Mrs. Moira Mark (335) – The Devon Family History Society’s Journal – early 1980
(This article by Mrs. Mark is being serialized as it extends to about 11 magazine pages.
It is a good instance of “if at first you don’t succeed…” Mrs. mark’s persistence and initiative in the face of so many obstacles, which would have appeared to many to be impossible, sets and excellent example for us to follow. She also discloses several sources not normally used by family historians – editor.
My grandfather William Rodda (otherwise William Stanislaus) Dunn (WRD. I) born 27 June 1857 being the Unidentified Foreign Object.
According to the records: on 4th April 1910, Bombay, India, William Stanislaus Dunn aged 52, son of John and Hanover (sic) Dunn, married Exaltacio Carmelina Da Fonseca, aged 17, daughter of Antonio Fransico da Fonseca and Maria Joaquira (de Oliveira). She was of Portuguese descent and born in Tivi, Goa, a Porutguese Colony at the time. Among other children, they had my father, William Rodda Dunn, (WRD. 2) born 1912 in Bangalore.
William Rodda Dunn (WRD. 2) married Irene Mae Saunders, born 11 September
1922, in Belgaum, in 1942, daughter of Stanley and Paulina (younger sister of Exaltacio). Both her parents died in 1925 of pneumonia and after a lengthy court battle involving WRD. 1 and her paternal grandmother both she and her older brother Leslie were brought up by WRD 1 and Exaltacio (later known as Carmelina) in Belgaum, which was at one time a military station for the soldiers of the East India Company.
WRD2 was a government civil servant, Cable and Wireless, from the age of 16, first under the British and after Independence (1947) under the Indian Government until his retirement in 1968 after 42 years’ service. He was also in the Auxiliary Service of the British Army. As a government official my father was prone to frequent transfers over great distances and his six children were born in different states in India and are now dispersed in the U. K., USA. and Australia.
I was raised in the manner of the British Raj and safely ensconced in a large house with plenty of servants and acres of land to play in; the outside world and its differences in culture, colour or creed never really bothered me till I started school and was made aware of being an Anglo-Indian. An “Anglo-Indian” is a person whose father or any of whose male ancestors is or was of European descent domiciled in India or within the Commonwealth. The term was later applied to persons of mixed descent, the language spoken is English, the culture western and the education English based.
I never knew my grandfather as he died in 1928 when my father was 14 years old and his photograph over the doorway in our house in Belgaum always seemed to donate an eerie presence which intrigued me. Trying to obtain information from my grandmother was a hopeless task as she did not know anything about him. “He is Irish, born in Cork, Ireland ” and vaguely referred to cousins in Calcutta.
It was the influx of migration to the UK and elsewhere that prompted me to apply to come to the UK. The first problem came when I applied for a British Passport at the Embassy in Bombay and was refused as I had to prove ‘British Heritage I had trouble obtaining an Indian passport in the first place. My father was British and 1 assumed I was British and it was only on the strength of my own birth in India in 1944 that I managed to obtain the latter and came to the UK in 1964.
Initially, I wrote to the Irish Public Record Office and was informed that owing to a fire in 1922 which destroyed the records, I would have to apply to the individual church concerned. I did eventually write to fifty churches with either no reply at all or, in a handful of cases, negatively.
I was then directed to Somerset House which proved fruitless and further enquiries led me to Whitehall for India Records and I was amazed at the fund of information obtainable. My grandfather (WRD.1) was drawing a pension at the time of his death from the Public Works Department in Belgaum and the records at Whitehall, disclosed that William Rodda Dunn was an Accountant, 4th grade in 1884 in Calcutta. He then went to Bombay and later Bangalore where his two eldest sons were born and prior to his retirement purchased a house in Belgaum which is just about in our possession now, as the two acres of land surrounding it is claimed by the Indian Government, and the case is being fought in Court.
The ecclesiastical records at Whitehall offered no clue either to his birth/ baptism or of his brother John Rodda Dunn. I did find the marriage of a John Tapp Dunn, son of John, 32 years, bachelor, and Hannah Sophia Rodda, spn, 17 years, daughter of Richard Burrows Rodda, gun maker, in 1853 in the Anglican Church of St James, Calcutta. A sister Elizabeth Inshaw Rodda married Robert Taylor, cabinet maker on the same day and both brothers-in-law witnessed each other’s marriage. Both John Tapp Dunn, (J T D), and Robert Taylor formed a partnership in the firm of Dunn and Taylor, cabinet makers of 64 Cossitollah, Calcutta.
Meanwhile my father, WRD, 2, made a trip to Calcutta and managed to come in contact with a first cousin Daisy LeFoucher, eldest daughter of John Rodda Dunn who married Edith Agnes Jarvis in 1884. From Daisy my father unveiled a legend in the family. “Hannah (Hanover) was an American who met JTD on board ship arid that she returned to England to die of an incurable disease. (An application at Somerset House proved negative as I did not know when she died). Daisy also mentioned that Hannah’s father Richard Burrows Rodda (RBR) had a gun factory in Calcutta and that her father JRD and WRD. were brought up in an orphanage in Calcutta and that they were lay brothers with the Irish Christian Brothers, JRD was named James and I don’t know what my grandfathers name was. The orphanage turned out to be the Moorghetta orphanage, which at the present time is a Chinese orphanage and from there my father was able to obtain the baptism certificates of both JRD and WRD. 1,
I had now established that:
- WRDI and JRD were baptised into the Catholic religion on the same day and were given Saints names viz: William Stanislaus Dunn and John Aloysuis Dunn and that John was the eldest.
- They were baptised 10 years after their birth.
- John Tapp Dunn and Hannah were married in the Anglican Church.
- John Rodda Dunn married Edith Agnes Jarvis in 1884 in the Catholic Church. John gave his parents as: John Tapp and Anna Sophia Dunn. William signed as a witness: W. R Dunn. Whilst on his own marriage certificate he signed as William Dunn, parents John and Hanover.
Reference should be made here to the confusion of christian names, ages, etc., that I found in 80% of names I have researched both in the records in India and at Whitehall and later Orbit House, Blackfriars. This was probably due to carelessness or as in my case to the number of children left orphaned or the handling of records left to people unfamiliar with English sounding names.
A methodical search of records at Somerset House/ Whitehall, Public Record Office, Chancery Lane, Guildhall and various other libraries failed to turn up any mention of John Tapp Dunn and I was unable to ascertain where he came from. Noting the high. incidence of unorthodox liasons and inter-marriages in India I feared the worst but undaunted proceeded on with my quest for J T D.
UNIDENTIFIED FOREIGN OBJECT Moira Mark (335)
(We continue from page 16 of magazine No. 15, Mrs. Mark’s story of tracing her grandfather William Rodda Dunn (WRD.1) – the “unidentified foreign object”)
The Trade directories for Calcutta/Madras/Bombay mentioned Dunn & Co., Cabinet Makers, Calcutta from as early as 1847 when JTD appeared as Assistant to Currie & Co. , on Jarnes Currie ‘s death in 1849 the firm of Dunn and Co. , was established to 1853 when Dunn & Taylor was formed and from 1859, Dunn & Co. , appeared right up to 1883 when the firm was taken over by Lawrences. JTD appeared as resident in Calcutta up to 1861. Another firm of Dunn & Co. of Dinapore, Wine and Spirit Merchants, was traced right up to the time when the first ancestor made a will in 1812 and mentioned two brothers Robert and James of Blackfriars and Limehouse, respectively, Both these parishes were researched to no avail. R.B. Rodda & Co., Calcutta, was found to have partners in Threadneedle Street, London, and a branch in Birmingham. Company Registers at City Road, London, again proved fruitless as due to the “weeding process” many records were lost forever and PRO Chancery Lane, also proved fruitless. Only one John Baker Tapp, Saddlers and Harness makers appeared in the Bombay Directories.
In the meantime, my aunt Moira (dad’s sister) visited the UK in 1969 and on my insistence wrote to the Home Office regarding her citizenship but, unfortunately, we did not post the letter as I returned to India with her and then went to Australia where I posted it on her behalf and on the basis of this letter received a reply in Australia, viz:
“Would you please refer to your letter …. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office. London state that the documents produced by you establish your brother’s legitimate from a father born in British India on the 27th June, 1857. Provided you can produce your “birth” certificate you appear to be a British citizen eligible to hold a United Kingdom passport describing you thus. (Readers please note a baptism and not a birth certificate was produced)
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office also point out that you will be eligible to register as a Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies if you take up residence again in the United Kingdom.
My father, WRD2, then applied and obtained a British Passport and started a chain of events which I term as “Bureaucratic Bungling.” In India my father now had to register as an alien and renew his visa every three months. The Immigration here was taking a battering and we were reliving “Bhawani Junction” with complications. My father being a British subject, was not entitled to remain in the UK and to enter India again he needed a visa. To immigrate to the UK, he had to be “Patrial.” To be Patrial is to have proof of the birth of his father or grandfather in the UK.
I returned to the UK in 1972 and wrote to the Home Office in Croydon about the dilemma, but they were not very enthusiastic about the situation and offered no consideration whatsoever or any concession of any kind It was therefore necessary to obtain some sort of proof that either my great-grandfather or grandfather, WRD. I, were born outside India. Regretfully all my gleanings at the various Record Offices were lost or destroyed I had to start all over again. This time a more methodical line was taken up whilst my father approached the Irish Christian Brothers in Calcutta and their Head Office in Delhi, after great persistence, conceded the following letter, adamantly refusing to let my father search any registers. “Certified that according to our records William Dunn was a member of our Society from January 1873 to July 1879 and that he was born on 26th Jure 1857 and that his nationality was English ” .
My brothers had now arrived in the UK to press our claim for Patriality again with no success. Undaunted and bearing in mind the ‘English” above I proceeded to note once again every Dunn/Rodda/Tapp name from the Probate Records at PRO, Chancery Lare/Somerset House from 1650 to 1900 whilst doing the same for Probate at Orbit House, Blackfriars. At the same time noting the names from the Ecclesiastical Records at Orbit House. Slowly but surely, I amassed my own volume of names and my filing system, which was nonexistent. amounted to boxes full of meaningless names as I was looking for the Dunn/Tapp connection. Any reference to a Dunn in England at Orbit House was followed up and vice versa for PRO Wills. Every Dunn was methodically eliminated as well as the Tapp name.
The three major Tapp families in India were followed to America, Canada, UK and Heligoland and at this point in time I would have traced them to Timbuctoo if I thought there was a connection. Except for John Baker Tapp of Bombay, who died in 1889 at Calcutta, whose family I was to follow up later none of the three names gave me a clue as to where JTD came from.
Richard Burrows Rodda left a Will in 1857. in Calcutta and John Tapp Dunn and RBR’s wife Elizabeth were executors. JTD was mentioned as “My good friend” and I am not sure whether he was a beneficiary. RBR died in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA in 1856 and a year prior to his death purchased a plot of land in Massachusetts. The Registry Deed gave his address as Kings County, Brooklyn USA. The Land Registry deed were witnessed by an R. B. and Mary Inshaw. JTD also witnessed this. Will. RBR mentioned two properties in London and later from the will of Reverend Richard Rodda in 1815, I discovered the properties were 24 and 26 Brunswick Place, Shoreditch and, try as I could, did not find out any more of the property as it has now built over into Council Flats. RBR in his will mentioned only two unmarried daughters, Clara Ann (Married Jas. Christan Liebenhalls in India, in 1874) and Lucy Emila (born in Calcutta, 1852, and whose baptism is registered at Orbit House). I presumed he had provided for the two eldest daughters.
Reverend Richard Rodda left a will in 1815 wherein he mentioned “my son Richard” in the East Indies, son John Stephen Rodda and a daughter Mary Bartlett (wife of Charles) and his nephew Nicholas Rodda in Cornwall. I have not been able to trace his son Richard although in Orbit House Registers a number of -Burrows Rodda males and Rodda females married and were buried in Calcutta. I presume these were his children.
Whilst at Orbit House a genealogist very kindly offered to help and this proved invaluable. He introduced me to the Society of Genealogists at Harrington Gardens. I was unfamiliar with genealogy at the time and had no idea I could have saved myself a lot of trouble and time. Anyway, he found that the Dunn/T app coincidence was in Devon and bearing in mind the amount of work I was already involved in did not follow this line. With his help we tracked down Reverend Richard Rodda. a Wesleyan Minister and High Preacher for John Wesley. He had written several articles and most of them are now available at the British Library. At Methodist Hall, City Road, I read his biography and most important of all obtained the following: Revd. Richard Rodda (son of Nicholas and Honour (Pierce) Rodda, a Cornish miner and afterwards a Wesleyan Minister 1769-1815) Baptised at Sancreed, Cornwall, 2 May 1748. Died London 30 October 1815 and buried at City Road Chapel graveyard. I traced the Rodda line well into the 15th century. Revd. Richard Rodda married Elizabeth Stevens in Pwllcrochran, Wales in 1768 and their daughter Mary was born there in 1769. Revd. Richard Rodda being a circuit preacher, I was unable to trace where his sons Richard and John Stephan Rodda were born. John Stephen Rodda, compositor, left a will in 1833 left unadministered in 1849 by his wife Lydia in which he mentioned “my brother Richard now deceased” and queried whether the two properties, 24 and 26 Brunswick Place now belonged to him. John S. Rodda died in Pimlico, Halkins Wharf, and Registers for Pimlico and Shoreditch again proved negative for the baptism of WRD 1. I did not follow this line further although I found reference to J. S, Rodda’s children in the Strand/Newington, and Islington.
In 1859 Robert Taylor, brother-in-law of John Tapp Dunn, left a will in Calcutta, probated at Somerset House. His wife Elizabeth Inshaw renounced this Will and John Tapp Dunn again witnessed this Will and the Will of Roberts’ brother H. W. Taylor. Robert gave his address as Camberwell, (21 Westmoreland Place). Here again the Parish Registers only revealed the baptism of his son Robert Rodda Taylor in 1857. No relevant Dunns were found and I traced the Taylor lire well into the 1700, hoping for a clue.
Elizabeth Rodda wife of Richard Burrows Rodda left a will in 1899, probated at Somerset House. She died in Camberwell and her will mentioned her daughters, Elizabeth Taylor and Lucy Emily Gall (wife of Frank). She mentioned her son-in-law as having found favour in her eyes and I wondered if there was sone kind of friction in the family as she never mentioned her two grandsons in India, which was a big blow to me at the time. She did however mention her grandchild Amy Taylor born (and registered at Orbit House) 1856 in Calcutta and two Gall granddaughters, Lucy Emily married under Wesleyan rites. Could WRD I have been baptized in the Wesleyan Church? This task proved useless so pushed on with wills. I traced the Gall line as far back as the Taylors and from Elizabeth Inshaw Taylor’s Will in 1915. 1 next tried the Birmingham Record Office as Richard Burrows Rodda had a branch firm in Birmingham. But the Firm only appeared in the Directories 1910-33 and nothing appeared in the Rate Books 1840-1933, At the same time a Joseph Inshaw, engraver, appeared in Birmingham and a subsequent search again for baptisms, etc. , revealed the marriage of Richard Rodda to Elizabeth Shepherd in 1830 Richard signed as R.B.Rodda, The Ludlow and surrounding parishes were searched again with negative results.
I was now thoroughly frustrated and getting nowhere with the Home Office who for some reason refused to give us any consideration, I thought I’d try for the burials of JTD and Hannah this time working backwards from 1880. At last in 1861 1 found the burial of Hannah Sophia Dunn, aged 24, wife of John Tapp Dunn, cabinet maker. Cause of death ‘Dysentery’, a common complaint at the time (Incurable disease.’ and she did come to England to die. But what of JTD and the children. He did not appear in the directories after 1861. My grandfather WRD l, did tell my dad that he came to India when a small boy but from where he did not know. So JTD must have been in England at some time but where? Hannah died at 21 Westmoreland Place , Camberwell and was buried in a paupers grave with 12 other bodies. Why? Noting that Camberwell registers proved useless for the baptism of WRD 1, 1 proceeded with marriage registers at St. Catherine’s House for the relevant names. In 1840 1 came across the marriage of a John Baker Tapp in Devon and remembered two things:
- The Dunn/T app coincidence in Devon.
- A John Baker Tapp was in India, whose family tree proved no connection to my Family.
The certificate revealed that both were the same person. John Baker Tapp rnarried Elizabeth Gorman in Instow and John’s father was given as Roger Tapp farmer. residence South Molton, Devon.
(To be continued)
UNIDENTIFIED FOREIGN OBJECT Moira Mark (335)
(We continue from page 18 of magazine No. 17, Mrs. Mark’s story of tracing her grandfather William Rodda Dunn (WRD 1) – the “unidentified foreign object”).
By this time I had so many addresses and not an inkling about census records till a chance remark by one of the researchers sent me practically flying to Portugal Street and after the first abortive attempts found the following in the 1861 Census for Camberwell, Westmoreland Place.
Elizabeth Rodda Head Widow 48 Ind. Born Ludlow, Shrops.
Elizabeth Inshaw Taylor dau 26 Ind. “ Ludlow, Shrops.
Amy Taylor gr. dau. 4 “ India
HANNAH SOPHIA DUNN dau Mar. 24 “ USA BRITISH SUBJECT
Lucy Emily Rodda dau 9 “ India
So the legend was true. She was American. Further reels for Camberwell did not uncover JTD or the children. I now planned to search all the reels for Devon for the four Census years and purchased the “Guide to Parish Registers” planning to attack each parish with a will, ad noting there were hundreds, decided first to write and then phoned the Devon Record Office for the marriage of a Dunn/Tapp in South Molton, 1780-1820. And promptly forgot about it as I was busy on the 1841 Census for South Molton and various surrounding parishes. I have a complete record of every family for North and South Molton for this year and not one of them even remotely suggested a connection to John Tapp Dunn. The other years also proved nothing and I ended with more names, more places and not a single JTD. And any one of the several John Dunns could have been his father. At about this time Christmas came and went, and my parents were at last allowed to immigrate to the UK, my dad now being 65 years old and qualified to come as my dependent. He was here when on the 31st January 1977, 15 years after my initial venture into my ancestry, I received the following letter from Mr. P. A. Kennedy of the DRO viz:
“You were going to phone us shortly before Christmas to hear if we had traced a marriage of a Dunn/Tapp and as we have not heard from you we are replying by letter, etc. etc. 9th January 1810 John Dunn and Mary Ann Tapp – South Molton, Devon
My thanks to Mr. Kennedy cannot be expressed in words although I could have kicked myself. I wasted no time phoning the incumbent in South Molton and nothing would have me forget this time. For two days I bit my finger nails to the bone before I heard the news that John Tapp was born in South Molton in 1819 as were his sisters, Ann 1810, Mary 1815, Harriet 1817, and Elizabeth 1821 and a brother James Michael Robert Dunn born posthumously in 1825.
A further letter to the Home Office, thinking my father’s patriality was in the bag, viz:
- John Tapp Dunn’s birth in the UK
- His wife Hannah’s birth in the USA – British Subject
- Hannah’s parents RBR and Elizabeth’s marriage in Ludlow
- Hannah’s mother and sister’s birth in the UK.
This proof alone conceded that both John and William 1 were beyond doubt children of a British citizen. But this was not to be. The Home Office threw our theories out the window. Was this because:
- John Tapp Dunn’s baptism and not birth certificate was produced.
- No conclusive proof that JTD in Devon and JTD in India were one and the same.
- No conclusive proof that JTD and Hannah were the parents of John and William Rodda Dunn1.
To set about proving this, I extracted about 40 names for John and William from St. Catherine’s
House indexes, the resulting research proved negative. A trip to Devon was made and an exhaustive search revealed that John Dunn died in 1824 and his will only mentioned his wife Mary Ann. John was the holder of the Pub “Fortescue Arms” which proved very difficult to trace although Mary Ann sold the Pub to William Gillard in 1824 and after 1830 when she appeared in the Directories for South Molton as Straw Bonnet maker, Res. East Street, I could not find any trace of her. Every Dunn/Tapp name was researched as far back as 1612 to when the earliest registers showed that the first Dunn came from North Molton. Every family by marriage was traced and a complete charting of the various lines showed nothing of JTD. I had lost him again. Now what? The only John Tapp Dunn in the whole of England and India and I had lost him. The whole family did not appear in the Census for South Molton while most of Mary Ann’s Tapp family did. And I did not find any connection John Baker Tapp although his father Roger and Mary Ann’s father Philip appeared next door to each other in the 1841 Census. Philip Tapp, Sergemaker married Mary Jones (dau of John Jones) in 1785 and whilst several of his children were baptized in South Molton, Mary Ann was not. In 1844 Philip made a Will which mentioned his wife Mary, daughter Mary Ann Dunn, and William Jones Tapp (son) was executor. William Jones Tapp was the Mayor of South Molton in 1832 and his Will in 1873 (died in Exeter) again did not mention Mary Ann. Every one of his 12 children were researched and still nothing. The Census reels for every Parish in Devon was tackled, again no clue to where could have gone with the family. Mary Ann’s grandfather Phillip married Sarah Widgery in 1757 and his father Phillip married Sarah Badcock. All three marriage lines were traced as far back as the Dunns and whilst relevant Wills mentioned Mary Ann and her mother Mary (Jones), no clue was forthcoming, as to where they had gone.
Thoroughly frustrated now and again checking for John Tapp Dunn’s Will at Somerset House, in the Irish Probate section (as I could not find any genealogist to undertake my search for JTD and his children in Ireland), I picked up a random volume for 1875. A Philip Tapp of George Nympton cam to light. And believe it or not he mentioned “daughters of my sister Mary Ann Dunn. Viz: Rebeccca Langbridge (new name to add to my findings), Harriet Chapman and Mary Ford. And also Elizabeth Dunn.
I rushed to St. Catherines’ House, picked up the marriages of the girls and discovered that the whole Dunn family had settled en masse in Pimlico, London and St. Georges Hanover Square. Five years ago I was living practically next door to where Mary Ann died in 1859, 124 Tatchbrook Street, Pimlico, and from there traced the family every where and did not know I was sitting on a veritable bomb.
To be concluded in Magazine 19.
UNIDENTIFIED FOREIGN OBJECT Moira Mark (335)
(We conclude from page 18 of magazine 18, Mrs. Mark’s story of tracing grandfather William Rodda Dunn (WRD 1) – the “unidentified foreign object”)
The Census records revealed that Mary Ann was resident with her daughter Elizabeth (Wife of John Smith Dunn, of Holdsworthy, her first cousin) at 16 Shaftesbury Crescent, Piccadilly, in 1861. John Smith Dunn died in 1874 without leaving a Will. Although his father Robert Dunn left a Will in 1858. A brother James left his gold watch to the Church of Holdsworthy in order that Bells could be purchased for the Tower. A sister Mary Elizabeth left a Will in 1873, she was a beneficiary of Eizabeth Dunn (sister of Robert). She mentioned her nieces and nephews but no mention of her nephews in India. In fact not one of JTD’s Uncles and Aunts mentioned the children in India.
John Tapp Dunn witnessed the marriages of two of his sisters Viz: Ann who married Edward Holland in the Congregationalist Church, Craven Chapel, St. James, Westminster in 1840. Edward Holland was a Missionary, first resident in Manchester and both left for Jamaica, West Indies where Ann died in 1841. Edward married again to a Scott, returned to England and then left for Australia. He was born in Cork in 1817. Here I have the first mention of Cork, Mary married Edwin Ford in 1844, St. Georges Hanover Square and both were resident at 2 Upper Belgrave Terrace in the 1851 Census. John witnessed the marriage under his full name of John Tapp Dunn and a photo-copy of this certificate was obtained together with a photo-copy of his marriage certificate in India where he signed as Jno. T. Dunn. Both copies of the certificates were sent off to a graphologist for comparison, bearing in mind that 10 years had elapsed since the sign ‘ng of the certificate and the final result was, Quote :
‘1t is of my opinion that both of these documents were signed by the same person namely : JOHN TAPP DUNN”.
It now only remains for me to go to Cork, Ireland to make a personal search for the Baptism of William Rodda Dunn I. I have undertaken the 1841 Census search for the family of Mary Ann Dunn,. for all the London Parishes and so far have had no success.
In August 1978 1 contacted my father WRD Il’s first cousin Edith Blyth, and whose address in the UK was forwarded by him when he tried once again to contact a living descendent of John Rodda Dunn in Calcutta. Only one gr. son of JRD is resident there today as most of the Dunn clan have dispersed all over the world and from him Edith Blyth’s address was sent to me. Edith, daughter of John Rodda Dunn, not knowing what I was up against casually mentioned “Oh John Tapp Dunn comes from Devon” and was most excited that I had found his baptism when her attempt had proved unsuccessful as she did not know where in Devon he was born although she did write to the DRO at Exeter.
She and all of the Dunn Clan left India having obtained British Nationality Certificates on the strength of her belief that John Tapp Dunn, her gr. father, was from Devon. Edith confirmed most of my findings and said that her father died in 1942, while resident with her, without mentioning where he was born or why he reverted to the name of Rodda as the question never arose. Although He did tell her that his father was Devonian and I had proved it. She added further that John Rodda Dunn had mentioned to her that he was in the orphanage when his father died in 1867. A devoted bearer brought all papers in a suitcase and handed it over to the Priest in charge at the time who called the boys over and in from of them destroyed all the papers saying “you will be here for a long time and wont be needing these “. These lines are open to conjecture and I don’t doubt Edith for a moment, She also mentioned that a sister of John and William, Ada Daisy married a Percy. From Orbit House only the marriage of Ada Daisy Dunn, was registered daughter of John Dunn, Cabinet Maker, married James Percy, at Dibrugha, Old Mission Church, James Percy was a Tea Planter and their two children weæ baptized at Dibrugha. Ada Daisy was only two when her mother died and what became of her before and after her marriage is yet to be researched. Edith also let me have a copy of her British Nationality Certificate together with a letter from her father to my father written in 1935 when my father wrote to his uncle to inform him of his brother’s death. 50 years later I was to read this letter as my father had returned the letter to his cousin Gerald (son of JRD) before he was torpedoed in the 2nd World War.
At Orbit House I found the burial of J. Don, 42 years, Compositor of Chowringhee, Calcutta, in January 1867. John Tapp Dunn?
At the present time my brothers are forced to leave the UK My parents are now resident in the U. S, A, and I have turned full circle, In 1974 1 married an American, William Arbuthnot Mark, born Kings County, Brooklyn USA and have now settled in the U. S. A.
The day I finished my story ‘Tap on Wood’ won the 2, 000 Guineas at Newmarke with American Jockey Steve Cauthen and ‘Young Generation’ came in Third. Needless to say I won my bet’.
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(Mrs. Mark’s father, William Rodda Dunn died on 10th February, 1980, just a day before her brothers and sisters were granted entry certificates for settlement in USA, However she concludes “1 am sure he is resting peacefully now that our immigration worries are over” – Editor)