph and Clyde Shipping Gazette – Tuesday 05 December 1871 |
| ↑5 | Belfast News-Letter – Tuesday 05 January 1875 |
| ↑6 | Cholera epidemics in Lahore, Rawalpindi and Pashawar were frequent in the last quarter of the nineteenth century |
| ↑7 | Edinburgh Evening News – Tuesday 12 November 1878 |