alan's mother4 was also the product of generations of empire-builders, being descended from a yorkshireman, thomas stoney (1675-1726) who as a young man acquired lands in england's oldest colony after the 1688 revolution, and who became one of the protestant landowners of catholic ireland. his estates in tipperary passed down to his great-great-grandson thomas george stoney (1808–1886), who had five sons, the eldest inheriting the lands and the rest dispersing to various parts of the expanding empire. the third son was a hydraulic engineer, who designed sluices for the thames, the manchester ship canal and the nile; the fifth emigrated to new zealand, and the fourth, edward waller stoney (1844-1931), alan's maternal grandfather, went to india as an engineer. there he amassed a considerable fortune, becoming chief engineer of the madras and southern mahratta railway, responsible for the construction of the tangabudra bridge, and the invention of stoney's patent silent punkah-wheel.
艾赛儿·斯托尼的祖先，也是大英帝国的开拓者。在1688年的革命之后，约克郡的一位年轻人，托马斯·斯托尼（1675-1726）在英国最早的殖民地上拥有了土地。他在蒂珀雷里建了一座庄园，后来传给了他孙子的孙子，托马斯·乔治·斯托尼（1808-1886）。后面这位托马斯一共有五个儿子，大儿子继续接管了庄园，其他人则随着帝国的扩张各奔四方。三儿子成为水利工程师，为泰晤士河、曼城运河和尼罗河设计过水闸。小儿子移民去了新西兰，四儿子爱德华·沃勒·斯托尼（1844-1931）到印度当了工程师，这就是艾伦的外祖父。在印度，爱德华平步青云，攒下一笔非常可观的财富，成为马德拉斯铁路的首席工程师，负责建设唐各布达拉桥，还发明斯托尼无声涡轮。
a hard-headed, grumpy man, edward stoney married sarah crawford from another anglo-irish family, and they had two sons and two daughters. of these, richard followed his father as an engineer in india, edward crawford was a major in the royal army medical corps, and evelyn married an anglo-irish major kirwan of the indian army. alan's mother, ethel sara stoney, was born at podanur, madras, on 18 november 1881.
爱德华头脑精明，脾气却很糟糕。他娶了萨拉·克劳福德为妻，她来自一个住在爱尔兰的英格兰家庭。他们生了两儿两女：里查德子承父业，到印度做工程师；爱德华·克劳福德是皇家军医的一名少校；伊夫莲嫁给了印度军的柯万少校。还有一位艾塞儿·萨拉·斯托尼，就是艾伦的母亲，她于1881年11月18日，出生于印度马德拉斯省的博德努尔。
although the stoney family did not lack for funds, her early life was as grim as that of julius turing. all four stoney children were sent back to ireland to be educated. it was a pattern familiar to british india, whose children's loveless lives were part of the price of the empire. they were landed upon their uncle william crawford, a bank manager of county clare, with two children of his own by a first marriage and four by a second. it was not a place for affection or attention. the crawfords moved to dublin in 1891, where ethel dutifully went to school each day on the horse-bus, crushed by a regimen that permitted her a mean threepence for lunch. at seventeen, she was transferred to cheltenham ladies college, 'to get rid of her brogue,' and there she endured the legendary miss beale and miss buss, and the indignity of being the irish product of the railway and the bank among the offspring of the english gentry. there remained a flickering dream of culture and freedom in ethel stoney's heart and for six months she was sent, at her own request, to study music and art at the sorbonne. the brief experiment was vitiated by the discovery that french snobbery and grundyism could equal that of the british isles. so when in 1900 she returned with her elder sister evie to her parents' grand bungalow in coonoor, it was to an india which represented an end to petty privation, but left her knowing that there was a world of knowledge from which she had been forever excluded.
虽然斯托尼家并不缺钱，但是艾赛儿的童年生活并不比朱利叶斯愉快多少。家里的四个孩子，全被送回爱尔兰上学，远离父母。这是一个典型的英属印度家庭，这些孩子的童年，成为了英国扩张的牺牲品之一。他们寄宿在舅舅威廉姆·克劳福德家里，他是克莱尔郡的一位银行经理，结过两回婚，头婚有两个孩子，二婚有四个孩子。所以，这个地方对于四个小寄宿者来说，是一个没有爱和关怀的地方。 1891年，这一家搬到了都柏林，在那里，艾赛儿每天乏味地坐着马车去上学，每顿饭只花三便士，这对她的发育造成了一些影响。17岁时，她被送到切尔腾纳姆女子学院去「纠正土方言」。在那里，她受到了贵族子女们的歧视，他们嘲笑她是「铁道+银行」的产物。尽管如此，她的心里仍然有一个梦想在摇曳，她想学习音乐艺术。因此，她在6个月后，去了巴黎大学文理学院。但是，她在巴黎也没待多久，因为她很快就发现了，法国人在歧视别人这个方面，并不比英国人逊色。于是，在1900年，艾赛儿跟她的姐姐伊夫莲一起，前往古努尔跟父母一起生活。来到印度，她终于摆脱了生活压力，但同时也告别了知识的世界──反正那个世界似乎永远排斥她。