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Help needed with Gandhi photograph identification

19 Jul | News,

At York Family History Fair last month June Underwood  showed us a photograph of her two second cousins with Gandhi  in the hopes that we might be able to  help with any further identification of  the other people and the location the photograph was taken.

Image of Berry sisters with Ghandi
Click image to enlarge (opens in new window)

June has sent the following details:

The lady with the bandaged leg is Annie Maud Berry dau of Rev Charles (vicar of Nenthead, Cumbria 1877-1899) and Elizabeth Berry. She was born 1878 in Cannock and died 25 Feb 1938. Buried in Burnsall, North Yorkshire, where her father was a rector at one time.

The lady with the umbrella is her sister – Marguerite Gladys Herd Berry, a journalist. Passenger lists show that she embarked in Bombay 18 Feb 1926 for London on the “ Kaiser-L-Hind” P&O. Her address at that time was 52 Camden Town, Chichester Road, London and she was aged 35. She was born in 1890 in Nenthead.

An article in a history of the parish of Nenthead mentions that a Rev James Sharp was a vicar at Nenthead 1875-1876 and 1900-1901 and that “ his first post in India was railway chaplain at Pothanore under the Madras railway company.” He held 10 chaplaincies in South India and saw service on both the Malabar coast of the Arabian Sea and the Coromandel coast of the Bay of Bengal as well as the interior. He spent 6 years at Calicut and was also at Vizagapatam (1884) and Madras. 1884-1889 at Cuddalore near Pondicherry. Later he was at Vellore, then the Malabar coast at Cannamore. 1892-1894 St Georges, Wellington. 1894-1898 in Bangalore. 1898-1900 St Thomas Mount, Madras. He then returned to this country and spent another year at Nenthead after Rev Berry retired.

It seems to me that Rev Berry and Rev Sharp probably knew each other and the Berry sisters might have been influenced by Rev Sharp to visit India.

Both sisters were unmarried.

Any help that you can give me would be very welcome.

Kind regards

June Underwood

If anyone can help shed any light on the location of this photo, the people in it or anything at all please email me  at  fibis-webmaster@fibis.org