Henry Underwood Dyett

Counterclaimant for Richmond and Grove estates in Montserrat as executor and heir-at-law of Henry Dyett. Outcome of counterclaim unknown as the claim was transferred to the Court of Chancery in the case of Kensington versus Furlonge. Also unsuccessful counterclaimant for Bugby Hole in Montserrat.

1. Henry Underwood Dyett, born 30/07/1809 and baptised in Old Church, St Pancras, London, on 09/05/1812, at the same time as his sister Harriet Maria Dyett who was born 05/05/1811. Parents given as Henry and Harriet Maria Dyett.

2. There is evidence of earlier marriages between the Dyett and Underwood families in Montserrat: for example, the death of Miss Ann Underwood, 25/10/1803 in Montserrat, aged 33, niece of Henry Dyett and sister of Henry Iles Underwood of London (merchant and formerly of Demerara); also the marriage of Sarah Underwood and Richard Dyett in Montserrat in 1725. The will of Henry Dyett merchant of Copthall Chambers proved 29/11/1804 shows him about to depart for the West Indies and identifies his wife as Elinor: in a first codicil he willed named enslaved people to his daughters and in a second codicil he made his executors his son Henry Dyett, his nephew Henry Iles Underwood and John Brooks banker of Chancery Lane. This would imply that Henry Underwood Dyett was the grandson of Henry Dyett of Copthall Chambers.

3. According to a transcription of entries in a family Bible and printed in Caribbeana in 1915, Henry Dyett was born in Montserrat 13/09/1782 and married Harriet Ross in 1807; she died in Canada in 1832 of cholera and Henry Dyett died there too on 16/12/1832. This Henry Dyett was the son of Henry Dyett and Elinor Jeffries, and brother of Sarah Sophia Furlonge née Dyett who was born in Montserrat in September 1785. This connection with the Furlonges may be relevant to Dyett’s claim to compensation as the Court of Chancery case involved a Furlonge claim.

4. Described as “of Finsbury Circus” in his counterclaim for Richmond and Grove Estates. “NOTICE is hereby given, that the Partnership heretofore subsisting between us the undersigned, George Mills and Henry Underwood Dyett, carrying on business as Engineers, under the firm of George Mills and Co. at Finsbury-Circus, in the City of London, and Taylor's Dock, Birmingham, in the County of Warwick, is this day dissolved by mutual' consent- As witness our hands this 8th day of August 1835.”

5. Bugby Hole, the estate for which Henry Underwood Dyett makes a claim for compensation, was conveyed to his grandfather Henry Dyett of Montserrat (husband of Elinor Jeffries) by Thomas Oliver of London in 1796.

T71/888 Montserrat claim nos. 102 (Duberys Estate) and 110B (Bugby Hole).

1. Ancestry.com, London, England, Births, Marriages and Deaths 1738-1812 [database online].

2. Vere Langford Oliver, More Monumental Inscriptions: Tombstones of the British West Indies (Dorchester, Friary Press, 1927) pp. 53-54, available at http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=tYlaMr0l_QC&pg=PA53&lpg=PA53&dq=henry+underwood+dyett&source=bl&ots=XZbyKu5mXq&sig=c_CdEcMWFmbG-SZ2s3VeZ-2da1Y&hl=en&sa=X&ei=99JyT8LkOYmx8gPxrqgz&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=henry%20underwood%20dyett&f=false [accessed 27/03/2012]; PROB 11/1417/266.

3. Copies of entries in the family Bible in the possession of Colonel Abbott of Eastbourne, Sussex, England, first printed in Caribbeana in October 1915 and available at http://ia600409.us.archive.org/5/items/dyettofmontserra00lond/dyettofmontserra00lond.pdf [accessed 27/03/2012]. The will of Henry Dyett senior (husband of Elinor Jeffries) is transcribed online at the same source.

4. T71/1261; London Gazette, Issue 19303, p. 1687.

5. Claim roll transcript in Caribbeana in October 1915 and available at http://ia600409.us.archive.org/5/items/dyettofmontserra00lond/dyettofmontserra00lond.pdf [accessed 27/03/2012] p. 5.