Thor

This is our first cousin twice removed, Thornton Borthwick Macklin, who lies buried with his grandparents, our common ancestors, at Melrose in the Scottish borders, roughly half way between Edinburgh and Alnwick in Northumberland. Thor’s mother and our great-grandfather Borthwick were sister and brother. As much of his story as I know is set out in the long inscription on their splendid headstone, and for understandable reasons Aunt Jean, who throughout her life kept in touch with the Macklin family in England, held onto this charming carte de visite photograph. The inscription does not mention the Indian dhaye or bearer, so we shall almost certainly never know his name. Chaziabad, now known as Ghaziabad, is in the modern state of Uttar Pradesh, approximately twelve miles north-east of New Delhi.

In Memory
of
ALEX.R HAY BORTHWICK
WHO DIED AT LADIESYDE
MELROSE, 28TH AUGUST 1901
AGED 83 YEARS
ALSO HIS WIFE
JANE MURRAY
WHO DIED 9TH JAN.Y 1910
AGED 90 YEARS
THORNTON BORTHWICK MACKLIN
“THOR”
GRANDSON OF THE ABOVE
AND ELDEST SON OF T. THORNTON MACKLIN, M.D.
BORN AT CHAZIABAD, INDIA
26TH DEC.R 1886
DIED AT WHALLEY, LANCASHIRE
27TH FEB.Y 1909, AGED 22 YEARS