Richard Burton Williams

Awarded the compensation for Savanna Grande in Trinidad with Edward Eyre Williams, and claimed for 26 enslaved people in Trinidad in a separate award, the compensation for which was paid to trustees after it was stated that he was a lunatic. Almost certainly the son of Burton Williams of Trinidad and brother of one of his trustees, [Sir] Edward Eyre Williams a barrister and later judge in Australia.

1. Richard Burton Williams was already an inmate at Kensington House at the time of William Griggs' pamphlet 'Lunacy versus liberty' in 1832, in which he describes Richard Burton Williams as 'a Merchant's Son, of the Island of Trinidad.'  Death of Richard Burton Williams registered Kensington Q11852.

2. Burton Williams moved 336 enslaved people from the Bahamas to Trinidad 'where he had bought land to set up sugar plantations for himself and his four sons' between 1821 and 1823.  In 1821 Burton Williams and his sons held at least 450 slaves in the Bahamas, most on Watling's Island but others on Cat Island and Eleuthera. They were placed on three estates near San Fernando called Williamsville, Picton and Cupar Grange.

T71/894 Trinidad No. 1908 and 1910. Under the altter, the Register of Claims T71/894 records 'Copy power of attorney produced 15/06/1836: it appears that RBW the claimant is a lunatic and his father and natural guardian has signed said power. Robert Gwilt and Edward Eyre Williams are trustees.'

1. William Griggs, Lunacy versus Libery, a Letter to the Lord Chancellor on the defective state of the law as regards insane persons, and private asylums...by William Griggs, late patient at Kensington House, Kensington (London, W. Griggs, 1832), p. 9. FreeUKGen, England and Wales Free BMD Database, Deaths, 1837-1983 [database online].

2. Michael Craton and Gail Saunders, Islanders in the Stream: A History of the Bahamian People (Athens, Georgia, University of Georgia Press, 1999), Vol. 1 p. 225, p. 291.