Henry Trant

Awarded compensation as one of a group of trustees including Viscount Charles Henry Dillon, Philip Laycock Story, and James Flemming for the Lower or Lower Windward estate on Montserrat.

1. There is some ambiguity as to whether they were trustees (or the successors of trustees) under (1) the will of James Trant of Upper Ryde Isle of Wight proved 12/03/1804 (PROB 11/1406) under which Frances, the daughter of Dominick Henry Trant of Easingwold Yorkshire and who married Major General Hon Henry Dillon, the brother of the 12th Viscount, was entitled to an annuity of £50 p.a., or (2) under the marriage settlement of Dominick Trant, the claimant, and Caroline Story, but the latter appears more likely.

2. The Dillon, Story and Trant families were intertwined by marriage. Maj-Gen Hon. Henry Dillon was the great-uncle Charles Henry Dillon the 14th Viscount: in turn, the 14th Viscount was the son-in-law of Philip Laycock Story, as was apparently Dominick Trant.  

3. Henry Trant 'commonly called Henry Dillon Trant' was either the brother or nephew of James Trant of Montserrat and Ryde who died c. 1804, and succeeded to the family estates in Dublin and Roscommon. His will was dated 24/05/1857 in which he leaves legacies to his nephew Henry Trant and his sister-in-law Mary, who may be the widow of James or of another brother.     

4. A Henry Trant aged 30, perhaps the nephew named above, was living at Spring Cottage Malvern Wells in 1841. Henry Trant was of Malvern Wells, Worcester in the mid-1840s; together with Mary Trant widow and Marmion Edward Ferrers of Baddesley Clinton, he put up security for a loan of £1200 made by a third-party to Henry and Anne Trant. Mary Trant herself in 1850 put up her interests in Spot Valley in Jamaica inherited by her from Wisdom Barrett. Mary was Wisdom Barrett's daughter.

T71/888 Montserrat No. 15. Given as Henry Trent in the compensation records.

1. T71/1261 rehearses the first will and annuity, and then identifies the awardees as trustees of the marriage settlement of Dominick Trant and Caroline Story '16-17/1/1835'.

2. See their respective entries. No evidence has been found of the marriage of Caroline Story and Dominick Trant, but in 1841 Philip Story aged 55, wife Lydia aged 50 and daughter Caroline Trant aged 20 and Herbert Trant aged 3 and Lydia aged 4 were living at Kemptown Brighton at the time of the 1841 census.

3. 'S.M','The Trant Family Part 1' Archaeological Magazine Vol. 2 No. 12 Mar 1914 pp. 237-262; and 'The Trant Family Part 2' Archaeological Magazine Vol. 3 No. 13 Oct 1814 pp. 20-38. Part 2 pp. 29-30 contain a discussion of the Trants of Montserrat.

4. 1841 census online (transcribed as Frant); TNA DR 422/102 19/05/1846; DR 422/103 20/03/1850; R.A. Barrett, The Barretts of Jamaica: the family of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Winfield, Kansas, Armstrong Browning Library of Baylor University; The Browning Society; Wedgestone Press, 2000) p. 178.