The other brothers too had distinguished military careers . Sir George ( b . 1752 ) was a general in the American War of Independence and the Peninsular War and ended up being Governor of Bermuda , St Vincent and Barbados . He is interred in Marylebone ( d . 1823 )— if it is the old churchyard of the Parish Church , then he may lie close to Charles Wesley !! His younger brother Ferdinand Amelia Fairfax ( b . 1764 ) was a Brigadier General and also interred
Kassim with Tim and Angela Macquiban at Chester Cathedral .
in Marylebone ( d . 1805 ). Next was Sir Thomas Sidney , who served in the British Army in India , Ceylon and in Europe and the Americas , as Assistant Quartermaster General in Canada and moving latterly as Commander-in-Chief in Bombay in 1829 . He died two years later there of the fever .
And so we come to William Henry Beckwith ( b , 1776 ) who we only know to have been born ‘ in foreign parts ’. We would have to delve deeper into his father ’ s military service to see where the family might have been stationed that year . We know that he served in campaigns in the Caribbean and in the European theatres of war ( including Ireland — remember Vinegar Hill ?). By the time of writing his first will in 1838 , presumably now retired from military service , he was living in Cheshire , with a town house in the Abbey Square in the shadow of Chester Cathedral , but also living in Great Neston 10 miles away in the Wirral in 1841 , very close to Parkgate , still the place of disembarkation for Ireland . He left in his will the Abbey Square house with all its goods and furniture to his wife Sophie and £ 200 of stock . To his dear nephew Lt . Charles Beckwith £ 100 stock and to his other two executors £ 50 each . Charles and the family solicitor were to hold monies on trust for his wife (£ 12,000 ) and for his children (£ 9000 to be divided five ways ). There was a separate bequest for his eldest daughter Charlotte , who was married to an Anglican clergyman .
What caught my eye was the final clauses about his son John Ferdinand , who was ‘ recommended to the watchful care of Charles Beckwith and Philip Graves [ the solicitor ] and the attention of his cousins Charles and Henry Ferdinand of whom I hear well to look after him and left to the mercy and protection of our great and kind Lord and Master Jesus Christ , for then he will never want a friend ’. By the time of the codicil of 1841 , Charles was now a Colonel .
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