Catherine Fox

Awarded a share in the compensation for Zetland estate on Nevis after counterclaiming with Millicent Mary Reeve of Gloucester Place Portman Sq, widow, and Charlotte Neate of Sloane Terrace spinster, as mortgagees in fee by indentures 15th & 16th April 1774 principal and interest £13657 19s 0d.

The connections between the three counterclaimants and the nature of the 1774 mortgage have not yet been fully identified, but LBS believes that the mortgage flowed from a deed dated 28/11/1769 to which Rev. Richard Neate (q.v.) was party. Rev. Richard Neate was father of Charlotte Neate and uncle of Catharine Fox.

1. Will of Catharine or Catherine Fox spinster [late of Etton near Beverley in the county of Yorkshire but now] of Montague Place Bedford Square proved 21/07/1838. In it she made a series of relatively small financial bequests of £100 or less to friends and family, including Charles O'Hara Neate of St Kitts and his wife, and to Charlotte Neate. Her residual legatee was her brother and executor Edward Buckley Fox for life: if he died without issue, then her estate went to her god-daughter Emma Slingsby. Burial of Catherine Fox aged 61 of 33 Montague Place 13/07/1838 at Kensal Green All Souls.

2. Millicent Mary Reeve had died c. 1836, her will, as widow of Gloucester Place Portman Square, being proved 28/06/1836. She was apparently the widow of William Reeve of Leadenham Lincolnshire (1751-1821, High Sheriff 1808) and the daughter of John King of Ashby-de-la-Launde (Captain Grenadier Guards), having married 14/08/1782.

T71/882 Nevis claim no. 37, which identifies her as Catherine Fox of Montague Place Russell Square. 'Agreement between the counterclaimants received at the hearing 27 Oct 1836'.

1. PROB 11/1897/445; Ancestry.com, London, England, Deaths and Burials, 1813-1980 [database online].

2. PROB 11/1863; John Burke, A genealogical and heraldic history of the landed gentry of Great Britain and Ireland (3 vols., London, Henry Colburn, 1863), vol. 2, p. 1262, Reeve: Burke gives Millicent Mary Reeve's year of death as 1836, supporting the identification. One of her grandchildren was Ellis Philip Fox Reeve, perhaps suggesting a linkage to the co-claimant Catherine Fox: in turn two of Catherine Fox's legatees were her friends Philip Reeve and Ellis Reeve.