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The Knight Family Charles Spedding Letter |
 About The Letter |
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"Our interest in
family matters came about through
discovering a
letter tucked into a book we had. Written March 26th 1880 to
Charles Spedding then in India." ... Nan Spedding, November 2006 Henrietta Mansfield (Knight) was born in 1801 and died in 1890. She married James Mansfield who died shortly before their third daughter was born in 1827. This letter was written to her eldest daughter's (Isabella Spedding's) son, Charles Spedding in 1880 when he was 22 years old. Henrietta's grandmother was Henrietta Cunyngham. She was not the daughter of the last Earl of Glencairn but she was related to him. ... Wombat of Wolverley, January 2007 Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller might be able to help out with the blacked out part of the letter. (see Spies and Mole Catchers) ... Wombat of Wolverley, April 2007 |
| Related Pages |
 The Original LetterThe original covers four pages and you can see it here. page 1 pages 2 and 3 page 4 |
 Spies
& Mole CatchersFamily heads of British spy agency, MI5. Dame
Eliza Manninhgam Buller and Sir Roger Hollis, an unlikely connection.
|
 Mansfield Spedding Biographies |
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Links to
People James H E D Mansfield and Henrietta Knight (Henrietta Mansfield) Charles Spedding and Bessie Phillips |
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| Transcription |
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Devonshire House My dear Charles I am sending you, by this mail, two illustrated Papers which I hope will arrive safely at the end of their long voyage & journey. I undertake also to write a note in answer to your note to your Aunt wherein you say (unreadable) your grandfather also. Your grandfather was a younger son of Mr. Mansfield of Midmar, Aberdeenshire. Where the Mansfields sprung from I know not but the family of that name was the only one I know to be Scotch. There are Irish and English Mansfields but none of them claim relationship. In Scotland My name is Henrietta called after my grandmother on my father’s side who was a daughter of the last Earl of Glencairn. Sir James Elphinstone (2nd Baronet) Member for Portsmouth As for myself, I am a member of an old English family of the name of Knight. There are many families of this name but ours is that of Wolverley, Worcestershire. I am the first cousin of the present head of the family, Mr. F. Winn Knight, Member for Worcestershire. Our family has produced men of learning. In former days they entered by marriage into old & good families. My father’s aunt was a Lady Seebright and her daughter married the Earl of Harewood, grandfather to the present I should think. F. Winn Knight’s mother was a daughter of Lord Headley. I have now said enough on pedigree for tho’ a matter serious…..” Most unfortunately, the rest of the letter is blacked out by being written over. |
| About Charles Spedding (contributed by Nan Spedding) |
|
 Charles Speddingphotograph taken in India |
Charles Spedding, the second son of the
Rev. Francis
Spedding and his wife Isabella Mansfield was born 16 November 1857 in
Shifnal, Shropshire. His education is unknown and he left
England
for India in 1885, the year after his father died, when he was 28 years
old. In 1891 he founded Spedding and Co., Civil Engineers and in the same year he became involved in the northern India Hunza-Nagar Expedition with the local rank of Captain. This involved a contract from the British Army to build a military road from Gilgit to Hunza and beyond for the defence of the Hindu Kush from the Hunza-Nagaris, a tribe who terrorized the locals by taking prisoners during raids and selling them as slaves. Under very difficult conditions Charles and his sappers built a mule track, protected by his personal army of Pathans. Queen Victoria subsequently awarded Charles the India Medal of 1854 with the Hunza clasp of 1891, a very rare medal. In 1896 his kinsman, the Rt. Hon. Sir Rowland George Allanson Allanson-Winn, later the 5th Lord Headley, joined Spedding and Co. as an assistant engineer when the company was constructing the Baramula-Srinagar Road through the mountains, 33 miles long and involving 167 coverts and bridges. In 1897 Charles left India due to illness and met Bessy Phillips, his future wife, in a hospital in Paris where she nursed him and put up with his swearing in Hindustani. They retired to England and bought Cary Castle in St. Mary Church, Devon, where their only child Frank Spedding was born in 1901. In 1902 Charles returned to India but in 1904 Spedding and Co. was wound down and he finally left India in 1905 with a huge company pension. When a relative casually mentioned taxes, Charles is said to have replied, "What is income tax?" Shortly afterwards, the family left for the Continent and the life of wealthy tax exiles, living in hotels on the French Riviera. He never recovered his health and used a small covered carriage and pony to get about. They eventually moved to the Channel Islands and lived at Holly Lodge, St. Saviour, Jersey and where he died 9 December 1925. He was always known in the family as "the Famous Engineer" and his exploits in India were told in the book, "Where Three Empires Meet" by E.F. Knight, his first cousin, written in 1895 |
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