Current update of 'Descendants of Cornthwaite Ommanney'

Updates to my document Descendants of Admiral Cornthwaite Ommanney will appear periodically on this blog post. Please click [HERE] to access the most recent [August 2026] version. There are entries for the following:

Agnes Elizabeth Ommanney [Courteney] (1845-1932)
Agnes Louise Amphlett Ommanney (1874-1877)
Agnes Ommanney [Dolphin] (1815-1907)
Aileen Madge Ommanney [Tanner] (1899-1984)
Albert Edward Ommanney (1849-1930)
Albert Larpent Ommanney (1889-1914)
Alfred Erasmus Stuart Ommanney (1897-1916)
Alfred Michael Ommanney (1820-1848)
Alice Frances Ommanney (1908-1981)
Alice Mary Ommanney (1844-1852)
Alice Maude Ommanney [Taylor] (1870-?)
Alma Frances Emily Ommanney [Davies] (1854-1946)
Ann (‘Nellie’) Helen Woods Ommanney [Rowland] (1869-?)
Ann Manaton Ommanney [Aplin/Alpin] (1806-1829)
Ann Symons Ommanney [Pipon] (1787-1866)
Anna (Annie/Anna) Elizabeth Ommanney [Woodcock] (1846-?)
Anna Geraldine Margaretta Ommanney [Wheatley-Crowe] (1883-1972)
Anne Ommanney (1867-1867)
Annie Maria Ommanney [Harrison / Sewell] (1849-1922)
Arthur Augustine Ommanney (1883-1895)
Arthur Hammond Ommanney (1871-1931)
Arthur Manaton Ommanney (1842-1865)
Arthur Ross Ommanney (1854-1925)
Arthur Wright Ommanney (1924-1927)
Augusta Clementina Ommanney (1847-1848)
Avery Mary Ommanney (1913-?)
Beryl Joan Ommanney [Elrington] (1901-1994)
Cecil John Manaton Ommanney (1913-1995)
Charles Acworth Ommanney (1874-1875)
Charles Capel Ommanney (1878-1932)
Charles Henry Ommanney (1852-1915)
Charles Lawrence Ommanney (1909-1994)
Charles Vernon Ommanney (1872-1952)
Charlotte Georgiana Ommanney [Tyler] (1842-1863)
Charlotte Helen Ommanney [Ommanney] (1848-1913)
Chester Allyn Ommanney (1880-1951)
Christina Constance Ommanney [Beachcroft] (1857-1894)
Clarissa Anne Ommanney [Smith] (1844-1894)
Constance Helen Graham Ommanney [Pearson] (1872-1938)
Cornthwaite John [Colpoys] Ommanney (1812-1888)
Cornthwaite Ommanney (1736-1801)
Cornthwaite Ommanney (1785-1833)
Cranstoun Erasmus Ommanney (1848-1849)
Cyril Henry Ommanney (1884-1958)
Dorothy Helen Felicity Ommanney (1925-?)
Dorothy Helen Ommanney [Jones] (1875-1960)
Douglas Graham (or Graeme / Greame) Ommanney (1874-1961)
Dulce Mildred Ommanney (1874-1925)
Edith Augusta Ommanney (1864-1907)
Edith Carol Ommanney (1915-2009)
Edith Mary Maud Ommanney [Hansell] (c.1864-1949)
Edith Maud Ommanney [Fendell] (1870-?)
Edmund Lennox Ommanney (1873-1941)
Edmund Manaton Carpenter Ommanney (1868-1910)
Edmund Pipon Ommanney (1841-1910)
Edmund Woods Ommanney (1811-1813)
Edmund Woods Ommanney (1817-1890)
Edward Aislabie Ommanney (1806-1884)
Edward Campbell Ommanney (1864-1864)
Edward Julius Ommanney (1851-1925)
Edward Lacon Ommanney (1810-1896)
Edward Lacon Ommanney (1834-1914)
Edward Montagu Ommanney (1843-?)
Edward Symons Ommanney (1740-1848)
Eleanor Florence Maria Ommanney (1869-?)
Elizabeth Acworth Ommanney [Prinsep / Beachcroft] (1804-1885)
Elizabeth Ann Ommanney [Chapman] (1839-1929)
Elizabeth Capel Ommanney (1865-1947)
Elizabeth Capel Ommanney [Ommanney] (1842-1923)
Elizabeth Emily Ommanney (1882-1963)
Ellen (or Helen) Octavia Ommanney (1859-1923)
Emily Grey Ommanney [Seymour] (1843-d. after 1911)
Emma Ommanney [Chambers] (1809-?)
Erasmus Austin Ommanney (1850-1938)
Erasmus Denison St Andrew Ommanney (1852-1936)
Erasmus Ommanney (1814-1904)
Ernest Manaton Ommanney (1851-1862)
Ethel Lilian Ommanney [Powell] (1880-1954)
Ethel Vernon Ommanney [Taylor] (1882-1970)
Evelyn Cranstoun Ommanney [Phethean] (1886-1964)
Evelyn Mary Ommanney [Adamson] (1871-1953)
Frances Annie Trevor Ommanney [Dyer] (1868-1948)
Frances Georgiana Ommanney [Hollist] (1802-1881)
Frances Ommanney [Langdon] (1806-1886)
Francis Beachcroft Ommanney (1886-1887)
Francis Cranstoun Ommanney (1870-1927)
Francis Downes (‘Dick’) Ommanney (1903-1980)
Francis Frederick Ommanney (1868-1949)
Francis Gillette Ommanney (circa 1920-1920)
Francis Metcalfe Ommanney (1838-1914)
Francis Molyneux Ommanney (1774-1840)
Francis Montagu Maxwell Ommanney (1826-1877)
Francis Montagu Maxwell Ommanney (1877-1917)
Francis Montagu Maxwell Ommanney D.S.C. (1910-1969)
Francis Ommanney (1809-1899)
Francis Seymour Ommanney (1851-1852)
Francis Simpson Ommanney (1853-1895)
Frederica Mary Ommanney [Simmons] (1845-1924)
Frederick Francis Ommanney (1834-1910)
Frederick Gream Ommanney (1846-1889)
Frederick Roy Ommanney (1898-1980)
Frederick Watson Ommanney (1864-1912)
Frederick Woods Ommanney (1805-1834)
G F Ommanney (1849-1851)
Geoffrey Gream Ommanney (1878-955)
George Campbell Ommanney (1850-1936)
George Druce Wynne Ommanney (1819-1902)
George Gascoyne Ommanney (1892-1962)
George Pollock Ommanney (1879-1938)
George Stewart Ommanney (1859-1918)
George Willes Ommanney (1819-1846)
George Willes Ommanney (1848-1887)
Georgiana Isabella Ommanney [Kendall] (1843-1923)
Georgiana Ouseley Ommanney [Fenn] (1837-1871)
Gladys Maude Ommanney [Knobel, Royds] (1883-1950)
Gwendoline Ethyl Graham Ommanney [Kenyon] (1884-1958)
Harold Manaton Ommanney (1885-1964)
Harriet Elizabeth Ommanney (1816-1830)
Helen Clare Ommanney [Key / Henderson] (1882-?)
Helen Violet Ommanney [Elkington] (1868-d. after 1914)
Helena Mary Ommanney [Downs] (1869-?)
Henrietta Catherine Ommanney [Richards] (1866-1892)
Henrietta Louisa Ommanney (1850-1942)
Henrietta M Ommanney (1834, died young)
Henrietta Mary Ommanney [Donald] (1866-1955)
Henrietta Mary Ommanney [Russell] (1841-1915)
Henry Allen Ommanney (1805-1829)
Henry Bertram Ommanney (1875-1957)
Henry George Stephen Ommanney (1875-1876)
Henry Manaton Ommanney (1775-1857)
Henry Manaton Ommanney (1870-1885)
Henry Manaton Ommanney (1871-missing in 1910)
Henry Mortlock Ommanney (1816-1880)
Henry Mortlock Ommanney (1840-1875)
Henry Mortlock Ommanney (1870-1935)
Henry Ommanney (1844-1844)
Henry Travers Ommanney (1849-1936)
Herbert Tudor Ommanney (1910-?2002)
Herbert Vernon Ommanney (1877-1877)
J Ommanney (b. after 1832; d.?)
Jane Georgina Ommanney [Dolphin] (1869-1931)
Jane Ommanney [McCarogher] (1804-?)
John Acworth Ommanney (1773-1855)
John Augustus Ommanney (1842-1872)
John Colpoys Ommanney (1809-1895)
John Edward Ommanney (c.1868-1906)
John Lacon Ommanney (1869-1945)
John Mansel Ommanney (1837-1856)
John Orde Ommanney (1810-1846)
Joyce Clare Ommanney [Tennent] (1906-1963)
Julia Cranstoun Ommanney [Warde] (1840-1883)
Julian Ommanney (circa 1881, died at birth)
Katharina [or Katherina] Ommanney [Lowe] (1812-1856)
Katharine Anne Ommanney (1893-?)
Katherine Agnes Ommanney [Nunnerley] (1848-1932)
Kathleen Helen Ethel Ommanney (1882-1963)
Lawrence Frederick Nelson Ommanney (1891-1963)
Lewis Montagu Ommanney (1880-1946)
Lily Capron Ommanney [Tombleson] (c.1872-1952)
Louisa (‘Loui’) Costley Ommanney [Burnett] (?-1917)
Louisa Clementina Ommanney [Heathcote] (1851-1916)
Mabel Clare Ommanney (1878-1970)
Manaton Collingwood Ommanney (1813-1857)
Manaton Francis Ommanney (1847-1861)
Margaret Frederica Graham Ommanney (1878-1960)
Margaret Georgiana Ommanney (1866-1921)
Marianne Susannah Ommanney (1841-1914)
Mary Acworth Ommanney (?-1833)
Mary Agnes Ommanney [Ommanney] (1845-1928)
Mary Ann Jane Ommanney [Bryan] (1832-1914)
Michael Adrian Ommanney (1848-1899)
Mildred Alice Ommanney [Shelford] (1877-1965)
Mildred Dunin[e] Ommanney [Bennett] (1852-1933)
Montagu B. Ommanney (c. 1835, died young)
Montagu Douglas Ommanney (1903-1959)
Montagu Frederick Ommanney (1842-1925)
Montagu Ommanney (1779-1796)
Montagu Willes Ommanney (1840-1923)
Montague Francis Beachcroft Ommanney (1877-1955)
Norah Capel Ommanney (1905-2003)
Octavia Manaton Ommanney (1856-1928)
Octavius Ommanney (1816-1901)
Olive Margaret Ommanney (1885-1954)
Olive Mary Ommanney (1905-1994)
Owen Gream Ommanney (1898-1985)
Patricia Mary Ommanney (1908-?)
Patrick Gream Nelson Ommanney (1895-1963)
Peter Richard Ommanney (1911-1995)
Pierce Cranstoun Ommanney (1918-2015)
Ralph Thomason Ommanney (1852-1872)
Robert Nelson Ommanney (1854-1938)
Rosalie Maud Acworth Ommanney [Luxmoore] (1878-1955)
Rupert John Ommanney (1915-1942)
Rupert Ommanney (1876-1914)
Sophia Caroline Ommanney [Luckman] (1856-1938)
Theodora Helen Ommanney (1909-1987)
Walter Fabian Ommanney (1861-1900)
Walter Montagu Ommanney (1885-1939)
Walter Stirling Ommanney (1808-1866)
Whitefoord Ommanney (1881-1911)
William Edward Ommanney (1865-1928)

Brick Wall

Octavius and Helen Ommanney (seated, centre) with, so far as it is possible to tell, many of their direct descendants and their spouses. On the basis of the apparent ages of those who can be identified, as well as Helen’s bouquet which suggests this must have been a significant event, it seems likely that that picture would have been taken at Octavius and Helen’s Golden Wedding Anniversary celebrations in September 1891. If so, it is very likely that it was taken at Bloxham.

Fewer than half those pictured can be reliably identified. Can you help?

1: unknown. There are few obvious candidates amongst Octavius’ and Helen’s direct descendants and spouses for a young woman of this kind of age in 1891. The most likely candidate would seem to be Constance, daughter of Emily Sophia (who may well be (15) below). Constance was 19 in 1891 and, her father having died in 1889, it seems likely she would have been here if her mother was. (22) then may well be her younger sister Margaret.

2: unknown.  My first guess would be Henry George Ommanney Kendall, son of Georgiana, but this feels pretty uncertain. Henry would have been about 25 at this time.

3: unknown, but evidently connected with (2) as they are arm-in-arm. There are no potential missing spouses for Octavius’ and Helen’s sons, and she is too old to be HGO Kendall’s eventual wife, Margaret Nunns, who was born in 1878. An enigma.

4: Sir Montagu Frederick Ommanney, husband (and cousin) of Charlotte (5). In 1891 his career was still a few years away from hitting the heights.

5: Surely Charlotte Helen Ommanney, as she is arm-in-arm with Montagu.

6: Presumably one of the two elder daughters of Montagu and Charlotte, Dorothy (born 1875) or Mildred (born 1877), as her arm is around her mother’s.

7: The Rev. George Campbell Ommanney, taking a day off from his tribulations at Sheffield.

8: By comparison with a much earlier photograph I believe this is Annie Maria Ommanney. It would make sense for her to be in black here, as her second husband, Samuel Sewell, had died in 1890.

9: Again by comparison with another photograph, this time much later, I believe this is Mildred Dunin Ommanney. Both photographs suggest that she was tall.

10: I have seen, but not verified, a suggestion that Edmund Bennett (husband of Mildred Dunin) was at some point in his life a clergyman; if so, this would seem likely to be him. I see little resemblance though with the man in a much later photograph of the couple, except that he is shorter than his wife (though on the evidence of this picture, wasn’t everyone). It also seems odd that he is placed on the right-hand side of the group, which otherwise appears to be reserved for direct descendants.

11, 12: unknown. It seems likely that one of these men would be Henry Broughton Kendall, husband of Georgiana. 12 looks not unlike Charles Henry Ommanney, who is a nephew rather than a direct descendant. Both uncertain.

13, 14: (13) is Ethel Mary Ommanney (née Harrison), wife of Lieut. Robert Nelson Ommanney, who is absent from the picture, presumably at sea. (14) is therefore surely Lawrence Frederick Nelson Ommanney who in September 1891 would have been six months old.

15: unknown, but most likely Emily Sophia, widow of Frederick (who died in June 1889, hence the mourning black). If (1) and (22) really are her daughters, that would strengthen the case for this being Emily – but we are propping up guesses with guesses.

16: A descendant believes this to be Kathleen Helen Ommanney, eldest daughter of Ethel (13). She would be 9 years old here.

17: Octavius Ommanney.

18: Helen Ommanney (née Gream).

19: unknown. On the basis of age, the likely candidates are Gwendoline, younger sister of the most likely candidate for (22), or Helen or Mildred, daughters of Mildred Dunin (see 9 above).

20, 21: On the evidence of the identified children of Octavius and Helen being arranged on the right-hand side of the picture, the two ladies at 20 and 21 are likely to be Georgiana and Octavia, eldest and youngest of the children. Given that Georgiana was born in 1843 and Octavia in 1856, though, it is surprisingly difficult to tell which is which.

22: unknown. Based on apparent age, the only likely candidate amongst the direct descendants seems to be Margaret, daughter of Frederick (deceased) and Emily Sophia (candidate for no.15 above). Margaret was 13 in 1891.

Rumours of Memorial’s Demise Greatly Exaggerated

On 30 June 1923 a visitor to St John’s, Westminster reported in Notes and Queries the following inscription on a tombstone:

Here lieth the Remains of Rear Admiral Cornthwaite Ommanney who died the 26th day of March 1801 aetat 65. Also the Remains of Martha Ommanney his widow who died on this 18th day of March 1813 aetat 65. Likewise Edmund Woods Ommanney their grandson, son of Henry Manaton and Ann died 19th May, 1813, aged 2 years...

Fourteen years later, a correspondent to the same journal (27 March 1937) recorded that:

One of the most interesting of the memorials was badly broken in moving it, involving the loss of part of the inscription to Rear-Admiral Cornthwaite Ommanney (died 1801). Fortunately this inscription had already been placed on record in ' N. and Q.' of June 30, 1923.

Reading these notes I rashly assumed that the memorial had been lost altogether - “badly broken” would seem serious enough to warrant disposal. Not so, it turns out. The stone is in fact still there, propped against a neighbouring building. And indeed the inscription continues beyond the excerpt quoted above, as follows (the material in square brackets is illegible or missing, but I add my assumed completion):

[Antho]ny Tenterden Hollist

[text missing] died May 6th, 1[837]

Hasler Hollist [text missing] 6th 1832, died May 1st 1...

[Cap]ron Hollist [born May 6] 1834. Died May [3rd 1836]

Cornthwaite’s granddaughter Frances Georgiana married Hasler Hollist (b.1799); Anthony and Capron were two of their children who did not survive infancy. It would seem likely that the Hasler Hollist referred to on the inscription is not in fact the father (for whom the date of the memorial would not make sense, and who was not in any case a blood relative of Cornthwaite and Martha), but another short-lived, but otherwise unrecorded child.

My thanks to David Bingham of The London Dead blog for spotting the inscription and taking the trouble to let me know. https://thelondondead.blogspot.com

Colorado

I have tended to pay more attention to those Ommannies who remained on the eastern side of the Atlantic (or went further east still) than those who drifted in the other direction. As anyone who has googled the name will know, however, there are certainly Ommannies in North America. This is the partial story of one of the earliest of them. 

Arthur Ross Ommanney was born on 14 May 1854 in Surrey. In 1872, at the age of 17, he arrived in the USA, seemingly on his own. What was he doing there?

I had no real leads until I identified him as the ‘young Ommanney’ (no first name given) who features in the journal published by Allayne Beaumont Legard under the name Colorado (1872).  You can find a copy online at https://archive.org/details/colorado00lega

 Legard was an Englishman who was serving in the army in Canada when he decided to embark on a three-month trip to Colorado. He arrived in New York in March 1872 intending to meet a friend, only referred to as ‘HPB’ in the journal but actualy Harry (later Sir Harry) Paul Burrard. On arrival, though, he found not Burrard but a stack of letters from him. Legard tracked Burrard down to St John, New Brunswick, where Burrard was supposedly looking after the 17-year old Arthur Ommanney (‘I all by myself, HPB positively declining coming even as far as New York, and saying that he had sent young  Ommanney, who had been entrusted to his care, on to Denver by himself… There is a beautiful mammoth hotel at St. John now, which is most reasonable in its charges. I, however, left it, and took up my quarters at a boarding house with young Ommanney, who had been entrusted by his confiding parents to the care of H.P.B. Had many and long talks with H.P.B. but failed to impress upon him that his conduct was in any way strange or different from what it should have been…’)

HPB (who was in St John to get married) somehow palmed Arthur off onto Legard permanently, and the pair then travelled on to Colorado.

The question is how Arthur had come to find himself alone in the US at that age. So far as we know, his parents were living in peaceful retirement in Putney.

They had an eventful trip to Colorado:

Left Denver at 7am on horseback…When we got in every atom of skin was blisterd off our faces, and Ommanney was nearly snow blind…

Ommanney went bull whacking to get a sack of flour, and encountered a ditch and a surly Yank. The former he had some difficulty in getting over. The latter utterly floored him, for seeing that he was new at work, with Yankee generosity stubbornly ignored the idea of helping him. He pointed out the bag of flour, and then collected his family to witness his (Ommanney’s) frantic struggles to get it to the waggon, while he indulged in sneering and vulgar remarks upon once having been an English gentleman himself, and the necessity of being able to work hard in this country. Ommanney, however, got the flour on the waggon and safe home…

Once in Colorado, Legard bought a 320-acre property in the Wet Moutain valley in Custer County, near Rosita. This he left in Ommanney’s hands when he returned to New York and embarked for Southampton in June 1872. (‘Got power of attorney correctly fixed up for Ommanney to act for me, and deposited it at the bank… Sorry to leave Ommanney to such a lonely occupation, but I think he really likes it. He is a good lad…’)

We do not know what happened to Arthur directly after that, but around 1880 he married Maria Wright. They had six children, the first born in Colorado in 1880. In 1890 there is a record of the family arriving back in the US after a transatlantic voyage from Glasgow. They were divorced in 1900 at Denver.

On 14 May 1907 married a Norwegian, Bertha Aandahl, and they had children.

By 1910 he was a chicken farmer at San Bernardino, California. In 1920 he was a miner living at Seattle. Arthur died on 1 March 1925 at Seattle.

A photograph of the younger George Campbell Ommanney

From the Church Portrait Journal, Vol.3 (1882)

The 1929 Ommanney tree

Some time ago - so long that I had forgotten until I was recently reminded of it - I saw a listing in a library suggesting that they held a large Ommanney family tree from the early 20th century. I had for a while intended to motor down there and take a look, but I never quite got round to it. No matter. I have recently received a series of photographs of this same document from an Ommanney descendant who also has a copy (my thanks to Jayne, and her brother).

It has set several hares running and I will be producing an update of my document Descendents of Admiral Cornthwaite Ommanney shortly. Somehow, once you have a tip-off in genealogy, it is much easier to track down further details. And the 1929 tree is a hatful of tip-offs.

What is most striking is just how accurate it is. Of course, in 1929 they were closer to the action than we are now. But I can sit here calling up all sorts of documentation from the 18th to the 20th centuries at the touch of a button; they had to pack a dozen valises and jump into the Bentley for a weekend jaunt down to the library at Portsmouth to achive the same thing. And yet almost every new detail on the tree is backed up by all the evidence I can muster. It is most impressive.

Genealogical Table Showing the Descendants of John Ommanney
Produced by Henry Mortlock Ommanney, 1929

John Ommanney was Cornthwaite’s great-grandfather. It seems though that every more recent Ommanney can be traced back to Cornthwaite rather than to his brothers or uncles.

Rev. Edward Aislabie Ommanney

The portrait below has recently been made available by the National Portrait Gallery.

A number of other Ommannies are in their collection but not yet digitised. These include Honoria Catherine Ommanney and three more shots of Francis Downes Ommanney. I don’t know what their timetable is but it looks like they are working their way through them. If they are doing it alphabetically, we might expect them very soon.

BA (1827) / MA (1831) Exeter College Oxford 

Deacon: 20 December 1829, London

Curate: 22 December 1829, Mortlake

Priest: 19 September 1830, Cantebury

Perpetual Curate: 14 December 1832, Mortlake

Later Prebendary of Wells Cathedral (1848) and Rural Dean of Chew Magna (1850).

On 15 July 1841 he married Anna Catherine de Hochepied Larpent (20 June 1819 – 14 December 1893) at Wandsworth.

Author of Plain Advice to Persons who have been Lately Confirmed by the Bishop (1863). His advice probably did not extend to family planning, as he had twelve children between 1842 and 1861.

Died 21 January 1884. An obituary was published in The Times on 24 January 1884

Mrs Nettleton's School: UPDATE

I have received a few helpful pointers following my previous post, most of all from Giles Colchester, a descendent of the Nettletons who knows more about the school than I expected to find out.

Courtesy of him, here are four picture of what Francis Ommanney called that "huge, red brick, hideous house and the level expanse of playing field that lay behind it":

It turns out that Mrs Nettleton's school at Stonefleet was destined to become Feltonfleet, which moved to Cobham, Surrey in 1917, to escape the airship bombs. It is still there. I ought to have known, as my brother-in-law was a pupil. It's funny how these things turn out. 

January 2019: a further update. For photographs of some of the Feltonfleet school sports teams from the 1908-1911 period, please see https://www.flickr.com/gp/sjm_1974/39eQu8

Mrs Nettleton's School, Folkestone: the class of 1911

I have an idea for something called Reverse Genealogy. Perhaps it already exists, but if so, I haven't found it.

Normally in genealogy you go looking for information on the people you are interested in. The limitation is that you can only ever hope to find things that are somehow directly connected with those names. 

In reverse genealogy, you have some information, and then you set about the fairly simple task of finding the people descended from those concerned, and then you wave it in their faces.

Here's an example. Francis Downes Ommanney wrote a detailed description of his school days at a boarding school in Folkestone in his autobiography The House in the Park. I found my way to this book rather easily, because it happened to be my (distant) relative who wrote it, and whose name pops up in the library catalogue.

But if you're descended from Ommanney's schoolmate Poulton Major you're very unlikely to find this material. Ommanney is hardly a household name, after all. Poulton Major and the account in the book cannot be linked by even the most painstaking genealogist, partly because the book is never read, but mostly because Poulton Major is a pseudonym. 

How do I know? Because they were at school when the 1911 census trundled past.

Here's the census of 2nd April 1911, with the seven year old Francis Ommanney, his brother, and the other boys:

It must have been Francis's first term, because his brother Owen is there, and Francis writes in the book 'Both my brother and his friend left at the end of my first term'.

What about those pseudonyms? Well, unfortunately the boys are generally anonymous, but the teachers appear in detail. The hierarchy of cook and matron and Headmaster is dutifully preserved in the census, and enables us to compile the following list:

CENSUS                                                                            BOOK

Harry Thomas Nettleton (Head):                                       'Old Mr Shuttleworth'
George Nettleton (son of HTN), born c.1871:                   'Edward Shuttleworth'
[His sister seems to have been absent for the 1911 census]
Caroline Wood (nurse - school matron), born c. 1875:      'Miss Watson'
Eliza King (cook), born c. 1877
Louisa Bird (housemaid), born c. 1883
Herbert Jeffery (teacher), born c.1876:                              'Mr Simpson'

There is just enough similarity between the pseudonyms and the real names (Nettleton/Shuttleworth; Wood/Watson) to reassure me I'm on the right track.

The pupils (and approximate birth year, based on ages) are:

Cecil Lillie (1898)
Guy Reeves (1902)
Ernest Ashworth (1900)
Joseph Badeley (1899)
Owen Ommanney (1899)
Basil Colchester (1900)
William Ashworth (1899)
Robert Ferrier (1900)
Harold Porter (Pater?) (1900)
Charles Porter/Pater (1901)
Ronald Selby (1900)
Llewellyn Jones (1901)
Raymond Wickham (1902)
Ronald Pitt (1902)
Francis Ommanney (1903)

It's tempting to hypothesise that Harold Porter might be the Poulton Major of the book, as he appears to have had a younger brother, and he is of an age with Owen Ommanney, and there is a similarity in the surname along the lines of those used for the adults. But perhaps that's a step too far.

FDO mentions in the book that there were about 40 pupils; it is not clear why there are only fifteen on the census sheet. (The next page of the census begins with a girls' school, but there is no indication in the book that it was a mixed school, so perhaps that was another institution down the road).

The Head's wife, Julia Browne ('old Mrs Shuttleworth'), does not appear in the census because she died in November 1910. This is recounted in FDO's book, as he met her on an earlier visit to the school.

The text of the school chapters are in the attached PDF.  If you're taken with it, the whole book can be found in online bookshops for a song.

1850s photographs of Manaton Collingwood Ommanney and family

The Lucknow Album, held in the British Library, is a photographic record of prominent residents of Lucknow, both European and Indian, directly before the siege of 1857.  The album was formerly owned by The Times' war correspondent William H. Russell, who was presented with it by Captain Trevor Wheler. The bookplate has the inscription: 'HeadQuarters Camp Dilkoosha Lucknow March 15th 1858. Presented to me by Trevor Wheler [signed] W.H.Russell.' The album was compiled before the Siege of Lucknow (May 1857) and features the work of a local photographer, Ahmad Ali Khan, from 1856 and early 1857. Many of the prints are annotated by hand, presumably by Wheler and Russell, giving the names of the sitters, and sometimes their fate in the siege.

The British Library has just changed its policy on readers taking photographs of material in the Asian and African reading room (March 2015), which enables me to include the following pictures of Manaton Collingwood Ommanney, Judicial Commissioner of Oude, with members of his family and circle of friends.

Manaton Collingwood Ommanney, with his wife Louisa Costley (seated, centre) and two daughters (standing, left and right). Salt Paper print, 97x85mm. Miss White is at back centre and Mrs Kirk front right. The photograph is annotated 'How many? Oh, mercy!'








Manaton Collingwood Ommanney was born on 19 March 1813. His father was Sir Francis Ommanney, Navy Agent and MP for Barnstaple, and his siblings included Admiral Sir Erasmus Ommanney, Major Octavius Ommanney, and Captain Walter Stirling Ommanney, all of whom feature elsewhere in this blog. He was to spend 26 years in the Bengal Civil Service between 1831 and his death at the siege of Lucknow in 1857. He had by that time risen to become Civil Service Judicial Commissioner at Oude.

He married Louisa Engleheat Costley on 1 November 1834 at Jubulpoor, and they had six children, including Georgiana Ouseley Ommanney (born 1837); Agnes Elizabeth Ommanney (born 1845); Manaton Francis Ommanney (1847-1861), and Ralph Thomason Ommanney (1852-1872).

Louisa Ommanney, nee Costley. By the time of the siege she was reportedly an invalid. 
















The following details of Manaton's dramatic death are taken from the Perlustration of Great Yarmouth by Charles John Palmer, (1872); A Widow’s Reminiscences of the Siege of Lucknow (London, James Nisbet & Co, 1858); A Personal Narrative of the Siege of Lucknow by L.E. Ruutz Rees (1858); and The Siege of Lucknow – a Diary by the Hon. Lady Inglis (James R Osgood, London, 1892).

On 4 July 1857 Ommanney was sitting in his room, soon after the commencement of the siege, with Sergeant-Major Watson. The double-storied house was only lightly defended, surrounded by a deep ditch and a hedge of cactus. Additionally, it had two guns to sweep the road between Gubbin’s Post and the Sikh Square, in case Gubbin’s was overrun. It was considered safe enough – Brigadier Inglis made his headquarters there after the death of Sir Henry Lawrence, and later Henry Havelock and his staff made it their residence.

As he sat there, Ommanney was struck on the head by a cannon ball, which 'scattered a portion of his brains'. Although he did not die immediately, there was no expectation that he would recover. The sergeant-major died almost at once, although it did not appear that the ball had touched him. Ommanney died four days later. 'Ommanney's House' (or the remnants of it) is still so named.

The two daughters who were present at the siege, and who feature in these photographs, were engaged to the Cunliffe brothers; the first, Mr. Cunliffe of the artillery, died in the siege; the second, a civilian, died at Byram Ghat.

The Misses Ommanney, with an unidentified companion. One of these could presumably be Georgiana, who would have been in her late teens. Could their companion be one of the Mr Cunliffes?








At first, the rumour spread abroad that all the whole family had been killed:

Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, Saturday 21 November 1857
Mr Ommanney, the civil superintendant of Oude, with his wife and two daughters, have perished at Lucknow. Mr Ommanney is brother to the Rev. Prebendary Ommanney, of Chew Magna, near Bristol.

This was incorrect. Louisa Ommanney and the two girls arrived at Southampton in the Peninsular and Oriental Company’s steamer Pera on 22 April 1858, as recorded in the Bath Chronicle of that date.

Lady Inglis in her diary of the siege wrote that:

Steady rain all day. Several desertions took place from the garrison; one could hardly wonder at it. Mr. Cunliffe, artillery, died of fever; he was engaged to one of the Miss Ommanneys; and his brother, a civilian, who had been killed in the district, had been engaged to the other. Poor girls! their father had died during the siege, and their mother was a confirmed invalid and required all their attention. I did not know them, but heard that their conduct was most praiseworthy, and that they bore their troubles nobly. (Entry for 22 September 1857)

The 'poor girls' (centre and right), with Miss White (in black).














The inscription on Ommanney's memorial, which still stands at Lucknow, reads:

Sacred to the memory of
Manaton Collingwood Ommanney Esq
For 26 Years in the Bengal Civil Service
The sixth son of Sir F. M Ommanney Bt
and Georgina Frances his wife
He was born March 19th 1816 and died July 8th 1857 
From the effects of a round of shot during the memorable defence of Lucknow in the province
of Oudh of which he was the Judicial Commissioner
Leaving a widow and six children to sorrow
Not without hope for one thus suddenly cut off in his career of Christian integrity, benevolence and usefulness beloved by themselves
and esteemed by all who knew him
The righteous is taken away from the evil to come 
Isaiah 57th Ch (16) Verse

Miss Ommanney (most likely Georgiana)



The Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette of 24 May 1924 recounts a talk by a survivor of the siege of Lucknow, a Mrs Huxham, in which she refers to Ommanney as ‘one of the best and most able leaders of the garrison.’ She also referred to a letter in the possession of Brigadier-General Albert Edward Ommanney, written by Manaton during the siege. It was addressed to Sir Albert de H. Larpent at Calcutta, and had been enclosed in a quill and smuggled out of Lucknow by a native Indian. It included the following passage: “No rain here, and cholera prevalent. Plague, pestilence, famine and sword impend, but all females and males are in good health and spirits.”

Louise and three of the children (Agnes, Manaton and Ralph) made it out, and can be found in the 1861 census back in England.  Manaton (younger) died a few weeks after the census; Ralph died at 19 years old in 1872, an Ensign in the 107th Regiment.


Louisa (of 35 Kildare Terrace, London) died on 18 January 1892.

The longevity of Admiral Sir Erasmus Ommanney

Admiral Sir Erasmus Ommanney
'Father of the British Navy'

Born in London on 22 May 1814, Erasmus Ommanney arguably became the most significant naval figure in the family’s history.

The twelve year-old Erasmus entered the Navy in August 1826 under his uncle, John Acworth Ommanney, then Captain of HMS Albion. On 20 October 1827, when only 13, he took part in the Battle of Navarino. Over the succeeding decades the captured flag of the Turkish Commander-in-Chief was handed down by seniority among the surviving officers until 1890, when Ommanney, the sole survivor of the action, presented it to King George I of Greece.

Longevity alone would perhaps not have been sufficient to earn him the title of 'Father of the British Navy' seventy years later; but an early start at an iconic engagement (and Navarino was the last major naval engagement fought entirely under sail) was certainly enough to secure it. To the Edwardians who scanned their morning papers for news of Admiral Ommanney's health in his declining years, Navarino must have seemed impossibly remote.

In response to a question on the identity of Britain’s oldest surviving military officer, the following appeared in Notes and Queries on 2 July 1904:

OUR OLDEST MILITARY OFFICER
According to Hart's 'Army List' for 1904, there was still living on 31 December 1903, General Charles Algernon Lewis, of the North Staffordshire Regiment (64th Foot), whose first commission was dated 13 October, 1825, as well as General Henry Carr Tats, of the Royal Marine Artillery, whose dates from 30 June, 1829; but it is possible that even these are not the oldest surviving military officers. In regard to the senior service, the Royal Navy list for April, 1901, gives Admiral Sir Erasmus Ommanney as having entered the navy in August, 1826; Admiral Sir Edward Fanshawe in September, 1828; and Admiral Sir Arthur Farquhar on 13 March, 1829; and of these Admiral Ommanney is specially to be noted as having taken part in the battle of Navarino in 1827.

Erasmus Ommanney’s visiting card, 1900.
The reverse reads: Navarin – 1827. Arctic service – 1836. Discovered the 1850-57 first traces ever found of Franklin’s missing ships 23rd August 1850. Russian War commanded the Naval force in the White Sea 1854 1855. Served in the Baltic. Commanded the force in the Gulf of Riga – repulsed a flotilla of Russian Gun Boats under cover of the Batteries.



Ommanney died on 21 December 1904 at his son’s home, St Michael's vicarage, St Michael's Road, Southsea, Hampshire, and was buried in Old Mortlake Cemetery. He was 90. It had been a very public decline, with frequent press bulletins as to his health as far back as May 1903. The Aberdeen Journal of 22 December said that he “had been ill for some time... He had been lying almost unconscious at his son’s house for a considerable time, and a change for the worse set in on Sunday”.

Pre-prepared obituaries flew off the editors' shelves, and competed to find the most effective way of expressing the Admiral's links with the distant past:

 

[text of article left]

Admiral Sir Erasmus Ommanney was born in the year before the battle of Waterloo, on May 22, 1814, and entered the Navy in August, 1826, eleven years before Queen Victoria came to the throne. He was the son of Sir Francis Molyneux Ommanney, M.P. for Barnstaple and Navy Agent. His first ship was the Albion, a famous seventy-four of the Napoleonic War, built while Nelson was alive, and in her, as a midshipman, he had his first experience of fighting – at the battle of Navarino. At Navarino the Albion was in the hottest of the fighting, and was run alongside of by a Turkish two-decker, whose men swarmed on board en masse in a desperate attempt to capture the vessel. [...text missing in original..]. task he fought a smart action with a flotilla of Russian gunboats, which he defeated and drove out from under the shelter of some heavy shore batteries. After the war, Sir Erasmus Ommanney served successively in the West Indies, in the Channel, and the Mediterranean, as captain of the Brunswick, of eighty guns. Our portrait is by Russell and Sons, Southsea.

West Gippsland Gazette, June 30th 1903
A NAVAL VETERAN SIR ERASMUS OMMANNEY.
Sir Erasumus Ommanney, who was lying ill on May 18th, is one of the oldest sailors who have sailed under the British flag. He is an astonishing link with the historic past. He was in the King's Navy when Lord Liverpool was Prime Minister of England, and was fighting for his country before the grass had grown over Canning's grave. George the Fourth was on the Throne when he received his baptism of fire at Navarino, and it is amazing to remember that that battle was fought all but eighty years ago. Sir Erasmus Ommanney was there, under the command of Admiral Codrington, and he is perhaps, the only man now living who would give us a first hand description of what the Duke of Wellington called "that untoward event." Admiral Ommanney, in those far-off days, assisted at the landing of the British Army in Lisbon, helped to destroy the Turkish Fleet at Navarino, was on the yacht which conveyed Queen Adelaide to Holland and back, and explored the Arctics in search of the missing whalers under Sir James Ross. Few men can look back so far and say, "I was alive then"; but how many can look back, one wonders, and say, "I was present at that event?" Admiral Ommanney, seventy years ago and more, was helping to shape the history of the world. He is perhaps the only officer who has fought for England side by side with Russia and against her. He had around him at Navarino French and Russian troops, concentrating their strength upon the destruction of the Turkish and Egyptian fleet, and in later years, in the Crimea, he found himself commanding vessels whose guns were turned against his old comrades. He was closely associated with the fortunes of Greece in the early years of last century, and was at Athens during the revolution of 1844 and the establishment of the Constitution which followed. It would be almost as easy to say what Admiral Ommanney has not done as to say what he has done. It was he who found the first traces ever discovered of Sir John Franklin's lost ships. He spent the winter of 1850 as near the North Pole as he could get, and was sixty days in travelling 500 miles over the ice. His exploration of the coast added something to our knowledge of the Arctics. He has been at the other side of the world, too. Before Queen Victoria came to the throne Sir Erasmus Omrnanney was searching the Antarctic world for lost whaling crews. He was under the son of Sir John Ross, and has vivid memories of the winter he spent in Baffin's Bay and along the coasts of Greenland and Labrador. He has medals for these services to peace as well as distinctions for heroism in war, and it is not surprising that such a man has more letters after his name than there are in the alphabet. If he were well enough to follow it, Admiral Ommanney would be interested in the dawn of a new era in Ireland. There is hardly a place between the Poles which he has not known in the course of his wonderful life, and he has been in Ireland too. More than half a century ago he was there during a famine, helping to alleviate the sufferings of the people...



For all that, his funeral was a remarkably restrained affair:

Portmouth Evening News, 28 December 1904
A fog hung over Mortlake on Tuesday afternoon when the remains of the late Admiral Ommanney were laid to rest. The coffin was brought to Wimbledon station, and thence by road to Mortlake Cemetery. In the same train travelled the Rev EA Ommanney (the eldest son), Mr E W Hansell (son- in-law), Commander E D Ommanney (a nephew), and a bearer party from the Royal Naval Barracks, Ports. At the graveside, awaiting the arrival of the coffin were Colonel Albert Ommanney, Captain Ommanney, Mr Charles Ommanney CMG, and Sir Montagu Ommanney (nephews), Colonel Monagu Ommanney and Colonel Edward Ommannel (cousins), Mr Edmund F T Bennett (a nephew by marriage) and Admiral Sir Digby Morant... The coffin, still covered with a Union flag, and having on it the late Admiral’s cocked hat, sword, and scimitar – a Navarino trophy, which he highly prized – was borne from the hearse to the grave by six bluejackets. The seventh man of the party walked behind the coffin, and carried a cushion on which rested the late Admiral’s orders and medals.