Thomas Burton II

Almost certainly Thomas Burton II [see below], but given simply as Thomas Burton in the compensation records, where with Charles Fisher Burton (q.v.) and other family members, he was awarded the compensation for the Chiswick estate in St Thomas-in-the-East in Jamaica in his own right and as trustee of James H. Dashwood and uxor and of James Willins and uxor. Probably the brother (although conceivably the nephew) of Charles Fisher Burton, who was himself the son of Thomas Burton (1739-1805) and Elizabeth Fisher. Charlotte Willins, the wife of James Willins, was the sister of Charles Fisher Burton and Thomas Burton II.

1. There is a strong link to Yarmouth for the family. The will of the man who was almost certainly this Thomas Burton of Great Yarmouth was proved 11/03/1842; the Thomas Burton of Great Yarmouth whose will was proved 31/10/1857 was his son, Thomas Burton III. In the will of Thomas Burton II, he left an annuity of £800 p.a. to his wife and a sum of £8000 secured on his English estates, and bequeathed 1/4 of his 7/15th parts of Chiswick estate to his son-in-law Arthur Steward and the other 3/4 to his daughters Harriet, Augusta and Louisa. Both Harriet and Augusta were married to members of the Palmer family of Great Yarmouth (q.v. under John Liddell Wright of the Bahamas).

2. Palmer's Perlustration carries a brief history of the Burton family. It shows Thomas Burton I as one of five sons of John Burton (d. 1755), who had inherited £90,000 from an uncle from a Tellership of the Exchequer. Thomas Burton I married in 1770 Elizabeth Fisher, the daughter of William Fisher of Yarmouth, and lived first at Bracondale Hill, near Norwich, and then at Great Yarmouth, where he died in 1808 aged 69 leaving a very considerable fortune comprising estates at Ringstead in Northamptonshire and Chiswick in the Island of Jamaica. Thomas I and Elizabeth Fisher had three sons: (1) Thomas Burton II who lived in Great Yarmouth and died there aged 68 in 1841, and who married Mary daughter of Thomas Watson in 1802 (together they had an only son, Thomas III, sole heir and inheritor of the family estates, who died unmarried in 1857 aged 64 [sic: must be 54]); Charles Fisher Burton, a Captain in the Inniskilling Dragoons; and Frederick, also an army officer who died in 1818 aged 29 unmarried.  [There is no mention of daughters of Thomas Burton I and Elizabeth Fisher, nor any comment on how the Jamaica estate came to the family].  

T71/867 St Thomas-in-the-East claim no. 263. The Chiswick estate is shown as John and Thomas Burton 1815-32.

1. PROB 11/1958/444 and 11/2258/409.

2. Charles John Palmer, Perlustration of Great Yarmouth Vol. II (Great Yarmouth, Nall, 1874) pp. 393-4.