Ella Sofia Raffles born 1821 Benkuku, Indonesia died 1840 aged 18-19 St Leonards, England.
It was known that Ella Sofia Raffles surviving child of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (founder of the British colony of Singapore) came with her mother to convalesce in a house on the Marina in 1840. The Sussex Advertiser of 27th April 1840 stated in the Hastings and St Leonards column “Lady Raffles has taken 59 Marina” They appeared to have moved there from a local hotel as the Brighton Gazette of 30th April 1840 stated that the departures from the Royal Victoria Hotel include “Lady and Miss Raffles“. The St James Chronicle 7th May 1840 “May 5th at St Leonards on Sea, Ella Sophia, last surviving child of the late Sir Thomas Stanford Raffles 19 years“.
Martin Webster sought information about where Ella Sophia was buried and a photograph of any memorial tablet or tombstone epitaph of her.
The diary of Thomas Brandon BRETT for 1840 recorded Ella Sofia Raffles among those whose death occurred in St Leonards in May and “it may be asserted that the remains of all the above were interred in the burial ground“.
However scrutiny of the Hastings Area Archaeological Group 1993 survey of the tombstones in that burial ground failed to identify one recording her.
A search of memorial tablets on the walls of the Burton church was thwarted by damage done to the Burton church by a V1 in July 1944 namely complete demolition of its southern wall and substantial damage to aisle walls. Consequently many of the tablets on those walls were destroyed so the absence of her name on surviving tablets was not proof that there had never been one.
A further complication was that until the 1860’s the incumbents of the Burton church were “perpetual curates” and not licensed to record deaths and thus solemnise funerals. A search of the register of St Mary in Castle confirmed that the funeral of Ella Sofia Raffles took place in that church but that there was no record of her being interred in the church vault nor in its cemetery above Castle Hill Road.
Subsequent research disclosed that St. Leonards church register recorded Ella Sophia Raffles’ interment as 12th May 1840 and a margin note “Vault in church”
A further subsequent search via “Find a Grave” recorded Ella Sophia Raffles’ grave as St Paul’s Churchyard, Mill Hill, Middlesex. Memorial No 231616365 . It is concluded that Ella Sophia Raffles died in 59 Marina; her funeral was held in St Mary in the Castle, Hastings; her coffin was temporally housed in the vault of the Burton church and subsequently buried in the churchyard of St Paul’s church near the Mill Hill retirement home of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles.
Research undertaken in 2023 by Stephen van Dulken and Christopher Maxwell-Stewart
Burtons’ St Leonards Society
and Anne Scott
Old Hastings Preservation Society
