FAREWELL TO A FIREWORKER:
THE INVASION OF JAVA, 1811
Lieutenant-Fireworker Lennard Motley Farnaby, Bengal Artillery
St. John the Baptist, West Wickham, Greater London
The Man
Wickham Court is a school now, set in its grounds in the south-west London suburb of West Wickham, educating the primary-school age children of the Kent locals who can pay the six thousand pounds a year, plus extras, that the school demands. Prior to that it was a private American university, a teacher training college run by an order of nuns called the Daughters of Mary and Joseph, and a hotel, but before all that it was for over 350 years the family home of one branch or another of the Lennard family, and was the house that Lennard Motley Farnaby would have called home.
The Lennards bought the estate in 1580, and it remained in the family until 1935. That it should have a family called Farnaby in it in the 1790s is explained by the the marriage of Sir John Farnaby to Mary Lennard; it was she who inherited the estate. Although she and John had four sons, the direct line died with them; three died before they were 25, and the fourth, Charles Francis Farnaby, died without issue in 1859. The baronetcy became extinct, and the house reverted back to the Lennards. The last one to own the Court, Sir Stephen Hallam Lennard, sold the house in 1935 and emigrated to Canada, worked as a broker in Vancouver, and died in Haney in British Columbia in 1980.
When Lennard Motley Farnaby lived at Wickham Court Canada did not even exist (instead Upper and Lower Canada were known as The Canadas) - not that Lennard got the chance to go there. His father may have been a baronet living in the big house, but I presume money must have been tight, as when young Lennard joined the military he did not buy into a British regiment, but instead became an officer in the Bengal Native Artillery, in the East India Company’s army, and the rank he held in 1811 was as junior an officer rank as he could hold, that of Lieutenant-Fireworker, which ranked below 2nd Lieutenant. If that rank is unfamiliar it is because by the end of the eighteenth century it had been phased out of the British army, but retained in the Indian corps.
The Background
By 1810 the Dutch Republic, which had always been sympathetic to France (see Invasion of North Holland), had merged into Napoleon’s French Empire, which meant that its colonial possessions were effectively French. For the British this created a problem in the Far East, where naval ships, both French and Dutch, from the Dutch East Indies and France’s Indian Ocean islands, could harass the merchant shipping that British India relied on. It was clear that the menace had to be removed. Mauritius and Reunion were captured, and in 1811 Britain moved against the Dutch.
The Action
In May and June, as the British army embarked from India and sailed towards Java, the navy had its successes, laying a clear warning down to the Dutch. Coastal towns and forts were destroyed, and a number of gunboats captured. Jan Wilhelm Janssens, the Dutch commander, realised that he would be unlikely to be able to withstand a British assault, and so prepared by reinforcing and stockpiling Fort Cornellis, a stronghold a mile long and half a mile wide, a few miles south of the capital Batavia (now Djakarta) - Cornellis is now called Jatinegara, and is part of greater Djakarta. Consequently when, on August 4th, the British finally landed east of the city the landing was virtually unopposed. They numbered about twelve thousand British and Indian troops. Against them Janssens had about the same number of Dutch and East Indian, with some French, and a number of French senior officers.
Progress was slow in difficult terrain dominated by waterways, and it took four days for the army to reach Batavia, which, being undefended, promptly surrendered. Janssens had retreated with the majority of his troops to Fort Cornellis, leaving only a garrisoned military post at Weltevreeden, halfway between the city and the fortress, and some raiding parties. Janssens was relying on delaying the British, leaving their troops to succumb to the climate (the rainy season was due) and disease (malaria was endemic in the area). To an extent his plan worked, as Weltevreenen only fell, after fierce fighting, on August 10th (casualty figures vary; Dutch sources suggest about five hundred dead on each side, but the British say fewer), and the battle was preceded and followed by a series of skirmishes, as the attackers struggled to get troops and supplies to the fortress, while the Dutch harassed them wherever they could.
It must have been in one of those fights that Lennard Farnaby met his end. His memorial states that he died on August 11th storming the fort at Cornellis, but if the date is correct he cannot have been attacking the fort. It was not until the 14th that they managed to create a trail through the forest and plantations that enabled them to get siege supplies and artillery pieces into position in front of the fort. A siege was what was intended. The fortress was too large and well-defended to succumb to a frontal attack, and Janssens was prepared for a siege, convinced that the British would be unable to sustain it.
On the 20th of August the siege fortifications began to be built. On the 22nd a sortie from the fort briefly captured three British artillery batteries, but was then driven back, leaving the guns, for some reason, unspiked, so undamaged. On the 24th some Dutch deserters arrived in the British camp. Many of the Dutch troops were Dutch East India Company veterans, and held no real allegiance to the French. On the 26th, in the early, dark hours of the morning, one of the deserters led the British, under General Rollo Gillespie, through the flooded defences to the fort’s northern redoubts. After fierce fighting the redoubts were taken, though the passion and severity of the action can be understood from the example of two French-Dutch officers who blew themselves and the redoubts’ magazine up rather than let it be captured. As the British poured into the fort the Dutch native army simply ran away, and the rest surrendered. Janssens escaped, but the French General Jauffret was captured.
Aftermath
And that was basically that. The British gradually captured more and more towns on the islands, and Janssens found himself increasingly isolated. He finally surrendered on September 18th, and the Dutch East Indies became British, for a few years, until, with Napoleon defeated, we gave them back.
Jan Willem Janssens retired to the Netherlands, and died at Den Haag in 1838, aged 75.
Major-General Rollo Gillespie did not survive Lennard Farnaby long. In 1815 he was killed, aged 48, charging a fort at the Battle of Nalapani in Nepal. A memorial statue to him stands in the square of his native town, Comber in County Down.
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF SIR JOHN FARNABY, BARONET OF WICKHAM COURT, IN THIS PARISH DIED AUGUST 19 1802 ALSO THAT OF MARY, HIS WIDOW, ONLY CHILD AND HEIRESS OF SAMUEL LENNARD, ESQ.. FORMERLY OF WICKHAM COURT, DIED MAY THE 9TH 1843 AGED 83 ALSO THAT OF THEIR ONLY DAUGHTER AND THREE SONS, PENELOPE ANNE, WIFE OF LIEUTENANT COLONEL WILLIAM CATOR ROYAL HORSE ARTILLERY, DIED AT DUBLIN, IN THE KINGDOM OF IRELAND DECEMBER THE 8TH 1833 AGED 44. JOHN SAMUEL FARNABY, ESQ. OF ST JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE DIED AT THAT PLACE, DECEMBER THE 4TH 1813 AGED 23. LENNARD MOTLEY FARNABY LIEUTANT FIREWORKER IN THE BENGAL ARTILLERY KILLED AT THE STORMING OF FORT CORNELLIS IN THE ISLAND OF JAVA AUGUST 11TH 1811. WILLIAM THOMAS FARNABY DIED AT MIDHURST IN THE COUNTY OF SUSSEX NOVEMBER 20TH 1809. AGED 16. THIS MONUMENT WAS RAISED TO THEIR MEMORY BY THEIR ONLY SURVIVING CHILD AND BROTHER AD 1834.
Wickham Court is a school now, set in its grounds in the south-west London suburb of West Wickham, educating the primary-school age children of the Kent locals who can pay the six thousand pounds a year, plus extras, that the school demands. Prior to that it was a private American university, a teacher training college run by an order of nuns called the Daughters of Mary and Joseph, and a hotel, but before all that it was for over 350 years the family home of one branch or another of the Lennard family, and was the house that Lennard Motley Farnaby would have called home.
The Lennards bought the estate in 1580, and it remained in the family until 1935. That it should have a family called Farnaby in it in the 1790s is explained by the the marriage of Sir John Farnaby to Mary Lennard; it was she who inherited the estate. Although she and John had four sons, the direct line died with them; three died before they were 25, and the fourth, Charles Francis Farnaby, died without issue in 1859. The baronetcy became extinct, and the house reverted back to the Lennards. The last one to own the Court, Sir Stephen Hallam Lennard, sold the house in 1935 and emigrated to Canada, worked as a broker in Vancouver, and died in Haney in British Columbia in 1980.
When Lennard Motley Farnaby lived at Wickham Court Canada did not even exist (instead Upper and Lower Canada were known as The Canadas) - not that Lennard got the chance to go there. His father may have been a baronet living in the big house, but I presume money must have been tight, as when young Lennard joined the military he did not buy into a British regiment, but instead became an officer in the Bengal Native Artillery, in the East India Company’s army, and the rank he held in 1811 was as junior an officer rank as he could hold, that of Lieutenant-Fireworker, which ranked below 2nd Lieutenant. If that rank is unfamiliar it is because by the end of the eighteenth century it had been phased out of the British army, but retained in the Indian corps.
The Background
By 1810 the Dutch Republic, which had always been sympathetic to France (see Invasion of North Holland), had merged into Napoleon’s French Empire, which meant that its colonial possessions were effectively French. For the British this created a problem in the Far East, where naval ships, both French and Dutch, from the Dutch East Indies and France’s Indian Ocean islands, could harass the merchant shipping that British India relied on. It was clear that the menace had to be removed. Mauritius and Reunion were captured, and in 1811 Britain moved against the Dutch.
The Action
In May and June, as the British army embarked from India and sailed towards Java, the navy had its successes, laying a clear warning down to the Dutch. Coastal towns and forts were destroyed, and a number of gunboats captured. Jan Wilhelm Janssens, the Dutch commander, realised that he would be unlikely to be able to withstand a British assault, and so prepared by reinforcing and stockpiling Fort Cornellis, a stronghold a mile long and half a mile wide, a few miles south of the capital Batavia (now Djakarta) - Cornellis is now called Jatinegara, and is part of greater Djakarta. Consequently when, on August 4th, the British finally landed east of the city the landing was virtually unopposed. They numbered about twelve thousand British and Indian troops. Against them Janssens had about the same number of Dutch and East Indian, with some French, and a number of French senior officers.
Progress was slow in difficult terrain dominated by waterways, and it took four days for the army to reach Batavia, which, being undefended, promptly surrendered. Janssens had retreated with the majority of his troops to Fort Cornellis, leaving only a garrisoned military post at Weltevreeden, halfway between the city and the fortress, and some raiding parties. Janssens was relying on delaying the British, leaving their troops to succumb to the climate (the rainy season was due) and disease (malaria was endemic in the area). To an extent his plan worked, as Weltevreenen only fell, after fierce fighting, on August 10th (casualty figures vary; Dutch sources suggest about five hundred dead on each side, but the British say fewer), and the battle was preceded and followed by a series of skirmishes, as the attackers struggled to get troops and supplies to the fortress, while the Dutch harassed them wherever they could.
It must have been in one of those fights that Lennard Farnaby met his end. His memorial states that he died on August 11th storming the fort at Cornellis, but if the date is correct he cannot have been attacking the fort. It was not until the 14th that they managed to create a trail through the forest and plantations that enabled them to get siege supplies and artillery pieces into position in front of the fort. A siege was what was intended. The fortress was too large and well-defended to succumb to a frontal attack, and Janssens was prepared for a siege, convinced that the British would be unable to sustain it.
On the 20th of August the siege fortifications began to be built. On the 22nd a sortie from the fort briefly captured three British artillery batteries, but was then driven back, leaving the guns, for some reason, unspiked, so undamaged. On the 24th some Dutch deserters arrived in the British camp. Many of the Dutch troops were Dutch East India Company veterans, and held no real allegiance to the French. On the 26th, in the early, dark hours of the morning, one of the deserters led the British, under General Rollo Gillespie, through the flooded defences to the fort’s northern redoubts. After fierce fighting the redoubts were taken, though the passion and severity of the action can be understood from the example of two French-Dutch officers who blew themselves and the redoubts’ magazine up rather than let it be captured. As the British poured into the fort the Dutch native army simply ran away, and the rest surrendered. Janssens escaped, but the French General Jauffret was captured.
Aftermath
And that was basically that. The British gradually captured more and more towns on the islands, and Janssens found himself increasingly isolated. He finally surrendered on September 18th, and the Dutch East Indies became British, for a few years, until, with Napoleon defeated, we gave them back.
Jan Willem Janssens retired to the Netherlands, and died at Den Haag in 1838, aged 75.
Major-General Rollo Gillespie did not survive Lennard Farnaby long. In 1815 he was killed, aged 48, charging a fort at the Battle of Nalapani in Nepal. A memorial statue to him stands in the square of his native town, Comber in County Down.
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF SIR JOHN FARNABY, BARONET OF WICKHAM COURT, IN THIS PARISH DIED AUGUST 19 1802 ALSO THAT OF MARY, HIS WIDOW, ONLY CHILD AND HEIRESS OF SAMUEL LENNARD, ESQ.. FORMERLY OF WICKHAM COURT, DIED MAY THE 9TH 1843 AGED 83 ALSO THAT OF THEIR ONLY DAUGHTER AND THREE SONS, PENELOPE ANNE, WIFE OF LIEUTENANT COLONEL WILLIAM CATOR ROYAL HORSE ARTILLERY, DIED AT DUBLIN, IN THE KINGDOM OF IRELAND DECEMBER THE 8TH 1833 AGED 44. JOHN SAMUEL FARNABY, ESQ. OF ST JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE DIED AT THAT PLACE, DECEMBER THE 4TH 1813 AGED 23. LENNARD MOTLEY FARNABY LIEUTANT FIREWORKER IN THE BENGAL ARTILLERY KILLED AT THE STORMING OF FORT CORNELLIS IN THE ISLAND OF JAVA AUGUST 11TH 1811. WILLIAM THOMAS FARNABY DIED AT MIDHURST IN THE COUNTY OF SUSSEX NOVEMBER 20TH 1809. AGED 16. THIS MONUMENT WAS RAISED TO THEIR MEMORY BY THEIR ONLY SURVIVING CHILD AND BROTHER AD 1834.
Sources
Photos
View of Fort Cornellis: Picture from Iziko Museums of Cape Town (Social History Collections) from http://ancestry24.com/articles/de-wet/
Church of St. John the Baptist, West Wickham - by Philip Tamage, from Wikimedia Commons
Genealogy
http://www.wickhamcourt.org.uk
www.ancestry.co.uk
Military
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Java_(1811)
http://yourarchives.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php?title=Java_Expedition_1811http://asianmil.typepad.com/stage3/2009/05/the-british-invasion-of-java-1811.html
http://someinterestingfacts.net/british-invasion-of-java-1811
© Jonathan Dewhirst 2013
Photos
View of Fort Cornellis: Picture from Iziko Museums of Cape Town (Social History Collections) from http://ancestry24.com/articles/de-wet/
Church of St. John the Baptist, West Wickham - by Philip Tamage, from Wikimedia Commons
Genealogy
http://www.wickhamcourt.org.uk
www.ancestry.co.uk
Military
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Java_(1811)
http://yourarchives.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php?title=Java_Expedition_1811http://asianmil.typepad.com/stage3/2009/05/the-british-invasion-of-java-1811.html
http://someinterestingfacts.net/british-invasion-of-java-1811
© Jonathan Dewhirst 2013