Vol 12.2 SLAVERY & HAMPTON

Non-Hampton & Richmond Borough related posts.
Post Reply
Les1949
Posts: 418
Joined: Thu Jun 24, 2021 3:59 pm

No 2 SLAVERY AND HAMPTON
Who in Hampton had invested in the Slave Trade?

The Emancipation of Slavery Act was passed in 1833, in order to get the Bill through Parliament it was agreed that plantation owners would be ‘compensated’ for the loss of their ‘assets’ – the slaves. It is surprising to us now, just how many people (of all levels of society) had investments in the West Indian plantations. Widows, Reverends, Gentlemen and Ladies in ‘Society’ were all in receipt of dividends from the proceeds of what are now regarded as inhumane conditions. These are just a few who had Hampton connections.

LADY ANN SHERIDAN

Lady Ann was on her second marriage (to Henry Sheridan, in 1789) after the death of her first husband Daniel McGilchrist of Jamaica who died in 1783. On McGilchrist’s death, the income from the estate, ‘Mount Hindmost’, of £4,000 was paid to Lady Ann. A woman of independent means, she bought a property in Hampton for 9,000 guineas in 1804 and it was called Roseville (equivalent to around £650,000). On her death in 1808 the property was left to her sister, Frances Fearon. Roseville is better known by another name……Beveree.

JOHN GREG

John Greg lived in Spring Grove House from 1792 and died in 1795. Greg was the first Government Commissioner responsible for the sale of land in the West Indies. So, rather like the first ‘Fox in the Chicken Coop’ he had the choice of prime land for planting cotton. The first plantation was called ‘Hillsborough’ and was on the island of Dominica, a second followed. A plantation was also set up in St Vincent, known as ‘Cane Garden’. Catherine, who he had married in the West Indies, inherited the St Vincent Estate which is recorded as having 83 slaves. Catherine died in 1819 and was buried alongside her husband in an over the top pyramid style tomb In St Mary’s churchyard.

Cane Garden is now a ‘posh, residential neighbourhood’ according to the local Estate Agents!

DAME MARY NAGLE

Dame Mary married her second husband Admiral Sir Edmund Nagle (a close friend of Prince George, later George IV) in 1798. Her first marriage was to George Blackman – later created Sir George Harnage. The estate that she had an interest in was called ‘Boarded Hall ‘and was in Barbados. The estate had been mortgaged to her son in 1823 (following Sir George’s bankruptcy) and when Dame Mary applied for compensation of £4,002 6s 9d (£4,002.35p), she was refused, presumably because the interest in the property had passed to her son. Dame Mary died in East Molesey in 1836, aged 98.

SARAH HODGES

Sarah, of Hampton Court, a widow, left the bulk of her property, a plantation in Jamaica called ‘Lacovia’ to her immediate family, the Hodges. Lacovia was sold some time before 1805, its main crop was sugar – made into rum! – and at one stage had over 300 slaves.

The Old Historian
Post Reply