After Kamala Harris’s roots to Chennai got plenty of attention following her election as Vice President, US President-Elect Joe Biden has found a Chennai link of his own.
Tim Willasey-Wilsey, Visiting Professor, Department of War Studies, King’s College recently released a report Biden’s ancestral Chennai connect, published in Gateway House: Indian Council of Global relations. that after first making this claim in 2013, Joe Biden clarified two years later in Washington that his ancestor George Biden was a Captain in the East India Company, had taken an Indian wife and settled in Chennai after his retirement.
Apparently, no records have been found on George Biden, but two Captains of the erstwhile East India Company bore the names of William Henry Biden and Christopher Biden. Both were brothers and worked the dangerous and unceasing seamanship of armed merchant marine units (then called “Indiamans”) plying between India and England around the Cape of Good Hope.
William died of apoplexy (a stroke) at the age of 51 and Christopher Biden is known to have settled in India and was soon a well-known figure in Madras (now Chennai). One striking trait that rings familiar when comparing him with the new President-Elect is his insistence that if you treat people with respect they will not abuse your trust. In spite of having earned his livelihood in the most treacherous conditions, he was famous for his kindness and gentleness. At the time of his retirement, he was the Master Attendant and Marine Storekeeper at Madras. His diligence in placing lights at critical points along the coastline to warn approaching ships had become famous and so was his constant emphasis on Marine Safety, and support to widows and orphans of deceased seafarers.
His son Horatio joined him Madras and himself retired as a Colonel in the Madras Artillery Regiment. Christopher had not married in India, he had a British wife Harriot Freeth of Derbyshire. A plaque in the Madras Cathedral commemorating him marks his death as having taken place in 1858, nineteen years after his retirement. While a “George” Biden of that era has not been located, this Christopher Biden is the most likely trace that the President-elect is referring to.
