Francis Bright

Brother of Henry Bright of Bristol. Mortgagee of an estate called Cabarita in Westmoreland, Jamaica, which LBS has yet to trace.

Henry Francis Bright [sic] was listed in the Jamaican Quit Rent books for 1754 as the owner of 600 acres of land in St Catherine.

Francis Bright of Kingston, merchant. Estate probated in Jamaica in 1755. Slave-ownership at probate: 14 of whom 12 were listed as male and 2 as female. 2 were listed as boys, girls or children. Total value of estate at probate: £3125.94 Jamaican currency of which £942 currency was the value of enslaved people. Estate valuation included £0 currency cash, £2060.39 currency debts and £0 currency plate.

Kenneth Morgan, ‘Bright, Henry (1715–1777)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/50515, accessed 21 March 2017].

'A List of landholders in the Island of Jamaica together with the number of acres each person possessed taken from the quit rent books in the year 1754', TNA CO 142/31 transcribed at http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Samples2/1754lead.htm.

Trevor Burnard, Database of Jamaican inventories, 1674-1784.

The extensive archives of the Bright family are held at the University of Melbourne Archives, see http://theconversation.com/a-fortune-built-on-slavery-the-bright-family-papers-and-their-journey-from-uk-to-melbourne-58423 [accessed 24/01/2019].

We are grateful to CJ Coventry for his assistance with compiling this entry.