Eliza Brown

Landowner and slave-owner in St Ann, Jamaica, Eliza Brown's origins are unknown. She was certainly connected with Eliza Blagrove Drake nee Brown, Benjamin Scott Moncrieffe and John Blagrove (all q.v.).

1. Eliza Brown was a witness at the wedding of Eleanor Blagrove Brown (q.v.) to John Drake in London in 1819. In his will written in 1821, John Blagrove left to "said Eliza Brown of St Ann's in Jamaica now residing in Calcroft Terrace, Blackfriars in recollection of her assiduous attentions & kind services to my sons in their several illness abroad I bequeath all such sums of money as come due & owing from her to me up to the 31st day of Oct 1823 & I release her from the same accordingly." Will will also mentions Eleanor Blagrove Drake nee Brown and Thomas Coates Brown (who may be the Thomas Coates Brown of Newington who was buried in St George's, Hanover Square, London, age 22 in 1825).

2. Benjamin Scott Moncrieffe registered 27 enslaved people in St Ann's, Jamaica, as attorney to Eliza Brown, the owner, in 1817. Eliza Brown registered 28 enslaved people of her own in St Ann's in 1826 and 29 enslaved people of her own in St Ann's in 1832.

3. It's possible that Eliza was the mother of Eleanor Blagrove Brown and Thomas Coates Brown. At a call for the creditors of the bankrupt John Drake of Richmond Terrace, Walworth, in 1826, the assignees proposed relinquishing all claim for the furniture and effects of the house which was also claimed as her property by Mrs Eliza Brown. At the baptism of John and Eliza Blagrove's youngest child, Benjamin Moncrieffe Drake, in 1849, his parent's address was given as Thatch Hill, the estate for which Eliza Brown was awarded compensation in 1834.

T71/857 St Ann claim no. 266 (Thatch hill).

1. Ancestry.com, London, England, Marriages and Banns, 1754-1921 [database online]. PROB 11/1685/136. Ancestry.com, London, England, Deaths and Burials, 1813-1980 [database online].

2. T71/43 p. 167. T71/46 pp. 114-115. T71/49 p.93.

3. London Gazette, Issue 18230, 18/03/1826 p. 634. Familysearch.org, Jamaica Church of England Parish Register Transcripts, 1664-1880 [database online].

We are grateful to Jayne Jackson for her assistance in compiling this entry.