Lady Coffin

Born in or about 1835 at Madras in India, Catherine Eliza Shepherd was the eldest daughter of Major John Shepherd of the Madras Army. On 23 October 1866 she became the second wife of Major-General Sir Isaac Coffin (1801-1872). The couple were married at the British Embassy in Berlin (The Belfast Newsletter, 1 November 1866).

The couple appear on the 1871 census living at 9 St John’s Park in Greenwich, with their sons Campbell, aged 3, and Clifford, aged 1. Also present on the night of the census were Lady Coffin’s brother, Charles Shepherd, a Lieutenant in the Bengal Staff Corps, and three servants.

‘A well-known Indian officer, Lieutenant-General Sir Isaac Campbell Coffin, K.C.S.I., died very suddenly at Blackheath on the 1st inst., at the age of 71. He was the son of the late Admiral F.H. Coffin, and was born in the year 1801. He entered the Madras Army at an early age, and rose to the rank of Major-General in 1857. It will be remembered that during the Indian Mutiny he was in command of the Hyderabad subsidiary force, and also commanded a division of the Madras Army from 1859 to 1864. He was nominated a Knight Commander of the Star of India in 1866, and had recently attained the rank of Lieutenant-General.’ (Bell’s Weekly Messenger, 5 October 1872).

Lady Coffin ‘of 8 St Stephens-crescent Westbourne Park’ died on 4 November 1903 at the Paragon Hotel in Bournemouth. She left an estate valued at £4884.

Photographed by Hennah and Kent of Brighton.