mmeik on Family Tree Circles

Here is everything I know about my Great Grandfather William Arthur Waterfield. He was the Station Master for North Western Railway at Jullundur, India. One day while returning home from work, there was a funeral coming out of a church and they needed help carrying the coffin to the carriage. A rusty nail from the coffin scratched him, he got Tetanus, and was dead within a few days. Tetanus, also called Lockjaw, was only recognized a few years earlier in 1884, was a terrible way to die, and there were no vaccines at the time. This was in 1895, he was just 29 years old, which puts his year of birth as 1866. My Grandfather, the youngest of his three sons, was born 3 months after he died, never knew his father. I know William was born in England, possibly Sussex, thats what I have heard since I was a child, and he left England for India to join his older brother (not sure of his first name) who at the time was the Assistant Commissioner of Bandra Bombay, and was involved with the Survey of India. Waterfield Road in Bandra Bombay was named after him. If I can establish his brothers name, I might be able to trace my Great Grandfather Williams roots.

One of the biggest issues was that when he came to India, he met a wonderful Anglo Indian lady of either Irish or Welsh descent, my Great Grandmother Elizabeth Jeremy. They probably got married in 1888, as their first son Alfred Ernest Victor was born on Feb 19, 1899, second son William Herbert was born Jul 26, 1893 and my Grandfather Edward Archibald Clarence was born Mar 21, 1895.

I do know for a fact that when he married Elizabeth Jeremy, his parents in England disowned him for marrying a Native, as they put it. Abandoned by his family, he took a job as a guard on the North Western Railway to support his growing family, and was eventually promoted to Station Master and posted to Jullundur, which is where he died. He was buried in Wazirabad, Punjab, India.

Several years later in the 1920s, after Williams parents had passed away in England, his brothers two sons traveled to Sibi to meet with my Grandfather Edward Archibald Clarence who was now a guard on the railway himself, to try and mend fences, and take him to meet their father in Bandra Bombay. They told him that their father did not have anything to do with the whole disowning thing off his brother, and now that the parents were gone, he wished to reunite the family. My Grandfather was a stubborn proud man, and refused the offer. He said if his father was not good enough for them, neither was he.