Georgina Frances de Peyronnet (née Whitfield)

Frances de Peyronnet (nee Georgina Frances Whitfield), beneficiary with her sister Elizabeth of the compensation for the enslaved people on the Peruvian Vale and Henry's Vale estates on St Vincent and on Plaisance estate on Grenada, for which the compensation was awarded to the trustee of her father's will, her maternal uncle Henry James Ross (q.v.), who subsequently bought the plantations.

1. Georgina Frances Whitfield, born in the West Indies 1815, daughter of George Whitfield (d. 1819) and his wife Georgina Pauline [or Georgiana Paulina] Ross. Moved to England with her mother not long after her birth, then moved to France in 1822 or 1823. Married Vicomte Jules de Peyronnet (1804-1872) in London 03/02/1835. His father opposed the marriage and stopped his allowance. '[T]hanks to the income from the Whitfield sugar plantations, however, they were able to tour Europe in style. Later, with the gradual abolition of slavery in the English [sic] West Indies, this source of revenue began to dry up, and they (and her mother) moved to St Vincent in 1840.' They returned to France in 1844. Wrote for Edinburgh Review etc., then for The Times during the Franco-Prussian war. 'She probably did much of the translation work for her husband's French edition of Macaulay's History of England (1861).'

2. Living at 129 Marine Parade, Brighton, from at least 1891 until her death in 1895. Probate was granted 29/07/1895 to Marie Madeleine Claire de Peyronnet, spinster, effects £5892 15s 13d. Georgina Frances de Peyronnet is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, with her unmarried daughter Marie Madeleine Claire de Peyronnet (1837-1913), and near her youngest daughter, Isabelle Raymonde de Peyronnet (1842-1927), third wife of George John Browne, 3rd Marquess of Sligo, within his large family plot.

T71/880 Grenada no. 602 (Plaisance); St Vincent nos. 473A and 474A Peruvian Vale and Henry's Vale.

1. ODNB online, Martin Russell, 'Peyronnet, (Georgina) Frances de [nee Georgina Frances Whitfield], Viscountess Peyronnet in the French nobility (1815-1895), journalist.' Ancestry.com, London, England, Marriages and Banns, 1754-1921 [database online].

2. 1891 census online, which gives her place of birth as St Vincent and her daughter Madeleine's place of birth as France c. 1839. National Probate Calendar 1895. Email from Signe Hoffas 02/02/2015 sourced to General Cemetery Company registers, plot 4867.

We are grateful to Signe Hoffos for her assistance with compiling this entry.