Ann Brady Smith (née Barnett)

Ann (or Anne) Brady Barnett, daughter of Hon. William Barnett, and wife of Rev. Samuel Smith (1765-1841), Chaplain to the House of Commons and Dean of Christ Church Oxford. Owner of five enslaved people on Arcadia in Trelawney whom she sold in 1825 to the Hankeys (London bankers and mortgagees of Arcadia), and who formed part of a group of 39 for whom the Hankeys claimed compensation, as one part of the compensation for the enslaved people on Arcadia. Two of the enslaved people carried her married name, possibly as aids to identify them as her 'property'.

1. Marriage of Anne Brady Barnett to Rev. Samuel Smith DD of Daventry Northants at St James Weybridge 09/08/1803.

2. The papers of Samuel Smith, including those dealing with his involvement in the early years of the University, are in Durham University Library Special Collections. The Introduction erroneously gives his wife as 'Miss Taunton' 'by whom he had at least four children'.

Slave Registers 1817 Trelawney M-O, which shows four enslaved people (John Hanson aged 16; Amey aged 55 or 58, and Amey's daughters Eleanor aged 13 and Margery aged 9) belonging to Mrs Ann Smith formerly Barnett, sister of 'William Barnett (of Arcadia); Slave Registers Trelawney 1826 which shows the sale by Mrs Ann Smith of John Hanson; 'Eleanor or Eleanor Smith'; 'Margery or Margery Smith'; and two infants, January [?] aged 21/2 the son of Eleanor and Fanny aged 14 months daughter of Margery, to the Hankeys.

1. Ancestry.com, London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1932 for Anne Brady Barnett Parishes not in a Borough St James, Weybridge 1803 [database online].

2. http://reed.dur.ac.uk/xtf/view?docId=ark/32150_s15t34sj56m.xml#node.1.4.2.1 [accessed 12/09/2019]. See e.g. the Westminster Abbey website page for Smith's father, also Rev. Samuel Smith d. 1808), Headmaster of Westminster School, for a correct version of Rev. Samuel Smith's family with Anne Brady Barnett, https://www.westminster-abbey.org/abbey-commemorations/commemorations/samuel-smith [accessed 12/09/2019].

We are grateful to Jim Brennan for his help with this entry.