Fort St David & Cuddalore

[candelar]

Hello,

I just found the answer to one of my own questions. The church in question, near the building of "Parry & Co. Limited" in Cuddalore is not St. David's - despite its immediate proximity to "St. David's Matriculation School", but is in fact called "Christ Church".

viz: EID Parry & Co. website > monuments & milestones:
"1824 � In March 1823, Thomas Parry�s (56 years old) health took a turn for the worse and he succumbed to Cholera while on an inspection trip in August 1824. His body was carried to Cuddalore and buried in the nave of the church where he used to worship." Next to which is an image of the church, underneath which is written: "Christ Church, Cuddalore".
From: http://www.eidparry.com/milestones.asp

And this picture of the church shows it to be the same as in my own photos -- though mine show it to have lost all of its white and yellow paint!

I also found the following reference:

"… Thomas Parry, a British merchant adventurer, landed in India in 1788, when he was 20 years old. By the time he died-in Cuddalore, of cholera, in 1824, and his grave can be seen at the town's Christ Church …."
From: "The Old Sugar Road" by Nitya Varadarajan at: http://indiatodaygroup.com/btoday/20041024/books.html

From this it occurs to me that this church may have been primarily for the benefit of the families of both Thomas Parry himself and of those other, presumably mostly British residents nearby, who may have been working with or for him in the sugar business. I'm imagining this because I don't think these two buildings, both the church and the premises of Parry & Co. were that close to Fort St David itself.

And I think I have located them on Google Earth as being South of the Gadilam river on the West side of a channel from it that runs due south from below Fort St David before curving to the East and entering the sea. I believe Christ Church and Parry & Co. are on a road that runs parallel to the channel just to the south of a road that crosses that channel and enters what looked to me (when we went over the bridge) to be a fishing village. I think we were directed to this location in the first place by someone who thought we wanted St. David's school instead of Fort St David!

For me the question remains as to whether there was another church or chapel for the use of the residents of Fort St. David? Or whether Christ Church served the entire British community at the time – which I somehow doubt, given its location on the other side of the Gadillam river from Fort St David.

I was hoping to discover where an ancestor was likely baptised. The only information I have is that she was baptised Jane Sarah in September 1792 at Cuddalore. Her father was Robert Dashwood, a civil servant with the Hon. East India Company.

Regards,
Robin