Charles Chatfield

Awarded part of the compensation for Matthews Constitution Hill on Antigua as trustee to the executors of N.M. Rothschild, and almost certainly the London solicitor Charles Chatfield, whose firm was definitely involved in this claim. The presence of a Charles Chatfield in Antigua registering enslaved people in 1824 and again in the compensation records raises another possibility in theory for this man. It is most likely, however, to be the eponymous London solicitor and very probably also the same man as the Charles Chatfield who as trustee of Matthew Gregory 'Monk' Lewis was awarded part of the compensation for the Cornwall estate in Westmoreland Jamaica.

1. Partner in Messrs Dawes & Chatfield of Angel Court ; then presumably in Chatfield, Wingate & Hart at 22 Cornhill.

2. Charles Chatfield of 16 Austin Friars London and 3 Angel[l] Terrace Brixton Road Surrey, solicitor, died 08/01/1862. Will proven 04/02/1862 effects under £12000.

3. The Charles Chatfield fundholder or landed proprietor who died 23/11/1876 at Broad Green House Croydon, leaving £250,000 appears unconnected. This man was identified in one local history as a former wine merchant.

T71/877 Antigua claim no. 390 (Mathewson [=Matthews] Constitution Hill). T71/1609 letter 13/06/1839 from Chatfield, Wingate & Hart re Matthews Estate, enclosing copies of order from Antigua Court of Chancery on 08/04/1839 'by which the division of the slave compensation money in respect of this Estate is arranged'. Receivers balances invested in government Stock, 'and as soon as these are sold out we shall be enabled to acquaint you with the exact balance to be awarded to Mr Rothschild's executors'. Letter from Dawes, Chatfield and Dawes 10/09/1835: on claim by Messrs Rothschild, we have served notice on a counterclaimant. But the counter claimant under the name of 'Henrietta Roscoe, of the City of London, by her attorney The Rev Thos Harrison' has been 'morally impossible' to trace; T71/871 Westmoreland no. 66; T71/248 p.190 for Charles Chatfield in Antigua in 1824.

1. E.g. London Gazette, Issue 18461, 15/04/1828, p. 734 and London Gazette, Issue 19208, 07/11/1834, p. 1982; E.g. London Gazette, Issue 19847, 17/04/1840 p. 1004.

2. London Gazette, Issue 22705, 06/02/1863, p. 678 [Advertisement for creditors]; National Probate Calendar 1862.

3. National Probate Calendar 1876; https://archive.org/stream/croydoninpasthis00croy/croydoninpasthis00croy_djvu.txt [accessed 23/11/2021].