Frances Woodley

Executrix and widow of John Woodley who counterclaimed 'of Bath [Somerset] widow judgement creditor for £800 with 3 years interest at 5 per cent on £300 and 5 years interest at 8 per cent on £500' for the compensation on Cliftons, Paynes and Morton's Bay on Nevis. Almost certainly the same woman as 'Frances Woodley widow' (q.v.) under St Kitts no. 373, and probably John Woodley's second wife. Nothing has been traced of her to date in Britain.

1. If the identification of her is correct, then she was the daughter-in-law of William Woodley (1728–1793), MP and governor of the Leeward Islands whose daughter Frances (1760/61–1823) married (1784) Henry Bankes of Kingston Lacy, Wimborne Minster, Dorset. The Bankes family included several Tory MPs until 1832. Another daughter of William Woodley (1728-1793), Maria Riddell, is in the ODNB as 'poet.'

2. Will of 'John Woodley Wattley or John Woodley barrister of St Christopher Anguilla' [sic] was proved 22/06/1829. The will is in fact in the name of John Woodley and is short, and gives equally to his wife Frances and daughter Catherine Sarah Woodley all his disposable interest in the enslaved people ('slaves') whom Frances brought into the marriage, and all his other property - including his house in Basseterre - to his wife for life and then to his daughter. His wife was executrix of his will.

1. D. H. Weinglass, ‘Riddell , Maria (1772–1808)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/37895, accessed 30 Jan 2014].

2. PROB 11/1757/364