The Indian Service Family in New Zealand

Meena Al-Emleh

Sitting in storage in Archives New Zealand’s Wellington collection, alongside numerous seemingly identical materials, is the Treasury Civil Pensions Ledger, 1878-1886. This ledger is part of a wider series of Imperial Pension records, but there is something that makes the Civil Pensions ledger special – it’s entries primarily list Indian servicemen receiving pensions in New Zealand.[1] It is a clear record of the imperial connection between British India and New Zealand, a connection that has been obscured in our own popular remembering.

Each entry in the ledger provides a glimpse at an individual or family whose life was intricately tied to the mechanisms of the British empire through the receipt of service-related pensions. The money received from the Orphan’s Fund, Lord Clive’s Fund, Military Funds, and the like, did not just allow people to immigrate and establish new lives for themselves, it linked those endeavours financially and ideologically to British India and the greater colonial enterprise. This community of pensioners was broadly defined as the ‘service families’, as they continued to serve the empire through their familial loyalty to military or civil service and their work in strengthening colonial connections through their own immigration.[2]
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One of these service families hidden in the pages of the Civil Pensions ledger was the Martin family. With the information provided by the Martins’ entries, I used Ancestry.com.au and FindMyPast.com to trace the larger story of three generations of this family and their colonial connections.
 
The Martin Family

The ledger holds seven entries for members of the Martin family receiving pensions between 1878 and 1886. James Ranald Martin, Major in the Royal Artillery, was receiving Bengal Retired Pay at 10 shillings and 6 pence per day while living in New Zealand with his family. This pension was then transferred to Hobart on 5 September 1881, following James’ request, and that was where he died just one month later 6 October 1881. Following James’ death, his widow Elizabeth Nash Martin began receiving the Bengal Military Fund pension at £125.3.2 per year. The couple’s four children, Lesley Wallace Ranald Martin, George Harry Stewart Martin, Viva Mary Cunliffe Martin, and Rose Eveleen Emma Martin, all received pensions from the Bengal Military Orphan Fund. These payments would stop for George and Lesley when they turned 19 and for Viva and Rose upon marriage.

Figure 1: Sir James Ranald Martin, surgeon with the Indian Medical Service.
Sir James Ranald Martin. Photograph by Ernest Edwards, 1867. Wellcome Collection. Public Domain Mark. https://wellcomecollection.org/works/xzwxfn7y.

That information may just seem like a series of names and numbers, but it is all part of a much richer personal tapestry. James Ranald Martin was born 30 September 1831 in the East Indies, Calcutta, in his family home to parents James Ranald Martin Senior and Jane Maria Martin. [3] His father, James Snr, was an accomplished surgeon in the Indian Medical Service. At various points in his career, James Snr worked as the Garrison Surgeon at Fort William, Presidency Surgeon at the Native Hospital in Calcutta, and Surgeon to the Governor-General.[4]

When James Ranald Martin Jr joined the Indian service is unclear, though he quickly obtained the position of Major – perhaps due to his father’s standing. James Jr married Elizabeth Nash 17 August 1854, and the pair had four healthy children together.[5] In 1859 the couple had their first child – Rose Eveleen Emma Martin. Rose was born 14 July 1859 in Ghazeepore, Bengal. Their second child, Viva Mary Cunliffe Martin, was born a few years later, on 2 February 1861 in Allahabad, Bengal.[6] George Harry Stewart Martin arrived a year later, born 21 October 1862 in Goruckpore, Bengal.[7] The couple’s fourth child was Lesley Wallace Ranald Martin, born in Dhurmsalla, Bengal, on 20 September 1864.[8]

The Martins in New Zealand
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By 1871, James had retired, and the family was living in Tonbridge, Kent.[9] They stayed in England for a few years, but ultimately chose not to settle there. Sometime between the taking of this census information and their appearance in the Civil Pensions ledger in 1878, the Martins relocated to New Zealand. The first records we have of the Martins after immigration show that Lesley Martin attended Christ College Grammar School from 1878 to 1879, placing the Martins in Christchurch during this time.[10] Only a few years after this, in 1881, James died of emphysema.[11] Though James transferred his pension to Hobart before his death, indicating a migration, in the years after, most of the remaining Martins chose to stay in New Zealand.
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The records on most of the Martin children’s lives are not extensive. The eldest Martin, Rose Eveleen Emma, lived most of her life in Auckland. She lived a quiet life, scarcely recorded in the archives, and died 14 June 1911, age 52. Rose was buried at Purewa Cemetery, Auckland.[12] Viva Mary Cunliffe married Duncan Campbell, of Hawera, at St Paul’s Church in Auckland, in 1886.[13] In the marriage announcement in the New Zealand Herald, Viva was listed as “the youngest daughter of the late Major James Ranald Martin, Royal Bengal Artillery” her late father’s position clearly of great importance to her own identity.[14] This sentiment was echoed again in her death notice, which listed her father’s station.[15] Apart from George Harry Stewart’s marriage to Christian Louisa Jessie Wiggens in 1913, we also know little about him.[16] His gravestone, however, is extremely detailed. Like Viva, in his death George is remembered for his paternal ties to the Indian service, his inscription listing both James Ranald Martin Jr and James Ranald Martin Snr and their ranks.[17]  ​

An American Adventure

Figure 2. Lesley Martin left Auckland on the steamship Alameda in 1887, with his sights set on America.
The Steamship Alameda, 1/2-025437-F, ATL, Wellington, NZ, https://natlib.govt.nz/records/22863627.

The life of the fourth Martin child, Lesley Wallace Ranald, was a little different. Unlike his siblings, Lesley set his sights on a life outside of New Zealand. At age 23, Lesley left Auckland on the Alameda arriving at the port of San Francisco on 23 November 1887.[18] It is likely that he used some of his final pension payment to pay for this journey. Records of him are scarce until 1900, where the 35-year-old was recorded on the census as a lodger at 224, West 44th Street, Manhattan, New York.[19] Lesley listed his occupation here as “musician”, and he continued to refer to himself as a musician and artist for the rest of his knowable life.[20] Lesley moved from Manhattan to 1425 Broadway, New York, where he lived from at least 1911 to 1925, and in 1911 Lesley Martin became a naturalised citizen of the United States. [21] He never returned to New Zealand, and he never married.

As Lesley was the recipient of a pension from the Bengal Military Orphan Fund until age 19, we could see his immigration to the United States as a continuation of the role of the service family – his service family –  in strengthening global colonial connections. British India materially influenced pensioners lives, as with the final lump-sum payment that Lesley received from the Orphan Fund, which likely aided in his immigration. As such, even where the ideologies of Imperial service cannot be traced, the ties to Empire are visible in the actions of these service families.

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[1] Imperial Pension Accounts, 17399, ADRK Agency (also known as the T9 series), Archives New Zealand.

[2] Durba Ghosh, “Making and Un-Making Loyal Subjects: Pensioning Widows and Educating Orphans in Early Colonial India,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 31, no. 1 (2003): 1.

[3] British India Office Ecclesiastical Returns, 1832, https://search.findmypast.com/record?id=BL%2FBIND%2F005137000%2F00051&parentid=BL%2FBIND%2FB%2F97785.

[4] Martin, Sir James Ranald (1796 - 1874), Royal College of Surgeons of England, Plarr’s Lives of the Fellows, https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/lives/search/results?qu=%22RCS: E002671%22&rt=false|||IDENTIFIER|||Resource+Identifier.

[5] India, Select Marriages, 1792-1948, https://www.ancestry.com.au/discoveryui-content/view/227028:9901?tid=&pid=&queryId=d22b4f1f78ac95fabfb0fd31dcd87c8a&_phsrc=fSo231&_phstart=successSource.

[6] India, Select Births and Baptisms, 1786-1947, https://www.ancestry.com.au/discoveryui-content/view/1525746:9899?tid=&pid=&queryId=943a28e325e0b4e620b910071e4c893b&_phsrc=fSo235&_phstart=successSource.

[7] India, Select Births and Baptisms, 1786-1947, https://www.ancestry.com.au/discoveryui-content/view/652135:9899?tid=&pid=&queryId=184dcb8008ab99ef830fb6271d0588c3&_phsrc=fSo237&_phstart=successSource.

[8] India, Select Births and Baptisms, 1786-1947, https://search.ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=9899&h=730081&tid=&pid=&queryId=c5f6336d7326af205233f83326a68188&usePUB=true&_phsrc=fSo239&_phstart=successSource.

[9] Tonbridge, Kent, 1871 England Census, https://www.ancestry.com.au/discoveryui-content/view/13736202:7619?tid=&pid=&queryId=5fe684ce949231d92e49c4516f4e2ce3&_phsrc=fSo241&_phstart=successSource.

[10] Christ College Grammar School List, 1850-1921, New Zealand, School Registers and Lists, 1850-1967, https://search.ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?dbid=6193&h=2666&indiv=try&o_vc=Record:OtherRecord&rhSource=7602.

[11] Tasmania, Deaths 1803-1933, https://search.findmypast.com/record?id=ANZ%2FBMD%2FTAS%2F007368136%2F00394&parentid=ANZ%2FAU%2FTAS%2FBMD%2FD%2F0000033389.

[12] Australia and New Zealand, Find a Grave Index, 1800s-Current, https://www.ancestry.com.au/discoveryui-content/view/190827482:60528.

[13] New Zealand Herald, 8 November 1886.

[14] Ibid.

[15] New Zealand Herald, 25 January 1926.

[16] New Zealand, Marriage Index, 1840-1937, https://search.ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=8950&h=306657&tid=&pid=&queryId=e174d4c480bb11929ec99a63ec47f16e&usePUB=true&_phsrc=fSo297&_phstart=successSource.

[17] Australia and New Zealand, Find a Grave Index, 1800s-Current, https://www.ancestry.com.au/discoveryui-content/view/163520748:60528?tid=&pid=&queryId=234eac382dbac18dcfffdb212158a070&_phsrc=fSo301&_phstart=successSource.

[18] New York, U.S., State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943, https://search.findmypast.com/record?id=US%2FUSNATUR%2F007308734%2F00310&parentid=US%2FUSNATUR%2F1862649%2F0.

[19] New York, 1900, United States Federal Census, https://search.findmypast.com/record?id=USC%2F1900%2F004114680%2F00480&parentid=USC%2F1900%2F004114680%2F00480%2F028.

[20] Ibid.

[21] New York, 1925, United States, State Census, https://www.ancestry.com.au/discoveryui-content/view/14475909:2704?tid=&pid=&queryId=581d137ab2203af868c99743640ee884&_phsrc=fSo302&_phstart=successSource; New York, U.S., State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943, https://search.findmypast.com/record?id=US%2FUSNATUR%2F007308734%2F00310&parentid=US%2FUSNATUR%2F1862649%2F0.