Arthur Dingwall Fordyce

Allen’s Indian Mail of 1845 notes under the heading “Probates and Administration to Estates” the granting of “Arthur..., late of Calcutta, merchant and agent, a member of the firm of Messrs. Saunders, May, Fordyce and Co. of Calcutta, merchants and agents, to George May, a member of the said firm Saunders, May, Fordyce and Co. and John Inglis Harvey, a member of the civil service of the East India Company, on their Bengal establishment”, with Paul and Smelt as proctors. [Ref: Allen's Indian Mail and Register of Intelligence for British and Foreign India, China and All Parts of the East, No.21, 1845: 183]

A detailed biography is provided Family Record of the Name Dingwall Fordyce pf Aberdeenshire (https://archive.org/stream/cihm_05794#page/n119/mode/2up):

400. Fordyce Dingwall (Arthur), merchant in Calcutta, eldest son of Alexander Dingwall Fordyce, latterly of Fergus, Upper Canada, and Magdalen Dingwall his wife, was born in London on the 5th of November, 1814. Two years after his parents removed to Aberdeen, and at an early age he was placed in the elementary school of Mr. Gilbert Falconer. From this he proceeded to the grammar school and Marischal College, graduating there in 1832. He served an apprenticeship to
Messrs. Blaikie and Smith, advocates in Aberdeen, but did not enter on the practice of the profession. A very friendly offer having been made by Messrs. J. & C. Dingwall, wine merchants in London, he joined them in 1838; but soon found himself unsuited to the business. Shortly afterwards an opening was found in the mercantile house of Reid, Irving & Co., with which his father and uncle had been connected. He remained there till the end of 1843 when he went to Calcutta as a junior partner in a mercantile house recently established. He had been little more than twelve months, however, there, when an attack of cholera suddenly terminated his life, after twenty-four hours' illness. His death occurred 17th January, 1845. The firm to which he belonged (Saunders, May, Fordyce & Co.) had done well while he had been in Calcutta, and he had been laying plans for assisting his father in his business engagements; but soon after his own death the hope of this was dissipated owing to business relations between the Calcutta firm and that of Reid, Irving & Co., which had been obliged most unexpectedly to suspend payment. His remains were laid to rest in the Scotch Burying Ground in Calcutta, and from the address on the occasion by his pastor, the Rev. J. Macdonald, the following extract is taken : " It has pleased God suddenly and quickly to remove one of our most esteemed youthful members. Our departed friend, Arthur Dingwall Fordyce, had not been many months in this country ; but even that short period had been sufficient to attest the reality
and prove the efficacy of his Christian character. Ingenuous, amiable, benevolent, he was also active and zealous and devoted in the cause ol our common Lord and Saviour ; and there was so peculiar a transparency of demeanour attending all his fellowship, that to see him was almost at once to know him. He was much loved in the little Christian circle that knew him ; and it was fondly hoped that, as he advanced in years, in grace and in social influence, he would become as much an ornament as a support to the cause of truth and righteousness in this city." We may add that he considered himself highly favoured in having as his pastor in Calcutta the Rev. John Macdonald, son of the well known " Apostle of the North," the Rev. Dr. Macdonald of Urquhart, and previously in London Wall Church, London, the Rev. James C. Burns, now of Kirkliston, to whose ministry he attributed, under God, the great change in his religious life which made him the earnest, active Christian he latterly was.