Murray/Ryan/Green? Madras

[Nicola Holt]

Prudentiana Ryan (born Murray), born at Vizagatapam in 1841, married Corporal Thomas Ryan in 1857 (at St Thomas Mount, Madras). They had a number of children, including a daughter, Caroline E Ryan, possibly born in Singapore. Her sister, Frances Murray married at age 13 and again at 23 to Louis Brito (a merchant), in Madras (she apparently committed suicide in a ‘state of temporary insanity’ at age 32, living in Black Town Madras). A brother, William Murray, born at Palaveram in 1851, joined the British Army in Madras and left to go to England in 1875. I want to find out who their parent were, I know, I think that Prudentiana’s father is a James Murray and may be a Corporal in the East Indian Army, and that her mother is called Eliza. I have found a marriage record at St Thomas Mount, Madras (in 1839) for a James Murray and an Eliza Green, but some details are missing and no parents are listed. I wonder who Eliza Green was and also what happened to James Murray. I cannot find his army record or find an Eliza that might be the correct one. The family story is that the family in India included some teachers and also involved a tea plantation (but so far I have only found Thomas Ryan and James Murray as soldiers in the EIC). I’d love to be able to find out more about Eliza and James Murray. Oddly, on William Murray’s marriage certificate in 1875 in Lancashire his father, James Murray is described as a ‘cab proprietor’, and I thought that that he might have died in the uprising in 1857, but I wonder if this suggests otherwise (but can find no record of him in the UK). Any help or advice appreciated.

[Nicola Holt]

I have since found out more about the family in India:

Surnames: Murray, Green, Daly, Marshall, Mulcahy, Brito, Ryan, Bowyer

JAMES MURRAY (Corporal in C Company, 2nd Battalion, Madras artillery), married in 1824, in Quilon, again in Madras in 1839, became a Veteran soldier in the EIC in the 1840s, still living in 1859 as referred to in his daughter’s will, is described as a ‘cab proprietor’ in 1875 (on a marriage record), but not sure that he is alive then. I don’t know where he came from or what happened to him.

ELIZA GREEN (married James Murray in 1824, and again in 1839), is described as ‘country-born’ in a marriage record. I know nothing else about her, apart from that she had several children.

Four children survived into adulthood.

CAROLINE MURRAY (b. 1835, Madras), married EUGENE DALY in 1849, from the 3rd Battalion Madras artillery. He transferred to the Works Department in 1854, but died in Benares in 1858. Caroline then married an apothecary WILLIAM MARSHALL in Allahabad in 1859, but dies a few weeks later of cholera. She has no surviving children.

PUDENTIANA MURRAY (b. 1841 Vizagapatam), married THOMAS RYAN (from Tulla, County Clare), in 1857. Went with him to Penang, had a child called CAROLINE ELIZABETH RYAN, then to Secunderbad (had a child called THOMAS RYAN and a daughter called AGNES RYAN). The family returned to Ireland and then Lancashire in 1867.

FRANCES MURRAY (b. 1848 in Madras), married a PATRICK MULCAHY, in 1861, then, as a widow, a LOUIS BRITO in 1872 (a wine merchant). She has two children, HENRY BRITO (b. 1875) and WILLIAM BRITO (b. 1872). Sadly she commits suicide in 1882 at Madras railway station. Her son William works as a commisioner in the customs office and is on the Kings Honors List in 1930, marries a LOUISA STILDA, and has a child called CECIL BRITO. HENRY BRITO works as a writer in the Indian Navy and moves to Pondicherry and marries an ANNE MARIE BOWYER.

WILLIAM MURRAY (b. 1851), enters the army as ‘a lad’, then leaves in 1872 and goes to Lancashire where his sister Pudentiana has settled. He marries, his wife dies and he becomes a ship steward sailing the world.

I wonder if there are still related Britos in India now, and who James Murray and Eliza Green were and what happened to them!

[Nicola Holt]

I have since found, through a DNA match, another sister:

JULIA ANN MURRAY, born in Bangalore, Madras in 1829. She married a THOMAS SAMUEL WHITE and had three children: Thomas, Robert and Elizabeth.

Her daughter, ELIZABETH WHITE married a HENRY COLLARD, and they had many children, and there are many descendants, living in Bengal until the 1920s at least.

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