Enriqueta Smail

Enriqueta was born in Iquique, Peru in 1853, the daughter of Dr Frederick Bokenham and Maria (nee Tinajas). Frederick had trained as a doctor in England and had travelled to Peru where he met Maria Tinajas, from a wealthy Peruvian family that owned nitrate and silver mines. Enriqueta (the Spanish version of Harriet, her father’s sister), was the eldest of 5 children, all born in or near Iquique, a town which had developed largely due to the discovery of mineral riches, particularly the presence of large deposits of sodium nitrate in the Atacama Desert.

In 1862 Maria took the 4 eldest children to London to live with their Bokenham aunts and to be educated there. She returned to London in 1868, in order to bring Enriqueta back to Peru, but during their return trip there was a devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami with its centre near to Iquique. The earthquake caused almost complete destruction in the southern part of Peru, resulting in an estimated 25,000 casualties and many shipwrecks. The tsunami drove three ships anchored in port nearly 800m inland.

According to some accounts, Frederick Bokenham had ridden his horse out on to the sands to see the wonder of the great wave drawing back, and was drowned when it pounded back onto the shore, destroying the town of Iquique and other nearby coastal towns.
Enriqueta married Arthur Tudor Humphreys Trevor, a doctor from Anglesey who had travelled to Peru. An announcement in various English papers said that a marriage had taken place on Sept 22nd 1869 at Tarapaca, Peru, Arthur Tudor Humphreys Trevor MRCS, MRCP, son of the late Chancellor Trevor of Bangor, to Enriqueta, eldest daughter of the late Dr Bokenham of Iquique and Tarapaca. There is also an entry in the General Registry Office of a marriage of the same parties in Kensington in the 3rd quarter of 1878. It is likely that this was just a formality, but no children were born until after the marriage in England.

Frederick Pelham Trevor was born in Iquique on 17th November 1879, and Elizabeth Warren (Elsie) Trevor in 1881 in Chile. The Battle of Iquique in May 1879 had given Chile this portion of the Peruvian territory.
Enriqueta and Arthur Trevor had returned to the UK by 1885 and were living in Beaumaris, Anglesey, where Arthur’s family was from. Arthur Tudor Humphreys Trevor died on April 25 1887 aged 42 in Beaumaris. His probate shows him as physician and surgeon. Probate to Enriqueta, his widow of Castle Street, Beaumaris.
Enriqueta returned to South America with her children where in about 1889 she married John Isdale Smail, a Scottish merchant and director of a large nitrate company. John Smail vowed to care for Enriqueta’s two children as if they were his own. The family soon returned to England where they took lodgings in Tunbridge Wells. Enriqueta died on the 3rd March 1890 aged 38. Her probate in July gave her residence as late of Ernstein House which was a lodging house at 83 Mount Ephraim. Probate was granted to her husband John Isdale Smail of 63 Montagu Square, Middlesex. Her personal estate was £162. 13s.
In 1891 John Smail, his 2 stepchildren, their maternal grandmother Maria Bokenham and a governess were lodging in Bournemouth. John returned to Iquique on business in December 1898 with his stepdaughter Elizabeth, and both returned in early 1900. On the 9th January 1901 John Smail married Laura Caroline Trevor, the niece of Arthur Tudor Humphreys Trevor, Enriqueta’s first husband. John Smail died in January 1916 at his mansion Warren Wood, Hayes, Kent a house of over 20 rooms. His estate was valued at £150,265.
Enriqueta’s mother Maria died in London in January 1911 and is buried in the Brooking family tomb at the East Finchley cemetery. Her son in law was George Brooking.
Enriqueta’s son Frederick Pelham Trevor was educated at Marlborough College from September 1893 until December 1896 when he matriculated to Pembroke College, Cambridge. At both these colleges, Frederick was a member of their Volunteer Corps. After finishing his education he took up farming.

In 1907 he married Winifred Mary Mills London at St Andrew's Church in Marylebone. They had one son who they named Arthur Pelham and a daughter, Elinor Meriol Enriqueta. In 1911 the family lived at Coney Hall Farm in West Wickham.

When war broke out Frederick was gazetted to the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry 3rd Battalion on the 15th August 1914. Attached to the 2nd Battalion, he was sent to France in March 1915. During the Second Battle of Ypres, when in action at St Juliaan, he was shot and killed by a sniper on the 8th May 1915.

Enriqueta’s gravestone in Tunbridge Wells Cemetery Section A13 is an impressive double plot with a beautifully carved cross. Her time here was fleeting and the rest of her family are buried elsewhere.