A genealogy fair and a mystery solved

I went to the West Surrey Family History Society Fair last Saturday in Woking, Surrey.

If you haven’t been to a local fair like this I highly recommend attending. I came home with a lot of books, some for free from an older lady who was having a clear out and a copy of the 1891 and 1901 London censuses on cdrom (I have an external cd reader which can read them) and various other cds.

One of the reasons for going was that Graham Bandy was going to be there. I interviewed Graham a couple of years ago on researching military history and took my unknown soldier miniature for him to look at.

I believed it could be my great grandfather Henry Bennett Edwards but wanted expert help to identify the uniform and date.

Graham identified him as a Captain (2 pips on his shoulders) and said if he was born around 1835 or so then that would be the right age as the image was around 1857.

I then found another photo which I knew was of Henry and then Graham compared the two. He looked at his ears and the shape of his nose and said yes the two images were of the same person.

Maria Hodges was Henry’s grandmother and she mentions him in her will of 1868. He is a “Lieutenant in Her Majesty's 2nd Regiment of Bombay European Light Infantry but attached to the 27th Regiment of Native Infantry, third son of the Reverend Thomas Bennett Edwards, late vicar of St Stephens by Saltash in the County of Cornwall and grandson of Thomas Edwards of Stoketon House in the same county esquire”

Henry was born in 1837 in Saltash in Cornwall and died in 1914 in Middlesex.

I did have another image which I thought was Henry but it turns out to be later and someone who was in the Irish Rifles after 1912, likely 1915 or so. I don’t believe this is one of his sons so will need to keep searching. I will update the photo on the My 16 great grandparents post to show the right one for Henry.

A big thank you to Graham Bandy for helping me with this one.