Rev. Robert Sutton

Awarded the compensation for the enslaved people on Willis Freemans estate on Antigua, of which his wife Lydia was tenant-for-life under the will of Mary Willis nee Freeman (q.v.) (given that his compensation claim described him as a owner-in-fee, the entail had presumably been extinguished). The Rev. Robert Sutton of Trinity College Cambridge married Lydia Byam, daughter of Samuel Byam and Elizabeth Shephard, and had children Robert Freeman (d. 1824), Lydia, Maria and Anne Hester Sutton. Lydia Byam's great-aunt, Alice Byam, had married into the Freeman family, and her daughter Mary married Benedict Willis.

1. A Robert Sutton appears in the records of Trinity matriculating in 1782 (there is another earlier Robert Sutton matriculating in 1743): Adm. sizar (age 17) at TRINITY, Aug. 10, 1782. S. of Robert, of Horningsheath (or Horringer), Suffolk. Bapt. Dec. 1764. School, Bury St Edmunds. Matric. Michs. 1783; Scholar, 1786; B.A. 1787. Ord. deacon (Norwich) Sept. 23, 1787. Under-Master at Bury St Edmunds School, 1790. (Bury St Edmunds Sch. List.)

2. The Willis Freemans estate was left to Lydia as executrix by Mary Willis on her death in 1810, all direct heirs having died.

3. In 1851 Lydia Sutton aged 86 widow and annuitant born Antigua was a lodger in Swanton Morley, Norfolk.

4. A genealogical website identifies Robert and Lydia Sutton of 'East Bilney, near East [sic] Dereham Norfolk' between 1840 and 1845 as the recipients of correspondence from David Cranstoun on Antigua, sourced to the Papers of David Cranstoun in Senate House Library in London. East Bilney is very close to Swanton Morley, where the widowed Lydia Sutton had settled by 1851. Robert Sutton of Bilney was buried at East Bilney 03/10/1846 aged 82.

5. Administration of the will of Lydia Sutton late of Swanton Morley who died 28/01/1854 granted 13/03/1861 to Ann Hester Freeman Grounds and Maria Freeman Miles, two of the children of the deceased, effects under £600.

T71/877 Antigua no. 395; John Debrett, Baronetage of England (1819), p. 601.

1. Ancestry.com, Cambridge University Alumni, 1261-1900 [database online]. The ordination record appears in the CCEd Person ID 115691 but with no further details of a career in the Church of England. No will has yet been found for him.

2. Charles Beavan, Report of Cases in Chancery: argued and determined in the Rolls Court during the time of the Right Honorable Sir John Romilly, Knight, Master of the Roles, 1854 - 1855, Volume 19 , (London, W. G. Benning and Co., 1855), pp. 556 - 565.

3. Ancestry.com, England and Wales, 1851 census [database online]

4. http://cranstoun-family.com/david-cranstoun.html [accessed 27/01/2013]; Ancestry.com, Norfolk, England, Transcripts of Church of England Baptism, Marriage and Burial Registers, 1600-1935 for Robert Sutton Bishops Transcripts Archdeaconry of Norwich 1846, A-I [database online].

5. National Probate Calendar 1861.

We are grateful to Gabrelle Leese for her assistance in compiling this entry.