Mentions
From
Emily's Memoirs, p6-7:
"
It must have been in 1830 that my Father met my sweet Mother (Emily Dougan), of whom I love to say that 'I owe her all I am and have' — (for she always prayed for her daughters' husbands and her sons' wives from the time they were 17).
They met in a romantic way – for being caught in a summer shower in Torquay he suddenly bethought him he must be near the home of the sisters of a young officer he had known in India, and promised to call on. He said to himself 'there will I take shelter, and pay off my visit at the same time'. No sooner said than done - and he found himself in the middle of what must have been a very charming family of sisters, of rare accomplishments and good looks, and seems to have been in no hurry to leave Torquay. Their name was Dougan, a good Irish family, descended from the O'Neils. But we know but little of our dear Mother's family – for both her parents died before she became our father's wife; and as his jealously absorbing love induced him to separate her one by one from all her family, it came to pass that we never saw but one of them - whom you elder boys may possibly remember in Strathmore Gardens in 1876, your Great Uncle John Dougan: a handsome gentle old man, with marked features very like our little Guy Douglas. He had been in the Army. What I do know of my Grandfather Dougan is that he owned large sugar plantations in Jamaica and did such good service, first on his own property and then for the Government in inducing plantation owners to free their slaves, that he was received with honors as he sailed up the Thames - the shipping being decked with flags etc. But he lived only a short {p7} time to enjoy his honors, and his pension dying with him, his family were left indifferently off."