Nathaniel Webb MP

MP for Taunton 1768-1775 and Ilchester 1775-1780. Born Montserrat. Owner at his death of an estate called Grove on Montserrat, which has not yet been further traced unless it was the estate appearing as 'Richmond & Grove' in 1817. Co-owner with his uncle Harry Webb of Lucas's on Antigua, which they sold in 1777 to John Halliday of Antigua (q.v.) for £13,000.

1. The brief History of Parliament entry for him records that he inherited his father's West India plantations in 1741 and his brother Robert's Taunton property in 1765 (Robert himself was MP for Taunton (1747-1754). He gave £2000 for the building of the new Market House in Taunton after his election in 1768.

2. Will of Nathaniel Webb Esq. of [Savile Row] St James Westminster proved 20/11/1786. In the will he left his estate and enslaved people on Montserrat called Grove and his English estates in Kent and Surrey in trust to secure an annuity of £800 p.a. (£600 p.a. if she remarried) to his wife Elizabeth, and to raise £20,000 for his second son Willis John Webb. He left his estate itself in entail to his elder son Nathaniel Webb. In a codicil he said that he had sold his Surrey estate at Twickenham and agreed to sell the Kent estates, so that he put £16,000 of his increased personalty in trust to secure his wife's annuity. The will of his elder son, Nathaniel Webb of Harble Down Kent made in 1832 and proved 24/11/1842, is silent on property in Montserrat and left his unspecified real estate to his daughter Elizabeth Celia Webb: she in turn died 10/03/1861 at Hall Place Harbledown leaving £30,000.

3. A portrait of Nathaniel Webb c. 1715 by an unknown artist is held at the Christchurch Art Gallery, New Zealand.

1. Mary M. Drummond, 'Webb, Nathaniel (1725-1786) of Taunton, Som.', History of Parliament online, accessed 07/09/2015.

2. PROB 11/1148/42; PROB 11/1971/336, which is identifiable as the will of Nathaniel Webb the son and heir of Nathaniel Webb (d. c. 1786) by its reference to the testator's brother Willis John Webb; National Probate Calendar 1861.

3. Ken Hall, 'Success to Excess', https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/bulletin/173/success-to-excess#footnotes [accessed 06/05/2020].

We are grateful to Ken Hall for his assistance with compiling this entry.