Frances Lyles (née Lechmere)

Correspondent with the Commissioners of Slave Compensation from 7 Lombard St., Battersea Bridge.

1. Frances's Port Royal baptism in 1796 describes her as a "mustee child" and records no parents at all, but gives three sponsors, Sarah Mason (so far untraced), Sarah Goldson (who might be the "quadroon woman" associated with William Burke around 1800, and possibly also the "free brown woman" Sarah Goldson, aged 50, buried in the Palisades on 5 August 1805) and Nicholas Lechmere. The will of Lucy Tomkins nee Lechmere, who died in Buckinghamshire in 1833, describes Frances as her niece, so she is presumably the daughter of Nicholas Lechmere (c.1755-1817, coffee planter and Ordnance storekeeper in Jamaica) and 'free quadroon' Sarah Letitia Webster. Nicholas Lechmere and Sarah Letitia Webster had six (possibly seven) children born in Jamaica between 1795 and 1812.

2. Frances was described as the wife of Robert Lyles in 1832 when Lucy Tomkins bequeathed to her £159 8s 4d in trust buy an annuity. Lucy Tomkins left her manor house and associated property at Weston Turville in Buckinghamshire to Frances's brother Nicholas Lechmere junior who was by then in the service of the East India Company.

3. By 1841 Frances Lyles schoolmistress aged 36 born W.I. was living in New Manor Street, Chelsea. A Frances Lyles, unmarried, age 54, annuitant, born in Kingston, Jamaica, was a visitor in the house of Charles Burnett at 18 Caversham Terrace, Chelsea, in 1851. Frances Lyles of 9 Queens Road, Bayswater, Paddington, was buried in Kensal Green Cemetary 24/09/1857 age 63.

1. Familysearch.org, Jamaica Church of England Parish Register Transcripts, 1664-1880 [database online]. Will of Lucy Tompkins PROB 11/1811.

2. Will of Lucy Tompkins PROB 11/1811.

3. 1841 census online. 1851 census online. Ancestry.com, London, England, Deaths and Burials, 1813-1980 [database online].

We are grateful to Jim Brennan for his assistance with compiling this entry.