Moses Montefiore

Moses Montefiore was shown as the co-owner of Springfield Pen in Jamaica in 1820, and a man of the same name appears in the Slave Registers for 1817 and 1820 registering enslaved people for himself and David Castello in Kingston. His identity has not been established by LBS, but it appears possible that this was Moses Eliezer (or Elieser) Montefiore, the cousin of Moses Montefiore the London philanthropist (Moses Eliezer Montefiore's aunt Rachel had married Moses Nunes Castello of Barbados in London in 1788): it is highly unlikely to have been the London philanthropist himself, who was a leading figure in the British Jewish community and married 10 June 1812 Judith, a daughter of Levi Barent Cohen, and sister-in-law of Nathan Mayer Rothschild.

1. Will of Moses Elieser Montefiore merchant of [the island of St Thomas in the West Indies but now residing at Artillery Place] Finsbury London [made in 1820] proved 02/01/1822. After legacies to his siblings he left his residuary estate to his father Elizer Montefiore. His trustees included his cousin Moses Montefiore Esq. He referred to property in St Thomas and elsewhere in the West Indies, but did not refer to property in Jamaica or to the two co-owners of Springfield Pen in 1820, David Castello and Hyman Levy.

See Geoffrey Alderman, 'Montefiore, Sir Moses Haim (1784–1885)', entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; Abigail Green, Moses Montefiore: Jewish liberator, Imperial Hero (Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass., 2010).

1. PROB 11/1652/20. TNA's online index of wills gives him as of Finsbury Circus.