John Morse

John Morse, active as an attorney in Jamaica in the 1750s and a slave-owner in the 1760s and 1770s, dying in London in 1781. The efforts of his natural children with Elizabeth Augier to secure their inheritances from his estate [alleged by his nephew to have been worth £140,000] have been documented by Daniel Livesay.

1. Sarah Charlotte, daughter of Elizabeth Augier alias Tyndall by John Morse, born 18/01/1748 and baptised 07/03/1748 in Kingston. Further baptisms with the same parents in Kingston: John, born 08/12/1748 and baptised 04/02/1749; Roger, born 15/02/1750 and baptised 11/03/1750; Robert, born 07/06/1752 and baptised 15/06/1752; Catherine, born 22/10/1757 and baptised 04/12/1757; Sarah, born 26/11/1759 and baptised 14/12/1759 (as daughter of John Morce Esquire and Elizabeth Tindall). Another Robert, son of John Morse Esquire and Elizabeth Tindal, born 08/12/1753 and baptised 21/09/1757 in St Elizabeth. Ann Frances, “base child of Elizabeth Tynedale”, born 12/11/1758 and baptised 31/01/1759 in St Elizabeth. Presumably the eldest Sarah Charlotte (born 1748) and the fourth, Robert (born 1752) had both died young.

2. Member of Assembly for St David 1745 and 1749, for Port Royal in 1752 and St Elizabeth in 1759; Clerk of the Peace in Kingston in 1751 and Register of the Vice-Admiralty Court in 1764.

3. Will of John Morse of the City of London [made in 1777] proved 18/04/1781. He left or confirmed an annuity of £50 p.a. to Mrs Traner that she had long since bought of him; he left another annuity of £50 p.a. to his sister Mrs van Heelen of Amsterdam, £100 to his sister Catherine Royal and £2000 to his reputed daughter Frances Morse who had been boarding with Mrs van Heelen in Amsterdam. He left to his nephew Edward Morse a bond for the penal amount £5500 to secure the payment of £2750 by 1780 under a deed of 1775, which said bond and another of similar amount was given to John Morse by Thomas Smith 'towards the purchase of Fonthill plantation in Jamaica.' All the rest of his estates he left to five reputed or natural children, John Morse of the Horse Guards, Robert Morse of Lincolns Inn, Catherine the wife of Edmund Green (of Dyers Court Aldermanbury), Sarah Morse and Ann Morse.

4. Of the heirs of John Morse, Ann married Nathaniel Middleton and the couple assigned their share of the estates in 1784, possibly to Robert Green, later bankrupt: she, Robert Morse and their sister Sarah had all moved to India after their father's death, where they were painted by Zoffany. Catherine was the mother of Edmund Francis Green (q.v.). His nephew Edward Morse, mentioned in his will, was sometime 'Chief Judge of the province of Senegambia': and died in Jamaica in 1794 (his widow, Anna, died 15/04/1823 aged 73 and was buried at Widcombe, Bath).

5. John Morse of Britain, merchant. Estate probated in Jamaica in 1782. Slave-ownership at probate: 490 of whom 242 were listed as male and 248 as female. 130 were listed as boys, girls or children. Total value of estate at probate: £138,574.85 Jamaican currency of which £27,480.25 currency was the value of enslaved people. Estate valuation included £0 currency cash, £100767.59 currency debts and £20 currency plate.

6. John Morse was listed in the Jamaican Quit Rent books for 1754 as the owner of 170 acres of land in St David, 500 acres in St Thomas-in-the-East, 100 acres in Portland and 7756 acres in St Elizabeth, total 8526 acres. Morse and Delap were listed in the Jamaican Quit Rent books for 1754 as the owners of 3008 acres of land in St Elizabeth. This may be John Morse and his brother-in-law Robert Delap (died 1767) who was Member of Assembly for St Elizabeth in 1761 and 1765-6 and married Catherine Morse, sister of John Morse (as Robert Delap’s widow she married Joseph Royall (q.v.) at St Elizabeth in 1768).

D.A. Livesay, Children of Uncertain Fortune: Mixed-Race Migration from the West Indies to Britain, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Michigan, 2010., [forthcoming as of March 2017 from the University of North Carolina Press or the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture], pp. 178-186.

1. Familysearch.org, Jamaica Church of England Parish Register Transcripts, 1664-1880 [database online].

2. Fuertado's Personages transcribed at http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Members/b/bfeurtado04.htm.

3. PROB 11/1077/146.

4. Caribbeana Vol. III: '1817, Jan. 30. Ind. between Peter Martineau the Younger of London, sugar refiner, and. Geo. Green of L., Merchant, assig. of estate of Robert Green late of L., Mt, bankrupt, and Rob. Green. Whereas John Morse late of L., Esq., decd, being seized of a plantation in J., made his will 29 Sep. 1777. His plantations or penns called Y. S., Ipswich, Unity and Sunderland in St Eliz. near the ports of Martha Brae and Montego Bay. Assignment of a share of 1/5 recites assigt of 11 Dec. 1784 betw. Nath. Middleton, Esq., and Ann his wife (f. A. Morse) assig. 1/2 of 1/5 to Rob. M. [=G for Green?], &c. Lease for a year.'; Livesay, Children of Uncertain Fortune pp. 253-261; for more on the Zoffany painting see https://vads.ac.uk/large.php?uid=91966 [accessed 09/10/2018]; Gentleman's Magazine vol. 76 p. 768 (August 1794); Monumental Inscriptions transcribed at http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Members/b/bcarib16.htm.

5. Trevor Burnard, Database of Jamaican inventories, 1674-1784.

6. '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; email from Paul Hitchings 01/08/2018.

We are grateful to Paul Hitchings for his assistance with compiling this entry.