- Home of Rev. John Barton of Cambridge (1836-1908) and his wife Emily Elliott (1839-1924) from 1871-1876.
- Madras is now known as Chennai.
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Rev. John Barton of Cambridge (1836-1908) (in the sola topee) in front of Church Mission House, Madras. Sir William Mackworth Young (b.1840) and Emily Elliott (1839-1924) are looking out of the windows. Taken in early 1876.
"Four days sea voyage brought us to Madras 'Roads' and we spent a day or two [in 1868] at the Church Mission House in 'Egmore' with Mr. (now Bishop) Royston and his wife - then Secretary, to C.M.S. There we met for the first time one, who four years later became a very dear friend and brother, the Rev. David Fenn, C.M.S. He had been for 15 years associated with Messrs Ragland and Meadows in itinerating work among the villages of N. Tinnavelly; and only gave up this work in 1871 when he came to reside with Father in Madras as Joint Secretary of C.M.S." *Memoirs of Emily Elliott p50
"August [1871] soon passed - and your dear Father began to prepare for his return to India, having now quite recovered from his Calcutta trouble - dysentery. The C.M.S. asked him now to take Mr. Royston's place in Madras, as Secretary to the Society - and hoped the much drier and healthier climate would suit him better than Calcutta. It was a great trial to contemplate being left alone for a year with our five little ones - but we felt it would be wise - as Father wished to see all the South India Missions now, which meant a good deal of travelling for some months; as the Presidency was new to him, and the Missionaries and their Stations also. Besides this, it was best that I should spend another year with the four small boys before I left them, and followed the Father to India with Ethel." *Memoirs of Emily Elliott p64
"By the middle of March we had settled down at the Church Missionary House, Egmore, Madras; and although Father had spent the best part of a year here already, it was a new home to me, and a very different one to Calcutta. The house stood in the middle of a large compound - with a grove of mangoe trees on one side of it; and on the other a famous old banyan tree, much frequented by cobras, and snakes of sorts. The Father spent much pains on laying out this garden - in laying on water - and making a fountain etc. It was his one daily recreation, to be out from 6-7 a.m. superintending the malis (gardeners) with the blue water cart, drawn by the little red hump-backed Indian cow; for without abundant water no Indian garden may thrive. Our porch was filled with a great variety of foliage plants - colias, and crotons which flourish well in Madras - and many beautiful creepers, of every hue, grew luxuriantly on the porch and climbed the trees, 20 and 30 feet high. I have never seen except on that porch the 'moon flower creeper' - which only opens its large snow white blossom to look at the moon, and closes it again before daylight.
The lower floor of this house was used by C. M. S. as an office, where their Secretaries and 9 Clerks worked; and our rooms were all on the floor above, with a wide and lofty verandah on two sides, in which Ethel delighted to play, and was monarch of all she surveyed, the little tyrant of all the native servants; especially of 'Chunnia', then a lad of 13, who has since visited us in England. In India our servants will only do one work, which necessitates a great staff of them, though I once calculated that the cost of 20, to whom one gives neither food nor washing, comes to the same as that of 4 in England to whom one must give both.
During the three years that followed, we had another very dear Missionary Brother associated with us closely, who lived in a bungalow in our compound which Father had built for him, and for receiving Missionary friends whom (as Secretary) he was expected to entertain. 'David Fenn' was one of the noble band of three itinerating Missionaries who, living fifteen years in tents, had started evangelistic work in North Tinnevelly, as I have before said. Mr. Fenn was a first-rate Tamil Scholar and devoted to the natives, and his bright, brotherly and youthful manner made him correspondingly popular with them. Every early morning he spent sitting in the native bazaar (or city) talking and preaching in Tamil - always obtaining an attentive audience. Then, after breakfast, he would have all our native servants in, and seated in a semicircle on the floor around him, these would hear daily the Words of Life. 'Little Ethel' always attended these Tamil Prayers; not that she could understand much, but she took a great interest in seeing that the servants behaved properly! more so than in doing equally well herself at English Prayers, which were taken by your Father directly after, and to which Nurse Gibson came. Every evening we drove out our pair of Pegu ponies to get some air on the sea-shore - for Madras is situated on an open 'Roadstead' - the bare red-brick dusty shore being very uninviting except for the breath of air to be met there at sundown." *Memoirs of Emily Elliott pp68-70
"Towards the end of November [1875] we had the great pleasure of a visit from Uncle Willy Young and Isa, then 5½ years old. They came all the way from the Punjab - 2000 miles by train, and spent two months with us. The Uncle wanted to see us, and the Madras Presidency, and South India Missions whilst we were still there; and also wished his lonely child to have the companionship of her cousins. It was a great joy to have them with us for so long, and Isa and you dear girls have been like sisters ever since. Uncle Willy went, during December, for a three weeks' tour in Travancore with Father, whose Secretarial duties took him there; but found the damp heat of the West Coast so trying that he fainted one day! and thought it just as well that his sphere of work did not lie on the Malabar coast. He was at this time Secretary to Sir Robert Egerton, Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab - whose daughter 'May' he married six years later."
Sir William Mackworth Young (b.1840), Rev. John Barton of Cambridge (1836-1908) and the head gardener in the gardens of Church Mission House, Madras, 1876.
Sir William Mackworth Young (b.1840) in the gardens of Church Mission House, Madras, 1876.
See also http://www.archive.org/details/churchinmadrasbe03penn: