This is the second book in the Family of the Raj series. The first book covered the story of the O’Kinealy family from Co. Cavan in southern Ireland. James O’Kinealy emigrated to India arriving on 2nd February 1862 to join the Indian Civil Service. A graduate from Galway University where he had read science and engineering, he made his name as the prosecutor of the Wahabi Conspirators in 1869/70. He became a High Court Judge in the Bengal Judiciary. His eldest son Frederick studied medicine, joining the Indian Medical Service in 1891. He later became Surgeon General of Bengal and accompanied HRH Edward Prince of Wales as Chief Medical Officer to the tour party of 1921-22 to India and Burma. His detailed diaries of the tour are published for the first time.
This second book is the biography of George Morton, the author’s father. Born in 1893 of humble origin, he trained as an accountant with Deloitte, Plender and Griffiths, before enlisting in the 11th Royal Fusiliers in 1914. He fought his war in all the major battles of the Somme before being seriously wounded at the Battle of Boom Ravine on 17th February 1917. His letters to his sister tell the story of his experiences from the trenches; he survived 19 months when the average life of a subaltern was measured in weeks.
After convalescing from his wounds, which included the loss of half of his right foot, he sailed to India in November 1919 to join Bird and Company in Calcutta, then the largest company in India employing over 100, 000 people. His career progressed steadily, becoming chief accountant, before meeting and marrying, in September 1929, the author’s mother and Frederick’s daughter, Doreen O’Kinealy.
Their life in India and the arrival of John and his two elder sisters are celebrated through a number of letters and photos including an account of three major treks into Sikkim and Tibet. George became senior partner in 1939 at the onset of war, becoming Chairman of the Bengal Chamber and Associated Chambers of Commerce, membership of the Indian Defence Council and most of the associated war production liaison groups. He served as Chairman of the Calcutta evacuees Committee, responsible for fielding, housing and feeding over 400, 000 refugees from Burma during the first nine months of 1942. He was knighted in the February of that year.
He retired in 1946 and was almost immediately recruited by the Foreign Office to serve General Clarke as a member of the Greek Economic Mission in Greece. Returning in April 1947 when the mission handed over its work to the US Porter Mission, he achieved his lifelong dream and established a farm in Ogbourne St. George. A director of several banks and firms in the city, he died of cancer on 13th April 1954, when the author was just seventeen. This book then, an account of his extraordinary life of service to India, completes the second part of a trilogy, A Family of the Raj. These two books cover almost the whole of the 99-year period of the Raj
A third book is under preparation covering the exploits of the author’s father-in-law, Lieut. Colonel R.J.F.A. Lawder, a soldier and noted climber on the North West frontier, initially with the South Waziristan Scouts and later the Kumaon Rifles. It is programmed to be completed next year.
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