Theodore Augustus Tharp: Soldier, Author, Playwright, Artist

Theodore Augustus Tharp (1844-1915) was the son of the Reverend Augustus James Tharp (Georgianna's uncle) and of Juliet Bond (Alfred's sister). By 1861, he was in the Addiscombe Military Seminary and he was a lieutenant with the 104th Regiment of Foot (Bengal Fusiliers) in Ireland by 1867. Although he certainly also served in India before he retired in 1872, Theodore found the time to entertain his father's parishioners with comic songs and readings on more than one occasion.

Theodore returned from India in 1870 (see clipping from the Cambridge Chronicle and Journal on the 16th of April) and he married Margaret Annabel Black Spence in 1872. The couple had five sons: Eden Arthur Augustus George Tharp (b. 1873), John Montagu Emile Sidney Tharp (b. 1875), Julian Augustus Tharp (born and died 1875), Charles Julian Theodore Tharp (b. 1878) and Stuart Norman Frederick James Tharp (b. 1880). I'll come back to his family life later.

After leaving the army, Theodore turned his hand to writing, and his first play, Talbot's Trust, received mixed reviews: 

"What does it all mean?" is a question asked by the person who appears to be the hero ... and a bewildered audience may well echo the query. Some one forges a cheque in the first act, and in the second avoids arrest by dying of injuries received in a railway accident. Two other people are on the high road to matrimony, or at least are left alone ... to 'have a good spoon till tea-time'. The deplorable vulgarity of this is not more conspicuous than the incoherence which characterises the entire drama. (London Evening Standard, 16th of September 1875).

Undeterred, Theodore published his first novel, The Sword of Damocles, in three volumes in 1880. It was reviewed in a few places ('the plot is really somewhat irritating' -- Civil and Military Gazette (Lahore) 10th of June 1880) and followed by Cradled in a Storm in 1880. His play Fair Women and Brave Men. A Romance of Waterloo, was toured by Ben Greet's company in 1897 and 1898:

Comedy may come, and farce may go, but melodrama, apparently, goes on for ever. This, however, is no excuse for the bewildering conglomeration presented last night at the Parkhurst Theatre ... which is neither tragedy, comedy, nor farce ... there are ... several irrepressibly comic incidents ... for the most part unintentional. (London Evening Standard, 8th of November 1898)

Rob Roy. The Story of a Stag was published in 1913, illustrated by Theodore's silhouette hunting scenes. This built on a talent already displayed in Big Game Shooting -- Scissor Cuttings by Theodore A. Tharp, which was issued in 1875. Theodore was constant to his theme: on the 15th of June 1904, The Bystander magazine published 'Silhouette Scenes by Captain Theodore Tharp', depicting 'Pig-Sticking in India', as shown below. In 1908, the American Register advertised menu holders, trinket boxes and cigarette boxes decorated with Theodore's hunting silhouettes.

A display of Theodore's hunting scenes also caught the attention of Harman and Co, a military supply company to whom he owed £5 1s for a crimson regimental sash they'd supplied to him in India nine years before. They pursued him in court for the debt, but the judge ruled that the case should have been brought in India and that the statute of limitations was three years in Britain, so there was no case to answer in a British court. Theodore offered to pay the bill but not the costs, saying that 'he did not wish to act in any way dishonourable, but he did not want to open a way for other Indian tradesmen to make claims upon him which he could not refute' (Bury and Norwich Post, 26th of November 1878). 

In 1880, before their youngest son was baptised, Margaret filed for divorce on the grounds of  'adultery with a woman known by the name of Thomas ... at the Midland Hotel in the parish of St Pancras' as well as 'unkindness and cruelty and ... divers acts of personal violence'. The divorce appears not to have been granted, because Theodore and Margaret both describe themselves as 'married' in later census returns, though they certainly lived separately. I believe that this marital scandal is the reason why Theodore was overlooked as a possible heir to Monty Tharp's Chippenham Park estate.

Margaret died in 1899 and Theodore re-married in 1901 to Annie Amelia Allsopp. Their daughter Theodora had been born in 1898, and none of the relevant census returns shows him living with either Annie or Theodora, though the mother and daughter were together in 1911.  I think I've found two marriages for Theodora, in 1927 and 1945, but it's usual not to publish information from the last 100 years without the individual's consent, so I won't say more than that. 

Eden, Theodore's eldest son, and Stuart, the youngest, followed him into the army. Eden served with the 1st Brabants Horse Regiment in South Africa and Stuart with the Royal Garrison Artillery during World War I. Of the two younger sons, John was a mining engineer and Charles was a pretty good artist.

Theodore isn't a direct ancestor, but Christine was related to him through both of his parents. He's useful here as an example of one among many great grandsons of John Tharp to benefit from the proceeds of slavery and to carry over some of the assumptions of slavery long after its abolition. Although the bulk of the fortune flowed elsewhere, over a century after John Tharp died, this disreputable scion of a minor branch of the family (through two younger sons) was still able to live comfortably after leaving the army without the trouble of formal employment.