James Marlow
Military Records
Proceedings for ... recording the Services, Conduct, Character, and
cause of Discharge, 1869
- Page 1
- Page 2, detailed statement of services
- Page 3, medical report
- Page 4, final description
James Marlow was
born at Desborough and baptised on
18th September 1826. He was the son of
Sarah Marlow, at the
time unmarried, but who married Joseph Cursley some four years later.
James had an interesting life: in the army for 22 years, he was at one time
soldier-servant at the home of Colonel Arthur Edward Onslow of the Scots
Fusilier Guards. He then served 'in the East' from April 1854 to April 1855 -
presumably the Crimea, as he was awarded the Crimean Medal. The following year
he married Elizabeth Cable, from Norwich.
In 1851 Elizabeth had been cook for a retired Navy Captain, John Windham Dalling,
living at Earsham Hall, Earsham, Norfolk. The captain died in 1853 and by the
1861 census his widow was living with her uncle(?) General Sir Adolphus John
Dalrymple at Hove in Sussex. It seems likely that Elizabeth moved south with her
mistress, and that this provided the opportunity for her to meet James.
The 1861 census shows James living in Westminster with his wife and baby son.
Later that year he was serving in Canada, where his daughter Sarah was born. He
left the army in 1869 and appears to have gone straight to a job as Samuel
Whitbread's butler at his estate at Southill, Bedfordshire. By 1881 he is shown
living in Desborough with his wife, daughter, and mother, and was described as
an army pensioner. He was still in Desborough in 1891 but by 1901, he was a
widower and living with his married daughter Sarah at Rushden, where he died two
years later.