Frances Duer

Daughter of Major John Duer (d. 1765) and his wife Frances nee Frye. John Duer inherited Duers in Antigua from his father, also called John Duer (d. 1716). Frances and her sister Elizabeth Grace counterclaimed unsuccessfully for compensation from LIttle Duers on the basis of an annuity from their nephew who was also called John Duer (he was the son of their brother Rowland who died in 1791).

1. Compensation records state John Duer who died in 1828 left £400 each to his aunts Frances Duer and Elizabeth Grace Duer and that Duers sold the legacies of £400 each for £100 p.a. annuity each to Manning and Anderdon (q.v., the West India merchant firm which failed in 1831).

2. Oliver's History of Antigua gives a summary of John Duer's will which states he left £3000 to each of his daughters at the age of 21 and an annuity of £70 p.a. The daughters were also residuary legatees of their mother Frances Duer of Farnham, Surrey, whose will was proved in 1787. Frances Duer died 20/09/1835 age 84 and was buried in a shared vault her sisters and brother-in-law Hon George Rose in Christchurch Priory Church, Hampshire.

T71/877 Antigua claim no. 257 (Little Duers).

1. T71/1220 Antigua claim no. 257. Langford Vere Oliver, History of the Island of Antigua (London, Mitchell and Hughes, 1894), Vol. 1 pp. 217-218.

2. Ibid.