The obituary

Robert D'Arcy's parentage is the oldest unanswered question on this site. The likeliest remaining source was the press: a general's death notice in 1827 routinely gave a father, a seat or a county. It was top of the errand list this morning.

It has now been searched, and it gives a great deal — but not that.

What it gives

1. The date of death, from the press. Four notices say 13 MAY 1827, two of them within four days of it. Connolly's Roll — a printed book of 1898 — gives the same day, and has until now been the only authority for it.
2. The funeral, which nobody here knew about. The Kent Herald of 24 May: he “was interred at Chatham WITH MILITARY HONOURS” on the Saturday. That Saturday was 19 May 1827 — the exact date of entry 1571 in Chatham St Mary the Virgin's burial register. A local paper and a parish clerk, independently.
3. An age, of a kind. The Kent Herald says “at an advanced age”. The register says seventy-six.
4. And the reach of it. Seventeen notices in England, Ireland and Scotland — London, Canterbury, Windsor, Oxford, Perth, Dublin, Limerick, Clonmel, Drogheda, Boyle. A Major-General of Engineers was national news for a fortnight.

The notices

Fifteen of the seventeen are shown; the remaining two repeat the June Army List wording.

Not one of the seventeen gives him a forename.

Every single notice reads “Major-General D'Arcy” and stops. No Robert. No father, no seat, no county, no “son of”, no “of —— Hall”. The press of 1827 was fluent in exactly that grammar — on the same pages he shares, men are “only son of Mr. John Blades, of Ludgate-hill”, “fourth daughter of Charles Coleman, Esq.”, “of Denne Hill, Kent, aged 84”. He gets a rank and a place of death.

The burial register that matches the funeral notice → · The claim about his birth → · His marriage, found the same day →