signature of William Benson, extracted from one of his letters
We now come
to a sad bit of my family story.
Both boys were born at the Luckynugger Tea Estate, Cachar, Assam. William Guy was born in 1910, William Guy and John “Gordon” (my grandfather) in 1912. We know their mother was called Meena, of the Ghasi tribe, members of which would have come from Orissa to work on the tea gardens.
In different agrarian
states in India such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa,
famine, drought, flood and epidemics coupled with excessive exploitation of
poor peasants and landless labourers by landlords and zamindars was common.
These factors led to migration of huge bulk of population to Assam in search of
livelihood.[1]
We can only speculate about the circumstances which led to Meena being in Assam. Her family or tribe may have made the difficult to decision to come to the tea gardens in search of work and money, driven by famine, or unpaid debts.[2] Or Meena may have decided to come on her own, as part of the migration female workers to Assam[3] where women were considered to have the nimble fingers necessary to pick the ”two leaves and a bud”. She may also have been “kidnapped” by local agents and forcibly “transported” to Assam.[4]
Correspondence in Guy and Gordon’s file indicate that she must have been illiterate as letters are sent annually asking about the boys, written by somone on the Sultanicherra Tea Estate, on her behalf. They also show that, unlike Nelsie, Meena was not considered to be William’s wife.
Like Chas, William was also planning for his boys’ future and was in correspondence with Dr Graham’s Homes about the application process. On 17 June 1919, he writes from Luckynugger to Dr Graham,
I’ve got two boys aged
9 + 7 years, who I would like to send to your homes.[5]
By August 1919 William is writing from the Makaibari Tea Estate in Kurseong, Darjeeling, where he had been sent for a month on account of his health. He says he will send information on the boys as soon as he returns to the plains.
Unfortunately William’s sickness delays him until October in Darjeeling, where he writes and apologises for not sending his boys before, but hopes to do so by the end of the month. It is unclear whether he has arranged for the information to be sent about the boys, on his behalf.
By 27 October 1919, William has recovered enough to return to Luckynugger from where he writes,
[I] hope to send off my boys in a few days time as one of them is suffering from influenza. I would like to get him all right before sending him away. The mother of the boys would like to go up with them. Have you any objection?[6]
This request about their mother accompanying them to school, was not unusual; Nelsie had travelled with Bobby. William had obviously received a positive response as his telegraph (of 21 November) says the mother is coming with a friend. He writes a letter on 24 November, where he says,
[unclear] is the mother of my two boys who go along with her also a friend who is going up to see her little girl who is now in the homes. I trust they will arrive safely.[7]
It is unclear whether the letter names the boys' mother (something different to Meena) or whether the word is "bearer" meaning she was given the letter to take with her. What is significant about this letter is that it is the last
one which we have written by William.
In a letter of 05 January 1920, Mr David Paterson, who had known William when they were both Assistants at the Aenakhall Tea Estate, now writes from there to Dr Graham,
It is with much regret
I have to inform you of the death of Mr W Benson of Luckynugger Tea Estate.[8]
William’s
tombstone on the tea garden explains that he died on 28 December 1919, while he
was visiting Boro Jalingah, presumably for the New Year. There is no record as
to the illness from which William had been suffering and which ultimately led
to his death. We know that mortality from diseases such as cholera and malaria
was still high at the beginning of the twentieth century and, although his
position would have seen William have access to better food and conditions than
his workers, he would still have been at risk. If he had been suffering from
malaria or cholera it would seem strange for him to leave one hilly tea garden
in Assam for another in Darjeeling.[9]
While the latter was seen as more salubrious and scenic than the dreaded hot
and dusty Indian plains[10],
apart from being a way from the day-to-day routine of the tea garden, the
conditions were unlikely to be very different.
Reading William’s letters caused a great sadness in me and my family. My Grandfather had always believed that he and Guy were put in the Homes because they were orphans. Obviously this is not true and they had a loving father who wished to make provision for their education in the same way as Chas. This point is made by Dr Graham in his response to Mr Paterson on 14 January 1920 when he says he could see Mr Benson was very fond of the boys.[11]
The correspondence tells us that Mr Paterson took responsibility for settling William’s affairs in India, in particular confirming the arrangements for the boys. In a letter to Dr Graham in October 1922, he explains that he has made contact with the family in Scotland and been told by William Henry Benson that he is too unwell to deal with the matter. William senior had told Mr Paterson should communicate with his surviving son and solicitor, John Speid Benson. While Mr Paterson’s letter said that William senior was still alive, this does not match the information in the Scottish Probate Records which list him as already dead from arterial sclerosis of the brain on 16 August 1922. Obviously without seeing William senior’s letter, we do not know its date. We can only assume that, by the time Mr Paterson wrote to Dr Graham, William senior had indeed died.[12]
In November Mr Paterson writes to Dr Graham again saying that he has received the sum of RS5520 from John Speid Benson, which was the sum agreed discussed between Mr Paterson and Dr Graham in their letter of 14 January 1920. Mr Paterson continues, that he does not think that they can expect any more money from Scotland and that William senior is now dead. This has brought to an end the pension which was being received by his widow leaving her not well off.
With some funds provided for the care and education of the boys, the British Raj in the shape of Dr Graham’s Homes assumed responsibility for them and went on to make decisions about what they thought was for their best; this sadly included them having no further contact with their mother. The last letter sent on Meena’s behalf in the file is dated 1929[13]; we have no information about why the letters stopped or what happened to her, however it is likely that she continued to work on the tea gardens until her death.
I had thought this was all I was going to be able to learn about William. However more information emerged among Chas’ correspondence. It concerned Gordon, who wanted to get UK naturalisation papers, but in order to obtain these, he needed to provide the Home Office with proof that his father and father’s family were born in Scotland.
Two surprising pieces of information emerge. In no particular order, Chas writes that,
I myself met William
Benson in 1916, when he was at [unclear] of the Upper Assam Tea Co Ltd in
Dibrugarh; I was then opening out Jutlibari T.E. in the same district, but I
think he left that garden in 1917.[14]
It was quite a surprise that two of my great grandfathers had actually met and in a strange way it brought some comfort. In another letter Mr Harry Emblem writes,
Now to deal with your inquiry about late Willie Benson - 30 years ago [unclear] he was posted out! I was not V.A. at the time Benson was at Aenakhall but I knew Willie [unclear] & we often met. I am quite certain he was born in Aberdeen and that was all the information I can give you about him.[15]
He also says,
I was particularly
interested to hear William’s son has done so well & I hope he will be
successful in obtaining Naturalised Papers; I probably knew him as a small boy.[16]
This use of the nickname “Willie” makes William Benson seem more real. We can possibly speculate as to Willie’s character if we consider what Mr Emblem writes about himself. He says that
I fell out with them
[his employer] after 36 years service and [unclear] resigned. I always had an
independent streak in my nature & looking back over the years, [unclear] of
them I have no cause for regret.[17]
After these two letters I feel I know Willie just a little bit better. It has left me with the question as to whether Chas informed Gordon that a good friend of his father’s was still alive? I am sure that Gordon (and Guy) would have been interested to have been in contact with him.
I should finish by saying that Chas’ was able to obtain the necessary documents for Gordon to be granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK, though he and my grandmother only settled permanently after 1979. This is obviously very different to Gordon being granted the naturalisation to which he was entitled.
――――――――――
[3] De Gruyter, ibid, p121.
[4] De Gruyter, ibid, p120.
[5] Letter from William Benson to Dr Graham, 17 June 1919.
[6] Letter from William Benson to Dr Graham, 27 October 1919.
[7] Letter from William Benson to Dr Graham, 24 November 1919.
[8] Letter from David Paterson to Dr Graham, 5 January 1920.
[9] Saikia, A. (2014). ‘Mosquitoes, Malaria, and Malnutrition: The Making of the Assam Tea Plantations’, RCC Perspectives, No. 3, pp. 71-76. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26241253 (Accessed 8 December 2025); p76
[10] Liverpool University Press (2012). ‘Habitation and Health in Colonial Enclaves: The Hill-station and the Tea Plantations’ in N Bhattacharya, Contagion and Enclaves: Tropical Medicine in Colonial India. Liverpool University Press. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5vjf2j.14 (Accessed 8 December 2025); p184
[11] Letter from David Paterson to Dr Graham, 14 January 1920.
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