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158 Honoria Marshall Lawrence d D The poems of Honoria Marshall Lawrence (1808–1854) provide an intimate look at the domestic life of an Anglo-Indian woman during the 0rst half of the nineteenth century. Although she and her husband, Henry Montgomery Lawrence, published articles in the Calcutta Review and in Indian newspapers and jointly composed a novel with extensive verse epigraphs, Honoria devoted much of her literary labor to journals, letters, and privately circulated poetry. Both Honoria Marshall and her husband came from Irish families, she being the twelfth of the 0fteen children born to the Reverend George Marshall and his wife, Elizabeth. As a young woman, Honoria worked as a governess and gradually came to be a devout evangelical Anglican. She met her cousin and future husband while visiting relatives in London, where the two evidently spent a glorious and somewhat unconventional two weeks seeing the sights and talking incessantly. But Henry was to return to India shortly, and though he was already a commissioned o2cer, his income was not su2cient to support a wife and family in the way he wished. As Honoria Lawrence’s journal makes clear, they corresponded from time to time over the next ten years until 0nally, after hearing—inaccurately— that Honoria had become engaged, Henry proposed 0rst by proxy and then by letter. With some trepidation (could love at 0rst sight survive a ten-year separation ?) Honoria embarked for Calcutta, trusting that her early 0rst impression would be con0rmed. Her experience was typical for women joining husbands or prospective husbands in India. On arriving in Calcutta, she found that Henry— who had been recently promoted to captain—had been delayed and was not on hand to meet her; when he appeared some days later, they were married with all possible speed, and he was immediately called back into service. Among the poems below is one relecting their occupations in the 0rst months of marriage, for Henry Lawrence had been seconded from the Army of Bengal to the revenue service as a surveyor. Honoria accompanied him, then, as throughout their marriage, acting as companion and coadjutor. He taught her to survey, and she conducted much of their varied correspondence. In his civil postings, Honoria assisted him in his work, always behind the scenes, and she took a signi0cant role in their charitable endeavors, particularly in establishing the 0rst Lawrence Military Asylum for children and orphans of British soldiers. Honoria Marshall Lawrence D 159 A glimpse of Honoria Lawrence’s 0rst years in India is provided by Henry Lawrence’s assistant, Saunders Abbott, who met the newlyweds in the Himalayan foothills. In the dense jungle, Abbott recorded, “Tigers and wild elephants gave unmistakable signs of their presence. And, to my utter surprise, I found Mrs. Lawrence. . . . She was seated on the bank of a nullah, her feet overhanging the den of some wild animal, a portfolio on her lap, writing overland letters; her husband, at no great distance, laying his theodolite. In such roughings this admirable wife was delighted to share; and at other times she would lighten his labour by reading books he wished to consult, or making notes and extracts for his literary work. She was one in a thousand” (quoted in Raza, 126). Honoria Lawrence soon found herself pregnant. In the sixteen years of her marriage, she had four children and survived one miscarriage. Her journal from the later years of her marriage records her trepidation at discovering she was pregnant in her mid-forties, for the doctors had warned her that it might prove dangerous, given her age and state of health; indeed, her death at age forty-six seems to have been from complications of pregnancy. Honoria and Henry Lawrence had two sons and two daughters. The poem below records their grief at the death in infancy of their 0rst daughter. Lawrence’s journals and her papers in the British Library record her constant concern for her sons, who were sent home to Britain for schooling, and for her brother, whose death is commemorated in the poem reproduced here. After volunteering for duty in the 0rst Anglo-Afghan War (where his combat duty was not in the end required), Henry Lawrence was appointed assistant to the governor general’s agent for the Punjab and Northwest Frontier; he became the civil administrator of Ferozepore (now on the border with Pakistan), accompanied by his wife, and then served at Peshawar, afterward commanding Sikh forces in the Afghan campaign of 1842. In...

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