Jacob Wilkinson

London merchant and slave-owner and - LBS has concluded - the East India Co. director who was MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed (1774-1780) and then Honiton (1781-1784). The entry by Lewis Namier in the History of Parliament for the E.I. Co. director Jacob Wilkinson gives his death date as 12/05/1791 and shows three marriages for Jacob Wilkinson, none including the Ann shown in the will of the slave-owner made in 1798 and proved in 1799. However, Namier's entry shows Jacob Wilkinson as of Bedford Row and as having his business at Abchurch Lane, both details consistent with the Jacob Wilkinson slave-owner whose will is summarised below.

1. Will of Jacob Wilkinson of City of London [made in 1798] proved 18/07/1799. His executors were his sons Thomas and David Wilkinson and his son-in-law John Bourdieu. He left his wife Ann an annuity of £400 p.a., to be secured either on an appropriate investment in the funds or on his English real estate, at his trustees' discretion, as well as £300 and the household furniture etc. at his house at Bedford Row. He left: £6000 each to his daughters Mary Ann, Elizabeth and Fanny Wilkinson; £2000 to his niece Elizabeth Wilkinson; £2500 each to his grandchildren Philadelphia and Amelia Bourdieu, the daughters of John Bourdieu and Wilkinson's deceased daughter Ann. He secured a further annuity of £400 p.a. to his wife on his real estate and enslaved people in Jamaica and Tobago, as well as further monetary legacies of £4000 to each of his three daughters and £6000 to each of his younger sons, Daniel and Hugh.

https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/member/wilkinson-jacob-1716-91 [sic]. The banker Charles Wilkinson of Birchin Lane died in 1791 - it was possible that Namier confused the two men's death-dates. LBS has found two potentially relevant marriages for a Jacob Wilkinson, one in Northumberland to Margaret Charlton (given by Namier as the second wife of Jacob Wilkinson the MP) in 1753, and the other to Ann Johnson in London in 1785, although the latter gives Jacob Wilkinson as bachelor. The children of Jacob Wilkinson who were his executors in 1799 could not have been children of this latter marriage.

1. PROB 11/1328/47.