Master Arthur and Miss Bessie Tawke
(1846-1927 and 1848-1902)
3 July 1861
Volume 4, page 165, sitting number 4729.
Born on 19 April 1846, Arthur Christian Tawke was baptised at St George Tombland in Norwich on 1 June 1846. His parents were physician Arthur Tawke and his wife Hannah. According to the 1871 census, his father was also a ‘Member of [the] Austrian house of peers.’
Born on 20 January 1848, Elizabeth (‘Bessie’) Hannah Tawke was baptised at St George Tombland on 13 March 1848.
Their mother died in the first quarter of 1848, possibly as a result of Bessie's birth. In 1851 the children were living with their father at 57 King Street in Norwich. He gave ‘Consulting Physician’ as his profession.
On 14 December 1868 ‘Elizabeth Hannah, eldest daughter of Arthur Tawke, Esq., of The Lawn, Rochford’ married army officer Starling Meux Benson of the 17th Lancers (Essex Standard, 25 December 1868). Their marriage produced at least one son, Richard Arthur Starling Benson, born in 1869.
In 1901 the couple were living with four servants at 22 Eccleston Square in Pimlico.
Mrs Elizabeth Hannah Benson died in Brighton on 2 September 1902.
Arthur Christian Tawke was educated at the Royal Military College. He joined the 10th Foot in 1865, transferring to the 32nd Foot later that same year. He married Mary Merriman, daughter of Nathaniel James Merriman, on 2 August 1870 at Grahamstown, Eastern Cape, South Africa. Their marriage produced five children, all born in South Africa.
In 1881 the couple were living with their two youngest children and three servants at Bodmin in Cornwall. Arthur was a Captain in the 32nd Light Infantry and an Adjutant in the Royal Cornwall Rangers’ Militia. He retired with the rank of Major in 1888 and qualified as a Justice of the Peace in Rochford later that year.
According to the Chelmsford Chronicle (15 July 1927), ‘Col. Arthur Christian Tawke, who has died at Claremont, Cape Town, was the son of the late Major Arthur Tawke, of The Lawn, Rochford, and step-brother of Miss Tawke, of Hockley.’
['Miss Tawke of Hockley' is Augusta Saumarez Tawke, Arthur and Bessie's half-sister through their father's second marriage. Her portrait by Silvy also appears on this page.]