Sir Gillies Payne

Absentee slave-owner on St Kitts and Nevis, High Sheriff of Bedfordshire in 1771 and father of John Payne and Sir Peter Payne (q.v.).

1. Will of Sir Gillies Payne of Tempsford (made in 1794) proved 01/07/1801. In the will he said that his West India estates were already encumbered with a charge of £500 p.a. for his son John and £400 p.a. for his son Peter. He left his estates in St Kitts, which included French Ground and Sandy Point, to his son John but with an apparent carve-out (the will is hard to read) of Sandy Point to his son Peter. He dealt separately with his estates on Nevis, leaving them in trust to secure annuities of £650 p.a. to his wife Maria, of £500 pa. to his son John, £100 p.a. to his son Peter and £50 p.a. to his daughters Mary and Susanna. He instructed his trustees to sell the Nevis estates (subject to these annuities) to raise £19,000, which he divided [totalling in fact £18,500] as to £3500 to his daughter Mary; £3000 in trust to his wife and other trustees; £3500 to his daughter Christian wife of George Sharpe; £1500 to his daughter Janet the wife of Sir Richard Booth; £3000 to his daughter Elizabeth the wife of Rev. Richard Palmer; £3000 to his daughter Susanna; and £1000 to his wife Maria.

2. Sir Gillies’ grandfather Abraham Payne was originally from Devon. He fought on the side of King Charles I during the English Civil War. He then left England and settled in St. Kitts. In 1726 Abraham's second son Charles was granted land in the part of St. Kitts which had formerly been held by the French. He was made a baronet on 31 October 1737. When he died in 1744, he was succeeded by Sir Gillies.

1. PROB 11/1360/22.

2. John Burke A General and heraldic dictionary of the peerage and baronetage of the British Empire, vol. 2, 4th ed. (1833), pg. 287; William Betham The Baronetage of England..., vol. 3 (1803), pg. 227