While I was looking at India Office stuff on FMP, I saw in the accounts of William Slessor's estate that his mother Harriot Elizabeth Slessor was the administratrix of his estate in Europe, so maybe the money she sent for Harriot jr's travel to England came from that?

Oh, wow! Well found, Kate!

Seraphina Donclere does not sound like a native Indian name to me.

Yes, egg on face for the WDYTYA researchers, definitely.

OC

Makes me wonder how much of an accident William's death really was.

OC

I noticed that on Rootschat yesterday...........sure makes you think about the kind of research that is carried out by WDYTYA staff......

FMP don't seem to have indexed the places of residence on many of the Indian wills, so we can't just look for any Kissengunge ones to see whether any of these people are mentioned in them.

Do I recall this being mentioned....

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...lessor&f=false

Indeed. That struck me during the programme.

I wonder if Seraphina died during childbirth. The baby doesn't appear to have survived either.

I did wonder if William had committed suicide but it seems very likely that he did, given the short interval between Seraphina's death and his, too much of a coincidence.

Was Mordaunt Ricketts a friend? I have a similar scenario in my tree where a trusted friend took care of illegitimate children...presumably to spare the family's blushes.

OC

It looks as though Mordaunt Ricketts Esqr was a local bigwig, and he also had at least one illegitimate child, according to the British in India cards on FMP. I haven't figured out whether he was related to Seraphina or William yet.

I went back to the episode and looked at the passenger list which they showed for Harriot's journey to England in 1811 - remember they were saying there was no servant shown as looking after her, so maybe one of the mothers on the voyage was asked to keep an eye on her? Well, it could just be a coincidence, but she is shown as landing at Longreach 20th May, along with three Hunter children (Oswald 5, Jacob 2, and Andrew 1). And there is a servant, Massey Williams, listed as looking after the "Hunters". Could they be related to Seraphina's daughter Charlotte Hunter? There are also some Crommelins listed, and Mordaunt Ricketts married a Crommelin in 1811. So I should think there were some people on board who knew Harriot quite well.

I haven't managed to find that passenger list online yet to view it in full. Nor the records of who paid for passage - would like to see who paid for the Hunter children.