Henry Bowyer Lane

Awarded the compensation for the enslaved on Spring Valley in St Thomas-in-the-East Jamaica with Robert Stewart (q.v.); Henry Bowyer Lane's claim arose from his (second) wife. The estate was shown against heirs of Charles Thompson in 1811 and against Charles Cosens Thomson or Thompson from 1817-1833.  

1. Henry Bowyer Lane was shown at Green Hill House, Wombourne, Staffordshire in the 1833 Poll Book.

2. Henry Bowyer Lane was baptised 12/11/1782 at Croydon, the son of Thomas and Anne Lane. He married Elizabeth Lacey by licence at St Marylebone 01/07/1816. Henry Bowyer Lane was appointed a Brevet Major in the Royal Artillery in 1826. Henry Bowyer Lane married Jane, eldest daughter of the late Archibald Thomson of Jamaica, 02/02/1825; she was then of Greenham, Thatcham, Berkshire.

3. In the will of Henry Bowyer Lane of Wombourne Staffordshire proved 15/03/1837 but made 01/07/1832 he delineates his assets, many of them inherited from his uncle Joseph Lane, but including: as No. 10 'One third part of a Sugar Plantation called Spring Valley in the Island of Jamaica together with the slaves, stock utensils etc. thereon the property of my present wife and settled on her and her children'; and as No. 12 ‘A life policy in the British Life Assurance Office for £2000 at present held by Messrs John Markie [almost certainly Mackie] & Co., the factors of Spring Valley estate, one half of which they hold as a collateral security for monies advanced through their [difference?] on the one third part of that estate owned by Miss Jane Mary Cosens and for which the parties therein interested hold one third of the mortgage, the other half is held by them as a security for certain advances made by them to me on my private account on a sale of the property. I have no doubt that Miss Cosens share will pay off the money advanced on the mortgage in which case the whole policy will be applicable as far as required to pay the balance of my private account and the remainder of the policy will belong to my general estate.’ He required in the will that his provision for his wife Jane should be accepted by her in lieu of her settlement, so that Spring Valley and 'the slaves, stock, utensils etc.' should be considered part of his general estate and her children would receive an 'equivalent' sum from the estate.

4. In 1867, an advertisement appeared for the specialty creditors of Henry Bowyer Lane arising from the cause of Lane v Stewart: the notice described Robert Stewart as the executor of Henry Bowyer Lane.

5. The son of Henry Bowyer Lane and Elizabeth Lacey, Henry Bowyer Joseph Lane, has an entry in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography as architect and water-colorist: he was born on Corfu in 1817 or 1818, where Henry Bowyer Lane had been posted.  Henry Bowyer Joseph Lane designed among other buildings in Toronto the transformation of Osborne Hall.  

6. Almost certainly Henry Bowyer Lane was the late husband of Jane Lane widow aged 74 gentlewoman born Jamaica living with Jane M. Cosens lodger aged 43 also born Jamaica at Leicester Villas Clifton Bristol in 1861. No connection has yet been traced with the Lane family of Barbados, which also had Staffordshire connections

T71/867 St Thomas-in-the-East  no. 34. T71/992 shows H.B. Lane of Green Hill Wombourn in the County of Stafford.

1. UK Poll Books and Registers 1538-1893 1833 Seisdon p. 100.

2. England and Wales Christening Records 1530-1906; London England Marriages and Banns 1754-1921; London Gazette, Issue 18275, 08/08/1826, p. 1957; Bath Chronicle 17/02/1825; marriage licence dated 21/01/1825.

3. PROB 11/1874/401. In a codicil dated 12/09/1832 he appointed Jane Lane and Robert Stewart to be the whole and sole guardians of his children, 'and they are never to be under the controul of my brother Thomas Lane or the Rev Anthony Boulton whose shameful conduct in the management of my trust funds of which they are trustees, the former in appropriating them for his own base purposes and the latter to [sic] not seeing these sums properly secured after I made so many applications to him on the subject I cannot sufficiently reprobate. I desire that legal measure be pursued against both immediately after my decease.'

4. London Gazette, Issue 23214, 01/02/1867, p. 577.

5. Dictionary of Canadian Biography online - Stephen A. Otto and Marion Bell Macrae, 'Lane, Henry Bowyer Joseph, architect and water-colorist', http://www.biographi.ca [accessed 17/8/2012].

6. 1861 census online.

We are grateful to Paul Hitchings for his assistance with compiling this entry.