Catherine Phillips Wynter

Born 11/10/1788, illegitimate daughter of Charlotte Wynter, 'a free mulatto at Pleasant Hill', and Nathaniel Phillips, owner of Pleasant Hill plantation. Catherine was baptised twice (both baptism records give the same date of birth). First, 28/05/1789 in St Thomas-in-the-East, "Baptised 2 children of Charlotte Wynter a free mulatta at Pleasant Hill. Name Thomas, Born 9th March 1786. Name Catherine, born 11th October 1888." Second, baptism 25/09/1814 at Kingston, 11/10/1788 Catherine Phillips Wynter, 18/12/1789 Charlotte Phillips Wynter, both daughters of C. Wynter fr. mo. by N. Phillips". Charlotte Wynter and Nathaniel Phillips had 6 children together: Elizabeth (b.1779), William (b.1781), Richard (b.1782); Thomas (b.1786); Catherine (b.1788), Charlotte (q.v.).

It is possible that Catherine's mother, Charlotte, was the daughter of Hon. William Wynter of Jamaica (d.1772). In his will he emancipated the 'named negroes slaves': his 'housekeeper' (a common euphemism for mistress/partner) Quimba Candis Jubor and her daughters Charlotte, Molly and Gracey, all under sixteen years of age.

Catherine signed for her own enslaved people in St Andrew in 1817 (5), 1820 (6) and in Kingston in 1832 (13) as well as signing as agent to Richard Wynter and as executor of Elizabeth Swarton in Kingston in 1832. Her registration in 1832 included the acquisition of 2 enslaved people as a bequest from Elizabeth Swarton, who had been godmother to one of the children although it has not yet been established which one. Nathaniel Phillips' first wife was Ann Swarton, daughter of Colonel Richard Swarton of Pleasant Hill.

Having been educated in England, Richard Wynter [later Winter] returned to Jamaica to learn the management of a sugar plantation. He subsequently went to southern Sumatra, where he started a sugar plantation near Fort Marlborough, supported by Thomas Stamford Raffles, with whose family Nathaniel Phillips had close relations. In Sumatra, Richard cohabited with a local woman with whom he had two sons: Richard and Charles (baptised 1824). He died in Singapore in 1827.

Familysearch.org, Jamaica Church of England Parish Register Transcripts, 1664-1880 [database online].

Will of Hon. William Wynter, available through Parcel of Ribbons: http://aparcelofribbons.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/32-Will-of-William-Wynter-1783.pdf

Ancestry.com, Slave Registers of former British Colonial Dependencies, 1812-1834 [database online].

Morgan, Kenneth (2004) Jamaican material in the Slebech papers : an introduction, http://www.britishonlinearchives.co.uk/9781851171811.php [accessed 22/10/2013].

John Sturgus Bastin & Julie Weizenegger, The Family of Sir Stamford Raffles (Singapore, 2016), pp. 162-63.

We are extremely grateful to Julie Weizenegger for sharing her detailed archival research with us, upon which this entry is based.