Sarah Morley is commemorated in one of the largest and most beautiful monuments in the Cathedral.
Why she is included in this work
Sarah Morley is commemorated in one of the largest and most beautiful monuments in the Cathedral. The word Bombay stood out on this tomb and so we identified this as an important memorial that might be connected to the East India Company. This was not part of the City Review as it is not connected to Transatlantic Slavery. It is included here due to its links to colonial management of Bombay (now Mumbai).
What we know
Sarah Morley was the first wife, but second partner of James Morley. He went on to marry twice more. James Morley was born in India to English parents and was a member of the Bombay Council. Sarah’s sister Barbara also married a member of the Bombay Council, Charles Bourchier and has a monument recalling her death at sea in 1784 in Newent church.
According to his will (dated 1790) James Morley had children by Mariam otherwise Rubra. Rubra’s second son Henry Morley was born on 3 March 1775, just a few months before Sarah and James married. It therefore appears that Rubra was a commonlaw wife of James in India and that he acknowledged his parental duties to her two sons James and Henry. However, he treated these two acknowledged “natural children” quite differently than his sons born to English mothers. He arranged for each of them to be apprenticed in England, but revoked a bequest of £200 each (as he had already spent more than this on them). In the end they therefore would have received no further benefit from their father. His legitimate children shared a sum of £15,000 on the death of their father.
Sarah may be considered to be an “innocent bystander”; however, she must have been a significant part of the East India Company community and the monument to her in the Cathedral must certainly have been paid for out of money made in colonial India.
What we would still like to find out
We would like to know more about Sarah’s life in India and who paid for the memorial in the Cathedral.
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