William Lewthwaite

Of Cumberland, absentee slave-owner on Dominica, owner there of Check Hall, which he had inherited from his brother John Lewthaite (q.v.) and which he left to his children. The Lewthwaite baronets of Broadgate were lineal descendants of William Lewthwaite.

1. Will of William Lewthwaite [late of Broadgate but now] of Whitehaven Cumberland [made in 1807] proved 22/11/1809. He left his eldest son William land in Cumberland, and his younger children monetary legacies totalling almost £50,000. He left his estate and enslaved people in Dominica ('with all the mills, buildings, negroes, cattle and stock thereon') among his children equally.

2. The Slave Registers suggest that the heirs of William Lewthwaite sold the enslaved people c. 1823, although a secondary source online show Richard Armistead, the grandson of William Lewthwaite, travelling to Dominica in 1826 to complete the sale of the estate, there described as belonging to his his 'mother's brother (Joseph)'. It appears that in fact Richard Armistead's mother Agnes nee Lewthwaite had originally inherited a share in the estate and enslaved people alongside her siblings as tenants-in-common.

1. PROB 11/1505/338.

2. Parish of Whitehaven Marble Tablets, https://www.whitehavenparish.org.uk/about-us/st-james-church/guided-tour-st-james/guided-tour-st-james-7073.php [accessed 08/12/2018]; which gives as its source 'CWAAS Transactions Volume LXXVII (1977) Pages 157 to 159 (includes a photograph of him), and WRO Document YDX 309/14, also ‘The Lewthwaite of Broadgate Papers Part 2, by Tim Cockerill (2011)'.