I met my cousin Ivan Chadwick online when we were both researching our family histories and we collaborated on finding out more about our mutual ancestor, Cecil Chadwick. After several months of research which pointed to Cecil being a rather heartless husband and parent Ivan wrote to me one day to say that he had concluded that Cecil was ‘not a nice man’. I agreed. Despite the glowing picture that my mother painted of her father he struck us as a cool, uncaring kind of person, with little time for his family. We may have been wrong, of course, as neither of us had ever met him, but the trajectory of his life seemed to us to be self-centred and uncaring towards his many children.

Ivan has since passed on, but I have continued to dig into Chadwick family history from time to time, adding to what we discovered whenever I can. At this stage I have probably gone as far as I can with what is available online and, as I am unlikely to re-visit India in the era of covid, I suspect there is little more that I can find out about Cecil and it is therefore appropriate that I now write up what I have. I hope Ivan approves.

Cecil’s Early Life

Cecil, who went through life identifying as Cecil James Chadwick was actually baptised Cecil Jonathan Doss Chadwick in Arcot, India, on the 29th of September 1861.

As the baptismal record states, his parents were Jonathan and Agnes Catherine Chadwick. His father was an Assistant Apothecary in the army and his mother was born Agnes Smale. The officiating minister was said to have been the Bishop of Madras, Thomas Dealtry, but there I wonder whether this was correct as other sources say that Dealtry had died earlier that year.¹ Either the date of the baptism is wrong or someone else officiated but was not recorded on the document.

The ‘Jonathan’ in Cecil’s name came from his father and grandfather, who were both named Jonathan. Doss is an unusual name and does not appear anywhere else in the Chadwick genealogy. I have no idea why he dropped this name in adult like and adopted the names Cecil James.

Cecil’s Siblings

Cecil was the eldest of six children, all of whom were born in India.

Eighteen months after Cecil was born Agnes gave birth to a second son whom they named Samuel Julian Arthur Chadwick. The family was still living in Arcot but the christening took place in the Baptist Chapel, New Town, Madras.

I have not been able to find out any more about Samuel. There is no marriage or death record for him in the online documents.

Clement Lionel Alexander Smale Chadwick followed two years later, born in Vellore in 1865. Jonathan Chadwick had now been promoted to the rank of 1st Class Apothecary.

The order of Clement’s given names was varied when he married in 1891 and he is identified on his marriage record as Lionel Clement Alexander Chadwick. The Smale, presumably in recognition of his mother’s maiden name, was dropped. When he married he was in Burma working as a clerk in the PWD, presumably a government department. His bride was the widowed Eliza Jane Miller.

There is no record of Clement and Liza having any children, nor can I find a death record for either of them.

The fourth child was Florence, who was to figure prominently in my mother’s early life. Florence Catherine Julia Chadwick was born in Madras in 1868.

Florence married Arnold Pavia, who my mother described as an Australian, in Bangalore in 1893.

As far as I can tell, Florence and Arnold did not have any children of their own but they were to have a role in the raising of four of Cecil’s children after his second wife died.

Jonathan and Agnes then had another daughter who they named Goldie Agnes Lydia Chadwick.

Goldie married in Bangalore in 1894, her husband being Edward Scott, the brother of Cecil’s first wife Gertrude. Cecil and Gertrude were in fact witnesses to the marriage.

Goldie and Edward had only one child, as far as I can tell. Their daughter, Florence Agnes Ashton Scott, was born in Madras in 1896.

Goldie Chadwick died in Jhansi in 1900.

Lilian Elizabeth Nina Chadwick, who went by Nina Elizabeth, was the sixth and youngest child, born in Ranipet in 1878. She and her sister Goldie were christened on the same day.

Nina never married and died in Madras when she was 40.

The Wives

Cecil married for the first time in 1887. He married Grace Gertrude Scott in St George’s Church, Madura on the 27th of April 1887. Cecil was 26 and Grace was 23 and neither had been married before. Cecil was then working in the Salt and Abkari Department as an Assistant Inspector.

Grace and Cecil had five children between 188 and 1895, until she died in Burma in 1896.

Cecil’s second wife was my grandmother, Margaret Summers. They were married in Thayetmyo, Burma, on the 7th of June 1899 by the Anglican chaplain, G.H. Seeley.² Cecil was then working as an engineer and living in Rangoon, according to the marriage record. Margaret was living in Thayetmyo, probably with her mother and stepfather who was a policeman.

Cecil married for a third time in 1911, less than 18 months after the death of his second wife, my grandmother. On the 3rd of October 1911, at the age of 50, he married the 25-year-old Daisy Lawler in the Catholic Cantonment Church in Rangoon.

Later Life and Death

Cecil died in Darjeeling in 1929, at the age of 69. The record of his burial stated that he had died of a cerebral haemorrhage caused by pernicious anaemia of nephritis. Although he was christened Cecil Jonathan Doss he was buried under the name Cecil James. Another departure from his baptism was that although he was christened an Anglican he was buried as a Catholic by Edmund van Tichelen, the Jesuit Chaplain of Darjeeling.³

Notes

1. See Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dealtry, Thomas – Wikisource, the free online library
2. Seeley’s son Eric was a friend of George Orwell when Orwell was working in Burma. Orwell in Burma: The Two Erics* – Darcy Moore
3. See van Tichelen, Edmundus – Jesuit Online Necrology (lontracanadensis.net)