Elizabeth Amiel (née Gordon)

Elizabeth Gordon was awarded compensation for ownership of enslaved persons on Prospect estate in St Mary, Jamaica. Later amended to William Villiers Amiel and his wife Elizabeth (they married in December 1835).

1. William and his wife Elizabeth were awarded compensation for ownership of enslaved people on Prospect estate in Jamaica in 1836. One of these two awards was intially made to Eliza Gordon as executrix of Amelia Bell but then amended to William Villiers Amiel and Elizabeth Amiel. (Prospect Farm was registered to Amelia Bell in the Jamaica Alamacs of 1830 and 1833 and enslaved people were registered to Amelia Bell as tenant-in-tail in St Mary's 1817-1829.)

2. William Villiers Amiel, sixth child of Henry Strachey Amiel (c.1760-1823) and his wife Charlotte (c.1770-1829), daughter of Samuel Court of Pennisborough, Hertfordshire. Henry Strachey Amiel was an American Loyalist and Captain in the 8th West India Regiment who was dismissed from the army for embezzlement and fled abroad. William Villiers Amiel was baptised 04/01/1799 in Holy Trinity, Guildford, Surrey. From 1818-1829 he was a Licensed Free Mariner in Bombay, India.

3. Harry Strachey Amiel, age 2 years, was baptised 12/09/1839 in St Mary, Jamaica; his parents were Wm Amiel and Eliza his wife, father's occupation Planter, abode Prospect Farm. William V. Amiel was a vestryman in St Mary in 1839 and Prospect Farm was registered to "William Vellers Amiell" in 1840.

4. Eliza Gordon was named (with Amelia Bell and Larchin Lynch) as one of the trustees of Prospect Farm in the will of Larchin Richard Gordon (written 1825 and proved 1827) and also as the daughter of Larchin Richard Gordon and Amelia Bell, a "free person of colour". Two of Eliza Gordon's siblings (George, baptised 1821 and Amelia Williams Gordon, baptised 1822) were described at baptism as "free mestee". Another brother and another half-brother appear in the parish registers under the heading "Baptisms of free persons of colour."

T71/856 St Mary claim nos. 308, 309A&B; "On Thursday last, the 3d instant, at Marley great house, by the Rev Mr. McGrath, of Mosely Hall, Mr. William Villiers Amiel, to Elizabeth Gordon, of Prospect Pen, in St. Mary's: (Royal Gazette of Jamaica 12/12/1835).

1. John Malcolm Bulloch, The Making of the West Indies. The Gordons as colonists (Buckie, privately printed, 1915) p. 24. Jamiaca Almanacs (1830 and 1833); Ancestry.com, Slave Registers of former British Colonial Dependencies, 1812-1834 [database online].

2. See http://www.rawes.co.uk/merryweather/harvest.htm chapter 24, forthcoming, and http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/51469300/person/13205281540 [accessed 25/03/2013].

3. Familysearch.org, Jamaica Church of England Parish Register Transcripts, 1664-1880 [database online]; Jamaica Almanacs (1839 and 1840).

4. Familysearch.org, Jamaica Church of England Parish Register Transcripts, 1664-1880 [database online]; PROB 11/1721/216.

We are grateful to Alan Merryweather and Peter Selley for their assistance in compiling this entry.