John Graham
Esq
1741-1775
Of the East India Company and of the Supreme Council of Calcutta
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John Graham
Esq Of the East India Company and of the Supreme Council of Calcutta |
|
Born: 1741 and died 1775.
Son
of: John Graham of Edinburgh and his second wife Helen Mayne
(sister of Robert Mayne and Sir William Mayne).
Brother
of:
1. Thomas Graham (1752-1819) who married
Ann Paul.
2. Possibly a Robert Graham
(1751-????). His wife Mrs Graham was painted in 1781. They had no
children.
3. Jean Park nee Graham (17??-1801) who married Lieut-Colonel
Park of Lochern. They had no
children.
Half
brother of:
4. George Graham
(1730-1801) son of John
Graham and his first wife Anges MacFarlane.
John married: Mary Shewen (1737?-1798), 8 August 1762, daughter of William Shewen of Thistleboon, near Swansea, by his wife a daughter of Ph. Williams of Duffryn.
John and Mary had issue
:
1. William
Graham (born 13 January 1774 in Calcutta).
2. Col George Edward Graham (later Foster Pigott, born 1774 or 1771, died 1831) who married Mary Foster (died
1858).
3.
Mary Helen Lady Dashwood (1763-1796) who married Sir Henry Watkin Dashwood
, 3rd Bart, of Kertlington, Oxon.
4. Frances Marsh (1770-1805) nee Graham who was the second wife of William
Marsh (1755-1846).
5. John Graham (painted by Tilly
Kettle in India).
6. Possibly others.
John Graham: An Overview
We know of John from the following sources:
1. The book; History of
Parliament, The House of Commons, 1754-1790, by Sir Lewis Namier & John
Brooke. Published 1964.
2. His min
two miniature
portraits (Nixon, Tilly) and the portraits of his relatives. Christies
Auction Catalogue, Kinross House, 30 March 2011.
3. The portrait
of his son John painted by Tilly Kettle.
Christies Auction Catalogue, 18 April 1996.
4. A note in the 'Book of
the Graemes and Grahams' by Louisa Grace Graeme.
5. The Graham family website
(http://www.inchbrakie.com
).
Sir William Mayne, who was the brother of Helen Graham, helped to get appointments for John and his brother Thomas to work for the East India Company in India.
| John Graham went to India in 1759 on the Calcutta. He worked for the East India Company. John married Mary Shewin [Shewen] on August 8, 1762. He was Secretary to the Council. Resident at Midnapore, 1765. Superintendent of the Khalsa, August, 1773. Chief at Patna, January, 1772. President of the Board of Customs, 1773. Concerned in the trial of Nuncomar for conpiracy. John was a close associate of Warren Hastings. |
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John's elder half brother George initially went to Jamaica where he worked as a planter. After this, in 1770, he also went to India (helped by his uncle Sir William Mayne) and joined his younger half brothers John and Thomas. They all appear to have made lots of money. On his return to England George worked as a merchant in London and later in 1777 he bought Kinross house in Scotland. George had an illegitimate son James Graham but James did not inheriet Kinross House. Instead it passed to John's brother Thomas Graham. After Thomas's death in 1819 the estate passed to his daughter Helen who had married Sir James Montgomery.
From the 'Book of the Graemes and Grahams' by Louisa Grace Graeme:
John Graham, first of Yatton, born 1741, a Member of the Supreme Council of Bengal, who went to India and was elected to that important post while quite a young man. He married Mary , daughter of William Shewen of Thistleboon, near Swansea, by his wife a daughter of Ph. Williams of Duffryn; suffering from the Indian climate John Graham returned from India, and died at the early age of thirty-five in sight of Majorca on a voyage from Marseilles to Lisbon for the benefit of his health. His body was conveyed to London and buried in St Peter le Poer in 1775; his wife died in 1798 at sixty-one; they had four sons and two daughters; the elder, Mary Helen, was educated by her relations, Lord and Lady Newhaven; she grew into a very beautiful woman, her portrait painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds is at Cossington. Miss Graham had the honour to be chosen as the governess to the Princess Charlotte of Wales, daughter of King George III. (and heir to the Crown of Great Britain and Ireland), during which appointment she married Sir H. W. Dashwood of Kirklington, Baronet and M.P. for Woodstock; Lady Dashwood died in 1796, leaving issue who hold that baronetcy. The only information I have obtained of her sister is the following notice of her marriage in the Scots Magazine: 1794, Nov. 16th, at St Margaret's Church, Westminster, William March, Esq., of Knightsbridge, to Miss Graham of Epsom, daughter of the late John Graham, Esq., member of the Council of Bengal, and niece to George Graham, Esq., of Kinross, M.P.
Christies, 18 April 1996. Lot 23. Tilly Kettle (1734-1786). Portrait of John Graham, as a boy, full-length, in Indian dress holding a garland of flowers around the neck of a greyhound at his side, in a landscape, signed 'Kettle Pinxit' (lower right), oil on canva, 60 x 39&1/4 in. (152.5 x 99.8cm.). Provenance; by inheritance through Mary (d.1858), widow of the sitter's brother, George Edward Graham-Foster-Piggott to Commander R.D. Graham, R.N., of Stawell House, Bridgewater, Somerset; Christie's, 9 April 1937, lot 38.
At the wedding of John's daughter Frances to William Marsh in 1794, George Marsh records in
his diary
that Frances' mother and three brothers also attended.
If you have any information to add to what is listed please contact me on jj@jjhc.info
(Home)
(John Graham Portrait, by James Nixon)
(John Graham Portrait, after Tilley)
(Mary Graham nee Shewen Portrait)
