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Standing: Ferdinand Stoliczka, R B Foote, W Theobald, F R Mallet, Valentine Ball, W Waagen, W L Willson.

Sitting: A Tween, W King, Thomas Oldham, Henry Benedict Medlicott, C A Hackett. 1870.

William Theobald appears in the town directories from1883 until 1902. He retired from the Geological Survey of India in 1881 and thus probably came to the town shortly after his return to England. Above is a photograph of members of the Geological Survey that was printed in the Centenary publication of that organisation in 1870. Theobald is standing third from the left.

William was born in London and christened in May1829 at All Souls, Marylebone (1). His parents were William and Elizabeth Theobald and his father William Theobald was a barrister who had been appointed in 1833 as an Advocate in the Supreme Court in Calcutta and was described in 1861 as the prothonotary of the Court. He seems to have spent his working life in Calcutta and wrote books and articles on the Acts of the Legislative Council of India, and had a great interest in the railway system of the country (2,3).

By 1841 we find his son William at Temple Grove School in Mortlake, Surrey, which was a preparatory school for boys founded by the Revd. William Pearson. He went on to Harrow in 1843 and left in 1845 (4). He did not go up to University but travelled to India where he arrived in 1847 presumably to be re-united with his parents. He then joined as a volunteer a group led by David Williams which was exploring the Upper Damodar and Son Valleys in North India looking for coal deposits that might be of use to the railways. John McClelland took over when Williams died of malaria and Theobald became his assistant (5). In 1855 he went to Burma as a staff member of what had now become known as the Geological Survey of India and became the leader of the Pegu Survey. When the survey finished in 1873 he returned to Bengal and became the Deputy Superintendant of the Geological Survey in Bengal in 1876.

Theobald was not only interested in geology, he also had a wide interest in zoology and botany. In his early days in India he had had a visit from the famous botanist Joseph Hooker and later published work on the flora of Burma. He was the first to publish a full catalogue of the reptiles that had been collected in British India (6) but probably his main interest was molluscs, publishing Conchologia Indica with S. Hanley in 1876 as well as other works (7). Another major work was a complete re-write of the 3rd edition of Francis Mason’s book “Burmah, its people and natural productions” which contained details of the flora, fauna and minerals of that country. He also had a bat named after him (Taphozous theobaldii) (8).

William Theobald had travelled back to England at least once because in the 1868 he married Anne Louisa Cunnington in the Pancras Registration District in London. They returned to India and Burma and in 1869 had a daughter Elizabeth Agnes born in Rangoon followed by, Mabel Helen in 1870 baptised in Calcutta at three and a half months of age, and Jane Ethel born in Moulmein Burma in 1873 (9,10). I believe Mabel may have died as she didn’t return with her mother to England whereas her two sisters did (10).

Theobald retired from the Geological Survey in 1881 and returned home. The family were living in Uplands on Upper West Terrace in Budleigh Salterton in 1883. They moved next door to Beaconsfield from 1889 to early 1891, before moving back to Uplands in 1893 (11). In 1890 their daughter Elizabeth married William Carlile who was the nephew of William Carlile of Little Knowle and the couple were living with his uncle and their two daughters in Little Knowle in 1901.

William Theobald was not finished with writing however, and in 1896 his book “On the authorship of the sonnets attributed to Shakespeare. An inquiry into the respective claims of Bacon, Sir Philip Sidney, and others, to be their author” was published (12). It is perhaps a reflection on Harrow School at that time that they mention his work on Shakespeare in his record in their Register but ignored all his scientific works.

The last entry for William Theobald in the town directories is in 1902 and he moved initially to North Brow, Crofts Lea Park, Ilfracombe that year “where he engaged in philanthropic work” (4). His association with Budleigh did not end with his move to North Devon because in June 1902 his youngest daughter Jean married, in Ilfracombe Parish Church, Samuel Russell Baker the youngest son of Henry Goldney Baker a Budleigh solicitor, and she moved back to Budleigh with him where he was also a solicitor in partnership with his father (13).  

William Theobald died in March 1908 and a codicil to his Will contained a most unusual request. His body was to be taken to the London Necropolis Company by one of its officials and cremated at Woking, and his ashes were to be “deposited loose in the soil at any convenient spot not specially appropriate for that purpose” by the Company or by Samuel Russell Baker, without a religious funeral, flowers, inscription or memorial (14).

Compiled and Researched by Roger Lendon © 2011 

(1) FamilySearch.org
(2) Acts of the Legislative Council of India, of 1860: Volume 4.  William Theobald, Esq. Barrister at Law, and Prothonotary of the Supreme Court, Calcutta: Thacker, Spink & Co. Calcutta 1861.
(3) Articles in the Calcutta Review in 1845 and 1846 on railways and law reform respectively.
(4) Harrow School Register 1800-1910
(5) Wikipedia
(6) Descriptive catalogue of the reptiles of British India, and Catalogue of reptiles in the Museum of the Asiatic Society of Bengal - Theobald, W. (William).
(7) Index of the genera and species of Mollusca in the hand list of the Indian Museum, Calcutta. Pt. 1-2. Gastropoda - Indian Museum, and Catalogue of the recent shells in the Museum, Asiatic Society of Bengal - Theobald, W, and  Hanley, SCT & Theobald, W (1876). Conchologia Indica: illustrations of the land and fresh-water shells of British India. L. Reeve & Co.1876.
(8) “The Eponym Dictionary of Mammals” By Bo Beolens, Michael Watkins, Michael Grayson 2009 John Hopkins University Library Press.
(9) Families in British India, www.fibis.org
(10) 1881 British Census.
(11) Town Directories.
(12) www.archive.org
(13) See OVApedia entry for Samuel Baker and Family.
(14) Western Gazette Friday 08 May 1908

Photo: Geological Survey of India in 1870 from  “Early modern European explorers at the Mountain Jade quarries in the Kun Lun Mountains in Xinjiang, China”  by Herbert Giess, Switzerland.

BS-B-00047 Biography