UCL

Francis Eyre

Profile & Legacies Summary

1722 - 1797

Biography

MP for Morpeth 1774-1775 and for Great Grimsby 1780-1784. The son of a Truro shoemaker, he was apprenticed to an attorney and reportedly invested part of a fortune from privateering in the seven years' war into 'slave-property' in the West Indies. By 1776 and probably earlier he was in financial difficulties and began to sell off his estates in England and Jamaica.

  1. Papers in the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre link him to Serge Island 'on the Black River' and to an adjoining plantation called Mullett Hall c. 1774, neither of which has been traced to date (the estates of the same names in the database are in other parts of Jamaica, if the reference to Black River is correct). He was also the same man as the Francis Eyre shown as the present proprietor of St John Lots nos. 11-15 in Dominica c. 1775, of which the original purchaser had been John and Thomas Boone. An account of litigation brought by Daniel Boone in 1777 concerning the sale by Boone to 'Francis Eyre of Surry Street Westminster' of the Capuchin estate on Dominica in 1775 shows Eyre as then being in the Marshalsea prison, consistent with his entry in the History of Parliament.

  2. Stephanie Barczewski, drawing on the papers in the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, says: 'In the late 1760s, Francis Eyre wanted to purchase both the Mullett Hall in Jamaica and the Colesbourne estate in Gloucestershire....Eyre was to pay £15,000 for Mullett Hall, with the funds coming largely from the sales of his Holnest estate in Dorset (£4000) and his Serge Island plantation in Jamaica (£6000). The "40 negroes" who lived at Serge Island would be transferred to Mullett Hall. The purchase price of £7300 for Colesbourne meanwhile would come from the "residue" of the sale of Holnest (£4700) and a £2000 loan.'


Sources

http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/member/eyre-francis-1722-97 [accessed 24/02/2018].

  1. Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, Calley Papers 1178/339; John Byres, References to a plan of the island of Dominica as surveyed from the year 1765 and 1773 (London, 1777); Hilary Term 1777 Roll 1455, Lee, reproduced by James Oldham, 'Detecting Non-fiction', in Chantal Stebbings (ed.) Law Reporting in Britain (1995) pp. 166-7.

  2. Stephanie Barczewski Country Houses and the British Empire, 1700-1930 (2014) p. 70.

Further Information

Absentee?
British/Irish

Associated Estates (2)

The dates listed below have different categories as denoted by the letters in the brackets following each date. Here is a key to explain those letter codes:

  • SD - Association Start Date
  • SY - Association Start Year
  • EA - Earliest Known Association
  • ED - Association End Date
  • EY - Association End Year
  • LA - Latest Known Association
1775 [EA] - 1777 [LA] → Owner
Grand Capuchin [ Dominica ]

Francis Eyre purchased Capuchin estate in St John Dominica in 1775 from John Boone, but defaulted on the annuity he had pledged as part of the purchase price. The estate was mortgaged for £11,500 to Thomas and Rowland Hunt at the time. It is not yet clear whether and when the Capuchin estate was split into 'Grand' and 'Little'.

1775 [EA] - 1777 [LA] → Owner
Little Capuchin, St John [ Dominica ]

Francis Eyre purchased Capuchin estate in St John Dominica in 1775 from John Boone, but defaulted on the annuity he had pledged as part of the purchase price. The estate was mortgaged for £11,500 to Thomas and Rowland Hunt at the time. It is not yet clear whether and when the Capuchin estate was split into 'Grand' and 'Little'.

Legacies Summary

Political (1)

MP
 
Details
election →
Morpeth Northumberland
1774 - 1775
election →
Great Grimsby Lincolnshire
1780 - 1784

Addresses (1)

Colesborne, Gloucestershire, South-west England, England
Details