One of the many hundreds
of papers I have received in the documents donated to me by Mrs. Sonia John, a
92 year old Armenian in Kolkata was a Pottah certificate issued by the Calcutta
Christian Burial Board. It is for the burial plot of Sonia’s grandmother,
Elizabeth Martin. I was intrigued by the fact it was made out to Elizabeth
Gregory. Confused by this, I continued to look through the papers and I came
across this short letter, written by Elizabeth Gregory to Elizabeth Martin in
1964 transferring ownership.
The next natural question
was “who was Elizabeth Gregory?”
The answer to that was
easily found on the back of the Pottah certificate,
it stated the name of
Elizabeth Martin recently buried on the 12th November 1965 and the
relationship of the grantee was “friend”. The two Elizabeth’s were unrelated.
Curious about Elizabeth
Gregory, I started to do a little research on her. I could see from her letter
of transfer that she lived at 1 Linden Gardens, London in 1964. On checking the
voters list for the 1960s[1] I not
only found Elizabeth Gregory, I also found a Mary and George A.V. Gregory
living at the same address. Knowing that trying to find the correct “Mary
Gregory” would be almost impossible, I decided to see if I could find any
reference to George A.V. Gregory. There in the baptism records for Rangoon
India in 1936[2]
was George Aramais Vivian Gregory.
George’s father was Simon
Joseph Gregory, I found his grave in my cemetery records for India.[3] Simon
had been born on 17 February 1902 in Tehran and died in Calcutta on 24 March
1942. His wife Elizabeth Gregory was the author of the above transfer letter.
She had been born in Calcutta on 6 December 1906[4] and I
quickly found her death record for August 2004[5] in
London. It helpfully had her date of birth on it, and as it matched exactly to
that recorded in the Armenian Church records, I was confident I had found the
correct Elizabeth Gregory.
Elizabeth and her son
George had left Calcutta in July 1947[6] during
the disturbances in India, and prior to partition in August that year. They
sailed from Bombay to Liverpool on the ship ‘Cilicia’, the name would not have
been lost on her, it was an Armenian Kingdom. Family records indicate that
George died in Herefordshire in 2008.
As a friend of Elizabeth
Martin, Elizabeth Gregory transferred the Pottah she had reserved for her own
burial right next to her husband Simon Joseph Gregory in the Old Armenian
Cemetery in the Lower Circular Road. One can only surmise that Elizabeth Martin
must have asked her friend if she would be willing to transfer the plot now
that Elizabeth Gregory was settled in the UK.
Elizabeth Martin obviously wanted to be buried as close to her own late
husband, Jordan Martin who had died in 1953 and had been buried in the same
cemetery just a few plots away. You can read the remarkable story about Jordan Martin being a spy for the British in an earlier blog by following this link.
Thanks to Elizabeth
Gregory, instead of husband and wife lying side by side, two family friends do
instead.
 |
| LEFT: Sacred to the memory of Simon Joseph Gregory beloved husband of Elizabeth Gregory and eldest son of the late Joseph Simon Gregory and of Maria Gregory Of Julfa, Ispahan, Iran. Born at Teheran on the 17 February 1902 Died at Kurseong on 24th March 1942.* [remaining script indecipherable]. *date corrected to 1942 from 1948, poor quality inscription RIGHT: In cherished memory of our dear mother Elizabeth Widow of the late Jordan Martin Born 16-8-1875 Died 11-11-1965 R.I.P. [bottom right inscription: J. Maderia & Co] |
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