Introduction

The manuscript of this lecture has been deposited, with other papers relating to the manor of Flitwick and to the Brooks family, at the County Record Office in Bedford, by Mr. John Lyall, by whose kind permission it is published here (catalogue number LL 17/303). The deposit supplemented one previously made by his father, the late Lt.-Colonel R. A. Lyall, D.S.O., D.L.

John Hatfield Brooks, born on 20 May 1824, was the eldest of three sons, and the second child, of John Thomas Brooks of Flitwick Manor, and his wife Mary, daughter of Alexander Hatfield. The manor of Flitwick had come into the possession of the Brooks family through the marriage in 1789 of George Brooks, father of John Thomas, and Ann, widow of James Hesse and daughter of Jeffrey Fisher of Maulden. She inherited the manor from her godfather, Humphrey Dell, and other properties in Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire from her father. These were divided among the children of her two marriages; Flitwick passed to her only surviving son by her second marriage, and thenceforward the Brooks family identified themselves with Bedfordshire.

In 1850 John Brooks married Sophia, daughter of Henry Cloete of Westerford, Cape Town. She and their two daughters were with him until, as he describes, he sent them home to stay with his parents at Flitwick. His father died in 1858, but it was not until 1863 that he retired from the army, with the rank of Major. From then until his death in 1907, he lived at Flitwick, taking his share in the life of the county, in which he held the offices of Deputy Lieutenant and High Sheriff.

This account of his experiences was given in the Iron Room (a Parish Room built in 1884) at Flitwick on 20 March 1893. The talk was illustrated with eight photographs. Major Brooks wrote this account for reading aloud, not as a carefully corrected work for publication. He therefore set it down informally, using abbreviations which have been expanded, and occasionally omitting words which have been added in square brackets. His sometimes variant spellings of Indian place and personal names have been left unchanged, but a few obvious spelling slips of ordinary English words have been corrected.