William Rhodes James IV

Son of William Rhodes James III (1755-1795) and Rachel Allen Jarrett (1769-1856), and brother of Herbert Jarrett James (1789-1840) (q.v.). William Rhodes James (q.v.) of Newell Pen, Jamaica was probably a remote relative from an outside family of an earlier generation.

1. Married (1) Mary Kerr Brown (b. 07/01/1783, d. 07/01/1815 at sea) in c. 1810 in St Catherine, Jamaica. William Brown and Mary Rhodes James’s children were Rhodes James (d. 1810) and Eliza Jane/James (d. 1813); both died at Kew, the estate of (Hon.) William Brown (2) Caroline Pope (1800-?) in 1819; lived Barking Hall, Needham Market Suffolk; died 15/09/1842, buried Kensal Green.

2. Marriage of Caroline Pope and William Rhodes James St Mary, Church Road, Hanwell 17/05/1819; death of William Rhodes James registered Q3 1842 Marylebone.

3. Will of William Rhodes James of Aldeburgh Suffolk proved 17/10/1842. The will is very simple: 'considering with great anxiety the present uncertain state of colonial interests', and confident in his wife's judgement, he left his entire estate to her, whom he also appointed as executrix alongside Robert Steuart [sic] of Sunning Dale [sic] Berkshire.

4. William Rhodes James IV's grand-daughter Minnie Stewart Rhodes James (1865-1903), the daughter of Henry Haughton James, has an entry in the ODNB as 'librarian and author.'

5. William Rhodes James IV's grandson Montague Rhodes James (1862-1936) has an entry in the ODNB as 'college head, scholar and author' which describes his father Herbert James as 'a high-minded country parson' and says '[t]here was some record of achievement and prominence on both sides of the family: the Rhodes Jameses had held substantial interests in Jamaica until the abolition of slavery there in 1807 [sic]...' M.R. James was director of the Fitzwilliam Museum 1893-1908, Provost of King's College Cambridge 1905-1918 and then Provost of Eton until his death. His Collected Ghost Stories were published in 1931.

1. www.orange-tree-valley.co.uk [accessed 29/06/2011]. Jamaica, Select Births and Baptisms; Registers and Wills, Descendants of Richard James part 2, via Jamaican Family Search.

2. Ancestry.com, London, England, Marriages and Banns, 1754-1921 [database online]; FreeUKGen, England and Wales Free BMD Database, Deaths, 1837-1983 [database online].

3. PROB 11/1969/276.

4. Fernanda Helen Perrone, ‘James, Minnie Stewart Rhodes (1865–1903)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/59735, accessed 31 Dec 2016]

5. Pfaff, Richard W. 2004 "James, Montague Rhodes (1862–1936), college head, scholar, and author." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 25 Jun. 2019. https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-34152.