Hon. John Perry

Resident slave-owner in Jamaica: almost certainly the same man as the John Perry who operated as a slave-factor in Montego Bay between c. 1787 and c. 1793. Christer Petley shows that he had worked as a merchant with John Cunningham and 'lived in a grand peri-urban dwelling near to Montego Bay. His Hopewell property consisted of a "dwelling house with offices and lands" and lay some 40 miles away from a sugar plantation in a neighbouring parish.'

1. Born 1751, died 1809. Member of Assembly for St James 1796-1809. The index to Philip Wright (ed.), Lady Nugent's Journal contains an unattributed quote: "a most illiberal, vindictive, ungentlemanly character, with very confined ideas. Unpopular with almost all descriptions of persons and much more an American than a British subject. Strongly suspected on being deeply concerned in smuggling prohibited articles from the United States where he has connections. Always attempting to persude people that he is much in the Governor's confidence, and betraying what little he knows. Constantly employed in trying to effect the ruin of every individual who may have given him offence, however inadvertently, and most thoroughly despised by all who know him".

2. Memorial inscription in Montego Bay Church: THE HON. JOHN PERRY, ESQ., MEMBER OF ASSEMBLY, AND FORMERLY OF BRISTOL OB. 1809, AET. 58. ALSO, ELIZABETH AND ANNE, HIS DAUGHTERS, AND ANNE, HIS WIFE.

3. Perry was involved in a legal dispute over mortgages and rights to Mammee Bay plantation with John Jones between 1803 and 1809.

4. Will of the Honourable John Perry of St James Jamaica proved 03/08/1810. In the will he said that he had recently made provision to his son William Perry jun. of 'the very best of my property say funds in England.' He left the Abingdon estate, and a mortgage granted by William Gordon on Paisley and Windsor Lodge for £9610 7s 2d, in trust [his trustees included his brother William Perry sen. 'late of Bristol', given as of Montego Bay merchant] to be sold by his Jamaica executors, and the proceeds moved to his English executors, to pay one-third to his wife Ann Perry and two-thirds in trust for his daughters Ann jun. and Mary Perry.

5. George Gresley Perry (1821-1897), Fellow of Lincoln College Oxford and Archdeacon of Stow, was a grandson of Hon. John Perry, son of William Perry of Churchill Somerset (d. c. 1826).

David Richardson, Bristol, Africa and the 18th century slave-trade to America pp. 109, 117, 178, 203; Christer Petley, 'Plantations and homes: the material culture of the early nineteenth century Jamaican elite', Slavery & Abolition 35:3 (September 2104) pp. 437-457.

1. Philip Wright (ed.), Lady Nugent's Journal (2002) p. 312.

2. James Henry Lawrence-Archer, Monumental Inscriptions of the British West Indies (1875), p. 318.

3. National Archives item PCAP 13/85/10: "Printed appeal to an Appeals Committee of the Privy Council from JAMAICA[colonial, Caribbean]. Appellant: John Jones. Respondent: John Perry, administrator of the will of John Vaughan deceased, who survived John Fowler deceased and John Taylor Vaughan deceased, his late partners".

4. PROB 11/1514/51.

5. Oxford Men and Their Colleges, 1880-1892 'Fellows of Lincoln College' p. 242

We are grateful to Gillian Millington for her assistance with compiling this entry.