William Henry Waters : Short Biography

William Waters was born in 1810 in Wexford. His parents Joseph Waters/Watters & Elizabeth Hutchinson were married at St Iberius church in 1801. Joseph, William's father, is said to be originally from Muckno, Co Monaghan.

William Waters enlisted in the army at Liverpool in 1831 & embarked on the ship, the Thomas Grenville, for Calcutta.

By 1847 William had worked his way up to being Sergeant Overseer of the Government Stud at Haupper, maintaining horses for the Artillery.

In 1846 William travelled on the ship, Emily Jane, to the Bungarribee HEIC horse studd, in NSW, Australia, to purchase horses to transport back to India. On this trip was his young wife Isabella Johnson, whom he had married in 1839 at Calcutta. Their daughter Isabella was born in NSW.

Back in India they had a total of 8 children. At about the time of the Indian Mutiny [1857] the family appeared to have moved on to living in Darjeeling. William Waters became involved in some of the first tea plantations in the area.

It must have been a treachorous trip from Darjeeling, down to Calcutta, as William disappeared in December 1861, on a trip to pick up his son, Joseph Henry, from St Martiniere's boarding school.