CHAPTER 12 The Younger Sons and the Daughter of

Francis Augustus Halliday: Lewis, Georgina, and Francis Tollemache

(1842-1887)

(i)

S.C.H.'s next brother — the second son of Francis Augustus and Catherine (White) — was Lewis St. Barbe. He was born at 7 Queen's Terrace, Southsea, on 3 September 1842; his father was then serving in the Royal Marine Artillery. He was called Lewis after his father's elder brother, and St. Barbe after the Revd. Charles White's first wife.

Lewis' first school was at Titchfield with Miss Eggar, already attended by his elder brother S.C.H. Both went on to Dr. Hoad's at Holybourne, near Alton. They spent their holidays at Southsea, or, occasionally, at Shalden in their grandfather's house — he was, of course, the Revd. Charles White. In chapter 9 it has been recorded that the boys were taken sea fishing by their father, and that Lewis, unlike S.C.H., seemed impervious to sea sickness.

It has been told, too, how Lewis' parents were summoned by telegraph from Shalden to his sick bed at Holybourne. He died at the school, aged twelve. As well as his parents, S.C.H. — two years older — was with him at the end. Lewis was buried at Shalden.

S.C.H. has said of his brother — 'more beloved by his fellow-schoolboys, and all who knew him, no child could be.' A crayon portrait of him was made and this was for many years in the possession of S.C.H.

(ii) The third child of Francis Augustus and Catherine

(White) was Georgina Elizabeth. She was born at 2 Queen's Terrace, Southsea, in 1844, on 3 January; her parents had recently moved here from No. 7. In the family she was better known as Jenny.

Francis Augustus retired from the Royal Marines when Jenny was twelve years old. The family home was then for some five years at North Warnborough until Medstead House had been bought. She quickly and enthusiastically took to riding; this was first on a donkey and then on her own pony, Pixie — and, later — Jane. When her brother S.C.H. was at home from Woolwich he tells that he and Jenny had many rides together. As Jenny was fond of all outdoor pursuits, not only did they ride together but also boated on Basingstoke canal, and went on joint sketching expeditions. S.C.H. has written that `no brother and sister could be more devotedly fond of each other'.

Although Jenny had so many outdoor interests she was a delicate child. Francis Augustus and Catherine thought that perhaps North Warnborough was too low lying and damp for her health, and so they rented a house in Southampton in 1859. There was an additional object, and this was that she could there have the music, dancing and drawing lessons considered essential for a young lady. The Southampton interval has been recorded in chapter 9. The possibility that North Warnborough might prove

too damp for Jenny's health in the winter was an added spur to the house hunting which Francis Augustus and Catherine had been pursuing, rather perfunctorily, for some time in the north east of Hampshire. The new house must be within easy reach of Shalden. Eventually they settled on Medstead House. Medstead could not have been more different from North Warnborough. Instead of being low lying and virtually on the banks of a stream and canal, Medstead was reputed to be the highest village in the county; its church was six hundred and fifty feet above sea level

Despite this move to Medstead on its healthy heights, Jenny did not become any stronger. At Medstead House, when she was nineteen years old, poor Jenny died after a short illness. S.C.H. recorded this sad event in the following words:

My dear sister Jenny died at Medstead House on 4th January 1863. She was buried at Shalden Church-yard. Her mother, to whom she was a devoted and constant companion, never entirely recovered her spirits after the loss of her beloved daughter. She was sweet-tempered and charming in everything, beautiful in features and had (if possible) no faults.

S.C.H. wrote as fondly of Jenny as he was later to write of his mother, Catherine. Fashionable Victorian sentiments apart, all the evidence is that Jenny in her short life was fully entitled to the pedestal on which S.C.H. placed her.

The third son, and fourth child, of Francis Augustus and Catherine (White) was Francis Tollemache Halliday. He was born at Wokingham on 22 July 1850 shortly before his father's retirement. His mother had gone to Wokingham to stay there with the Gregories — her elder half-sister had married into this family; the old parson of Shalden, her father, was also staying at the time with the Gregories. Amongst the child's godparents was his father's first cousin John Tollemache, shortly to become the 1st Baron of Helmingham.

When Francis Augustus retired from the Marines it has already been told that he first settled at North Warnborough. Tossy — apparently a childish corruption by him of the name Tollemache — had a succession of tutors until he was sent at the age of nine to Miss Heal's school at Reading. Two years later he attended the Royal Grammar School at Guildford; here he stayed for five years. Intended for the Royal Artillery, he went successively to two crammers. But this proved to be of no purpose and Tossy was 'spun' at the competitive entrance examination — 'spun' was Victorian slang for failure at an examination. Competitive exams for all the armed services had recently been introduced, and

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although he had failed to enter the `Shop' on the way to joining the gunners, Tossy had scored enough marks for the British infantry of the line. Accordingly he was gazetted on 13 January 1871 an ensign in the 1/24 Foot. This regiment became the South Wales Borderers in the Cardwell Reforms of 1880, and has recently amalga-mated with The Welch Regiment to form The Royal Regiment of Wales. The depot was at Brecon and here it remained until recent years. The depot of the combined regiment is now between Crickhowell and Abergavenny. But the old 24th Foot — the SWB's — still have a skeleton headquarters in Brecon and also have their regimental museum in the town.

In the hiatus between passing the competitive exam and joining his regiment, Tossy was much at Medstead House where his family were now installed. He left Medstead in March 1871 to join in Malta, sailing from Liverpool. But it was not long before he fell ill and was sent home on sick leave in August of that year. Nevertheless Tossy was promoted to lieutenant on 31 October 1871, when he still had less than a year's service and rather less than that at duty with his regiment.

In February of the next year Tossy again sailed to join the 1st Battalion of his regiment which was now at Gibraltar. After a year on the Rock he returned to England in May 1873 on hearing of his father's serious illness; he remained at home until Francis Augustus died at Littlehampton in June, soon after Tossy's arrival.

Later that year Tossy sailed to rejoin his regiment, which had meanwhile moved to Capetown.

Tossy was not long with the battalion in South Africa as he was soon appointed to the staff of the regimental depot at Brecon. Before taking up this posting Tossy staved for a time with S C H. who was then serving with

the R.H.A. at Christchurch. He and his elder brother were close friends as is shown by the frequency of S.C.H.'s visits to his younger brother; and, vice versa, by Tossy's visits to Christchurch and Scalby, as well as by the correspondence that was carried on between them when either was out of the country.

As an example of this, S.C.H. was seen off from Portsmouth by his brother when en route to Burma in 1876. On another occasion when Tossy was due to go over seas, S.C.H. bought Bogey, a hunter, from him. Later, at the end of 1879, S.C.H. travelled down from Scalby to meet Tossy when his battalion disembarked at Portsmouth on returning from active service in South Africa against the Zulus The following letters written by Tossy to his brother show something of the relationship between them. The first was written from the Brecon depot on 14 March 1876, S.C.H. having recently sailed for India and Burma.

My dear Stratford, I don't know where the devil to direct this but daresay you will get it in due course with a few ruppees to pay on it!

I've been envying you your cruise down the Mediterranean. What did you think of Malta? Did you go to the opera?

I suppose you are near Bombay now... how I hate March in England. I had forgot it was so bad. It takes it by turns to snow or rain and hail every day, with a bitter wind blowing ceaselessly.

I've got a brute of a mare, quiet as a sheep to ride or drive, but when she chooses the devil himself couldn't hold her! In harness she does twelve miles an hour easily, but has no idea of jumping and will hardly walk through a gap.

I heard from James Coulthard (of Burkham) —he said he missed his train and didn't know the time you sailed etc. He thought Daniels had sent you the gun. What shall I do with it?

I've had one day ferreting and got two rabbits but it was mortal cold work.

I want Francis (F.C.T.H.) to come down here for some fishing but the river is so swollen from the rain that the fishermen are blaspheming.

I suppose I'd better send this to Kirkee as I think you said you were going there.

Yours affectionately — F.T.H.

The next letter reproduced here was written in 12 November 1876 — it was also sent from Brecon.

Thanks for your last letter which I got about a week ago. Our winter has begun, and we had enough frost to stop the hunting and no skating. Thawing today so I hope to get out hunting on Tuesday.

I've had one of my horses laid up, a new one, but he seems to be alright now so shall work the devil, as he has taken to kicking in the stables. I got him out of a coach and pretty cheap!

You seem to be making the best of a bad place, with your races, cricket etc. I met a fellow in the 45th who had just come back from Thayetmo and he showed me some photos of the place that looked rather pretty.

I had the devil of a go last week! I and our Major went down to Newport for a Court Martial. I went in mufti and took my regimentals with me and lost them! so had to sit in the major's great-coat!

I and two other fellows boxed up the line and had a day with the Radnor and West Hereford. We had a very fair day and rattled about for several hours but didn't kill. A long day as we left here at 7a.m. and didn't get home till 10p.m. But it is a very nice country and I think I shall go up there again soon.

My horse can jump like blazes but isn't very pleasant to ride as he has a knack of bolting down hills with his head between his legs which I don't like.

I don't think much of this country for fox-hunting — nothing but hills and wire. Its worse than Gib.. twice over.

My time is up in August, I'm sorry to say and I suppose I shall have to go back to that infernal Cape again, but we ought to come again in 1878.

When do you expect to get R.H.A. again? Yours — F.T.H.

(iv)

Whilst Tossy was at their regimental depot the 24th Foot —and there were two battalions of the regiment

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engaged in the campaign against the Zulus — ran into serious trouble and suffered severe losses of officers and men. In 1879, following a dispute over the borders of the Transvaal and the lands occupied by the Zulus, British columns under the command of General Lord Chelmsford had invaded Zululand. A disastrous encounter followed at Isandlwhana when the British force was ambushed by an overwhelming number of Zulus. The 1st Battalion of the 24th Foot was virtually wiped out and their colours were lost. This severe defeat was partly balanced — at least in the annals of notable feats of arms — by the remarkable defence of Rorke's Drift that followed on the next day by a company of the 2nd Battalion of the 24th.

Amongst the VCs awarded after the disastrous fight at Isandlwhana were those won by Melville, the adjutant of the 1st battalion, and by another subaltern called Coghill; both had tried to save the colours. Then, for their successful defence of Rorke's Drift, a sapper named Chard and another young officer of the. 24th Foot, Bromhead, also received this decoration. The medals awarded to Melville and Coghill were posthumous. Several other ranks were also awarded this decoration for their gallantry in these actions.

This disaster resulted in Tossy being hurriedly called from the depot with drafts to fill the regiment's ranks. So many officers had been lost that a number from the Household Brigade were included in the reinforcement hastily sent to South Africa. Tossy sailed from Liverpool in February 1879 in the transport Clyde, bound for Durban and Natal. The voyage was eventless until, off the African coast, the ship ran on to rocks. Luckily the weather was calm; there was no loss of life, and all were soon ferried ashore in the ship's boats.

The wreck of the trooper Clyde was described in a letter sent by Tossy to S.C.H. This was written from the troopship that took the wrecked reinforcements on to Durban and was sent from Simonstown on 5 May 1879.

I've no doubt before you get this you'll have seen in the papers about our being wrecked and the ship lost. We left Cape Town on Wednesday evening and at 4.30 the next morning the vessel got on a rock. Luckily it was perfectly calm otherwise every one of us must have drowned.

As it was dark we couldn't tell the extent of the damage. When it got light we found that we were on a rock about three miles from the shore, somewhere near Cape Nagullas.

The men behaved admirably and by twelve o'clock we had every man safe on shore. Most of our baggage was saved, but all the cargo and ammunition was lost and the men's kits. I don't think we can muster twenty red coats between us, the men being in their sea kits. We managed to get all the rifles and equipment off and the horses swam ashore.

A Dutch farmer who lived close by told us there were scarcely three weeks in the year when boats were able to land there. We found some water and got plenty of frozen beef and tea but only one bag of biscuits.

We sent one of the officers in one of the ship's

boats to Simonstown where he arrived at about mid-night, and the next day we were glad to see the Tamar about four miles off.

We embarked at once and by seven o'clock were under weigh.

They still talk of sending us on at once but it seems absurd as they can't refit the men here or at Durban. Just heard of another fight and killed 20,000 Zulus, so the affair may soon be over after all, though I doubt it.

Yrs.- F.T.H.

In fact the conflict with the Zulus was by no means at an end, although the 24th Foot, whose 1st Battalion had been virtually wiped out at Isandlwhana, saw little more serious action. The draft from the depot, brought to South Africa in the ill-fated Clyde, had first to be re-equipped and then their training had to be completed; many men had been sent abroad when still in an early stage of recruit training. The campaign inevitably required long and hard marches and feet had to be hardened — this was especially necessary after several weeks cooped up in a troop transport. It was some time before it could be said that the 24th Foot were again fit to play a full part in the campaign. As for the rumour which Tossy had repeated in his letter to S.C.H., after the shipwreck, it was true that the Zulus had suffered many casualties in a recent clash — the action at Ulundi. But the campaign was not yet at its end. The slaughter of 20,000 Zulus reported by Tossy in his letter was of course a wildly exaggerated rumour!

On arrival, and whilst the drafts were bringing the 24th up to establishment, and whilst the newcomers were being intensively trained, Tossy, promoted captain, found himself detailed to join the staff of Major-General Clifford commanding the lines of communication. He remained in this appointment until in late 1879 the regiment sailed away from South Africa. In Chapter 11 it has been recounted that S.C.H. came down from Sclaby to greet Tossy.

After a visit to Scalby, Tossy exchanged into the 2nd Battalion from the 1st Battalion of his regiment. He then joined this battalion in Gibraltar where it was completing reorganisation and training after the Zululand cam-paign. From there the battalion and Tossy went to India, landing at Bombay in September 1880 from the trooper Orontes. The battalion was sent to Poona where — alas — Tossy once more fell ill. In January 1881 he was sent back to England on sick leave.

Accepting the verdict that had now become so obvious — that he was not constitutionally strong enough for soldiering — Tossy sent in his papers and retired from the army. This was in June 1881 when he had only ten years service. But he was still keen on army affairs, and for the next two years helped his brother at the Artillery Volunteer camps in Yorkshire where S.C.H. was approaching the end of his adjutancy. Then, in 1882, he visited S.C.H. and his family in Gibraltar where the elder brother was commanding a field battery. Tossy returned to England in March 1884, escorting Edith Robinson —one of Louie's many sisters and known to later generations as 'Aunt Edie' (Woodroffe). Tossy had bought a horse during his stay on the Rock and, with

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S.C.H., had many days with the Calpe Hounds. In 1885 Tossy married Catherine Graves in London.

For his health's sake they then lived at St. Jean de Luz, near the Pyrenees and close to the shores of the Bay of Biscay. Here S.C.H. paid them two short visits, stopping with them to and from Gibraltar and Guernsey.

Retirement from his regiment and life in the south of France were of no avail, and once more Tossy fell seriously ill. He died on 3 April 1887 at St. Jean de Luz; here he was buried. S.C.H. never ceased to regret that the news of Tossy's last illness arrived in Guernsey too late to allow him to be with his brother before the end. Clearly the two were very close friends from their boyhood days to the end in France.

The inscription on Tossy's memorial in the quiet graveyard reads: 'Francis Tollemache Halliday died April 3rd 1887, aged 36.' S.C.H. tells us that his brother had been 'very popular with his regiment, and his being invalided was much regretted by them all. His genial manner and generous disposition endeared him to all with whom he came into contact.'

When Tossy had joined his regiment in 1871 the Purchase System had been brought recently to an end. Francis Augustus had not therefore had to buy a commission for his son. This end of the former system also applied to later steps on the promotion ladder. Promotion was now confined to each regiment, and each had a fixed establishment — a system that lasted until the Belisha Army Reforms of 1938. The result was that whilst promotion might be slow in one regiment it could be much faster in another. To quicken promotion there was nothing to equal a disaster or a fatal epidemic! This — Isandlwhana — was the cause of Tossy becoming a captain when he had only been in the army for some eight years.

Although Tossy joined the army at this time when entry was mainly by competitive examination — with no capital sum having to be laid out for a commission —service in a British line regiment was not for the indigent nor for those with no prospects of inheriting private means. Against this background of service conditions, Tossy hunted, fished, shot and kept horses. He was clearly not dependent on his pay — and it may be recalled that officers' pay was little more than it had been for close on two centuries. And when he retired, with scarcely ten years' service behind him, Tossy's pension, if any, must have been, at least to us, miniscule. Even taking into account the value of money in Victorian times the pay of officers had hardly increased since the days of Queen Anne. Nevertheless Tossy continued to hunt after he had retired on grounds of ill health; he also married at this stage. and then lived in the south of France — and there was no hint that he ever even considered another profession!

Throughout his life Tossy was plagued by ill health. For a considerable time at Brecon, when at the depot of his regiment. S.C.H. tells us that his brother was laid low 'with an enlarged ankle joint'. This seems to have constantly attacked him and was the cause of his being sent home from Malta soon after joining in 1871. This trouble was finally the reason for Tossy being sent back to England from Poona in 1881, and of his then having to leave the service. It is probable that it was this lifelong

tendency to consumption that finally killed him in 1887. Not only was this disease rife in those days, but we are given clues by Tossy's settling in the allegedly healthy climate, for this trouble, of St. Jean de Luz.

Undoubtedly one of the closest ties between Tossy and S.C.H. was their mutual passion for the chase; there was certainly a close bond between them. Tossy was particularly friendly with the Coulthard family. They have already been referred to in this chronicle; Francis Augustus. Tossy's father, had first known and shot with them in the old Shalden days, and now they were living at Burkham near Preston Candover. It was at Burkham that Tossy and a friend of his in the 24th Foot were staying shortly before this friend was due to embark for South Africa. This other subaltern was Coghill who was to be awarded a posthumous VC when he tried to save the Queen's Colour during the debacle at Isandlwhana.

S.C.H.'s brotherly feelings, and Victorian sentiment apart, Francis (Tossy) Tollemache Halliday was from all accounts a cheerful character, and was much like his brother in temperament and outlook. It is a pity that he left no direct descendants. His widow later married again, a Mr. McMullen of Hertford. There is no further information or mention of her in the family records, and, as far as I can find, she never visited Medstead House despite her first husband and his brother S.C.H. having always been such close friends. From the time of Tossy's death and his widow's remarriage she disappears from the Halliday story.

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