Robert Allen

Awarded a share of the compensation with a large group of claimants for the enslaved people on Tryall estate in Hanover, and awarded in his own right the compensation for Recovery Pen, also in Hanover Jamaica.

The Tryall estate is shown as 'Robert Allen et al.' or variants from the 1811 Jamaica Almanac onwards. However, Allen's path to ownership is not known.

1. According to the Jamaica lawyer Andrew Graham Dignum (q.v.), Robert Allen of Tryall was shot (and killed) 'protecting the said property' during the Baptist War of 1831: his wife was awarded £10 and each of his children £5 by the House of Assembly in April 1832, and £10 was granted to the Churchwardens of Hanover to place a tombstone over Robert Allen's grave. The awardees must therefore be legatees of this Robert Allen.

2. The Robert Allen of the award was a director of London Assurance, until his death in 1852. His will, of Lewisham Kent, proved 10/081852, left monetary legacies to many relatives and friends, but sheds no light on this nexus around the Tryall estate and makes no reference to Jamaica.

T71/872 Hanover claim nos. 56A-H (Tryall Estate) and 58 (Recovery Pen). T71/1212 shows him as of Laytonstone [sic] Essex and London Assurance House.

1. Andrew Robert Dignum, A letter to the Right Honorable the Earl of Suffield on subjects connected with slavery in the Island of Jamaica (London: Joseph Shackell, 1832), p. 14.

2. B. W. Higman, Plantation Jamaica 1750-1850: capital and control in a colonial economy (Mona, Jamaica, University of West Indies Press, 2005), pp. 153 and 158 shows him as owner of Tryall and of Cornhill; London Gazette, Issue 21344, 30/07/1852, p. 2113 shows the election of a replacement for Robert Allen deceased in August 1852; PROB 11/2157/170.