Charles Alexander Tomes

He was the eldest son of Eleanor Tomes (née Hadden) (1820–1894),[2] and Francis Tomes Jr. (1813–1898),[3] who was a prominent merchant who owned until 1877 a large Victorian mansion, on Putnam Avenue in Greenwich, Connecticut, that had been designed by Calvert Vaux with a landscape design by Frederick Law Olmsted.

[8] Between 1887 and 1888, he made a trip around the world,[7] before moving to Shanghai, and later Hong Kong, with a letter of recommendation from John Murray Forbes.

[4] In 1879, he began working for Russell & Company in Hong Kong, then one of the largest mercantile firms in the Far East.

[11] On March 20, 1890, married Harriot Constance Budd Hancock, at St. John's Cathedral in Hong Kong.

[12] She was the daughter of Alfred Hancock of Scotland and Harriot Elizabeth Rider, née Budd.