Lydia Dakins (née Hackshaw)

Awarded the compensation for an enslaved woman, 'Sophy', on St Vincent.  

1. The death of a Lydia Dakins was registered Tonbridge Kent Q4 1843. Harriet Eliza (born 11/9/1812), daughter of Thomas and Lydia Dakins of Deans Yard, was baptised at St Margaret Westminster 30/7/1813: the officiating minister was W. W. Dakins D.D.

2. Enslaved people were registered to Lydia Dakins in Trinidad between 1815 and 1825. This is almost certainly the same woman as the St Vincent award. 'Thomas Dakins Trinidad' is referred to in the death notice for Lydia Dakins, wid., who died Pembury Kent 6/12/1843.  

3. Genealogical material on the Dakins/Dakyns family shows Lydia nee Hackshaw marrying Thomas Dakins (the brother of William Whitfield Dakins) on St Vincent 25/9/1802, and having 4 children: Thomas Henry; Emily; James Graham; Harriet Elizabeth [sic]. The first of these, Thomas Henry Dakyns, formerly of the Middle Temple, left £20,000 on his death in England in 1874.  

T71/892 St Vincent claim no. 487. T71/1610 letter from B. Dasent re securing compensation for a slave 'Sophy' owned by Lydia Dakins, now in France. An enslaved person Sophy Dasent' was registerd to Lydia Dakins in St Vincent in the 1828 Slave Register.

1. Ancestry.com, England and Wales FreeBMD Death Index 1837-1915 [database online]; London, England, Births and Baptisms, 1813-1906 [database online]. W.W. Dakins was almost certainly William Whitfield Dakins, of Dean's Yard, Precentor of Westminster Abbey.  

2. Slave Registers Trinidad 1815 Personal (Index) 'Mrs Lydia Dakins', 1825 Personal (Index) and Plantation (Index) 'Lydia Dakins'; David Dobson, American Vital Records from the Gentleman's Magazine, 1731-1868 (Genealogical Pub. Co, 1987) p. 74 [referenced to NS21:107].

3. http://svgancestry.com/index.php/dakinsdakyns-family/ accessed 18/7/2012. The site refers to an 1861 England census entry showing the family of Thomas Henry Dakyns, including his mother-in-law Charlotte M. Dasent, at Rugby Warwickshire - this entry is indexed under Thomas Henry Dakyne [sic] in the 1861 census online; National Probate Calendar 1874.