Stella Frances Allen (née Freeman)

The trustees (Edward Jarman and Capel Cure, both of whom q.v.) of Stella Frances Allen were awarded the compensation for the Belvidere estate in St Thomas-in-the-East in Jamaica. The estate was reported to be owned by 'Count Freeman', a 'French nobleman', at the time of Apprenticeship.

1. Stella Frances Allen was the widow of Admiral John Carter Allen (who died 1800). The will of Stella Frances Allen of Abbots Langley Hertfordshire was proved 21/11/1821. The will rehearses at length the will of her brother John Cope Freeman and left the profits of the Jamaica estates to the two daughters of Philip Dormer Stanhope. Effects of Stella Frances Allen of Langley House, Abbots Langley, Hertfordshire sold by order of the executor of Stella Frances Allen in 1822.

2. Mrs [sic] Stella Frances Freeman married John Carter Allen c. 1799. The Belvidere estate had belonged to John Cope Freeman, whose will was proved 17/01/1788. Stella Frances Freeman is identified as one of two sisters of John Cope Freeman (the other being Mary Clementina Freeman) who were beneficiaries of his will alongside John Cope Freeman's widow Susanna. His nephew Philip Dormer Stanhope (son of a third sister of John Cope Freeman, Catherine-Margaretta and her first husband Charles Stanhope of Westminster) was an annuitant on the 'Jamaican estate' under John Cope Freeman's will. Capel Cure was a trustee under this will.

T71/867 St Thomas-in-the-East claim no. 508 (Belvidere Estate).

Joseph Sturge and Thomas Harvey, The West Indies in 1837 (London, Hamilton, Adams, & Co., 1838) pp. 291-292; James A. Thome and Joseph H. Kimball, Emancipation in the West Indies: A six months' tour in Antigua, Barbadoes, and Jamaica in the year 1837 (New York, American Anti-slavery Society, 1838) p. 286.

1. PROB 11/1649; Times 30/03/1822 p. 4.

2. Essex Record Office, Blake Hall Estate in Bobbingworth D/DCc F9/1 https://secureweb1.essexcc.gov.uk/SeaxPAM/ViewCatalogue.asp?ID=108612 [accessed 09/04/2012]; PROB 11/1161; Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen and her Family (London, British Library, 1989) pp. 76-77; Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen's Letters (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 525.

We are grateful to Patricia Noble for her assistance in compiling this entry.