Posts Tagged ‘East India Company’
Benjamin Coles joins the East India Company
Today I finally found a reference to Benjamin Coles in the records of the India Office held at the British Library. Benjamin was appointed as a labourer in the Tea Warehouse on March 10, 1802. His appointment is recorded as entry no. 292 in List of Laborers Appointed, 1801-1832 (IOR:L/AG/30/5). He was nominated by T. T. Metcalfe, Esq.; his previous occupation was recorded as servant; and he was 33 years of age at the time. This would reckon his year of birth as about 1769.
September 5th, 2009
LONDON — My second full day in London was spent in the Asian and African Studies Reading Room of the British Library. The object of my search was my 5 × great grandfather Benjamin Coles. Various sources have listed his occupation as a labourer, warehouseman, porter, and clerk at the East India House. The British Library is the repository for the archives of the East India Company and I was hoping that there might be something in its miles of archives that would shed some light on Benjamin’s life and career.
Read the rest of this entry »
Elizabeth Coles, d.1849
Elizabeth Coles, widow of Benjamin Coles, clerk with the East India Company, died of old age at 2 Hawthorndean Place, Limehouse on November 7, 1849, aged 77 years.
Read the rest of this entry »
People: Elizabeth Adam (1772-1849), Mary Amelia Coe (c.1787–c.1877)
Places: Limehouse, Middlesex, Poplar
Searching for Benjamin Coles’ family
I have recently been corresponding with a newly discovered cousin. Our common ancestors are Benjamin Coles and his wife Elizabeth. Robyn is descended from Henry Boyde Coles, Benjamin and Elizabeth’s firstborn, while I’m descended from Henry’s younger brother Joseph.
Read the rest of this entry »
People: Benjamin Coles (c.1767-1815), Elizabeth Adam (1772-1849), Henry Boyde Coles (c.1797-1861), Joseph Coles (c.1798-1869)
Places: London, Mells, Middlesex, Somerset, St Martin in the Fields
The apprenticing of Joseph Coles
A couple of weeks ago I googled my 4 × great grandfather Joseph Coles and was pleasantly surprised to see an entry in the results that looked suspiciously like a reference to an article in a scholarly journal. Following the link proved my suspicions correct but unfortunately the full-text of the article (Keane, 1975) was not available to me online without paying a hefty fee. Luckily my local university library held the journal in print format so I was not inconvenienced too much.
Read the rest of this entry »
People: Benjamin Coles (c.1767-1815), Joseph Coles (c.1798-1869)
Places: London, Mells, Somerset