Elizabeth Dillon: A Sorrowful Life
There was a sadness about Elizabeth Dillon. My grandmother Lilian, her daughter-in-law, observed that she never saw her smile.[1] The cause of her unhappiness lay in her childhood circumstances and a life often marked by sorrow.
Elizabeth was born in Ireland and went to India with her parents when she was a child.[2] In 1857, a census of residents of the Agra Fort in India found young Elizabeth there by herself in the Agra convent.[3] How she came to be there is not recorded but she later told Lilian that she went there when both her parents died during the Indian Mutiny. Her brother was with her but had gone missing. They had presumably all died in the conflict, and Elizabeth fled to the fort with other survivors.[4]
This is how Lilian wrote about it to her niece:‘
[Y]our grandmother must have experienced terror, food rationing, and maybe saw wounded and dying casualties. She must then have been 10, already orphaned and homeless, struggling for a place in a strict convent of sober nuns and black-garbed priests, forever being threatened with Hell. What a childhood!’[5]
The uprising was over in 1858 but, without parents or a home, Elizabeth had to remain in the convent. She was eighteen when she married for the first time. Her husband was Dominic Rossetto, an indigo planter, and marriage to him meant that she had new skills to learn to help manage his estate.[6]
Within a year, Elizabeth gave birth to their first child, a boy whom they named Frederick.[7] A second pregnancy followed and in 1867 Elizabeth had a daughter, but the child died shortly after birth.[8] The sadness of her daughter’s death was compounded a year later when Dominic died suddenly and Elizabeth was left a widow with a young child to support, with no parents or family to help, and in a country far from her original home.[9]
Although Dominic had extensive assets these were all but consumed by business debts. Elizabeth received a mere Rs100 from the proceeds.[10] The effect of Dominic’s debts was exacerbated by the fact that he died intestate and Elizabeth’s needs were not protected by a will.[11]
With no family to support her and little to survive on from her husband’s estate Elizabeth was in a vulnerable position and possibly open to making poor choices. This was the case when she married Frederick Cocker, a young army officer, in 1869. She was to discover that he was an alcoholic and when he was abusive to her son, she left the marriage.[12] According to Lilian, he died a dipsomaniac.[13]
Elizabeth took young Frederick to live in Calcutta, where she met William Robinson, a fireman on the Bengal railways. William had also just lost a partner and was raising two sons of his own. Elizabeth and William married in 1876.[14]
The blended Robinson family lived together in Calcutta where three more children were born, including Wentworth, who was named after Elizabeth’s brother. Wentworth was later to become Lilian’s husband and my grandfather.[15]
The decades that followed in Calcutta must have been a rare period of happiness in Elizabeth’s life. William was promoted at work and the family had the good fortune of winning a lottery which meant that there was financial security for the first time.[16] They would have celebrated the turn of the century with optimism.
The happiness was broken in 1902 when William was diagnosed with Bright’s Disease. He died the following year.[17] Elizabeth, now three times widowed, went through an unsettled and difficult period after his death. As well as dealing with the death of her husband she was faced with disharmony in the family when one of William’s sons contested the will.[18]
To escape the unhappiness, Elizabeth moved to Mussoorie, a hill station at the foot of the Himalayan Mountains, with one of her daughters. She opened a boarding house there for ‘bachelors and grass widows’, as Lilian described it, and ran that for several years.[19] Ailing health eventually forced her to return to Calcutta where she died in 1921.[20] She and William were buried together and the inscription on their gravestone includes Mary Angela, the infant daughter whom she lost many years ago.[21]
There is an enduring sadness in the few photographs of her that have survived.[22] There is not a trace of a smile in any of them. The closest she comes to a look of happiness is in a photograph taken with staff at St Vincent’s Home. She remained devout throughout her life and a return to surroundings that reminded her of her faith may have brought her some final peace and contentment.
Notes
[1] Lilian Robinson to Betty Lazard [letter], 26 August 1974, Personal papers of Hilary Lazard, Paris, France.
[2] Lilian Robinson to Betty Lazard [letter], 26 August 1974.
[3] JP Walker, Agra Fort Directory, Mofussilite Press, London, 1857; Margaret Makepeace, ‘Catherine Shillcock in Agra Fort’, Untold Lives Blog, blog, https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2023/08/catherine-shillcock-in-agra-fort-.html, accessed 12 September 2024.
[4] Saul David, The Indian Mutiny 1857, Viking, London, 2002, p 85; RM Coopland, A Lady’s Escape From Gwalior, Smith, Elder & Co, London, 1859, p 158.
[5] Lilian Robinson to Betty Lazard [letter], 26 August 1974
[6] Announcement of marriage of D. Rossetto and Elizabeth Dillon, 12 August 1865, Allens Indian Mail, 30 September 1865.
[7] Baptism registration for Frederick Alfred Rossetto, born 27 May 1866, Cawnpore, India, British India Office Births and Baptisms, Reference N-1-116, Folio 347, Findmypast.co.uk, accessed 15 September 2024.
[8] Baptism registration for Mary Angela Rossetto, born 13 August 1867, Agra, India, British India Office Births and Baptisms, Reference N-1-122, Folio 287, Findmypast.co.uk, accessed 15 September 2024; Announcement of death (no name given), Jullalabad Factory, 13 August 1867, Allens Indian Mail, 20 September 1867.
[9] Death notice for D Rosseto (sic), Chindwarra, 24 October 1868, Allens Indian Mail, 2 December 1868.
[10] Administration account of Estate of Domenic Rossetto, 1870, British India Office Wills & Probate, Bengal, Reference L-AG-34-27-177, Folio 56, Findmypast.co.uk, accessed 14 September 2024; Inventory of Estate of Dominic Rossetto, 1870, British India Office Wills & Probate, Bengal, Reference L-AG-34-27-177, Folio 51, Findmypast.co.uk, accessed 14 September 2024.
[11] Grant of Administration of Estate of Domenic Rossetto, 1869, British India Office Wills & Probate, Bengal, British India Office Wills & Probate, Bengal, Reference L-AG-34-29-114, Folios 216 & 217, Findmypast.co.uk, accessed 14 September 2024.
[12] Marriage of Frederick Cocker and Elizabeth Dillon, Dinapore, India, 29 July 1869, British India Office Marriages, Reference N-1-129, Folio 238, Findmypast.co.uk, accessed 15 September 2024.
[13] Lilian Robinson to Betty Lazard [letter], 26 August 1974.
[14] Marriage record for William Henry Robinson and Elizabeth Cocker, Married 10 August 1876, Calcutta, India, British India Office Marriages, Reference N-1-158, Folio 181, Findmypast.co.uk, accessed 15 September 2024.
[15] Marriage record for William Wentworth Robinson and Lilian May Burbidge, Married 12 January 1901, Kidderpore, India, British India Office Marriages, Reference N-1-288, Folio 234, Findmypast.co.uk, accessed 15 September 2024.
[16] Lilian Robinson to Betty Lazard [letter], 26 August 1974.
[17] Burial record for William Henry Robinson, Died 21 February 1903, Calcutta, India, British India Office Deaths and Burials, Reference N-1-307, Page 17, Findmypast.co.uk, accessed 15 September 2024.
[18] Lilian Robinson to Betty Lazard [letter], 28 August 1974.
[19] Lilian Robinson to Betty Lazard [letter], 28 August 1974.
[20] Burial record for Elizabeth Robinson, Bengal, British India Office Deaths & Burials, Reference N-1-453, Page 305, Findmypast.co.uk, accessed 14 September 2024.
[21] Photograph of the grave of William Henry and Elizabeth Robinson, Personal Papers of Hilary Lazard, Paris, France.
[22] Three Photographs of Elizabeth Robinson (Calcutta portrait with William Robinson; Mussoorie and St Vincent’s Home, Kidderpore), Personal Papers of Hilary Lazard, Paris, France.
Bibliography
Allens Indian Mail
Coopland, RM, A Lady’s Escape From Gwalior, Smith, Elder & Co, London, 1859.
David, Saul, The Indian Mutiny 1857, Viking, London, 2002, p 85.
Findmypast.co.uk
Makepeace, Margaret, ‘Catherine Shillcock in Agra Fort’, Untold Lives Blog, blog, 1 August 2023, https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2023/08/catherine-shillcock-in-agra-fort-.html
Lazard, Hilary, Personal Papers, Paris, France.
Walker JP, Agra Fort Directory, Mofussilite Press, London, 1857.