Mrs Frederick Middleton
(1841-1863)
29 July 1862
Volume 8, page 341, sitting number 10,987.
Born in 1841 in Liverpool, Mary Emily Hassall was the eldest daughter of Thomas Keay Hassall of New Brighton, Cheshire. According to the 1851 census, her father was an ‘Attorney at Law.’
On 8 July 1862 at Wallasey near Liverpool she married Captain Frederick Dobson Middleton of the 29th (Worcestershire) Regiment of Foot, later General Sir Frederick Middleton.
According to a pencilled inscription verso in a period hand, she ‘Died Nov. 26th, 1863 / aged 23.’ An announcement in the Western Daily Mercury (1 December 1863) confirms this: ‘MIDDLETON – November 26, at Montpellier-crescent, New Brighton, aged 23, Emily Mary, the wife of Major Frederick Middleton, 29th Regiment.’ She was buried on 1 December 1863 at Wallasey. Records show that a son Frederick Thomas Middleton was baptised on 26 November 1863, so presumably Emily died in childbirth.
In 1870 her widower married Eugénie Doucet, daughter of Montreal notary Théodore Doucet. In July 1884 he was appointed general in command of the militia of Canada. ‘As such he commanded the field force that was engaged in suppressing the rebellion in the northwest provinces in 1885, and in recognition of his services received a grant of $20,000 from the Dominion government and the honor of knighthood from the queen’ (Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1887-1889).