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A House Named BlessingtonMany who drive past Late Capt. Beale’s houseat South Point also know that the house on theopposite side of the road is called Blessington.However, not many know how the housegot the name, or who its first occupantswere, before it became the property of theGovernment of India. Like many old housesin Port Blair Blessington too has a tale to tell.James and Amelia Whitby had one daughter,Violet Emelie, born on 8 th December 1877 atPort Blair. She was educated in a school situatedon Ross Island. Reuben and his wife Jemima hadfive children, all born in Port Blair. Reuben diedin the year 1900. His tombstone can still be seenin the cemetery at Aberdeen.BlessingtonIt is a tale of three families whose fortunes werelinked to the Andaman Islands for more than threegenerations – the Whitbys, the Boomgardts andthe Delaneys.The first of the three families to come to theAndamans were the Whitbys. James Whitby Sr.was born in Romford, Essex, England in 1822. Heenlisted in the British Army and travelled on the S.S.Elizabeth to Madras in 1841. His son, also namedJames, was born in 1846 in Poonamallee. James Jr.married Amelia Jane Shandley, whose grandmotherwas born in a little village named BLESSINGTONnear Dublin, Ireland. A job in the Jail Departmentbrought them to Port Blair. Soon James Whitby’sbrother Rueben also joined them at Port Blair. Theywere there at the time of the assassination of LordMayo on 8th February 1872.As the settlement expanded, a young civil engineerAllan Joseph Boomgardt from Travancore (nowTrivandrum), arrived in the Islands to plan theroad system throughout the Andamans. Allanbelonged to an old Dutch East India family andhis father worked for the Dewan of Travancore.His mother, La Bouchadere, was French. Allanmet Violet Whitby and they were married on11th April 1898 at Vellore. They returned andsettled down in Port Blair.Allan and Violet Boomgardt had two children:Coralie, born in 1900 and John, born in 1907.Allan continued to work till his retirement. Agrateful Government allotted him a large coconutplantation at South Point called Mt. Haughtonestate measuring 53 acres and land to build ahouse. This was the pension for his loyal service92The Indian Police Journal, October - December, 2012, Special Issue
of laying a network of useful roads into the thickforest of South Andaman. Blessington cameup on this land and Allan and Violet led quiet,retired lives raising chickens, keeping a few cowsand tending to their plantation of coconuts andcashews. Sitting in the forecourt of Blessington,they could behold the magnificent view of theentrance to Port Blair harbour and Ross Islandwhile, on the other side of the bay was NorthPoint, from where a light house winked at themduring the nights.Meanwhile Coralie and John were growingup. They went to school in Darjeeling butalways returned to their beloved Port Blair.Coralie married Leslie Vincent of the WirelessDepartment and they moved to Rangoon. Theyhad three children and were frequent visitors toPort Blair, until Vincent’s work contract forcedhim to return to England, and the family left Indiain 1938. This must have been a time of greatsadness for the Boomgardts. Soon the Whitby/Boomgardt family would unite with another PortBlair family, the Delaneys.John Delaney was born in Brentwood, Essex,England in 1852, and he married MargaretGibbons from Ireland. He joined the British ArmyOrdnance Survey and was posted to India. Theyhad five children, all born in Madras; one of thesons was Patrick, born in 1886. Patrick becamean officer in the Jail Department and was put incharge of the rehabilitation of the convicts at PortBlair. His popularity led to a part of the townbeing named after him as Delaneypur, a namethat continues even today. At Patrick’s invitation,his elder brother John Delaney joined him in theJail Department at Port Blair in 1930. Before this,John was in the Royal Horse Artillery and hadbeen sent to England where he met and marriedNora Maguire. They had two daughters, Mollyand Monica. In 1930, John and Nora Delaney,with their two daughters aged 18 and 14, movedfrom Southampton, England, to Port Blair.John Boomgardt fell instantly in love with Mollyand they were married on 16th May 1933 at theRoman Catholic Chapel on Ross Island.James Whitby died in 1882, Amelia in 1937 andAllan Boomgardt in 1938. They are all buried inthe cemetery at Port Blair. Violet continued tolive at Blessington surrounded by friends -- theDelaneys, Monins, Myers, Youngs and manymore old Port Blair families, leading an idyllicexistence, except for the absence of her daughterand family.When World War II broke out, John Boomgardtenlisted and was commissioned as an officer inthe Maratha Light Infantry. He was sent to NorthAfrica where he was severely wounded. He wasadmitted to the military hospital in Poona. Mollyand daughter Eileen joined him and they stayedthere till the end of the war. John Boomgardt waslater awarded the Military Cross.Meanwhile, the Andaman and Nicobar Islandswere occupied by the Japanese. Most Europeansleft the Islands. Violet reluctantly left on the lastship and went to Calcutta. The few who stayedwere brutally treated by the Japanese. To set anexample for all, Maj. A.J. Bird was beheaded inpublic by the Japanese. Cato, a Swede, was killedbecause he refused to bow before the Japanese.John Delaney was severely beaten, which lefthim blind in one eye, and transported to TavoyP.O.W Camp in Burma (now Myanmar). ChiefCommissioner Waterfall and many local residentswere tortured. Forty-four local residents, on thesuspicion of being British spies, were shot deadby a firing squad at a place called Homfray Gunj.A group of elderly and infirm men, among themthe father of Molly’s close friend Ivy Myers,were taken out to sea and forced overboard; twosurvived.The war ended with the dropping of two atomicbombs on Japan. On August 14th, 1945, Japanannounced its surrender. All the Japanese soldiersin the Islands became prisoners of war and Alliedtroops retook the islands. The Japanese garrisonat Port Blair surrendered to Brig. A. Solomon atthe Gymkhana Grounds.As soon as the war ended, Maj. John Boomgardt,now recovered from his injuries, was posted toCar Nicobar as Assistant Commissioner. Violetreturned to her beloved Blessington. Molly andchildren joined John Boomgardt at Car Nicobar.His job was to oversee the reoccupation and healthe wounds of the Japanese atrocities during theoccupation. When India won Independence on15th August 1947, it was Maj. John BoomgardtThe Indian Police Journal, October - December, 2012, Special Issue 93
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The Indian Police JournalOctober -
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From the Director’s DeskNew Delhi
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23rd December, 1887: TheJourney beg
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Courtesy - National Archives of Ind
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The Logo released on the completion
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Helmsmen of the IB during thePre-In
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SHRI V.G. VAIDYA, IPS(MAR 1992 TO J
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“Sleeman sahib ki jai”“No Cri
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their life and their problems relat
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Settling down of criminal tribes wa
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perish. Between 1841 and 1848, anot
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In conclusion, I would like to reco
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own race alone, had to be withdrawn
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a bee in his bonnet” 17 , and abo
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epresented by Tilak and his followe
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The agency more and more fine-tuned
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US was brewing, one William Hopkins
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came under the control of Indian mi
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neutralised many efforts by inimica
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e published by the Intelligence Bur
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As DD (Security), IB, I had occasio
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Chhomohlohri, all of them juxtapose
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Dormers Building, ShimlaThe Dormers
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eforms. Warren Commission, on the a
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and systems will increasingly come
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violence and destabilisation. This
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one develop. The all pervasive cult
Page 55 and 56: etween the states and the centre su
Page 57 and 58: Intelligence Agencies inIndian Demo
Page 59 and 60: Democracies are, today, everywhere
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Page 63 and 64: Of Pistols and Pigs andthe Old Tidd
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Page 67 and 68: Through the Eyes of an IB OfficerSh
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Page 71 and 72: My J&K ExperienceShri R.K. Kapoor,
Page 73 and 74: there. We remained stranded there f
Page 75 and 76: Scaling Himalayan Heights withthe I
Page 77 and 78: proceed to Dungti to supervise the
Page 79 and 80: tour of the White House and Lincoln
Page 81 and 82: into unconsciousness two hours earl
Page 83 and 84: which was completed successfully wi
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Page 87 and 88: My Unforgettable Yearsin the North-
Page 89 and 90: stated that Prakash Singh, Assistan
Page 91 and 92: take her into confidence. That woul
Page 93 and 94: Police - Intelligence InterfaceShri
Page 95 and 96: Shreekant Bapat and I surveyed the
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Page 99 and 100: Immigration, Inter-State Disputes,
Page 101 and 102: Observations on India’s State and
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Page 109 and 110: Technology in Intelligence-Future S
Page 111 and 112: These are just some of the aspects
Page 113 and 114: Figure 6: Open Source Information o
Page 115 and 116: events) and inference from evidence
Page 117 and 118: 9North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Page 119 and 120: Shri Dave was posted back to the lB
Page 121 and 122: He even suggested separate pay scal
Page 123 and 124: The Unsung HeroesThe Intelligence B
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