George Ricketts, Esq.
(1827-1914)

Volume 1, page 109, sitting number 639.

Born on 20 June 1827 at Calcutta in India, George Henry Mildmay Ricketts was the son of Sir Henry Ricketts of the Bengal Civil Service, who became a Knight Commander of the Order of the Star of India.

He was educated at Winchester and at the East India College (later Haileybury College), the training establishment founded in 1808 near Hertford for the future administrators of the Honourable East India Company. At the age of 20 he went out to India. He was with the Bengal Civil Service 1847-1853 and then with the Punjab Civil Service 1853-1879. He was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath on 18 May 1860.

On 30 January 1862 at Clonmel in Tipperary he married firstly Charlotte Anne Gough, daughter of Percy Jocelyn Gough of Glenconnor. This marriage produced five children. After the death of his first wife in 1875 at the age of 32, he married Emily Isabella Clive Bayley, daughter of Sir Edward Clive Bayley, at the Savoy Chapel in London on 8 March 1883. This marriage produced another son.

In 1901 he and Emily were living at Cranemoor Lodge, Highcliffe, Hampshire. The household including a cousin and five servants.

George Henry Mildmay Ricketts died, aged 86, on 16 July 1914 at Foulis Court, Eastleigh, Hampshire. He left an estate valued at £13,364.

An obituary in the Evening Mail (17 July 1914) calls him ‘one of the most conspicuous of the civilian heroes of the Indian Mutiny’ and gives many details of his bravery at Ludhiana in the state of Punjab during the uprising. The obituary concludes: ‘Ricketts put down the disorder caused by the march of the rebels through his district with a strong hand and did splendid service in many other ways, including aid[ing] in the movement of troops and forwarding supplies. He richly merited the Companionship of the Bath and the medal conferred upon him in 1860. He remained in India for 22 years after the Mutiny, reaching the position of membership of the Board of Revenue of the North-Western Provinces. He was twice married, his second wife being a daughter of the late Sir Edward Clive Bayley.’