eleanor cochran

Eleanor’s birth record has not been located but most subsequent records list her year of birth as 1852. She was the daughter of the Reverend James Cuppaidge Cochran and Ann Mathilda Power and she was likely born in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia as her father served there as the minister of St John’s Anglican Church from 1825 to 1852.

The family left Lunenburg and settled in Halifax in 1852. The oral family history holds that Eleanor was educated in Boston and was a talented singer and musician who appeared in a number of amateur concerts in Halifax — and it was at one of these concerts that she met her second husband, Alfred Mallandaine.

Eleanor married James Hoyt in Halifax on 1 September 1869 and the marriage register notes she was 22 years old although if she was born in 1852, she would have been just 17. James was born in Annapolis about 1844 but lived in Pictou where he worked as a merchant. They had three daughters and their first, Frances Johnston, was born on 10 September 1870 in Pictou but she died aged only 16 months on 9 January 1872. The birth records for their next two daughters have not been found but Edith was born about 1873 and a subsequent record provides a date of birth of 25 June 1874 for Ida Harvey.

James Hoyt died sometime between Ida’s birth in 1874 and October 1878 but no death record has been found. On 21 October 1878, Eleanor married a second time, and secretly, to Alfred Mallandaine in a Methodist Chapel in Halifax. She did not marry under her own name but as Ella H. Power and the explanation passed down through the family was that Eleanor’s family was strongly opposed to her relationship with Alfred although the reasons for their feelings are not known.

Eleanor appeared in McAlpine’s Halifax City Directory of 1876 as Ellen Hoyt residing in a house at 1 Poplar Grove. The following year she is listed as Mrs James A Hoyt and in 1879, as ‘Eleanor Hoyt wid James A.’ which is the first indication in the records that she was a widow and that she continued to keep her marriage to Alfred a secret. The following year, she was again listed as ‘Mrs James A Hoyt’ which makes it difficult to determine when she was first widowed.

Alfred was transferred to Cyprus just weeks after their wedding but Eleanor and her two daughters remained in Halifax and in 1881, she was living in the South End of the city near Point Pleasant Park with daughters Edith aged 9 and Ida aged 7. She was listed in the census under Hoyt with a marital status of widow and she was running a boarding house with six male lodgers, mainly employed as students or clerks, and one domestic servant to help. She was also listed as Hoyt in the 1880 city directory at 1 Poplar Grove but it does note a change from residing in a house to ‘boards’ which may reflect the date she started to run her home as a boarding house.

Less than six months after the census, Eleanor and her daughters left Halifax to rejoin Alfred in England and she married him a second time, under her own name, on 23 September 1881. Her father had died the previous year and according to the family, Eleanor was disinherited with her share of her father’s estate going to her brother Rupert. It seems her family’s disapproval continued long after her marriage as Rupert later offered to adopt one of her sons but Eleanor refused.

Eleanor and Alfred left England for India in 1883 and they went on to have six children. Her two daughters from her first marriage travelled with them and were all but adopted into the family. Her daughter Edith married A.H. Macgregor, the Assistant Surgeon at St George’s Hospital, but she died on 3 June 1899 aged only 25 years. Six months later, Eleanor lost another child when four year old Alfred died two days before Christmas and three weeks later, on 15 January 1900, Eleanor died in Bombay of muco-enteritis and was buried at Sewree Cemetery in Bombay.

Her daughter Ida returned to England, possibly with her half-sister Mildred in 1908, and trained as a midwife before passing the Central Midwives Board’s certification examination on 15 February 1909. She appears in the official Roll of Midwives from 1910 to 1926 and her address was listed as 3 Eleanor Road in Woolwich. During the war, Ida served with the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service (later the Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps). At various times during the 1920s and 30s, she lived with Mildred and her family in Southampton and later in Brockenhurst in Hampshire but in 1931, she was living on her own in Hythe near Southampton. When she retired from nursing in the late 1930s, she moved into a flat in the Home for Elderly Nurses on Riverside Avenue in Holdenhurst near Bournemouth and remained there until her death on 29 May 1954. Ida adopted the Mallandaine name while in India and seems to have used it fairly consistently but she was often recorded in official records under Hoyt. Her death certificate listed her name as ‘Ida Harvey Mallandaine, otherwise Hoyt’ and the cause of death as cerebral thrombosis. In her will, she appointed her brother-in-law Claude Ainslie as the executor and left £25 to her sister Mildred with the remainder of her estate going to the Elderly Nurse Home.

william cochran + rebecca cuppaidge

William was born in Omagh, County Tyrone in Northern Ireland in 1756 and his memoirs name his father as Andrew Cochrane but make no mention of his mother. He described his father as ‘a respectable farmer; and was looked up to by all of his own class for intelligence and probity so that they resorted to him not only to draw leases, bonds, and such like papers, but often to be the arbiter in their disputes with one another; and he generally went by the name of Honest Andrew Cochrane.’

William had four siblings including elder brother Andrew and younger siblings Mary, James and Margaret. He followed brother Andrew to Trinity College in Dublin entering in 1776 and receiving his B.A. in 1780 but gave up on his intention to seek ordination and instead left Ireland for the United States. A letter written by his grand-daughter Mary in 1916, claimed that William believed strongly in Irish nationalism and when his political beliefs put him in direct opposition to his family and friends, he chose to leave Ireland in 1783 for the newly independent United States. According to Mary, he decided to drop the ’e’ from his surname as a sign of his displeasure with both the Irish government and his family and from then on appeared as Cochran.

He made his way to Philadelphia where he obtained a position as a teacher in a grammar school and while in the city, he met Rebecc Cuppaidge and they married on 30 September 1785. Rebecca was also born in Ireland, about 1758, to Captain John Cuppaidge and his wife Mary Otway; she was the grand-daughter of John Cuppaidge and Elizabeth Waring and A History of County Down recounts the family’s history in Ireland:

Cuppage Hall was once the residence of a branch of the Cuppage family, various member of which have been connected with the County of Down. The family of Cuppage is of long standing in Ireland, having first come over from England with Sir Arthur Chichester, and settled at Coleraine, for which Stephen Cuppage sat in Parliament in 1661. Faustin Cuppaidge, another branch of the family, served in Lord Conway’s troop, against the Irish rebels. John, third son of Faustin Cuppaidge, was rector of Magheralin, and married in 1693, Elizabeth Waring, daughter of Mr William Waring, of Waringstown.

Shortly after their wedding, William and Rebecca moved to New York where William opened his own grammar school before accepting a position as a professor at Columbia University. But William became disillusioned with life in America, and with slavery in particular, and when he decided to pursue ordination with the Church of England, he felt his opportunities would be better in an English colony and so set sail for Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1788.

While waiting for approval on his ordination, he accepted a position with the newly established Halifax Grammar School and two years later, he was appointed to the presidency of King’s College in Windsor on 23 June 1790 followed by his ordination as a priest in 1791.

Several sources note that William and Rebecca had seven children but only four have been confirmed: Maria was born about 1788, Andrew William in 1792, Frances in 1795, and James Cuppaidge on 17 September 1798. Both of his sons attended King’s with Andrew receiving his B.A. in 1811 and James in 1825. Andrew went on to study law and later served as the Civil Secretary to the Governor of Canada as well as a member of the Executive Council of Lower Canada.

Despite his position at King’s, the family endured hardships at Windsor as enrollments were low and rising inflation had a negative impact on William’s fixed income. After 13 years as president, William lost his position as he did not meet the new requirement of a degree from Oxford or Cambridge for the post and was demoted to vice-president but he continued to teach and also acted as clergyman to several communities around Windsor including Newport and Falmouth.

William suffered from increasing ill health from 1821 and ten years later, he finally retired from his position at King’s. He died in Windsor two years later, on 4 April, and was buried in the family plot at the Old Parish Burying Ground. His memorial inscription reads:

In memory of the Rev. Wm. COCHRAN, D.D. a native of Omagh, in Ireland, and educated at Trinity College Dublin, He was for more than 40 years, a Missionary of the Church of England in this County and for the same period, a Professor in King’s College, Windsor, Beloved by his pupils, and highly useful in his generation, his walk was finished on the 4 of Aug. 1833, AEt.77

William was predeceased by his wife Rebecca on 24 September 1826 and daughters Maria, who died on 16 September 1845, and Frances, died on 12 May 1881, were buried with their parents in the family plot.

james cuppaidge cochran + ann matilda power

James was born at King’s College on 17 September 1798 and spent his childhood in Windsor. After leaving grammar school, he tried his hand at business but soon returned to King’s to study in advance of seeking ordination. He completed his studies in 1824, although his degree was not conferred until 1825, and following his ordaination in the Church of England on 23 August, he was appointed as the rector of St John’s Anglican Church in Lunenburg.

On 15 December 1826, he married Ann Mathilda Power presumably in Lunenburg. Ann was born in Nova Scotia about 1809 and her family also had its roots in Ireland but nothing further is known of them. James and Ann had 12 children but only three births are known — William Rupert was born in 1829, Eleanor in 1852 and Mary in 1853.

James received his M.A. from King’s in 1835 and in addition to his duties as rector, he worked as the publisher of the Colonial Churchman newspaper for five years. After 28 years in Lunenburg, the family moved to Halifax in 1852 where James continued to work as a publisher but of the Church Times. In 1855, he was appointed rector of the Salem Chapel, which was a member of Church of England but aimed at serving the poor in Halifax, where he remained for the next 11 years before a dispute with the bishop resulted in his resignation. Along with his supporters, he organized a free-pew or independent congregation called Trinity Church and he served there until his retirement in 1875.

The 1861 Census of Nova Scotia only lists the head of the household and the number of males and females in residence. James and his family were living in Ward 5 in the city of Halifax which encompassed the area from the north and west of the Citadel down to the dockyards and the family consisted of 3 males and 7 females or 2 sons and 6 daughters. They were still in Ward 5 in 1871 and although no address was listed, it does contain more detailed information on the family members - James was 72 years old and still working as a Clergyman, his wife Ann was 64 years old and daughter Mary was 18 years old.

James died in Halifax on 20 June 1880, aged 81 years, and his wife Ann followed on 23 June 1884.

Their son William, known as Rupert, followed in his father’s footsteps and studied at King’s College before his ordination in the Church of England. He married Mary Lawrence Johnstone in the early 1850s and they had one daughter, Mary Laura, in 1855. Mary Johnstone was the daughter of John Johnstone, a barrister, and Laura Stephenson, both natives of Jamaica who emigrated to Annapolis, Nova Scotia in the late 1820s. According to the History of Annapolis, Mary’s mother died shortly after her birth in the most tragic circumstances:

Not long after his first election [in 1828] and shortly before the rising of the House he lost his first wife in the most painful and distressing manner. On retiring to her sleeping apartment, where a little one had shortly before been laid to rest, in some manner never fully explained, her nightdress cuaght fire, and before it could be extinguished, she was burned so badly that soon afterwards died.

Laura was buried in the Old Cemetery in Annapolis and John remarried to Mary Kelly and they had two children. John suffered from ill health and when doctors recommended a sea voyage as a therapeutic cure, he sailed for England but sadly he never recovered and died in Falmouth in 1836.

By 1871, Rupert and his family had moved to London and were living at 23 Holles Street in Marylebone, between Cavendish Square and Hanover Square, where he was serving as a priest at the church dedicated to St George in Hanover Square. Ten years later, they were living in rural Lincolnshire in the village of Langton-by-Spillsby where Rupert served as rector; they lived in the rectory and employed husband and wife servants John and Emma Turner, a gardner and a cook.

The 1896 issue of Kelly’s Directory includes a description of the church and the glebe, a piece of land serving as part of a clergyman’s benefice and providing income, that came with Rupert’s appointment:

The church, originally St Peter, was burnt down many years ago, and on being rebuilt was reconsecrated Saints Peter and Paul: it is a modern edifice of brick of the Corinthian order, consisting of chancel and nave and an octagonal western tower containing 6 bells: there are 150 sitting. Their register dates from the year 1558. The living is a rectory, tithe rent-charge commuted for £340, average £259, gross yearly value £394, next £320, including 32 acres of glebe, with residence, in the gift of B.R. Langton, esq. and held since 1872 by the Rev. William Rupert Cochrane M.A. and hon D.D, of King’s College, Windsor, Nova Scotia.

Rupert, Mary and their 46 year old daughter were still living at the Langton Rectory in 1901 and 72 year old William was still serving as their rector but he died four years later, on 28 February, and probate on his £648 estate was granted to his daughter Mary. After his death, Mary, mother and daughter, left Lincolnshire and settled in Worthing on the south coast. Mary Laura obtained a position as the Superintendent of the St Edward’s Hostel which was operated by the Society for the Propogation of the Gospel. The 1911 census notes that the hostel consisted of 17 rooms and a small oratory or chapel and at the time, several missionaries and other church workers were in residence. Mary Laura and her mother were both listed as receiving income from ‘private means’ which likely consisted of Rupert’s legacy.

Mary Laura was in contact with her cousin Mildred Mallandaine Ainslie, who initially settled in Worthing when she returned from India in 1908, and encouraged Mildred’s son to follow a career in the church but was ultimately disappointed when he joined the army instead. Since Mildred was also in contact with Ida, we assume that she too had a relationship with Mary Laura.

Mary Lawrence died at St Edward’s on Clifton Road on 26 September 1914 and left an estate valued at £176 to her daughter. Mary Laura never married and she died at The Smiles Home, Maybury Hill in Woking, Surrey on 27 April 1928; probate on her £4000 estate was granted to the public trustee but it is not known if any of her estate passed to her cousins.

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