Chatham
The Royal Engineers lived at Chatham, and so did this family. Nobody had ever read its register. It holds a general's burial, his wife's, his brother officer's, and a christening eight days before a convict ship sailed.
This archive has said for years that Major-General Robert D'Arcy died at Chatham in 1827 — on the authority of Connolly's Roll of Officers of the Corps of Royal Engineers, a printed book. It has said his wife Jean Ward died there in 1823, on the authority of a family tree. Neither statement had a parish record behind it.
Chatham St Mary the Virgin holds 7 D'Arcy entries. Six of them are this family.
Seven entries, in order
Described in the register as “Lt in the royal engineers”. No age given. Medway Archives P85/1/79. · Parish Register
HE IS ROBERT'S SON. Connolly's Roll gives his death as 6 May 1805 and he was buried three days later. The Kentish Gazette of 14 May reports the death, after a few weeks illness, of “the son of Col. D'Arcy, chief engineer of Chatham lines”, interred with military honours. He was christened at St Michael, Barbados on 18 February 1786 to Robert D'Arcy and Jane, made second lieutenant of the Royal Engineers at eighteen and first lieutenant at nineteen — in the same Ordnance Office announcement that made his father a lieutenant-colonel.
spinster · married John Maddock JONES, Esq., bachelor, of Penybryn in the parish of Ruabon, Denbighshire · by licence · witnesses JOSEPH D'ARCY and Richd Lovett · Archdeacon's Transcript
Robert and Jean's daughter, married at twenty-five. The witness is her brother Joseph — the child baptised at Portsea in 1780.
father GEORGE · mother MARY · Parish Register
Not Robert's son but George's — by his first wife. The surveyor, and the half-brother the archive has written about without a record for him.
AGE 66 · abode Chatham · Parish Register
Jean Ward, dead at sixty-six. An age of 66 in March 1823 puts her birth about 1756 — the tree says 1754.
father GEORGE PITT D'ARCY, “Bt: Major 39th Foot” · mother MARIA · abode Chatham · Archdeacon's Transcript
The Major himself, in a parish register, with his rank and regiment. His daughter was christened on 31 March 1826 — and the convict ship England embarked his detachment eight days later. AND THERE IS A CANDIDATE FOR WHAT BECAME OF HER. CHARLOTTE CATHCART D'ARCY married ROBERT MEAD PEARSON at PARRAMATTA, New South Wales, in 1859 — registration 2618 — the same town where her father died in 1849. She would have been 34. The Chatham baptism gives her no second name, and the New South Wales index spells it CATHCART in one entry and CATHERINE in another, so this is a strong candidate and not an identification. The marriage certificate would name her father and settle it.
AGE 76 · abode Chatham · Parish Register
Major-General Robert D'Arcy, C.B. Connolly gives his death as 13 May 1827; he was buried six days later. An age of 76 puts his birth about 1750–51 — and this is the register the tree's “1751” has always come from, seen at last.
age 1 · abode Chatham · Parish Register
A child, and no connection to this family has been shown. Listed because she is in the record.
“Robert D'Arcy, 76, Chatham”
The family tree says Robert D'Arcy was born in 1751. This archive has spent months explaining that the 1751 is arithmetic from an age on a burial register rather than a birth record, and should not be trusted as a date. The Hornby claim →
Here is that burial register. Entry 1571, 19 May 1827: Robert D'Arcy, age 76, of Chatham. Connolly gives his death as 13 May; he was buried six days later, in the garrison town he had served for half a century.
And it does not touch his parentage, which remains unknown. A burial names nobody but the dead.
A christening, and then a convict ship
The entry that brings the two halves of this archive together is a baptism.
| Child | Charlotte D'Arcy |
| Born | 29 April 1825 |
| Baptised | 31 March 1826, Chatham St Mary the Virgin |
| Father | George Pitt D'Arcy — “Bt: Major 39th Foot” |
| Mother | Maria |
| Abode | Chatham |
The rank in the parish register — Brevet Major, 39th Foot — is the same rank the ship's surgeon wrote down at sea a fortnight later. Two clerks, two countries, one man, and neither of them had ever been set beside the other. documented
Mary, then Maria
The archive has held that George Pitt D'Arcy married twice — a Miss Ludlam about 1805, and Maria White in County Wicklow about 1819 — and that Frederick Robert D'Arcy the surveyor was a half-brother to the Australian children. The register bears that out without being asked:
| Baptised | Child | Father | Mother |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Jul 1811 | Frederick Robert D'Arcy | George | Mary |
| 31 Mar 1826 | Charlotte D'Arcy | George Pitt, Bt Major 39th Foot | Maria |
Two children of one man, fifteen years apart, by two differently named mothers, in the same parish. the half-brother, documented
What Chatham changes
- Three deaths move from books to registers. Robert's, Jean's and Constantine's — each previously carried on a printed roll or a family tree, each now in the parish book.
- Jean Ward has an age at last — sixty-six in March 1823, which puts her birth about 1756 against the tree's 1754. And her baptism has now been found — South Leith, Midlothian, 19 July 1754, father Joseph Ward, mother Martha Garden. This page said for months that South Leith was not transcribed. It is →
- A daughter's marriage, witnessed by a brother. Margarett Maria Isabella married in 1806 with Joseph D'Arcy signing — the same Joseph baptised at Portsea in 1780, the first record of this family ever found in England. The press notice has not been found, and the reason is a lending library. A marriage by licence in a colonel's family is the kind the Gentleman's Magazine noticed, but the 1806 volumes sit in the Internet Archive's lending collection with their full text closed, and the Google-digitised public-domain runs do not reach that year in any form this archive could search. The parish register therefore stands alone — which is enough, since it is the better document of the two. What became of her →
- And Constantine is placed at last. This page said for months that what he was to Robert had never been established. The Kentish Gazette of 14 May 1805 calls him “the son of Col. D'Arcy, chief engineer of Chatham lines”, and a Barbados register christens him to Robert and Jane in 1786. He was nineteen. Constantine → corrected 14 September 2026
- And Robert D'Arcy's parentage is exactly as unknown as it was this morning. Everything found here names him as a husband, a father and a corpse. Nothing names him as a son. The will that might →