TO ADD
Deane and Adam's revolvers - images and links
Adelaide's family, sibs etc.
Fanny Duberly?
e.g. 24th July 1854: "I, acting on Lady Erroll's suggestion, rode down to the 11th lines this evening to call on Mrs. Cresswell, who has arrived with her husband, Captain Cresswell, of the 11th Hussars. I could not but pity the unnecessary discomforts in which the poor lady was living, and congratulated myself and Henry, as we rode away, on our pretty marquee and green bower. "
September 27th (Date?) On arriving at Eupatoria I heard, with feelings of great sorrow, that Colonel Chester and Captain Evans, of the 23rd, are both killed; that Lord Erroll is wounded; and that poor Mrs. Cresswell is a widow. God help and support her under a blow that would crush me to my grave! The last tidings heard of Mrs. Cresswell were, that she had gone down to Varna in the "War Cloud." I conclude by this time she has gone home, as Captain Cresswell died of cholera on the Monday of the march. Major Wellesley also died about that time, on board the "Danube;" and his boxes, sword, hat, &c., were lying in the cabin - a melancholy sight! How full of anxiety I am!
Friday, 29th.
To-day I am all unnerved; an indefinable dread is on me.
Captain Fraser caught a magnificent Death's-head moth, and gave it to me. I shivered as I accepted it. This life of absence and suspense becomes at times intolerable. Oh, when shall I rejoin the army, from which I never ought to have been separated! Any hardship, any action, is better than passive anxiety.
A friend of Captain Fraser's, who came on board, tells me that none have had the courage to acquaint Mrs. Cresswell with her loss; and she is actually coming up to Balaklava with troops. Cruel kindness!
Saturday, 30th.
"Oh that my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my heaviness laid in the balances together, for the sorrows of the Almighty are within me, and terror sets itself in array before me."
The eldest son of this marriage was named Oswin Addison Baker-Cresswell who married Ann Seymour Conway, daughter of Sir William Gordon Cumming. Oswin Addison died in 1856.
Memorials to him and to his sister Emma Elizabeth, who died in 1820, and to his brother William Gilfred, who was a captain in the XIth Hussars and died in 1854 aged 29 (b.1825) before the battle of Alma in the Crimea, are in the church at Cresswell.
See below, for a slightly more detailed description of the memorials.
Query: wasn't WC's wife Adelaide also a daughter of Sir William? In which case, two brothers married two sisters. I have not tried to follow the details of the complex genealogy.
Marriage
WC married Adelaide Eliza Gordon-Cumming [more].
Adelaide Cresswell [wife]
Captain Cresswell's embarkation for the East was more widely reported than most other officers because he was accompanied by his redoubtable wife Adelaide, variously described in the press as "A Heroic Lady", "An English Amazon" and a "Modern Joan of Arc".
Dublin Evening Mail, Monday 22 May 1854:
(Click on image to enlarge)
Modern Joan Arc. - The wife of one of the officers of the 11th Hussars, and sister to the great African lion hunter, accompanies her husband to the East. Her habiliments are prepared for active service. She is to have a black belt, in which two of Deane and Adams's revolvers are placed. She has been practising daily at the shooting gallery in Dublin, and promises to avenge her husband's death should he fall by leading his troop against our common enemy. - United Service Gazette. correspondent of Saunders says:
"Among the many embarkations for the East few could have been more gratifying than that of Captain Cresswell's troop, 11th (P.A.0.) Hussars, which sailed 3 p.m. board the Panola. The perfect regularity and ease with which the embarkation of both men and horses was conducted were unexceptionable. But the enthusiasm on the occasion was more than usually excited by the gallant captain being accompanied by Mrs. Cresswell, daughter of Sir William G. Gordon Cumming, who, though the only lady, with the spirit of her race, accompanies the regiment to the East. Loud and long were the cheers of her gallant "comrades," re-echoed from the shore, which greeted her on reaching the vessel, and many were the heavy hearts and watery eyes that followed the vessel to the pier-head as the moved out Saturday."
[Source: Dublin Evening Mail, Monday 22 May 1854 ( http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000433/18540522/034/0003, accessed 12.7.2017). Similar quotes from Saunders e.g. in Tipperary Free Press, 24 May (http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000790/18540524/025/0003), Dublin Mercantile Advertiser, 26 May 1854 (http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000806/18540526/027/0003).]
Several reports told of her preparation for active service:
An English Amazon. - The wife of one of the officers of the 11th Hussars, and sister to the great African lion hunter, accompanies her husband the East. Her habiliments prepared for active service. She is to have black belt, in which two of Deane and Adams's revolvers are placed. She has been practising daily at the shooting gallery in Dublin, and promises to avenge her husband's death should fall by leading his troop against our common enemy. - United Service Gazette.
[Source: Leeds Intelligencer, Saturday 27 May 1854.]
Similarly:
The Aberdeen Journal, Wednesday May 31 1854:
A Heroic Lady. - The United Service Gazette says, that the lady of Captain Cresswell of the 11th Hussars, and daughter of Sir W. Gordon G. Cumming, Bart, of Altyre, accompanies her husband to the East. Her habiliments are prepared for active service. She is to have black belt, in which two of Deane and Adam's revolvers are placed. She has been practising daily at the shooting gallery in Dublin, and promising to avenge her husband's death should he fall, by leading on his troop against our common enemy.
Notice the precise specification of the two revolvers she wore in her "back belt":
Her husband's death & burial
Most accounts say WC died of cholera off on board ship [name?] near the Alma. Adelaide Cresswell was on board.
[Loy Smith says WC was taken ill at Bulganak.[Dates?]]
Leeds Times, 14 October 1854:
Captain Cresswell, of the 11th Hussars, according to a letter from the Crimea, died of cholera on the evening of the 19th ult.
(Click on image to enlarge)
Death of Captain Cresswell
Captain William G. Baker Cresswell, 11th Hussars, died of cholera, at the Alma, on the 20th September, and was buried just before the battle. The Captain was married only about two years ago to the second daughter of Sir William G. G. Cumming. Bart., of Altyre. Mrs Cresswell accompained her late husband to the seat of war, and was on board ship off the Alma when the sad event took place.
[Source: Inverness Courier, Thursday 19 October 1854 (http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000446/18541019/016/0005, accessed 12.7.2017).]
