updated March 2010
William Graham was born in March 1800 in Falkirk, Scotland. He enlisted in the Honourable East India Company in 1816 at the age of 16 and sailed to Madras on the ship "Herefordshire" in January 1817, arriving in June 1817.
I believe that William's parents were James Graham and Elizabeth Aitken.
William started his military service as a "Matross" and "Rough Rider" in the 1st Battery Horse Artillery in the Madras European Army. In 1832 he was promoted to the rank of Drill Corporal and then to Serjeant in 1833.
In 1836 William transferred to the "Effective Supernumeraries" where he would have been occupied in administration rather than as an active soldier, his rank in 1837 was Store Serjeant in the Ordnance Dept.
William became a pensioner and "Salt Pashkar" in 1842, he eventually died in 1859 leaving his estate to his wife Eliza and their nine surviving children.
William married Jane Farrell in 1827 in Poonamallee (near Madras) and they had two daughters: Margaret in 1828 and Jane Elizabeth in 1834.
Jane died in 1836, William then remarried in 1837 to Eliza Montague. William and Eliza had nine children.
Key documents which prove that William and his daughter, Margaret, are related to the D'Silva family are the record of Margaret's marriage to Alexander Hall Shedden and the baptism records of Margaret's half brother, John Thomas, and half sister Jessy Elizabeth. These events all occurred in Calicut on the 6th and 7th June 1847 and were witnessed by the same people.
Margaret was the first daughter of William Graham and Jane Farrell, she was baptised in September 1828 and I have taken this also to be her year of birth (her parents married in 1827).
Margaret married Alexander Hall Shedden in Calicut in 1847 when she was 19 years old. Margaret and Alexander had ten children, one of whom was Christina Matilda who married Francis D'Silva.
Margaret's father, William, died in June 1859 which was a few weeks after the birth of his granddaughter Christina.
Margaret died in Trivandrum in 1878.