Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 10.djvu/248

 Chilcot himself, in 1818, and on Sailor in 1820. The One Thousand Guineas also fell to him in 1843, when he rode Extempore, being at the time fifty-seven years old. He had training stables of his own at Newmarket, where with his brother he had the care of Mr. Thornhill's and Lord Darlington's horses. The two brothers also had a small stud of their own, but this led them into difficulties, and the horses had to be sold in June 1834. On Mr. Thornhill's death in 1843 he left Chifney his Newmarket house and stables. Here he resided until November 1851, when he removed to Hove, Brighton, where he died on 29 Aug. 1854. The daughter of Samuel Chifney, senior, married Mr. Butler, and became the mother of the well-known jockey Frank Butler.

[Sporting Review, vii. 416 (1842), portrait, xxxii. 231, 312, xxxiii. 31, 401, xxxiv. 5, 75 (1854-5), xlviii. 410 (1862); Corbet's Tales of Sporting Life (1864), pp. 176-82; Rice's British Turf (1879), i. 64-85; Post and Paddock, by the Druid (1885), pp. 81-99, 102-4; Quarterly Review, October 1885, pp. 451-2.]  CHILCOT, THOMAS (d. 1766), organist and composer, was appointed in 1733 organist of Bath Abbey. The few works which he published show that he was a good musician. His chief compositions are a set of twelve songs to words by Shakespeare, Marlowe, Anacreon, and Euripides, and six concertos dedicated to Lady Elizabeth Bathurst. The latter work appeared in 1756. Chilcot died at Bath in November 1766. His wife had predeceased him, in June 1758.

[Dict. of Musicians, 1827; Gent. Mag. 1758; Bath Chronicle, 11 Nov. 1766; Brit. Mus. Music. Cat.]  CHILD, FRANCIS, the elder (1642–1713), banker and lord mayor of London, son of Robert Child, clothier, of Headington in Wiltshire, was born in 1642. He came to London at an early age, and was apprenticed in March 1656 to William Hall, a goldsmith of London, for a term of eight years, on the expiration of which he was admitted, 24 March 1664, to the freedom of the Goldsmiths' Company, and on 7 April 1664 to that of the city of London. The firm of Child & Co. takes its origin from a family of London goldsmiths named Wheeler. John Wheeler, who carried on his business in Chepe, died in 1575. His son, also named John, moved into Fleet Street, and died in 1609. After him William Wheeler, probably his son, moved from his old shop to the Marygold, hitherto a tavern, next door to Temple Bar. He had a son, likewise named William Wheeler, who was admitted a member of the Goldsmiths' Company by patrimony on 27 April 1666. Child married Elizabeth, sister of the younger William Wheeler, aged 19, on 2 Oct. 1671. Her father, the elder William Wheeler, had died in 1663, and his widow married Robert Blanchard, who succeeded to the business at the Marygold, and took Child into partnership, probably about the time of his marriage in 1671. In the little London Directory of 1677 the names of 'Blanchard and Child at the Marygold' are found among the goldsmiths 'that keep running cashes.' On the death of Blanchard in 1681, Child inherited the bulk of his fortune, and also that of the Wheelers, and in July of the same year the firm became Francis Child and John Rogers. Child was the first banker who gave up the goldsmith's business, and he is called by Pennant 'the father of the profession.' Previous to 1690 the old ledgers of the firm were full of goldsmiths' and pawnbroking accounts mixed up with banking transactions. The sign of the marygold may still be seen in the water-mark of the present cheques, and the original sign is preserved in the front shop over the door which leads into the back premises. It is made of oak, the ground stained green, with a gilt border surrounding a marygold and sun, and the motto 'Ainsi mon ame.' Mr. J. G. Nichols, in the 'Herald and Genealogist' (iv. 508), gives an engraving of the sign. It was probably painted about 1670.

The Devil tavern, which adjoined the Marygold in Fleet Street, was pulled down in 1787, having been purchased by Messrs. Child & Co. for 2,800l., and in the'following year the row of houses now known as Child's Place was built upon the site. The meetings of Ben Jonson's club had been held in the tavern, and among the relics of the club possessed by Messrs. Child & Co. are a board containing the rules of the club in gold letters, and the bust of Apollo which was formerly placed over the entrance door. Oliver Cromwell is said to have been a customer of the Wheelers, and in later times Nell Gwyn, Titus Oates, Archbishop Tenison, Barbara Villiers, duchess of Cleveland, and many other celebrated persons. For many years Messrs. Child & Co. were tenants of the chamber over Temple Bar, for which they paid the corporation 21l. per annum, until the removal of the structure in 1878. They kept here their old ledgers and other books, which amounted in weight to several tons. It has been usual for the firm upon all state occasions to accommodate the lord mayor and corporation with the use of their premises while waiting for royalty at Temple Bar.