Theobold Taaffe

MP, adventurer and absentee slave-owner, benefitting from his wife's inheritance in Jamaica.

1. Sold Seven Plantations in Clarendon Jamaica to George Chandler (q.v.), "subject to an annuity as by agreement to him".

Conveyance (lease and release) for £6000, a release of mortgage and annuities; 30/11/1769–01/12/1769: Theobald Taaffe to Joseph Gascoigne and Henry Davidson, in trust for George Chandler; Edward Mathew and William Fitzherbert to be trustees of 500-year terms created to secure annuities on the estate, to and created by Theobald Taaffe: "plantation called Seven Plantations in the parish of Clarendon, Jamaica", "penn called Saint Tooleys Penn", "land called Solitari in the parish of Clarendon, Jamaica", "penn called St Dorothys Penn in the parish of St Dorothy", "land, houses and warehouses at Old Harbour in the parish of St Dorothy", and "in all 5000 acres in Clarendon and St Dorothy [...] all houses, negroes with their increase, offspring, appurtenances and incidents, outhouses, mill houses, boiling houses, curing houses and buildings [...] neat, cattle, horses, mares, mules and other livestock, coppers, stills, worms, tubs, ladles, skimmers, pots, drips and other plantation utensils." Witnessed by Henry Mountfort and Thomas Ryder the younger, and acknowledged by Theobald Taaffe and Chandler before William Beckford, Lord Mayor of London, 21/03/1770; "covenant by George Chandler to deliver to Theobald Taaffe yearly for life a puncheon of rum, the produce of the plantations, and two turtles each of at least 80 pounds in weight."

1. Born c. 1708, the eldest son of Stephen Taaffe of Dowanstown, Co. Meath and his second wife Mabel, daughter of Henry, 2nd Viscount Barnwell. He inherited Jamaican property through his wife Susanna, daughter of Henry Lowe of Goadby Marwood, Leicestershire, who was also an heir of her brother Samuel Lowe (c. 1693-1731). Described by Horace Walpole in 1751 as a "gamester, usurer and adventurer". MP for Arundel 1747-1754. Lived in Hanover Square, London, and an estate near Midhurst, Sussex, but spent much of the 1750s and 1760 in France (including at least two spells in prison there). According to Edward Gibbon in 1763, "He has settled with his English creditors and given up his estate at Jamaica for the payment of his debts. He wants to compromise with his other creditors, who are very numerous, but as they are convinced he wants to cheat them and that he only offers the same estate after the other debts are cleared which cannot be in less than ten or fifteen years they will hear of no compromise ... Mr. Taaffe’s scheme is to keep another estate in Jamaica clear of his creditors. They on their side want to starve him into giving up that estate likewise." Apparently by 1767 his estates in Jamaica were worth about £3000 a year but were in the control of trustees arranging payment of his debts and Taaffe was given an allowance of £500 a year.

2. Theobald Taaffe was listed in the Jamaican Quit Rent books for 1754 as the owner of 5706 acres of land in Clarendon and 650 acres of land in St Dorothy, total 6356 acres.

3. Will of Theobald Taaffe of Cadets Row Scotland Yard 03/07/1780. In the will he left his property in trust to Sarah Chandler (widow of George Chandler) and Duncan Davidson in trust to pay his debts and support his natural daughter Susannah Taaffe 'begotten on the body of Mary Read.'

We are grateful to Christopher Whittick for his assistance in compiling this entry.

1. PROB 11/1055/59. Letters to Ld. Clive from Geo. Clive, Chase Price, John Walsh, Thos. Rider and Hen. Mountfort, Oct. and Nov. 1767, Clive mss, Powis Castle.

2. http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1715-1754/member/taaffe-theobald-1708-80 [accessed 10/12/2013].

3. 'A List of landholders in the Island of Jamaica together with the number of acres each person possessed taken from the quit rent books in the year 1754', TNA CO 142/31 transcribed at http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Samples2/1754lead.htm.

4. PROB 11/1067/133.