Jemima Johnson Thomson (née Lee)

Executrix and widow of Isaac Deleon Thomson, and mother of three natural children with Francis Rigby Brodbelt and two with Sir Michael Benignus Clare.

The 1836 P.O. Directory shows I.D. Thomson merchant at 12 Kings Arms Yard Coleman Street but Isaac Deleon Thomson does not appear in the London Gazette nor does his death or will appear in the normal online sources.

1. Marriage of Isaac Deleon Thomson widower of St Sepulchre and Jemima Lee spinster of St Leonard Shoreditch married at St Sepulchre Holborn 08/06/1822.

2. In the 1823 registration in St Catherine, Isaac Deleon Thomson is shown as owner and in right of his wife, with a group of enslaved registered to him 'by marriage', having been registered in 1820 by Jemima J Lee; in both 1829 and 1832 he appears to have signed the registration himself. The 1817 registration is in the name 'Jemima Johnson Lee'.

3. Before her marriage to Isaac Deleon Thomson, Jemima Johnstone Lee was the mother of at least three children who were baptised in St Catherine, Jamaica: Eliza Lee Brodbelt (born 1798), James Lee Brodbelt (born 1800) and Thomas Lee Brodbelt (born 1802). Her race is recorded as "free mulatto" in the baptism registers. James and Thomas trained as physicians at Edinburgh University. Their father was Francis Rigby Brodbelt, Doctor of Physic, of Bath Easton Villa in England, according to the will of Jemima's father Hon. James Lee. Three more children baptised in St Catherine were probably Jemima's as well: Sarah Lee Clare (baptised 1812, age 2 1/2 years, "brown, free"), Jemima Lee Clare (born 1812, baptised 1814, daughter of Jemima Lee, 'free mulatto'), Amelia Lee Clare (born 1814, baptised 1815 the same day as her sister Jemima). Sarah Lee Clare and Jemima Lee Clare are also mentioned in the will of Hon. James Lee.

4. The legal case Brodbelt v. Thomson (1858) reveals further details of Lee's family. James Lee of Jamaica wrote his will in 1821 bequeathing his house in Spanish Town to his friend John Gardner Milward and all rest and residue to Francis Rigby Brodbelt and Brodbelt's reputed children Eliza Lee Brodbelt, James Lee Brodbelt and Thomas Lee Brodbelt as tenants-in-common. In a codicil written at sea a week later, he revoked the gift of his house to Milward and instead bequeathed it to his reputed daughter Jemima Johnson Lee, daughter of Eliza Gardner Johnson and also made Jemima an executrix. James Lee died on the voyage. Later that year, Jemima Johnson Lee married Isaac Deleon Thomson; the only child born of the marriage was Adriana Lee Thomson. Francis Rigby Brodbelt, for reasons unspecified, changed his name to Stallard Penoyre, and bequeathed his property from the will of James Lee to his three reputed children Eliza Lee Brodbelt, James Lee Brodbelt and Thomas Lee Brodbelt as tenants-in-common; Stallard Penoyre died in 1826. Jemima Johnson Lee survived her husband, and died 13/06/1833. Thomas Lee Brodbelt died in 1844 and bequeathed his property to James Lee Brodbelt and Eliza Lee Brodbelt. Eliza Lee Brodbelt died in 1850 having bequeathed her property to James Lee Brodbelt. Adriana Lee Thomson brought a legal claim in 1852 for the recovery of a moiety of the house in possession of James Lee Brodbelt which she claimed was previously the property of her mother Jemima Johnson Lee.

1. Ancestry.com, London, England, Marriages and Banns, 1754-1921 [database online].

2. Ancestry.com, Slave Registers of former British Colonial Dependencies, 1812-1834 [database on-line], 1817, 1823, 1829, 1832.

3. See separate entries for Eliza Lee Brodbelt, James Lee Brodbelt and Thomas Lee Brodbelt. Will of Hon. James Lee, PROB 11/1664/618.

4. James Lee Brodbelt v. Adriana Lee Thomson, http://www.commonlii.org/uk/cases/EngR/1858/865.pdf [accessed 28/07/2020].

We are grateful to Robert Lancashire, Peter Selley and Stephen Mallet for their assistance with compiling this entry.