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Many thanks for your reply, William, concerning Charles Henry Douglas, who in 1844 married the sister of an ancestor of mine. The marriage certificate (St James, Westminster) gave his father as Charles, Marquis of Queensberry. His bride was Elizabeth Page, then aged 27 (born 1817).
From your email, Charles entering the navy in 1827: if we assume he was 16 on entry, then he was born around 1811, though of course he could have been younger.
The information you have on his naval career differs from the fragments I have so far managed to gather. Someone who had access to the Navy List emailed to say that Charles was promoted to lieutenant 9 May 1837 ... whereas your information has him obtaining his first commission exactly two years later, 9 May 1839.
In the Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle (Portsmouth), 13 Jan 1840, reported that Lieutenant Charles Henry Douglas was appointed to HMS Wellesley ... whereas your information states that 3 Jan 1840 he was appointed to the Blenheim.
Your source ranks him Commander (on half pay), July 1844, only five months before his marriage in London – and on the certificate Charles gives his rank as Captain, RN (which as I understand it was senior to a Commander – I suppose he could have been exaggerating!)
The intriguing thing about these differences – the dates are so similar. In the first instance the dates are the same, though separated by two years. In the second case, Charles’s appointment (Wellesley or Blenheim?) the given dates are only ten days apart. I would have thought it unlikely that there were two young officers with the same name whose careers were so parallel.
One or two snippets concerning the career of HMS Wellesley, a 50-gun warship launched in 1815, on which CHD served for a time: 19 June 1837 Commanded by Captain Thomas Maitland [note that your information has Thomas Maitland captain of the Blenheim in 1840], flagship of Rear-Admiral Frederick Lewis Maitland, then Commodore Sir James John Gordon Bremer, then Rear-Admiral Sir William Parker, East India Station; at that time HMS Wellesley was present at – and saw action in – the first Anglo-Chinese War. On 4 July 1840 at Chusan there was a conference on board HMS Wellesley between British and Chinese. It’s more than possible that Charles was part of the ship’s company at that time, returning to London by 1844 to marry Elizabeth Page.
Charles Henry Douglas’s father was Charles Douglas: born 6 March 1777, inherited his father’s baronetcy (of Hawick and Tibbers) in 1783, and succeeded to the marquessate of Queensberry 23 December 1810 on the death of his distant relative Charles, 4th Duke of Queensberry. He married, 13 August 1803, Lady Caroline Montague Scott (born 6 July 1774), third daughter of Henry, Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry, by whom he had eight daughters.
On his death without male heirs in 1837, the marquessate (which Charles inherited from his distant relative, the Duke of Queensberry) and baronetcy (which Charles inherited from his father) passed to his brother, and the barony (which had been bestowed on Charles in 1833 as a non-hereditary title) became extinct. From the dates of this marriage, and the likely date of Charles Henry’s birth, I think it is safe to assume that Charles Henry was illegitimate. At present I can think of no way to discover who his mother was. Interesting, however, that he used the Marquis’s name when he joined the Navy. My guess is that the Marquis used his influence to place his illegitimate son among the RN officer class. Perhaps the Marquis even openly acknowledged Charles Henry though, as a bastard, he could inherit neither title nor property.
Charles Henry was dead by 1861 (in the census Elizabeth is ‘widow of RN officer’). In fact,
the Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle (Portsmouth) 6 Jan 1855 in a column headed ‘Deaths reported since 20 Sep 1854’, records Charles Henry among a list of deceased naval personnel. Nor does the article state where Charles died. There is a FreeBMD record of the death of Charles Henry Douglas, Sep Q 1854, which possibly refers to him (though he could have died elsewhere, even overseas). I looked both in the 19th century newspapers and in the Times archive, but couldn’t find further details of his death.
There are still mysteries – but many thanks for your information, which may well be more reliable than mine!
Best wishes
Ian
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