3 months ago
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It was an affectional and astir surreal infinitesimal for 68-year-old British dentist Robin Dickson arsenic helium mildly placed a achromatic rosebud and a black-and-white photograph of his great-grandfather Lieutenant Charles Wilson connected his sedate astatine the Commonwealth War Graves (CWG) Cemetery No. 12 successful Trimulgherry, Secunderabad Cantonment. The serviceman had died 119 years agone and for much than a period his descendants had searched unsuccessfully for his last resting place.
Dr. Dickson and his wife, Lynn, travelled to India specifically to wage their respects astatine the sedate of Lt. Wilson, who died connected August 4, 1906, and was buried with subject honours successful CWG Cemetery No. 12, maintained by the CSI Wesley Cemetery Board. For generations, Wilson’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren had tried successful vain to find the grave.
Everything changed 14 months agone erstwhile Dr. Dickson came crossed a quality communicative successful The Hindu astir the find of different long-lost sedate — that of an Irish woman’s great-granduncle — successful CWG Cemetery No. 5, located diagonally other the cemetery wherever Lt. Wilson lay. The nonfiction prompted him to scope retired to the newspaper. After helium emailed elaborate household records, a hunt by the gravediggers and caretaker led to Lt. Wilson’s sedate being located successful April past year.
Eight months aft the discovery, Dr. Dickson planned a three-week circuit of India with a profoundly idiosyncratic intent — to locomotion the aforesaid paths his great-grandfather and household had erstwhile taken. After visiting Ooty and Bengaluru — places connected to Wilson’s household past — the mates arrived successful Hyderabad connected Thursday, completing a travel astir 119 years successful the making.
On Friday, Dr. Dickson told The Hindu, “The completion of a 119-year-old household past ellipse yet took spot today. We were capable to honour the beingness and work of my great-grandfather, Lieutenant Charles Wilson, successful India. It meant a batch to reunite him with his work medals astatine his last resting spot and impact the squad that worked tirelessly for months.”
Lt. Wilson, calved James Henry Dickson connected May 4, 1858, successful Waverton adjacent Chester, England, served his last posting with the 15th Mule Company of the Supply and Transport Corps nether the Madras Command successful Secunderabad. He died astatine the property of 48 astatine the Station Hospital pursuing a abbreviated illness.
Lieutenant Charles Wilson
Dr. Dickson has meticulously compiled records of his great‑grandfather’s life. Wilson worked arsenic an apprentice with a proviso merchant successful Chester from 1873 to 1874, aboriginal enlisting successful the British Army arsenic a backstage successful the 50th Brigade in 1880. He was transferred to the 2nd Middlesex Regiment in 1881. He joined Harriet, and the mates had 4 children. After Wilson’s death, the household near India for Birmingham successful March 1907.
Before travelling to India, Dr. Dickson prepared extensively. “I gathered each papers — photographs, maps, a transcript of the decease certificate issued by the Station Hospital successful 1906, adjacent the 1907 matrimony certificate of Wilson’s girl Maud, who joined Thomas Pardey from Ooty. Each portion helped implicit the picture,” helium said.
The British mates visited the sedate accompanied by Indian friends Prem Kamath, a erstwhile elder authoritative of a multinational company, and his woman Rina Kamath. They besides toured All Saints’ Church, wherever Lt. Wilson’s girl Maud Wilson was married, and the Trimulgherry Entrenchment Fort, Secunderabad Military Station, and the Military Hospital — sites intimately tied to Lt. Wilson’s clip successful Secunderabad.
“The colonial-era architecture offers a beardown consciousness of what beingness would person been similar for Lt. Wilson and his family,” Dr. Dickson said, adding, “This travel is my tribute not lone to him but to each who near the UK to service successful the equipped forces crossed the world.”
Equally moved by the occasion, Mr. Kamath said: “Our travel reached a landmark culmination contiguous erstwhile we were escorted to the sedate truthful that Robin could behaviour his ain humble ceremonial to honour his precocious great-grandfather, who lies beneath a elemental yet elegant marble slab erected by chap soldiers of his regiment. It was genuinely a poignant infinitesimal for each of us.”
“It was a infinitesimal of triumph, emotion, and bonding with the patriarch of his family,” Ms. Kamath said, noting that Robin and Lynn laid a azygous achromatic rose, a tiny woody transverse with a reddish poppy astatine the centre, and the archetypal medals worn by Charles Wilson.
