David Ochterlony

Background David Ochterlony was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the eldest son of Captain David Ochterlony (also Ochterloney) and his wife, Katherine Tyler. His father was born into an ancient family in Forfarshire, Scotland, and his mother was born in Boston to settlers of English and Welsh descent. His mother was the niece of Sir William Pepperrell. He attended the Boston Latin School after which his widow moved to England and his mother remarried to Sir Isaac Heard, Garter King-of-Arms. Career in India In 1777, at age 18, Ochterlony went as a cadet to India. In February 1778 he was commissioned into the Bengal Native Infantry as an ensign and that same September was advanced to lieutenant. In June 1782 while serving in the Second Anglo-Mysore War he was wounded and taken prisoner by the forces of Haidar Ali. He remained in captivity for the duration of the war and was only released when peace resumed in 1784. Thereafter, he returned to Calcutta, and in recognition of his eminent service during the war was conferred with the appointment of Judge Advocate-General for one of the divisions in the army. The following month he was given a pension of £1,000 per annum. In December 1816, he was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath. In 1818, he was appointed Resident in Rajpootana, with which the Residency at Delhi was subsequently combined. Death When Durjan Sal revolted in 1825 against Balwant Singh, the infant Raja of the Princely state of Bharatpur, Ochterlony acting on his own accord supported the young Raja by proclamation and ordered out a force to support him. However, the Governor-General of India, Lord Amherst, repudiated these proceedings and ordered the army to return. Ochterlony, who was bitterly chagrined by this rebuff, resigned his office and retired to Delhi. He was to be replaced by his good friend Sir Charles Metcalfe. The feeling that the confidence that his length of service merited had not been given him by the governor-general is said to have accelerated his death, and he died at Meerut in July 1825. He is interred in St. John's Church in Meerut. The Ochterlony column at Calcutta commemorated his name, though it has since been rededicated. ==Private life==

by an anonymous Delhi artist of Sir David Ochterlony in Indian dress smoking a hookah ca. 1820s As the official British Resident at Delhi, David Ochterlony adopted and thoroughly embraced the Indo-Persian culture of the Mughals. He was reputed to have thirteen Indian concubines (as seen by the British) or wives (as seen by others). Every evening, he used to take all thirteen of his wives on a promenade around the walls of the Red Fort, each on the back of her own elephant. ==Mubarak Begum==

The most prominent among Ochterlony's women was "Bibi (or Bebee) Mubarak-ul-Nissa Begum". Reportedly his favorite wife, she was the mother of his two youngest children, both daughters. She was known as "Generallee Begum". As such, she took clear precedence over the rest of the household. She was considered to be a devout Muslim, having once applied for leave to make the hajj to Mecca. Mubarak even seems to have set herself up as a power in her own right, and even formed her own independent foreign policy. At one point, it was reported that "Mubarak Begum, alias Generalee Begum, fills the [Delhi] papers with accounts of the Nizars and Khiluts [gifts and dresses of honor] given and taken by her in her transactions with the Vacquils [ambassadors of the different Indian powers] - an extraordinary liberty, if true." However, in spite of all her power and high status, Mubarak Begum was widely unpopular among the British and the Mughals alike. She offended the British by calling herself "Lady Ochterlony" and on the other hand, also offended the Mughals by awarding herself the title "Qudsia Begum", a title previously reserved for the Emperor's mother. After Ochterlony's death, she inherited Mubarak Bagh, an Anglo-Mughal garden tomb Ochterlony had built in the north of Old Delhi, but her intense unpopularity combined with her background as a dancing girl ensured that no Mughal gentleman would use her structure. To this date, the tomb is still referred to by the local inhabitants of the old city as the "Randi ki Masjid" (''"Prostitute's Mosque"''). ==Descendants==

, built as a memorial to Sir David Ochterlony. Ochterlony had at least six natural (illegitimate) children, by two or more of his concubines: • Roderick Peregrine Ochterlony, of Delhi (1785-d by 1823), his only son; he married 1808 Sarah Nelly, the daughter of Lt. Col. John Nelly of the Bengal Engineers, at Allahabad, India. Roderick and Sarah Ochterlony had three children. A daughter, Charlotte Ochterlony, died in 1835 (death mentioned in ''The Gentleman's Magazine''). • Sir Charles Metcalfe Ochterlony, 2nd Baronet (1817–1891), who succeeded his grandfather by special remainder in 1825. He married in 1844 a Miss Sarah Tribe of Liverpool, and had as descendants three sons and two daughters. The creation of this baronetcy became extinct on the death of the fifth Baronet in 1964. • • Charlotte Ochterlony (d. 1835) • [by Mubarak Begum] a daughter • [by Mubarak Begum] a daughter ==References==