| William Chick (Cheek) | ||||||
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My earliest and incidentally only British ancestor in India was William Chick. Born William Cheek at Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, on 7th September 1700, the army changed the spelling to Chick when he joined the 54th regiment of Foot just after his nineteenth birthday on 17th September 1819, from the personal details in his soldiers book we see that he was 5ft 5 ¾ inches tall with fair hair and grey eyes. The 54th Regiment fought in the First Burmese War and William was present at the taking of Karhattie, Marhattie, and Arracan in 1825. He served with the 54th until 28th February 1840 when he transferred to the 4th Regiment of Foot, he was discharged at Poonmallee a year later as medically unfit for further service after having served 21 years 166 days and as there were no promotions recorded in his soldiers book it is presumed he had stayed a private for his entire service. It is therefore surprising then that he is recorded in the register of Christ Church, Kamptee as 'L/Corporal H M 4th foot' at his son Frederick William's baptism in 1846 and again for his daughter Mary's baptism in 1847 as 'with the regt late L/Corporal H M 4th The Queens Regt' The parents of the children are recorded as William and Matilda Chick, however there are no records of their marriage. That Matilda was a native woman is not in doubt because of two facts firstly there were very few single white women in India prior to the Indian Mutiny for lowly ex-privates to marry and secondly Mary's son my grandfather was obviously Anglo Indian in appearance. Fredrick William died in 1847 and William died in 1857 and was buried at Kamptee. There is no record of a Matilda Chick being buried so it is to be assumed that she remarried. Mary is not heard of again until she appears in the 1881 census for Llanover in Monmouthshire as my grandfather's mother aged 23 born in 'India Brit Subject' obviously she had employed judicious age adjustment. In the 1891 census she said was born in Bristol obviously another judicious adjustment this time of racial origin. | ||||||
| EXTRACTS FROM THE REGISTER OF THE CHURCH AT KAMPTEE | ||||||
| BORN | BAPTISM | NAME | PARENTS CHRISTIAN NAMES | SURNAME | ABODE | PROFESSION |
| 12 July 1846 | 5th August 1846 | Frederick William | son of William and Matilda | Chick | Kamptee | L/Corporal H M 4th Regt |
| 6th Dec 1847 | 15 Dec 1847 | Mary | Daughter of William and Matilda | Chick | Kamptee | With the Regt late L/Corporal H M 4th The Queens Regt |