Joseph BATES, a wool finisher and exporter in Yorkshire, sent two of his teenage sons to the East Indies to further his business interests. Both young men married daughters of a career soldier, Cornelius Umfreville SMITH, in the Fort William Old Church, Calcutta. Edward and his bride Charlotte Elizabeth were under age in July 1836. Edward’s brother Benjamin Hopkinson, and Charlotte’s sister Susannah Mary, were witnesses at the ceremony. Their wedding took place in the same church two years later.

The Smith sisters were children of the Raj but they both sailed 15,000 miles to the “home country” with their husbands. There, they experienced the deaths of infants before dying themselves. The brothers married again. Edward prospered as a merchant and ship owner, served in Parliament, and was raised to the peerage. Benjamin died a bankrupt.

Edward married his second wife, Ellen THOMPSON, in Holy Trinity Church, Hull. It appears to have been celebrated by a large number of people.

I am a little puzzled by “overland mail” but you can assess their successful partnership on Wikipedia and the FamilySearch Shared Tree.

Sky 28 · Filey Bay