The Swetenham family of Cloud End

In 1838 Major Edmund Swetenham built Cloud End on a ridge West of Mussoorie, and his family remained there until 1965.

This page is the contribution of the Swetenham family to the Mussoorie bicentennial celebrations organised by the Municipal Board on 19 May 2023. A report of the event was published in the Times of India of 21 May 2023.

Edmund was a younger son of an old Cheshire family who was a cadet of the East India Company's military academy at Addiscombe and come out to India to join the Bengal Engineers.

He fell in love with the hills North of Dehra, and he was one of the first to settle in Mussoorie in its early days. He built Cloud End in 1838 with the help of his cousin, the travel writer Fanny Parkes. He was drawn here by the agreeable climate and the splendid views of the snowy ranges of the Himalayas, which continue to draw visitors in large numbers today.

He also fell in love with a Garhwali girl whom he called Rose. He met when he heard her singing when he was walking in the hills. She became his wife and they had ten children together. Three sons, all officers in the Army, and a daughter who married an Army officer had numerous descendants. He lived here with Rose for a quarter of a century and he is buried in Dehradun, where he was visiting his eldest son when he died.

Family history

The Swetenham family had resided at Somerford Booths near Congleton in Cheshire, on the banks of the River Dane, for over 600 years. More about the family history here.=>

His eldest brother was Clement Swetenham, from whom the senior branch of the family is descended. Clement was an officer in the 16th Light Dragoons and fought in the Peninsula and at Waterloo.

Edmund and two brothers, Henry =>, Bengal Civil Service, and James =>, 10th Bengal Native Infantry, and three sisters Harriett =>, Charlotte => and Maria => all went out to India between 1811 and 1820, married and had children there.

1. Colour booklet

An 84-page illustrated booklet in colour (PDF) has been produced as collaborative process by the representatives of three lines of Edmund's descendants and focuses on Edmund Swetenham and his descendants. A section deals with Fanny Parkes, the travel writer who was Edmund's first cousin and who supervised the building of Cloud End in the summer of 1838. It is based on the longer work by Mick Hawkins "The Boutflowers in Tasmania".

2. Presentation

The Swetenham family was represented at the event in Mussoorie on 19 May 2023 and a presentation was given by Jennifer Horsfall-Turner née Bell, great-great granddaughter of Edmund Swetenham through his son Col. Robert Swetenham CB whose daughter Alice married Lt-Col E. W. Bell. Her speaking notes are here.

3. Video message by Richard Swetenham

A video message from Richard Swetenham was recorded for the Mussoorie event Message Text.

4. Expeditions in the Himalayas by Edmund Swetenham

This booklet contains journals written by Edmund Swetenham about three expeditions in the Himalayas in 1829 and 1831 : Journal of a Route to Kidar Nath in the Himalaya or Snowy Range of Mountains, Journey to Buddree Nath in the Himalaya Range and Journey to the Pindarree Glacier. Source of the Pindur River.

5. Family Tree - Major Edmund Swetenham

Family Chart Family Group Sheet Descendants: of his sons Edmund George Robert Notable ancestors

6. Photo Gallery - Swetenham family photos

By collection and by subject or author

7. Edmund Swetenham and local government in Mussoorie

Since the Mussoorie bicentenary celebration on 19 May 2023 is organised by the Municipal Board, it is appropriate to flag up sources which show Edmund Swetenhams's involvement in the earliest days of local government in Mussoorie. =>

8. Families linked to the Swetenhams by marriage

a. Archer (2 marriages)

Roger Swetenham (formerly Comberbach) married Anne Archer, son of William Archer, High Sheriff of Carnarvonshire in 1770 =>.

b. Duke (2 marriages)

Victor Duke, a Regular Army Officer (Sandhurst and Cheshire Regiment) joined the 2nd Battalion of his regiment in India in 1909. He then became a signaller in the early days of Army signalling. He had a distinguished war record in the First World War. He served in Mesopotamia, decorated MC, 3 times mentioned in despatches.He was badly wounded on 22 Nov 1915 and was brought back to India to convalesce in hospital at Dehra Dun. Afterwards he served in Waziristan, for which he was decorated OBE, and in the Afghan War for which he was again mentioned in despatches. After the war, he left the British Regular Army, but remained active in the reserves. He was Hon. Aide-de-camp to two Commanders-in-Chief India, Wavell and Auchinleck. Dehra Dun military hospital is probably where Victor Duke met Hazel Swetenham. She invited him up to Cloud End where he met her sisters Alice and Edith. Victor was still in Dehra Dun when he got married to Hazel Swetenham in 1916. She died only 20 months later on 8 May 1918 when she was 28 years old. Victor then married her sister, Edith in 1918. They had twin daughters, born at Poona 5 Feb 1919. Tragically, both died from pneumonia soon after. Victor retired to England with Edith and died suddenly in 1950. More details =>

c. Raynor (2 marriages)

Capt. William Raynor was a survivor of the Powder Magazine in Delhi in 1857 and was awarded the Victoria Cross. He had numerous descendants. => His daughter Adelaide married Col. Edmund Swetenham, son of Major Edmund, and so all their descendants were also descendants of Major Edmund Swetenham. Their daughter Mabel married Henry George (Harry) Raynor, a leading figure in the tea trade in Dehra Dun, who was her first cousin. => Their grandson William Henry Arthur Raynor died on 4 Dec 2008 in Dehradun and was the last descendant of Major Edmund Swetenham living in the Doon. He was known as "Uncle Bill" by the Carman family who own well-known schools in Dehradun.

d. Pattison

James Pattison was the Director of the East India Company who signed the nomination papers for Edmund Swetenham's cadetship at Addiscombe, the EIC's military academy for future artillery and engineer officers, and previously for Edmund's brother Henry to enter Haileybury. James was the younger brother of Nathaniel Maxey Pattison, owner of the silk mill in Congleton employing upwards of 400 men, women and children, who married Helen Comberbach, Edmund's aunt. James Pattison was twice Chairman of the East India Company, in 1818 and 1822. He was Deputy Chairman three times, in 1817, 1821 and 1827. He sat as Director in 1805–09, 11–14, 16–19, 21–24, 26–29 (with the interval periods required by the Regulating Act 1773).

9. Other family connections in India

a. Governors-General and Viceroys of India - connection to Major Edmund Swetenham, Bengal Engineers

Out of 32 holders of the office of Governor-General of India, called Viceroy from 1858, 25 are cousins of Major Edmund Swetenham, of whom the closest is Lord Ellenborough, 6th cousin. Eight are connected by 9 degrees of separation (blood or marriage) to Edmund Swetenham, eight by 10 degrees and seven by 11 degrees. Lord Wellesley's great-niece Florence, Lady Nunburnholme née Wellesley was the grandmother of Ann Wilson who married Brigadier J. E. Swetenham. =>

b. Kipling’s loaf of bread - or a dolphin quest

Rudyard Kipling opens his short story The Tomb of his Ancestors, published in The Day’s Work (1898), as follows:

Some people will tell you that if there were but a single loaf of bread in all India, it would be divided equally between the Plowdens, the Trevors, the Beadons, and the Rivett-Carnacs. That is only one way of saying that certain families serve India generation after generation, as dolphins follow in line across the open sea.

The fruit of research to find whether the Swetenhams of India and the families related by marriage could put in a claim for a few crumbs from the loaf can be seen here =>.