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Gotts Surname Family History

 

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In the regimental registers we have:


Ian Gotts of Kings Lynn believes he has the answer to William the Sergeant. In his correspondence with David Higgins, Ian has amassed this information:


Two Casualty Index Entries:

This is possibly the William born Worstead 30 January 1785, son of William Gotts and Elizabeth Anderson who married at East Ruston 21 October 1782, who married Mary Flaherty in Bengal.

It is possible that William married and fathered his daughters in Norfolk before enlisting in 1807, but no trace has been found of the baptisms of Margaret & Eleanor to a William Gotts, and the William who married Mary Flaherty was a bachelor. Neither are they shown as born in India in the India Army database on the British Library website. It is possible that they are children of Mary Flaherty, and so William's step-children. Again, they are not mentioned as Flaherty for baptisms, marriages or burials in the India Army database. After their parents deaths, we have no records of what happened to them. The name Eleanor Gotts is distinctive, but we can't find any records in India or England for her.

Movements of the 24th Foot 1807 - 1814: The background to the capture and later his drowning is described below:

  

On the 10th June 1810, a convoy of three large East Indiamen, the Ceylon, the Windham and the Astell, left Capetown for India. It was primarily crewed by lascar seamen but 250 soldiers of the 24th Regiment of Foot, who had been stationed since 1807 at Cape of Good Hope were carried aboard each ship. On the 3rd July, off the island of Mauritius, the convoy was attacked by a French frigate squadron and both the Ceylon and the Windham were captured; the third ship escaped. The prisoners were taken to the island, where they were held until it was captured by the British five months later. In March 1811, the soldiers rejoined the rest of the battalion at Fort William, Calcutta.

 In 1814, the 24th Foot moved from Calcutta to Dinapore in the north owing to problems with Nepal. This is when William drowned."

Sergeant William 3016


The India Army records in the British Library show two William Gottses in the 24th Regiment, one a sergeant based in the Garrison at Fort William in Bengal, and one a private in the ‘Outstations’. We think we can separate these and Sergeant William Gotts of the 24th Foot Regiment is discussed here.

Sergeant William 3016 Gotts 24 Foot Regiment - #40

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