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| A miniature painting of Caroline, which was handed down through my family. Artist unknown. |
Died: 6 May 1905, Bath, Somerset, England
Father: Charles Nicholas Weiss, 1789-1845
Mother: Benigna Catharina von Holst, c1801-1845
Spouse: Henry Richard Hughes (1816-1872)
Married 23 December 1851, in Kotree, Sindh, India (now Kotri, Pakistan).
Children
- Mary Adelaide, 1862-1865
- Henry James, 1865-1894
- Catherine Elizabeth, 1868-1880
- Annie, 1869-1870
- Marion Constance, 1871-1944
Biographical information
Caroline was born in Liverpool, England. When her father joined the British Army and was posted to India, it would seem that Caroline and her brother Bernard travelled with him, while the other members of the family remained in England for a time. Caroline, along with Bernard, was baptised in Poona (now Pune), India, on 27 December 1840.
Family lore says that after the Weiss children were orphaned in 1845, the girls were sent back to England. It is not clear that Caroline's sister Adelaide did return to England, and if Caroline did, she returned to India because she was married there six years later, at the age of 18 to Henry Hughes.
It was 11 years after their marriage that Caroline gave birth to their first child, in 1862, which does seem unusually long. The reason why is unknown. At the time of Mary's birth, the family were living in Kotri, and Caroline's husband Henry was working with the Indian Navy as a 1st Class engineer in with the Indus Flotilla. By the time their second child was born, the family was living in Karachi, and Henry was then working as a general merchant. The movements of the family becomes a little hazy after this, though it would seem that they went to England for a time, where their third child was born in Blackheath (now part of London) in 1868, and then back to India, where Annie was born in 1869, and then returned to England, where the family appears to have settled in Bath - Annie died there, and Marion was born there.
Caroline was widowed less than a year after Marion was born, though it would seem that the family was reasonably well provided for after Henry's death, as Caroline was described as an annuitant and "living on own means" in subsequent censuses.
Caroline lived in Walcot, Bath until her death, aged 72. She was buried in Locksbrook Cemetery.
