Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 6.djvu/88

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ 12 s. vi. MARCH. 1920.

AN ENGLISH ARMY LIST OF 1740.

(12 S. ii. 3, 43. 75, 84, 122, i!29, 151, 163, 191, 204, 229, 243, 272, 282, 311, 324, 353, 364, 391, 402, 431, 443, 473, 482, 512, 524 ; iii. 11,46, 71, 103,132, 190, 217, 234,267, 304 ; v. 270; vi. 17, 42.)

Col. Descury's Regiment of Foot (12 S. ii. 525.)

IN a footnote to the list of Col. Descury's Regiment of Foot, the 32nd (now D.C.L.I.), COL. LESLIE says of the second lieutenants " (8) Probably should be ensign." I venture to suggest that there were no ensigns at the time in this regiment, which, raised as a regiment of Marines in 1702, till disbanded 1713, was revived as a regiment of Foot two years later, but still retained the rank of second lieutenants which was (otherwise) only usual in Fusilier and Marine regiments. (Curiously enough of the other two Marine regiments similarly treated the 30th Foot retained its second lieutenants, but the 31st had ensigns appointed to it in 1715.)

It would be going too far to ask if the 32nd at some period of its career was a Fusilier regiment, and yet in the Irish as well as the English Commission Registers for 1735, there is an instance of a commission of second lieutenant being granted in " that regiment of Fusiliers of which Thomas Paget is colonel " ; and in the Eng. C. R. are similar grants in Col. Simon Descury's regiment of Fuziliers in 1740, and in Husk's Fuziliers in 1743. In the latter year Henry Skelton was made colonel and captain of " Our regiment of Fuziliers," in the room of John Huske ; and in 1745 William Douglas was made colonel of and captain of a company " in the regiment of Fuziliers, whereof Brig. -Gen. Henry Skelton was late colonel." There were also other similar instances, but, as in the great majority of cases commissions were granted in the same regiment given variously as Paget' s, Descury's, Huske's, Skelton's, or Douglas' regiment of Foot, it may well be that the term Fusilier was wrongly and in ignorance applied to this regiment by some of the War Office clerks who drafted the com- missions. The change from second lieu- tenant to ensign appears to have taken place in 1748, and in the MS. Army List, 1752, in the Record Office, all are styled ensigns.

The senior captain, Melchior Guy Dickens, was promoted direct to lieutenant -colonel of the newly raised 47th Foot, Feb. 6, 1740-1, but retired from the service Feb. 28, 1750-1.

He may have been one of those Germans; from Hanover Vho followed George I. to* England. He was a cornet in Col. Charles La Bouchetiere's newly raised regiment of dragoons, Feb. 16, 1715-16, until it was dis- banded in June, 1717, and its officers placed on half-pay, from which he was promoted to captain in the 32nd Foot in Ireland, Aug. 9, 1717. He was the Col. Guy Dickens who in. (secondly) Miss Tracey, April 17,. 1762 (Gent. Mag., p. 194). On May 31, 176c Melchior Guy Dickens, Esq., was granted 1 an annual pension of 500Z. for thirty-one years on the Irish Establishment. This was for his diplomatic services for he had beer* Secretary of Embassy to Prussia and Charge d'Affaires there, August, 1730, to August, 1740, Minister to Prussia, August,. 1740, to January, 1741, to Sweden, January.,. 1742, to July, 1749, and to Russia, July, 1749, to 1751, and again 1753 to April, 1755, His second son, Gustavus Guy Dickens, named after the King of Sweden, beoause- born during his mission there, matric. from. Ch. Ch., Oxford, Feb. 16, 1748/9, aged 17 ; B.A., 1752, as son of Melchior of St. Giles s, London, arm. (Foster. 'Alumni, Oxon.% He was made cornet 6th Inniskillmg Dragoons, Nov. 25, 1754, and lieutenant in. the same, Sept. 2, 1756, served in Germany in 1761 ; promoted to lieutenant and captain, 3rd Foot Guards, May 1, 1761 ; captain and) lieutenant-colonol therein, Feb. 22, 1775 ;. senior on the lis<t. in 1784 ; brevet -colonel, May 16, 1782 ; second major, Oct. 20, 1784 ;. first major, April 18, 1786; lieutenant- colonel of the regiment, Sept. 13, 1791, ti he retired or more probably died shortly before July 31, 1793 ; major- general, April 28,. 1790.

Among " the following gentlemen who* kissed the Queen's hand on their several promotions in her Majesty's household ' on March 13, 1783, is the name of " Gustavus Guy Dickens, Esq., gent, usher of the privy chamber " (200Z. and board wages), to which, he was promoted from one of the three gent, ushers' daily waiters (150?., which he had! held from 1765). He filled this post until 1793, when presumably he died. The Rev. Frederick William Guy Dickens, who d. Oct. 14, 1779, was his elder brother. He- matric. at the same College and date, aged 20; barrister-at-law, Lincoln's Inn, 1753. I cannot trace any others of the- name.

Charles Campbell, captain in Harrisons 15th Foot (ibid. 324) was made ensign in, the 12th Foot, Sept. 2, 1726 (Dalton's ' George- the First's Army,' vol. ii., p. 294, where the-