 1805 - 1869 (64 years)
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| Name |
Harris Hamlyn Lavicount |
| Prefix |
Col. |
| Birth |
23 Aug 1805 |
Limerick, Ireland  |
| Gender |
Male |
| Death |
1 Nov 1869 |
Bristol |
| Person ID |
I35 |
My Genealogy |
| Last Modified |
7 Dec 2023 |
| Family 1 |
Reeve Eliza Cobden, b. 31 Dec 1816 d. 2nd Apr 1867, Bristol (Age 50 years) |
| Marriage |
23 Aug 1832 |
Bangalore India |
| Children |
| | 1. Maj Gen Noel Hamlyn Harris, b. 1834, Bellary Tamil Nadu d. 1900, Kensington (Age 66 years) |
| | 2. Harris Eliza Reeve, b. 1835, Bangalore India d. 23 Nov 1863, Coonoor, India (Age 28 years) |
| | 3. Harris Lt. Col. Henry Thomas, b. 18 Nov 1837, Bangalore India d. 1882, Bangalore India (Age 44 years) |
| | 4. Harris Mary Isabella, b. 1842, Madras, India d. 1843 (Age 1 year) |
| | 5. Harris Harriet Huntingdon, b. 23 Jan 1844, Bellary Tamil Nadu d. 1901, Coimbatore (Age 56 years) |
| | 6. Harris Hamlyn Lavicount, b. 16 Aug 1845, Madras, India d. 5 Jul 1925, Tumut, New South Wales (Age 79 years) |
| + | 7. Harris Mary Hamlyn, b. 31 May 1848, Bangalore, India d. 1 Sep 1932, Wadhurst, Sussex (Age 84 years) |
| | 8. Harris William Hamlyn, b. 5 Jul 1851, Madras, India d. 1905, Tumut, New South Wales (Age 53 years) |
| | 9. Harris Isabella Hamlyn, b. 18 May 1852 d. 6 Jan 1915 (Age 62 years) |
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| Family ID |
F11 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
| Last Modified |
7 Dec 2023 |
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| Photos
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 | A chromolithograph of 32nd Madras Native Infantry (now 4 Baloch) by Henry Martens, 1845.
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 | 1869 Probate record for Hamlyn Lavicount Harris
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 | Flag of the British East India Company, 1801–1858
source: wikipedia |
 | 1833 army record of Major H.L. Harris as a Deputy Assistant Quarter-Master General, 15th Native Infantry
This rank of Major is at odds with him being made a Captain in 1836. Perhaps it's a mistake.
source: Registers of Employees of the East India Company and the India Office, 1746-1939 on ancestry.co.uk website |
 | 23rd Aug 1833 report of marriage of Eliza and Hamlyn at Bangalore
Eliza was aged 15, 4 months before her 16th Birthday.
One wonders whether she was rebelling against her religious parents or whether this had their blessing.
source: p. 85 'Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register' Vol 10, 1833 |
 | 20th June 1854 Hamlyn Harris was promoted in rank from Major to Lieutenant Colonel, 15th Madras Native Infantry
source: p.281, 'The Indian News and Chronicle of Eastern Affairs, 13th Jan 1854 |
 | Military record of Hamlyn L Harris in Madras Army, as of 1838
1821 Cadet
27th Apr 1822 Cornet, ensign or 2nd lieutenant
6th May 1824 Lieutenant
20th Feb 1836 Captain
source: pp88-89, 'Alphabetical List of the Officer of the Indian Army' 1838. |
 | 1821 record of Hamlyn L Harris as an Ensign in the 4th Regiment Native Infantry
NOTE: Between 1796 and 1824 the 15th Regiment was called the 2nd Battalion of the 4th Madras Native Infantry, hence this record is him with the 4th.
Source: From the Army List of the Honourable East-India Company's soldiers on the Fort St George Establishment, p.211 'The East-India Register and Directory for 1823' |
 | 31st Dec 1861 record of Colonel Hamlyn Harris retiring from Indian Army with honorary rank of Major-General
"The under-mentioned officers of Her Majesty's Indian Military Forces, retired upon full pay, to have a step of honorary rank as follows... To be Major-Generals... Colonel Hamlyn Laircourt [sic] Harris, Madras Infantry, dated 31st Dec 1861"
source: p. 1620, The London Gazette, March 25th 1862 |
 | Uniforms of the Madras Army
source: wikipedia |
 | photo of Hamlyn Lavicount Harris, probably on his retirement.
photo from an ancestry.co.uk user, kirstyj153 |
 | 1808 all 3 sons of Thomas Noel Harris and Elizabeth Hemsworth were baptised in the same year at Whitwell, Northamptonshire. However the firs 2 had previously been baptised privately in Ireland (probably by their grandfather, Rev Hamlyn Harris?)
Hamlyn and his 2 brothers Henry and Thomas were all baptised on this one record from 1808 at Whitwell in Northamptonshire.
"March 29th 1808 Hamlyn Lavicount son of Captain Thomas Noel Harris and Elizabeth his wife, born Aug 23 1805 at Limerick in Ireland, privately baptised there witness Thomas Noel Harris + Elizabeth Harris.
March 29th, Henry Thomas son of Capt Thomas Noel Harris and Elizabeth his wife, born December 16th 1806 at Limerick in Ireland and privately baptised there, witness Thomas Noel Harris + Elizabeth Harris.
June 18th Thomas Noel, son of Capt Thomas Noel Harris and Elizabeth his wife, born June 14th" |
 | 1861 Census record for Eliza Harris and family
Hamlyn L Harris, age 55, Colonel East India Service, born Ireland, is living with his wife Eliza age 44, born India (East), at Bourton Court in Flax Bourton in Somerset, 5 miles from Bristol.
With them live daughters Harriet age 18, Mary age 12, son William age 7 (and on a second page of the census) daughter Isabella age 8, all born in India. Also living with them are 3 domestic servants. |
 | Bourton Court, now called Bourton House, where the Harris family lived in 1861 Census
It's in the village of Flax Bourton in Somerset, and was called Bourton Court in the census record and other historical records, but is now called Bourton House.
Photo is taken from the Bourton House Garden website - https://bourtonhouse.com - the garden is now open to the public for some of the year. |
 | 1864 Bristol directory that shows Major General Harris living at Frankfort House, Whiteladies rd in Bristol
This is the same address recorded when his wife Eliza dies in 1867.
Later records show it is No.17 Whiteladies rd.
source: p. 148 'Matthews's new Bristol directory' 1864
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 | 17 Whiteladies rd, Bristol, then called Frankfort House, where Hamlyn and Eliza lived 1864-7
photo from Google street view |
 | Officers button from the 15th Regt Madras Infantry
source: on sale at Bates and Hindmarsh, antiques in Cheltenham |
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| Notes |
- SUMMARY
Hamlyn Lavicount Harris was born in the summer of 1805 in Limerick, Ireland, to Thomas Harris, an English soldier, and his wife Elizabeth Hemsworth who was from a landowning Irish family. He was the eldest of 3 boys, and the family moved from Ireland to England at some point since the youngest brother was born in Northamptonshire in 1808, which is where his paternal granny came from. His father left the army, then rejoined in 1810, and spent the next 5 years fighting with distinction in the Napoleonic wars, so would have been away from the family till 1815.
In 1812 tragedy strikes the family when mother Elizabeth dies aged 23. Her boys were aged 7, 6 and 4. We don't know who then brought up the 3 boys or where they went to school after their mother died. But at least one granny was alive till the 1830s.
Aged 16 Hamlyn joins the army in 1821 as a Cadet, the entry level for officers. But it's not the British army, It's the Madras Presidency Army in India, one of the 3 armies that the East India Company had in India. So he's taken the 4 month voyage and aged 16 he's landed at Fort St George, an East India Company base on the south east coast of India. Here he's with the 4th Regimental Native Infantry. This transforms into the 15th Regiment of the Madras Native Infantry, which he stays with for his entire army career. He becomes an Ensign on 7th Apr 1822, and then a Lieutenant on 6th May 1824. He sticks at this rank for 12 years.
Although the 15th Madras Native Infantry regiment was busy at the start of the 1800s century (in it's previous incarnation as 2nd Battalion 4th Regimental Native Infantry) it seems Hamlyn was serving with them during a prolonged when they saw no major action. And other than his change in rank, we have no mentions in dispatches or descriptions of battles he took part in, or indeed any record that tells us what kind of person he was.
On the 23rd of August 1833 Hamlyn gets married to Eliza Reeve, the daughter of a Missionary family, in Bangalore. Eliza was aged 15 at the time, so one wonders whether she was rebelling against her family or had their blessing when she married a 27 year old soldier. Their first child was born two years later. Eliza went on to have 9 children with Hamlyn between 1834 and 1852, of whom Mary is the significant one to continue this family tree. Given the places in which the children were born - Bellary, Bangalore, and Madras, which are hundreds of miles apart - the family must have moved with Hamlyn's regiment.
Hamlyn continued to rise slowly through the ranks of his regiment. In 1833 there is a record of Hamlyn as a Major and Deputy Assistant Quartermaster General. But that seems at odds with him achieving rank of Captain on 20th Feb 1836. He became a Major in 1846, and in 1854 he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. At this rank he would have commanded between 500 to 1000 men. What we don't know is whether he was a good soldier or not.
In the 1830s the Madras Army was concerned with internal security and support for the civil administration. This was a multi-ethnic army in which the British officers were encouraged to learn and speak the local languages. The Army of the Madras Presidency remained almost unaffected by the Indian Rebellion of 1857. By contrast with the larger Bengal Army where all but twelve (out of eighty-four) infantry and cavalry regiments either mutinied or were disbanded, all fifty-two regiments of Madras Native Infantry remained loyal (source Wikipedia)
In 1853 his wife Eliza returned to England with three of the children. Of her 9, one had died aged two in 1843, Mary Isabella. Eliza returned to get the older ones into English schools but also because she was suffering from ill health.
We don't know when Hamlyn returned to England with the rest of the family, but in the 1861 Census he is living with his family in the village of Flax Bourton, south of Bristol. They are living at Bourton Court, a grand house (see photo), which was probably rented (since someone else owned it at this time). Eliza is aged 44, Hamlyn is a Colonel and aged 55, and 4 of the children aged 18 to 8 live with them, along with 3 domestic servants. At the end of that year, in December, Hamlyn retires from the army, and gets a promotion from Colonel to Major General as his farewell.
Florence Stacy in her Whitty family memoir suggests that despite a full pension, there were financial pressures for Hamlyn. Eliza was now an invalid and needed constant nursing care, and of the children Isabella was to go to London for an operation which it was hoped would enable her to walk better, Henry needed financial assistance because his Army pay as a lieutenant in the Madras Army was relatively small, and Harriet, Mary and William were all still in various stages of education.
By 1864 Eliza and Hamlyn were living in Bristol, at Frankfort House, 17 Whiteladies rd. Eliza died there on 2nd April 1867, of cancer of the stomach, following at least two unsuccessful operations and a prolonged period of ill-health. She was 51 years old. She left effects of under £100 in her Will.
Two years after the death of Eliza, Hamlyn gets married a second time to Charlotte Evans. But he died later that year, on 1st November 1869, at No. 2 Eastfield Villas, Westbury on Trym (now mostly part of Clifton in Bristol). He was 64 years old. His death certificate suggests that he had had a previous stroke: the cause of death is given as 'disease of the brain with partial paralysis' and 'apoplexy 24 hours'.
(Source: from notes of Mary Whitty)
His Will says he had effects under £300 (£18,000 in 2017 money), so he was not a wealthy man when he died.
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Marriage record 1832:
At Bangalore, Lieut. Hamlyn Lavicount Harris, 15th regt. N.I., to Eliza Cobden, eldest daughter of the Rev. W. Reeve.
East India Register and Directory Marriage Announcements
1861 Census Record:
Hamlyn L Harris, age 55, Colonel East India Service, born Ireland, was living with his wife Eliza age 44, born India (East), at Bouron Court in Flax Bourton.
with them live daughters Harriet age 18, Mary age 12 and son William age 7, and Isabella, all born India (East).
Also living there are 3 domestic servants.
He married a second time to a Charlotte Evans on 15th May 1868, after his wife Eliza died on 1st April 1867.
1869 Probate record:
The will with a codicile of Hamlyn Lavicount Harris, late of 2 Eastfield Villas, Westbury-on-Trym, Gloucestershire, late General in Her Majesty's army, deceased, who died 1st November 1869 at 2 Eastfield Villas aforesaid, was proved at Bristol by the oath of Charlotte Harris of 2 Eastfield Villas aforesaid, wido, the relict, the sole executrix. Effects under £300.
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The 15th Carnatic Battalion was formed in 1776, becoming the 15th Madras Battalion in 1784. It became the 2nd Battalion, 4th Regiment of Madras Native Infantry in 1796 and the 15th Madras Native Infantry in 1824. 'Native' was dropped from the regimental title in 1885. In 1903 the unit became the 75th Carnatic Infantry. Further reform of the Indian Army resulted in the unit becoming the 2nd Battalion of the 3rd Madras Regiment in 1922.
https://collection.nam.ac.uk/detail.php?acc=2013-10-20-29-20 [1]
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