Records of the Pringles of the Scottish Border, by Alex Pringle

Chapter 34

EAST INDIES

OFFICERS (PRINGLES) OF THE INDIAN ARMY, 1760-1837

JOHN, Madras, 1769 Cadet, 1783 Captain, died 1788.

James, Bengal, 1769 Cadet, 1781 Captain, 1794 Major, 1802 Colonel, died May 1810.

Andrew, Bengal, 1770 Cadet, 1781 Captain, resigned December 1792, died in Argyle Street, London, 1803.

David, Bengal, 1805 Cadet, 1824 Captain, 1883 Major, retired March 1835.

Robert, Bengal, 1806 Cadet, 1822 brevet Captain, killed in action 16th May 1824.

Francis, Madras, 1806 Cadet, 1807 Cornet, died February 1811.

Andrew-William, Bombay, 1819 Cadet, 1825 Captain.

MEDICAL OFFICERS (PRINGLE'S) OF THE ARMY, 1764-1838

Patrick, Madras, died at Arcot 1788.

John, Bombay, Assistant Surgeon, died February 1811.

Anthony, M.D., Bengal, 1820 Assistant Surgeon, June 1832 Surgeon.

James, Bombay, 1st January 1821, dismissed December 1829, in India.

CIVIL SERVANTS (PRINGLES), 1741-1838.

Alexander, Madras, 1766 writer, 1778 senior merchant, out of the service in 1790.

John-Alexander, Bengal, July 1807 writer, July 1827 at home on absentee allowance, returned November 1829, retired May 1836, died 3rd January 1839 at Castledykes.

William-Alexander, Bengal, April 1810 writer. . .

Robert-Keith, Bombay, 1820, 1835 at home on absentee allowance, 1838 returned.

David, Bengal, April 1824 writer. . (Official Lists).

ROBERT-KEITH

was the fourth son of Alexander Pringle of Whytbank. Educated at Edinburgh High School and Haileybury College,

he joined the E.I.Co.'s service in 1820, and held various posts under the Government of Bombay, as Secretary to the Revenue and Finance Department, Director of the Bank of Bombay, Master of the Mint, and member of the Council. In 1847 he succeeded Sir Charles Napier as Governor of Scinde. On his retirement in 1854 he took an active part in county affairs, becoming Convener, Deputy Lieutenant, and J.P. for Selkirkshire. He bought and greatly improved the estate of Broadmeadows, near Selkirk, and built the mansion. This estate was purchased in 1863 by the Hon. William, 2nd son of Lord Napier, and in 1866 by Hugh M. Lang. Mr Pringle resided for a time at the Grove, Darleydale, Derbyshire, of which county he was a J.P., also at Cheltenham, and at Hampton, Wick, at which place he died in January 1897, in the 95th year of his age (The Times, 15th January, 1897). He had issue:-

1. Alexander, Lieut.-Colonel, Indian Army, born 1850.

2. Robert-Keith, W.S., born 1854, died 1898.

3. John, born 1861, died unmarried 1905.

4. Charles, born 1865, died 1879.

5. William, of Whytbank and Yair.

6. Mary-Azbuthnot, marr. 1870 her cousin Alexander 5th of Whytbank.

7. Georgina, marr. in 1907 William Ramsay of Bowland, Stow.

8-11. Fanny, died 1914, aged 57; Charlotte; Margaret- Joanna; Edith, died 1905.

ROBERT, M.D. (SURGEON-MAJOR, LIEUT.-COLONEL, BENGAL ARMY)

Robert was a son of the above William-Alexander Pringle, B.C.S., and a nephew of the above Robert-Keith Pringle.

Born in 1832 he graduated at Edinburgh, and joined the medical department of the Bengal Army, serving from 1854 to 1884. During his retirement and residence at Blackheath, London, S.E., he took an active and brilliant part in the discussions on Indian topics that arose from time to time in the columns of the Times newspaper. In 1873 he maintained that the reporters cases of self-immolation at the festival of Juggernaut were in reality accidents by some of the people (sometimes as many as 1500) pulling the car by five or six ropes, getting trampled under foot and run over by the spiked wheels. In 1864 he had been appointed Superintendent of Vaccine of the Agra and Meerut Division with a population of ten millions, and the result of his twenty years' experience was that Smallpox cannot exist even in the slightest epidemic form where the birth-rate has been reached by vaccine operations. In 1885 he read a paper on Vaccination versus Isolation as a preventive of outbreaks of Smallpox at a meeting of the Sanitary Congress at Leicester. In 1887 he wrote that thirty years' experience in India convinced him that Leprosy was increasing in India. He did not believe it was either infectious or contagious in the ordinary sense, but it was inoculable, particles being given off continually. In 1889 he was asked by the Epidemiological Society of London to read a paper on the subject. In 1888 he wrote on Female Infanticide in India, pointing out how the Act for its suppression was avoided or rendered useless. In 1892 with reference to the closing of the drinking troughs in London for two months, owing to the prevalence of glanders and mouth disease among horses and cattle, he recommended his pamphlet describing the troughs he experimented with, which obtained the highest award at the Health Exhibition of 1884. In 1893 he joined in the discussion on Opium, and at the Society for the study of Inebriety he read a paper entitled "Opium : has it any other use than a strictly medicinal on?" ln 1894 he recorded an interesting experience at the Zoo : Taking with him his children to have a ride on the elephant, he said, holding out a bun to it, " Salaam Kuro," i.e. "Make a salaam,'' when up went its trunk to its forehead, and the salaam was given correctly : it had been in the great procession at Agra during the Prince of Wales' visit, and had not heard the words for 17 years. (Letters in The Times.)

Robert died at his residence at Blackheath on 13th January 1899.

JOHN (AGENT FOR THE E.I.CO. AT THE CAPE)

John Pringle was a son (natural) of John of Haining and Clifton and grandson of Lord Haining. According to his father's Will (which refer to) he was in the East India Co.'s service in India in 1790. He appears first as the Agent of the Company at Capetown in 1795, the year in which it was captured from the Dutch. In March of that year he sent to Sir Joseph Banks a box of seeds, etc., with list, for Kew Gardens.

The MSS. of John (13782, Record Office) consist of a dozen letters to and from Lord Mornington (latterly Marquis Wellesley), Governor-General of India, relating to affairs at the Cape, the latest European news) and in a letter of March 1801 the Marquis requests John to do all in his power to help send supplies to Mocha, and cc-operate to his utmost to enable them to drive the French (under Napoleon) from Egypt, and grants him sanction to draw bills on any of the Governments in India to pay for services in the matter. On 16th May John assures the Marquis that he would do his best, and adds a long statement of what the Cape had available to send to Mocha; horses, bullocks, salted provisions, wines, etc., and the prices, and on 27th June reports that the brig Fanny was loaded and ready to sail, and encloses a draft for 4643 Sikka rupees for her freight.

In 1802 the Cape of Good Hope was by the Treaty of Amiens restored to the Dutch. John's official correspondence with the Indian Government stops ; but he continued to act as Agent to the E.I.CO. till 1813, when apparently he died. Meanwhile having acquired the property of Oakendean in Sussex, he married, in January 1807 in London, Mary-Ann, daughter of the late John Gordon of Balmuir, W.S., Edinburgh (S. M.) by whom he had issue three sons, all born at the Cape: 1. Mark, his heir, born 1808, married at Clifton, Fanny, only daughter of .J. Brooks Irwin of the 103rd Regiment, and had issue, John-Alexander-Gordon Pringle of the 3rd West Indies Regiment, who in 1851 matriculated at Oxford and in 1853 died in Jamaica, aged 20 (G. M). 2. A son. 3. Alexander- Gordon Pringle, who died at Clifton in 1831, aged 18 (G. M.).