Robert Sympson

Owner of Monymusk estate, and trustee and executor (with Rowland and Samuel Mitchell) under the will of William Mitchell senior, in which capacity he was awarded the compensation with others for Bushy Park in St Dorothy and on Phoenix Park in St Ann.  The award for Bushy Park (in which he appears as Robert Simpson) was one of the largest single awards, embracing 704 enslaved people.

1. Lady Nugent visited Monymusk when it was under the management of Mrs Sympson, 'a widow for the second time' and 'an excellent planter.' The estate had been shown against John Sympson in the 1790s. An Archibald Sympson had been member of the House of Assembly for Vere.

2.  There is a memorial in Vere Church to Edward Sympson, younger son of Robert Sympson of Monymusk, a former naval officer who died at Monymusk 08/03/1846 aged 33.  The wording - which has no reference to late or deceased for Robert Sympson the father - implies that Robert Sympson was still alive at that time.  There is also a memorial erected to William Lewis of Moreland estate in 1838 by Robert and Edward Sympson of Monymusk, although whether this is father and son or two brothers is impossible to tell.

3. The will of Robert Sympson of Leamington was proved 27/10/1848. The will was made at Boulogne in October 1847, although dated - apparently in error - October 1827. In the probate, Robert Sympson is described as formerly of Leamington, then of Boulogne and late of Kirby Misperton near Pickering in the County of Yorkshire. He willed 'whatever sum can be afforded' from his estate of Monymusk in Jamaica to his three daughters, Harriet Fowler (to receive one-third more than the two others), Emma Charlotte O'Neill and Isabella Theophania Weguelin, but left the amount to the discretion of his son-in-law William John Law, 'who most kindly and nobly took up the heavy mortgage' on the estate. He also left £2000 each to his sons Charles John Sympson and George Frederick Sympson. Charles John Sympson was shown as Rector of Kirby Misperton in 1851.   

4. 'King' William Mitchell was a returned Jamaica planter. Will of William Mitchell of Saint Marylebone Middlesex proved 01/12/1823.

T71/853 St Dorothy no. 17; St Ann no. 128 for Bushy Park and Phoenix Park.

1. Philip Wright (ed.), Lady Nugent's Journal of Her Residence in Jamaica from 1801 to 1805 (Jamaica, University of the West Indies Press, 2002). In the index of person she is shown as dying in 1804.

2. Frank Cundall, Historic Jamaica (London, West India Committee for the Institute of Jamaica, 1915) pp. 388-89; ibid p. 389.

3. FreeUKGen, England and Wales Free BMD Database, Deaths, 1837-1983 [database online]; PROB 11/2082/251; 1851 census online.

4. PROB 11/1679.

We are grateful to Audrey Dewjee for her help with this entry.