Anthony Gilbert Storer

Anthony Gilbert Storer (1782-1818), son of Thomas James Storer (1747-1792) and Elizabeth Proby, inherited Purley Park in Berkshire and estates in Westmoreland, Jamaica, from his uncle, Anthony Morris Storer (1746-1799), for which his wife Ann Katherine Storer (q.v.) claimed compensation as receiver of his estate.

1. Born in 1782, the fourth child and only son of Thomas James Storer and the Hon. Elizabeth Proby, daughter of John Proby, 1st Baron Carysfort. Anthony Gilbert Storer inherited Purley Park in Berkshire and estates in Jamaica at the age of 17 following the death of his uncle Anthony Morris Storer.

2. Anthony Morris Storer added a codicil to his will, dated 22/04/1799, that between £12,000 and £15,000 was to be set aside for the building of a mansion house at Purley. Despite inheriting property valued at £8000 a year, by 1809 Anthony Gilbert Storer was heavily in debt and reliant on his main creditor, the West India merchant firm C. & W. Armstrong, for his living expenses. Some of his inheritance was spent furnishing Purley Park, and there is evidence of debts inherited from his mother following her death in 1808. "The new mansion, Purley Park, had been elegantly furnished in Georgian style by Anthony Gilbert and his wife Ann Katherine... Some impression of this can be gained from photographs of the interiors of the main rooms in the house taken at the end of the nineteenth century... The sale catalogue of Purley in 1920 gives some idea of the quality of the furniture and pictures which the house contained."

3. Marriage of Anthony Gilbert Storer and Ann Katherine Hill in Jamaica, 18/01/1806. Their first child had died by the time they left Jamaica for England in 1808 and a second child was to die on the journey. Five more children were born in the years 1810-1815 at Purley Park, Berkshire, and a final child was born after their return to Jamaica in 1816, where he was a Member of the Assembly for Westmoreland.

4. Portrait of Anthony Gilbert Storer c. 1815 by Sir Martin Archer Shee.

5. There were two children born to Anthony Storer and Eliza Wedderburn ("a free woman of colour") in Westmoreland: Henry Gilbert Storer, baptised 30/10/1816 and buried 22/11/1816, and Eliza Gilbert Storer, baptised 16/01/1819 (after the death of her father, according to the baptism register).

6. Storer died in New Providence, Barbados, on 13/06/1818. The will of Anthony Gilbert Storer of Westmoreland Cornwall was proved 15/05/1819. He left £25,000 in trust for his daughters and younger son, identified as Elizabeth, Ann, Charlotte, Margaret and Thomas, and the residuary estate to his son Anthony Morris Storer, who left almost £60,000 on his death in 1902.

T71/871 Westmoreland claim nos. 83, 259, 272, 274 and 662.

1. See Ian K. R. Archer, ‘Storer, Anthony Morris (1746–1799)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online.

2. For details of his inheritance, see ODNB entry for Anthony Morris Storer; for a history of Purley Park see http://www.berkshirehistory.com/castles/purley_park.html [accessed 02/11/2011]; quotation from 'The Storers of Purley Park'; for details of Storer's financial predicament see Jean Debney 'The Letter Book of Anthony Gilbert Storer, 1809-10', Project Purley: Newsletter October 1995 No. 39.

3. 'The Storers of Purley Park' (privately printed, n.d.).

4. http://www.artchive.com/web_gallery/S/Sir-Martin-Archer-Shee/Anthony-Gilbert-Storer-Esq.,-1815.html [accessed 02/11/2011].

5. Westmoreland Parish Register, I, pp. 220, 282 and 321, transcribed at http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Members/R/Rsm-sy.htm [accessed 02/11/2011].

6. 'Monumental Inscriptions in England relating to Jamaicans', http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Members/b/bcarib04.htm [accessed 02/11/2011]; PROB 11/1616/267; National Probate Calendar 1902.