The Adventures of Arabella Craven St. John

    Arabella Craven was Elizabeth Craven's fourth and youngest daughter, and the one who resembled her most in bold, adventurous, spirit. In fact she was an intrepid traveller whose journeys were just as daring and risky as those of her famous mother. 

    Arabella was born in 1774 at the Craven ancestral home of Coombe Abbey. This portrait of Arabella as a child with her mother was done by Sir Joshua Reynolds and shows the affection there was between mother and daughter. (1)

    Arabella was aged only eight when her parents separated, and her mother had to leave England for many years. The four girls saw little of their mother thereafter, as their father, Lord Craven, would not let them meet or correspond. Arabella and her sisters were mainly brought up at Benham Place, in Berkshire, while her father lived with a mistress, either there or in London. 

    Arabella's first taste of travel came in 1791, when she was seventeen. Her father was ill and went to Switzerland for specialist treatment, taking all four daughters with him. He died at Lausanne in September 1791, and the girls had to return to England for the melancholy occasion of his funeral.

    It was their aunt, Mrs Johnstone, their father's sister, who took on the task of bringing the girls out in London society. They were all presented at Court, and Arabella soon attracted a proposal of marriage from a dashing army officer, Colonel the Hon. Frederick St. John, younger son of the very aristocratic (and scandal-prone) family of the Viscounts Bolingbroke. His family owned Lydiard Park in Wiltshire. Frederick was a dedicated military man serving his country in the ongoing Napoleonic wars, and he would rise to the top of his profession. Arabella married him on April 16th 1793, when she was not yet nineteen. (2)

    Arabella was Frederick's second wife (his first having died young),and they would be happily married for twenty-five eventful years. Arabella was always of an adventurous disposition. After her marriage, she and her two eldest sisters continued to take an active part in the Craven Hunt, led by their brother William, Lord Craven. Fox-hunting and hare-coursing were the favourite sports, and the Hunt held an annual dinner at the Red Lion in Lambourn where the ladies presided. (3) In the early years of her marriage, Arabella gave birth to three sons in quick succession - George William born 1796,  Frederick Berkeley,  born 1797 and Henry John born 1798. (4)

    In 1800, Frederick's regiment was ordered to India, to defend British territory from the French. He was promoted to the rank of Major-General. Arabella decided to go with him. Presumably the three boys were left behind in the care of one of her married sisters. At that time (before the existence of the Suez Canal) the journey had to be undertaken in a westward direction, via South America, and while British copper-bottomed sailing ships were the best in the world, a long sea journey was still very risky. Accommodation on board was crowded and extremely uncomfortable. Only five women were brave enough to volunteer to join the expedition. She and Frederick embarked on a ship named the Queen, and got safely across the Atlantic. 

    By July 1800 they had got as far as San Salvadore, on the coast of Brazil, where they put in for water. There the Queen caught fire in the night, nobody knew how. The sailors on its companion ship, the Kent, saw smoke issuing from it in the small hours of the morning. It was too late to save the vessel and it was engulfed by flames. Luckily for Arabella she and the other ladies had been on shore with the ship's commander, Captain Craig, but about eighty people perished, some in the flames and others jumping into the sea where they drowned. At seven o'clock the ship exploded, as the fire reached its stores of gunpowder.

    The cries of those unable to escape were piteous, and those who survived the wreck were almost naked. All their possessions were of course lost. (4)

    The survivors were all crowded onto the Kent, and the vessel continued southwards, rounding the Horn which was still a perilous feat of seamanship, as many shipwrecks could testify. Then they had to cross the Pacific and navigate the South China Seas via Singapore. Eventually, in March 1801, they arrived in the Bay of Bengal, but there disaster struck again. 

    A French privateer vessel named the Confiance was cruising on the look-out for British vessels it could attack and plunder.

"On Tuesday, March 3, 1801, the following account was received in town of the capture of the hon. company's ship Kent, captain Rivington, after an engagement of considerable duration, with the Confiance, a French privateer of 26 guns, and 250 men, captain Surcouf, off the Sand Heads." (5)

    After a long and bloody battle, with cannon, hand-grenades and muskets, the French captured and boarded the ship. A dozen British soldiers and mariners were killed, including Captain Rivington, who was shot down from the top of a mast. Arabella and the other ladies hid inside a locked cabin and were unharmed, but there was a long list of the wounded and an observer noted: 

    General St. John and his family were on board the Kent, and appear to have been particularly unfortunate. All his jewels, plate, and baggage, had been burnt on board the Queen, at St. Salvadore, in July last. (6)

After the victorious pirates had plundered everything of value, the British captives were placed on another ship, an Arab vessel that the French had captured earlier, and were allowed to head for the shore. Capt. Pilkington, Frederick's aide-de-camp, was dangerously wounded. They arrived, soldiers, mariners, merchants, surgeons, carpenters and East India Company clerks, shaken and bedraggled, with nothing but the clothes on their backs, at the port of Madras (as it was called then - now Chennai). (7)

    This mid-eighteenth century engraving shows the port of Madras as it was when first built by the East India Company. The fort of St. George dominates the harbour and it is here that Arabella and her husband landed in 1801.
    Over the next two years, Frederick took part in several successful campaigns in the region of Madras, while Arabella and the other ladies were accommodated in the garrison town of Poondamallee (whose name later became Poonamallee). When he was on leave, Frederick could join her there, and in 1802 she gave birth to a son. In July 1803 she gave birth to a daughter. The town contained a hospital but she is unlikely to have been admitted there for something so routine as mere childbirth. (7)

     

    This anonymous water-colour painting now in the British Library shows a view of Poonamallee Fort, and is dated to circa 1810. "Poonamallee Fort from the Mess House" is written on it in pencil. Though the image is not very detailed, we can see that the fort is a very solid one with high masonry walls and many bastions, from one of which flies the flag of St. George. Over the top of the walls can be seen palm trees, which were needed to provide shade in the streets within.

    An intriguing thought is that this little painting may have been done by Arabella herself. We know that both her mother and her cousin Maria Johnstone did paintings and drawings of the unusual sights they saw, and all the Craven girls had lessons in painting and drawing. Arabella would have had plenty of time while living in the garrison town during her husband's prolonged spells of active service.

    In 1804, Frederick was ordered back to England. He had unfortunately fallen out with his senior commander, Lake, who ordered an enquiry into his conduct, but the outcome was in his favour. The journey home would have been taken via the same route. We hear no more of either of the two children born to Arabella in India, so it is likely that they died either from disease there or on the long and arduous sea journey under such tough conditions.

    On September 18th 1805, Arabella's mother Elizabeth Craven wrote in a letter "General & Mrs. St. John are return’d, & the King says Gen St. J. is to be employ’d directly."  It is nice to think that they were in correspondence all this time, even if the letters between them are lost. (8)

    The rest of Arabella's life was thankfully less exciting. In November 1807, she and Frederick were present at the wedding of her brother William, now Earl of Craven, to the actress Louisa Brunton, which took place in his London house in Berkeley Square. The only other Craven family member who was there was her younger brother Keppel, who acted as best man. It may be that Berkeley Craven, the third brother, was away on active service, but I wonder whether the remaining sisters, Maria and Georgiana, were a bit snooty about the match and kept away. (9) 

    In the years that followed, Frederick continued to command campaigns in the Napoleonic wars, returning from time to time to greet the succession of new babies to whom Arabella was giving birth. On 25th July 1807 she gave birth to a daughter, named Maria Arabella. In 1809 she gave birth to a son, Charles. In April 1813, when she was living in Upper Brook-Street in Mayfair, she gave birth to a daughter, Louisa Diana. The following year, in April 1814, she again gave birth to a daughter, named Elizabeth after her grandmother. (10) 

    

    In 1815, Arabella's second son, George Frederick Berkeley St. John, fought at the battle of Waterloo. He was aged eighteen. She and Frederick must have been very proud of him. He survived and went on to have a long military career, reaching the rank of Major.  The family continued to grow. On August 18th 1817, Arabella gave birth again to a daughter, bringing the number of their living children up to nine. (11) Frederick was now prosperous enough to buy a country home at Chailey in Sussex.

    In 1818, Frederick was elected MP for Oxford, but Arabella was no longer in robust health and would not live to see his political career. On June 9th 1819, she died at 45, Chester Street, Grosvenor Place, very close to the home of her sister Georgiana. She was buried in the vault of the St. John family home, Lydiard Park. 

    Frederick went on to marry a third time, and became one of the top commanders of the British Army and an active member of Parliament before his death in 1844. (13) 

    Arabella's eldest son George became a clergyman and the third, Henry, died young at the age of twenty-one. The youngest, Charles, became a naturalist and writer. Her daughter Maria Arabella married the Rev. Charles Goring, and would live to the age of eighty-three. Her daughter Elizabeth also married a clergyman, the Rev. George Carter. Louisa became Mrs Vincent, but the youngest daughters of the family do not seem to have survived childhood.

    Arabella was in every way worthy of her remarkable mother. She was plucky, loyal and indomitable. It would be nice to have a portrait of her as an adult and perhaps one may still turn up.

Sources.
(1)https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/23201/elizabeth-berkeley-margravine-ansbach-1750-1828-dramatist-daughter-augustus-4th-earl-berkeley-and
(2) Debrett The Peerage of the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Ireland 1812 p. 292The Hon Frederick St John b 1765 married 2dly, April 16 1793, Georgiana-Arabella Craven , sister to William , earl of Craven , and has issue, George, Frederick , Henry, and another son , b .Oct 27th 1807.

https://www.geni.com/people/Arabella-Craven/6000000002024149322
(3) The Sporting Magazine: Or, Monthly Calendar of the Transactions ...1798 p. 337 "The Hon. Mrs. St. John, formerly one of the Miss Cravens, is the Lady who patronizes the coursing matches in Wiltshire and Berkshire."
Rural Sports - Volume 1 William Barker Daniel  1801 p.380. Hon Mrs St. John listed as one of the patrons of a sporting club, along with Hon, Mrs Maddocks, Lady Sefton and Lord Craven.

(4) Sharpe's Peerage 1834 under "Bolingbroke".

(5)  Annual Register of World Events 1801 p. 37 Company's Ship Kent , in Action with La Confiance, French Privateer , off the Sand Heads , in the Bay of Bengal
(6) The Annual Register: World Events 1801 
(7) The Asiatic Annual Register, Or, A View of the History of the History of Hindustan, · 1803
... - Page 114 1802 At Poonamallie, the Hon. Mrs St. John, of a son.
The Asiatic Annual Register; Or, A View of the History of Hindustan for 1806 p.172
July 1803 Hon Mrs St. John gave birth to a daughter at Poondammallee.
(8) The collection of autograph letters and historical documents : formed by Alfred Morrison. (Second series, London 1882-1893) Volume I-III, A-D, p. 58.
(9) General and Mrs St. John were present at the wedding of Lord Craven to Miss Louisa Brunton in Berkeley-Square in November 1807. Also present were the Hon Mr [Keppel] Craven, Mr Brunton and Mr John Brunton of Covent Garden Theatre. The European Magazine, and London Review, Volume 52, p.191
(10) Debrett. Annual Register 1813. Gent's Magazine 1813. The Annual Register of World Events: A Review of the Year, Volume 55 p.105 Hon Mrs St John gave birth to a daughter.
(11) Hon Mrs St John again gave birth to a daughter. Date August 18th is given in the Gentleman's Magazine 1817 p.371. The Annual Register of World Events 1818.
(12) The Monthly Magazine - June 1819 Volume 47 - Page 565
La Belle Assemblee June, 1819 .
(13) https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/st-john-hon-frederick-1765-1844
(14) https://www.geni.com/people/Arabella-Craven/6000000002024149322

(15) https://goodgentlewoman.wordpress.com/2013/02/24/the-three-wives-of-general-frederick-st-john/