Thomas Hall of Exmouth

Awarded the compensation for three estates in St James Jamaica, for Williamsfield estate as tenant-in-tail for life, for Worcester estate after counterclaiming as trustee of two indentures from 1800 and 1803 against Thomas Dehany Hall (q.v.), and for Kempshot Pen. Reputedly the model for Mr Woodhouse in Jane Austen's Emma although the origin of this assertion is not clear.

1. Will of Thomas Hall of Exmouth Devon proved 23/11/1839. In the will he rehearsed his marriage settlement of 1787 and its provisions to secure £6000 on the Williamsfield and Hermitage Penn for the younger children of the marriage, whom he delineates as including Eliza Ann, the deceased wife of Thomas Newman.

2. The Dehany and Hall families were intertwined: Mary (c. 1749-1815), the wife of Richard James Lawrence of Fairfield Jamaica was the daughter of Thomas Hall of Kirkpatrick and Worcester by Mary, daughter of David Dehaney (died c. 1753) of Barbican and The Point ('of a noble Dutch family').

T71/873 St James Nos. 151, 155 (which identifies him as of Exmouth Devon) and 157. E.g. http://www.janeaustenriceportrait.com/provenance/4580990034 [accessed 23/08/2016].

1. PROB 11/1908.

2. Vere Langford Oliver, Caribbeana being miscellaneous papers relating to the history, genealogy, topography, and antiquities of the British West Indies (6 vols., London, Mitchell, Hughes and Clarke, 1910-1919), Vol. 3, pp. 289-291, Dehaney of Jamaica.

The Register of Hall Family Papers and Sugar Plantation Records, 1709 - 1892, with a wealth of information about the Hall family and the networks in which they operated, is available online at http://libraries.ucsd.edu/speccoll/testing/html/mss0220a.html#scopecontent [accessed 24/03/2014].

We are grateful to Pamela Miller for her assistance with compiling this entry.