Sarah Brissett Lawrence

Sarah Brissett Lawrence (née Spence), the wife of George Lawrence (q.v.) of Cowesfield Wiltshire and daughter of Dr Patrick Spence of Hanover.

1. In 1861 Sarah Lawrence is shown as head of the household at Cowesfield House aged 62 'proprietor of land' 'British subject' with niece Mary Lewis aged 46 'Fundholder' 'British subject' and 8 servants. Will with codicil of Sarah Brissett Lawrence of Cowesfield House Wiltshire who died 19/12/1868 proved 15/01/1869 by Mary Lewis niece of Cowesfield House, effects under £40,000.

2. A Sarah Brissett Lawrence has been identified as the owner in her own right of eleven enslaved people rented to the Eardley sugar estate in Hanover, Jamaica. Significantly, there were two women named Sarah Brissett Lawrence both born in Jamaica, both strongly linked to slavery, who were alive and well in England in the mid-nineteenth century, one in Wiltshire, one in Bedfordshire. It is most likely that it was the Bedfordshire Sarah Brissett Lawrence (daughter of Mary Lawrence, living at Endeavour) who registered 11 enslaved people in 1832 and subsequently claimed compensation for them in 1834, rather than the present Sarah Brissett Lawrence (née Spence).

We are grateful to David Barker for his assistance in compiling this entry.

1. 1861 census online; National Probate Calendar 1869.

2. T71/1213 Hanover claim no. 476. Jamaica, Hanover Census, 1823; Slave Registers, Jamaica Hanover 1817 to 1832; Census Bedfordshire 1841, 1851, 1861; Civil Registration Death Index, Berkshire 1870.