Friend of China, Enemy of Oppression; Augustus Frederick Lindley (1840-1871) Kensal Green Cemetery

The epitaph on the grave of Augustus Frederick Lindley, in Kensal Green Cemetery, notes that he was a friend of China and an enemy of oppression. Although Lindley died in March 1873, the headstone is relatively modern, a rough-hewn pink granite slab bearing the signature of local stonemasons J.S. Farley but paid for by a research association of Beijing based academic historians, and unveiled in August 1981, by a representative of the People’s Republic of China. The inscription, in English and Mandarin, reads:

Augustus
Frederick
Lindley
3. February 1830
29 March 1873
Friend of China
Enemy of Oppression

献给呤唎
中国人民之友
北京太平天国历史研究会
一九八一年八月

[Dedicated to Lindley
A friend of the Chinese people
Beijing Taiping Rebellion History Research Association
August 1981] 

The Chinese may not have forgotten Lindley but the British, who barely deigned to notice him when he was alive, have let him slip into complete obscurity since his death. Although he had aristocratic and establishment connections in his background, he was illegitimate, almost certainly raised in hardship, if not complete poverty, and perhaps unsurprisingly became something of an outsider in adulthood. In mid nineteenth century England he was that very rare thing, an anti-imperialist. 

He died young, he was only 33, at his home in Upper Vernon Street, (now Prideaux Place), just off Percy Circus in Clerkenwell. He spent significant amounts of his short adult life in China and South Africa and already published 3 book, with a fourth, 'Adamantia: the truth about the South African diamond fields', already printed and about to be dispatched to bookshops. He married, for the second time, in September 1872 and left an estate worth less than £600 to console his grieving widow for a marriage that lasted a mere six months.  Although only Lindley's name is on the memorial he is not buried alone. In fact, it is not really his grave. The plot was originally purchased five years earlier by his sister Lucy and her husband, the reverend William Elisha Faulkner, to bury their young son Frederick, who had died, according to the cemetery's burial records, at the age of two years and seven months in 1868. The following year, the Faulkner's had the grave reopened again, this time to receive the body of their daughter Alice who had died in infancy. Fifteen years later, in 1891, Lindley's 78-year-old mother, Lucy Garrett was also buried there. It is difficult to believe that the Faulkner's would not have raised a headstone to commemorate their two children and Lucy's brother and mother. But if there ever was a headstone, it has long gone, and been replaced by the modern marker, which reflects the interests of the Chinese historians and only remembers Lindley and not his family.   

The natural harbour at Whampoa

Lindley was a prolific author of journalism and books based on his own experiences, but he was extremely reticent about revealing anything to do with his own background. In particular his early life has hitherto been a complete mystery and in his voluminous writings he says nothing about his origins or family. We know that at 13 he became an apprentice in the merchant navy, being indentured to John Somerville of Seaton Sluice on the 19th May 1853, for service on SS Colonist, registered at Sunderland. In 1857, when he was 17, he qualified and was registered as a second mate in the merchant service.  In 1859 he arrived in Hong Kong on the S.S. Emeu. Within a year he had abandoned his career in the merchant navy and opted for a life of freebooting adventure, taking a position on a trading steamer smuggling specie to the Taiping rebels in Shanghai.  and becoming involved with Marie, who was, says Lindley “the daughter of a rich Macanese, who was principal owner of one of the Whampoa docks, and was also Portuguese consul at that port. Her mother was dead, and her father had determined to compel her to marry a wealthy Chilianian half-caste; in fact, everything was arranged for the marriage to take place in ten days time. She hated the fellow, in spite of his dollars, which, it appeared, was her father's idol, and was resolved to suffer anything rather than submit.” Lindley saved her from her arranged marriage, with no ulterior motive of course, but gradually found himself succumbing to the lovely Marie, who “could scarcely number sixteen summers,” (Lindley was himself only 19 at the time) and even though she was “rather darker than the generality of Macao women: her complexion was a beautifully clear deep olive, the skin delicately soft.” Listing her physical charms, Lindley struggles to rise above cliché; her hair is as “dark as the raven's wing”, her nose “Grecian”, her “richly coloured” mouth “studded with teeth of pearly whiteness” and her figure “petite” and “lithe”. Her behaviour too, in Lindley’s description, is as formulaic as her appearance, being one of “those warm, impassioned temperaments of the East” to whom “love becomes as necessary as life itself”. Jealousy reduces her to “a fiery little piece of impetuosity”, and when Lindley deliberately provokes the green-eyed monster, she tries to stab him with a stiletto (alas she does not succeed). Clearly Marie adored him and after rescuing her not once, but twice, from the clutches of the dastardly ‘Chillinian’ (Lindley presumably meant ‘Chilean’) Manoel Ramon, and then subjecting her to a long, enforced separation, when he has to fulfil his duties as a naval commander for the rebels, Lindley marries her in the rebel capital Nanking, in a “quiet solemnization, with only a few friends present.”

Marie, Lindley's first wife

Lindley had no luck with matrimony, his first marriage was nearly as brief as his second. Rather recklessly he takes Marie with him on a naval expedition in the middle of the rebellion and the couple find themselves in the middle of a night attack by imperial naval forces. Outnumbered and outgunned Lindley gives the order to abandon their large fighting junk and board a smaller, faster lorcha, a boat with a western style hull and junk sails and rigging. After successfully transferring to the lorcha “I was just turning to my dear wife to hurry her below,” Lindley writes, “when a volley of musketry was poured in by the troops on board the attacking vessels. I saw my faithful friend and companion, L--, fall to the deck, but almost at the same moment, struck by a spent ball, I became senseless. I know not what period may have elapsed, but when at length I was restored to consciousness, it was but to realize the exquisite bitterness of my loss. Close to where my best and long-proved friend had fallen, lay the lifeless form of my well-loved wife, pierced by a flight of bullets.”  You would imagine that losing your spouse under such circumstances would be a traumatising event but Victorian men were made of sterner stuff, no further mention is made of Marie and Lindley carries on with his adventures as though nothing had happened. It is hard to believe that anyone, even a 19th century man. could be quite so emotionally stifled. It makes me wonder whether Marie really existed or whether she was just a figment of Lindley’s imagination.

Lindley’s short and tragic relationship with Marie is just a sub plot in his book, ‘Ti-Ping Tien-Kwoh: The History of the Ti-Ping Revolution' (1866). the work for which he is still remembered and held in such high esteem by Chinese historians of the Taiping Revolution.  The rebellion of the Heavenly Kingdom of Taiping was probably the bloodiest civil war ever seen with estimates of the dead ranging between 20 and30 million. Lindley took the side of the Taiping rebels against the imperial Qing dynasty, putting him at odds with most eminent Victorian, Major-General Charles George Gordon, of Khartoum fame, who was leading a force of imperial troops and helping to secure the eventual victory of the Emperor. In his book Lindley is very critical of the role of the British in China and in particular of General Gordon (Gordon is mentioned 97 times in the book, poor Marie, that fiery little piece of impetuosity, just 48). Although he almost certainly exaggerated both his role and his importance in the rebellion it seems certain that Lindley did became a naval commander for the rebels and took part in the Battle of Jofoolzo in 1863, the battle during which he claims Marie was killed. Lindley retuned to London in 1863 where he started to write and publish numerous books, starting with his book on the Taiping Rebellion in 1866 and followed by ‘The Log of the Fortuna: a cruise in Chinese Waters’. In 1868 he travelled to South Africa intending to prospect for gold in the Transvaal. No gold was discovered but he again found himself in an imperial dispute, this time between the British and the Boer's Orange Free State over diamond mines in Griqualand. Once back in England Lindley wrote two books 'After Ophir, or, A Search For the South African Gold Fields' and 'Adamantia: the truth about the South African diamond fields', which took the side of the Boers. He married Helen Amy Butler in September 1872 but was dead just over 6 months later. 

We know very little about Lindley’s grandfather, Captain William Lindley of the Westmorland militia, other than he was born in 1770 and made a very good marriage, in Ireland, with Harriet Murray in 1790. William’s background was obscure but Harriet’s lineage was aristocratic; her maternal grandfather was the 3rd Earl of Dunmore and her paternal great grandfather the 1st Duke of Atholl. William and Harriet had four children, three boys one girl, but their marriage foundered when William was unfaithful and the proud Harriet refused to countenance his adultery. Rather unusually for the time, and almost certainly with the backing of her powerful family, she sued her husband for divorce whilst she was living in Scotland. It appears that the couple were separated at the time, with William living in Westmorland in pursuit of a position in the county militia but the writ of divorce was served on him whilst he was visiting Scotland. He engaged a solicitor who submitted a defence challenging the relevancy of the divorce proceedings but, tellingly, not disputing the allegation of adultery itself. The defence was dismissed by the Commissaries of Edinburgh and Harriet’s ‘oath of calumny’ accepted. She received her divorce. William made four attempts to get the court to reverse the decision, all unsuccessful. Harriet remarried a year later but William disappears from the records. 

Lindley's certificate of competency, Second Mate, awarded when he was 17. 

William and Harriet’s eldest son, Augustus Frederick Lindley, was born 1796. He is the father of our Lindley. There were early indications that bad blood ran in the family when Lindley’s uncle Drummond, William and Harriet’s second son, was transported to Australia at the age of 22. Drummond’s crime was stealing a silver purse containing a £1 note from Mary Ellison, a prostitute. Drummond’s defence was that she had stolen his pocketbook and the theft of her purse was retaliation. Despite invoking his good education and aristocratic lineage in a later plea for clemency, the 7-year sentence of transportation was not commuted and Drummond never returned to England. The young Augustus meanwhile was doing his best to show that he was a chip off the old block. Just like his father he managed to hook himself a scion of the aristocracy for a wife; he was 33 when in 1830 he married the 43-year-old spinster Mary Muray, whose father was Alexander Murray, 7th Lord Elibank, and mother Mary Montolieu, the daughter of the Baron de St Hypolite. Augustus was clearly preying on the 43-year-old virgin for either her connections or her money, probably both as the marriage was childless and how Augustus earned a living has never been very clear. He was an officer in the 2nd Royal Lanarkshire Militia but this was either unpaid or a not very lucrative position. He later claimed to have been resident in Jamaica for many years, doing what we do not know, and also said that he had been “for may years confidential clerk to mixed British and foreign commission office.” He didn’t always pay his bills on time; in 1839 a solicitor pursued his debt to a wine merchant through the sheriff’s court and around the same time an Edinburgh grocer was also chasing him through the courts for an outstanding account. 

Like his father Augustus also had an eye for the ladies and in the late 1830’s he met Lucy Richardson, a young woman in her early twenties, a music teacher and later organist at St Botolphs Aldersgate. Their son, named after his father, was born in 1840 and baptised at St Georges Hanover Square. In the 1841 census Lucy has changed her surname to Lindley, without having married Augustus senior, and is living in Cheyne Row, Chelsea with her one-year-old son. We know that the relationship with Augustus continued because Lucy was pregnant again and later in the year gave birth to a daughter, Lucy Augusta Lindley. In the 1851 census Lucy and the 11-year-old Augustus are living in Crescent Place, St Pancras, a street that has either been renamed or has disappeared but must have been in the area of Marchmont Street on the south side of Euston Road, as in the census returns it falls between Margaret Row and Burton Street, which are both in the immediate vicinity. Lucy’s profession is now given as an organist/pianist but her 10-year-old daughter is not listed as living with her. Instead of being with her mother she is a boarder in the rather large household of Eliza Puxon, a Bacon Dryer, of Glasshouse Yard in the parish of St Botolph’s, Aldersgate. Was Eliza Puxon known to Lucy Lindley through the church where Lucy was the organist? At the next census in 1861 Lucy Augusta was back living with her mother but not for long; on the 21st August she married William Elisha Faulkner, then a clerk but later a clergyman, at St John the Baptist in Clerkenwell. Three years after her daughter Lucy Lindley, still using the surname of the father of her two children but now calling herself a widow, married Mark Brown Garrett, a surgeon and apothecary, at St Marks, Myddleton Square in Islington. Just a few months before the marriage Garrett was brought before the Police magistrate at Thames Police Court for assaulting Robert Roche, the courts gaoler.  According to the report in the Sun (London) of Saturday 26 January 1861, Garrett had struck Roche with his fist in the armpit in a quarrel over some blank forms for outdoor relief that the doctor wanted to collect from the magistrates. In court Roche made it clear that he and Garrett had known each other for some time and that he thought Garrett had a grudge against him for refusing to release Garrett from gaol 16 years earlier. Inspector Beare of K Division of the Metropolitan Police backed up Roche’s evidence and added that Garrett had called him a swindler and a scoundrel. When the magistrate asked if Garrett also had an aversion to Beare for any reason, Beare said that he did, because he had locked him up in Poplar Police Station for assaulting a toll collector. Garrett was clearly a man with a short temper, hopefully he did not lose it too often with his wife. Garrett died at the age of 59 in 1871 and Lucy shortly afterwards moved into the Royal Medical Benevolent College in Epsom where she lived as aa charitable pensioner until her death in 1891.    

And what happened to Augustus Frederick Lindley senior? His wife Mary died in October 1854, living just long enough to possibly hear of her husband fathering another son with a woman called Mary Ovenstone, though the paternity case in the Sheriff Court in Hamilton, Lanarkshire, wasn’t brought against him until 1857. Porr Mary would also have known about the sentence of 9 months hard labour her husband had received in 1851 for swindling £50 from a clergyman’s widow. Even worse, the fraud had arisen as a revenge on the widow for stopping Augustus from seeing her daughter. The case was reported widely in the newspapers; this is from the British Army Despatch of 31 October 1851:

EXTRAORDINARY CASE OF OBTAINING MONEY BY FALSE PRETENCES. At the Somerset Sessions, Augustus Frederick Lindley, a person apparently between 50 and 6O years of age, was charged with obtaining, by false pretences, the sum of £50. from Mrs. Jane Williams. It appeared that the prosecutrix, who was the widow of a clergyman, resided at Orient Villa, Taunton, and her family consisted of a daughter and servant. The defendant had also resided for some time in that town. He had married a person of some position in society, but his own status was not very certain, though he was believed to be a gentleman by birth and education. After some time he made the acquaintance of prosecutrix's daughter, and the daughter introduced him to prosecutrix, when a close intimacy sprang up. He was constantly visiting the house. In the course of the present spring or summer, the attention of Mrs. Williams was drawn to the circumstance that defendant's attentions to her daughter were too serious and marked for a married person. Of course she felt anxious about the matter, and accordingly she wrote him a letter, and afterwards verbally told him that she wished the acquaintance to be discontinued. During the acquaintance, Mr. Lindley appeared to have acquired a most extraordinary influence over the daughter, and their intimacy still continued against the wish of her mother. The breaking off, however, of the acquaintance gave rise to feelings of revenge, and for the purpose of gratifying them he bethought himself of an ingenious expedient. It appeared that Mrs. Williams, not living in any style of pretension, had some articles of plate, none of which bore armorial bearings of herself or family; but, some years ago, at a sale, she purchased a teapot, which bore the crest of somebody else; and for this she was liable to duty. Mrs. Williams had not returned this in her schedule, and defendant thought it a good opportunity of venting his ill will by bringing her in for the serious penalties which the law renders persons liable to for making incorrect returns. The defendant gave information to the Board of Inland Revenue that the prosecutrix had made herself liable to penalties for the evasion of the duty. On receiving a communication from the Inland Revenue office, Mrs. Williams became frightened and sent for the prisoner to consult him. He informed her that she was liable to £150. to be paid to the commissioners, and £150, to be paid into his own pocket. He also told her that he would be liable to a penalty of £50 for giving false information if he did not proceed with the matter, and he asked for this £50 to send to the commissioners, and clear himself from the liability. She gave him the £50. On making known the circumstance to her friends, they advised her to apply to him for the £50, and, as he refused to give it up, the present proceedings were instituted. The chairman, in a most impressive address to the prisoner, concluded by stating that "the sentence of the Court was, that he be confined and kept to - hard labour in Wilton Gaol for nine calendar months." The prisoner, who seemed deeply to feel his situation, then left the dock, and was shortly afterwards removed in a fly to Wilton House of Correction.

It appears that Augustus did not serve his full sentence; criminal records show that he made a request for clemency from the Queen because of his ill health and that after medical investigation he was released early.  Neither his ill health nor his criminal record stopped his promotion to Captain in the Royal Lanarkshire Militia in 1855. Shortly afterwards he seems to have moved to Jersey where he died on the 9th December 1857 and was buried in the  Mont à L'Abbé Old Cemetery.