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Edward Twopenny was the son of the Reverend Richard Twopenny of Casterton in Rutland and his wife Margaret Nowell, niece of Dr Nowell of Oxford (1).  Edward joined the 78th (Highland) Regiment of Foot as an Ensign in January 1814 and had reached the rank of Captain by October 1825 (2).  The regiment was known to have had a posting to Weltevreden, Batavia, Java in 1815 (3), and they were in Calcutta in 1816, Portsmouth in 1817, and in Ireland from 1817-1826 (4) so presumably Edward was with them on all these postings. 

In December 1830 Edward married Elizabeth Deborah Burnett the daughter of John Burnett (a Judge Admiral of Scotland) and his wife Deborah Paterson (1).  Elizabeth was born in Edinburgh one of five children.  Elizabeth followed Edward on his postings and they appear to have been in the Indian subcontinent prior to 1838 as the shipping arrivals in Volume 25 of the Asiatic Journal for early 1838 show that Mrs Twopenny and Captain Twopenny and the 78th Regiment returned from Ceylon.  The shipping list does not mention any children travelling with Mrs Twopenny (it does for several of the other wives).  The Regiment returned to Ireland till about 1841.  Captain Twopenny received the rank of Brevet Major in June 1838 and became a full major in April 1842 (5). 

Edward was with his Regiment in barracks at Blackburn at the time of the 1841 census but in late 1842 after the disaster of the 1st Afghan War, when the British Army suffered severe casualties on the retreat from Kabul, reinforcements were sent to India, and the 78th Regiment landed one thousand  strong in Bombay.  They went initially to Poona.   

In 1843 the Regiment transferred to Karachi, Major and Mrs Twopenny leaving Bombay by boat on December 18th, and then in 1844 to Sukkur where they were attacked by a severe cholera epidemic in which 543 of all ranks and over a hundred wives and children died (4).  There is a memorial to those who died in St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh.  A  Lieutenant Colonel Twopenny is listed in Baker’s 1845 Directory for Budleigh Salterton living in Chapel (East) Terrace.  He did not attain the full rank till 1847 (see below) and therefore he must have had a brevet rank at that time, although I haven’t found an official record of it. As he seems to have been here only for a short time he presumably rented a house while on a long leave. 

During 1844-1845 the Regiment was stationed at Kirkee (near Poona) and in Poona, they then moved further south to Belgaum in Karnataka Province in 1847 and remained there until 1849. In 1847 Edward purchased his Lieutenant Colonelcy and defrayed part of the cost by selling his own Major’s commission (5). The Twopennys seem to have finally left India in March 1849 when they transferred by boat from Colombo in Ceylon to Bombay, and then on via Suez to London. No children accompanied them, only one European female servant. In April 1850 Edward effectively left the Army on half pay when he exchanged his commission with Henry Horatio Kitchener (Lord Kitchener’s father (6)) who was on half pay at that time.  

By 1851 Edward and Elizabeth were living in Kingskerswell, Devon. She died in 1856 and Edward was living with his sister Charlotte in Dawlish in 1861. He died in 1867. 

Researched and Compiled by Roger Lendon, © 2011 

(1)The Gentleman’s Magazine

(2)Army Lists

(3)The Java Half-Yearly Almanac & Directory for 1815....

(4)FIBIS.org

(5)The London Gazette

(6)thePeerage.com

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