17/05/2023
Restoring this traditional Campaign Desk has uncovered the tale of a family through the centuries, this is their story...
I understand from family “history”, the desk came to me via my great-grandfather, Anthony Watson Brough (1861-1936), who was a missionary in southern India (Tamil Nadu) for some 30 years from the turn of the last century. My family name should be Brough, but my paternal grandparents divorced and when my grandmother remarried, she changed my father’s surname to that of her new husband (it was NOT an amicable divorce). My grandfather was Charles Anthony Brough, both he and his brother Herbert were with the First Light Horse in Gallipoli in 1915 and Herbert died in France in 1917.
My understanding is that the Brough family had a connection with someone who had been with the East India Company, and my genealogical research turned up one James Ryley, born 1733 and who began with the EIC around 1750 as a “writer” and who died in India in 1816, and who was at one time the Factor of Surat and the Deputy President of Bombay. James married Catherine Watson (b 1740) In Mumbai on 2 April 1760, and they had one daughter, Elizabeth (b 1762) who, I now think, died at birth in India (probably with her mother).
I think that Catherine Watson was in some manner related to Maria Watson (1736-1779) who in turn married Anthony Brough (1723-1805) who was the great-grandfather of Anthony Watson Brough. My working assumption is that the desk ended up with AW Brough through the Watson family, perhaps in connection with his own time spent in India. I came into my ownership of the desk as the result of the death of a close cousin on the Brough side (CA Brough’s first cousin) who I tracked down some 40 years ago – her estate was, literally, left to the dogs’ home and I had to bid at auction for the desk against a dealer who identified it after the auction as a campaign desk made in India during the late 18th century – which fitted the backstory that I had been told.
By way of some additional history, AW Brough collected numerous artefacts during his time in India, which were eventually gifted to the Australian Museum by the cousin referred to above (his niece). When I became aware of this in the late 1980s, I began to advocate for them to be returned to India, which they were in 2000.
So the tale continues, a sympathetic clean, revive and French Polish to retain its history and value by Remin Furniture ensures many more years of service as a wonderful family heirloom.
Further reading: https://tamil.wiki/wiki/A.W._Brough