FREDERICK McLAUGHLIN married Elizabeth Syphus (1851-1910) after the death of his first wife, Harriet. Elizabeth, pictured right, was born in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, the daughter of George Syphus, a farm worker, and his wife Jane, née Gardiner.

For nearly a century the McLaughlins in England lost all trace of the Judge's second family. Burke's Landed Gentry merely noted that the sons "went to the colonies before 1914."  I am delighted that ─ through this website ─ contact has been re-established with their descendants in British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan.

Frederick was appointed Judge of Jessore in 1876, the year he married Elizabeth, according to the Index to Bengal Marriages. But it was on May 3, 1876 that their first son was born. The delivery took place while the couple were coming through the Red Sea on the India-England route aboard the S.S. Scotland. The boy was therefore named Percy James Scotland McLaughlin.

Judge Frederick later sired more children: Frederick "Fred" George (born in 1877 at Aldsworth, Gloucestershire), Stanley (born 1879 in Calcutta, India), Sidney (born 1881 at Colchester, Essex), Hugh (born 1883 at Deal, Kent), Eva (born 1887 in Bengal), Nora (born 1888 in London), Cyril Crofton (born 1893 in Petersfield, Hampshire, but died within weeks), Neil (born 1894 in Petersfield), and Donough Crofton (born 1897 in Hove, Sussex).

Fred was educated at Felsted School while Stanley and Sidney were boarders at a small prep school in Liverpool Street, Dover, Kent. In June 1893 Percy sailed to Canada with 15-year-old Fred, who got his first job as a stooker propping up sheaves of grain.

For two winters the youngsters attended Toronto's Ontario Agricultural College (in 1922 it moved to Guelph, and in 1964 became the University of Guelph, where my first wife Professor Sarah McLaughlin gained her Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine).

THE QUEEN'S MEDAL with four clasps awarded to Percy McLaughlin. The reverse is shown. The obverse is on Colonel Hubert's page

Later Percy and Fred took up adjoining homesteads at Maple Creek, 60 miles east of Medicine Hat, Alberta. They traded in horses and cattle, as well as having their own herds.

At the outbreak of South Africa's second Boer War six-feet-tall Percy joined the Canadian Mounted Rifles. He enlisted for a year on January 5, 1900. He must have been a great shot. On November 14 Percy was wounded in the leg. It caused him to tumble off his horse. But as he fell, he shot and killed one of the enemy. Percy earned the Queen's South Africa Medal with four clasps for service in Johannesburg, Diamond Hill, Cape Colony and Orange Free State.

After discharge Percy went back to ranching and continued until 1911 when he went to Vancouver. There, at the age of 35, Percy married Kathleen 'Kate' Jenkins, born in Pimlico, London, in 1877.

For a time Percy was a real estate agent in Vancouver, then he and his wife tried living in various other parts of British Columbia until he became an inspector for the Agriculture Department in Enderby, half way between Vancouver and Calgary.

Percy suffered for years from his wound, which had never healed properly, but he was a gentle man who loved his three children. This photo taken in 1916 shows Nora (left), Louise, who became a registered nurse (right) and, in the middle, Joan, the only one still alive, though the children of all three continue to thrive in Canada. 

In 1947 Percy retired to nearby Canoe. Complications from his leg wound sent him to Shaughnessy veteran's hospital, Vancouver, where died in 1963, followed by Kate in 1967.

© 2006 G. Harry McLaughlin.
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