Eliza Amelia Davis (Menge)

1871 census transcription details for:

Reg. District: Sherborne
Sub District: Sherborne

Enum. District: 3

	 Ecclesiastical District: 	 Parish: 	Sherborne 	City/Municipal Borough:  	

Address: Acreman Street, Sherborne

County: Dorsetshire

DAVIS, B Head M 46 1825 Middlesex

DAVIS, Eliza Wife F 26 1845 India

DAVIS, Robert Son M 11 1860 India

DAVIS, Anne Daughter F 0 1871 Dorset

TRAFORD, Harriet Visitor F 27 1844 North India

SPILER, Elizabeth Servant F 27 1844 India

YOUNG, Ellen Servant F 20 1851 Dorset

MUDGE, Caroline Servant F 20 1851 Dorset

• **

Henry Barnard writes:

Eliza Amelia Menge was born in Gorakhpur, India in 1844 to a German Missionary father and Scottish mother. She married Helen's grandfather, Brocklesby Davis, in Kangra (famous for its school of Indian miniature paintings, though I doubt that either of them would have taken any interest in this) and they lived in Varanasi - the greatest site of Hindu pilgrimage - where he was the CMS missionary and where he died. Eliza was his 3rd wife, the first two of whom had died in that same city. The first had one child who survived, the second had four children who all died before she died herself ! So Eliza was marrying a man who had had a fair degree of tragedy in his life already, to put it mildly. She went on to have four children of her own, including my mother's father, George. After the birth of her last child (in Italy where her parents had moved to in their retirement from missionary activity in India) [the youngest, Philip is actually listed as born in India in 1875 on subsequent UK Censuses] and on her voyage back to India in 1876 with her four children, including the infant, she had a complete breakdown just as the ship she was on had passed through the Suez Canal. The family were returned to Britain and the children were put in the care of their eldest sibling (the surviving child of the first wife) whilst Eliza herself was incarcerated in a private asylum in Exeter where she spent the rest of her life (another 40 years). I have read the records of her time there: they make for grim reading. But she was loved and cared for according to the times.

Eliza Menge's father was John Philipp Menge born about 1814. He married Margaret Smart (daughter of a Mr. H. Smart). They were married in Calcutta on 31 May 1841. Eliza was born in Ghorakhpur on May 18th, 1843.

John Philipp Menge had two brothers: one of them, Charles Caeser Menge was a missionary and all three men were the sons of Johann Menge (1788-1852). Charles was a missionary in India, like his brother John Philipp. The third brother stayed on in England as a teacher in the theological college in Islington where his brothers trained.

More about their father Johann(es) Menge can be found here:

http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A020189b.htm

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Menge

and

The National Library of Australia has a set of images of Steinau to capture the haunts'(sic!) of Johann Menge:

http://www.pictureaustralia.org/apps/pictureaustralia?action=PASear...

and

a rather touching picture of Johann himself here:

http://images.slsa.sa.gov.au/mpcimg/05250/B5112.htm

There is a street in Steinau, Hesse, Germany named after Johannes Menge