Martin Williams

Awarded part of the compensation for the Spring estate in St James after counter-claiming with others against Richard Barrett the trustee of Samuel Barrett as annuitant and trustee under indentures of 1812. Trustees, probably of Martin Williams's marriage settlement, also claimed unsuccessfully for the Old Hope estate in Westmoreland Jamaica, while Martin Williams contested apparently without success a further claim against the Barretts on Retreat Pen in St Ann.  

1. Martin Williams (1782-1856) was the son of Martin Williams of Old Hope Westmoreland (1723-1786) and Elizabeth Barrett Waite (1754-1834), and half-brother of Samuel Barrett (1788-1824). The siblings were the heirs, under their father’s will of 1786, to the estates of Old Hope in the parish of Westmoreland and Seven Rivers and Anchovy Bottom in the parish of St James together with about 1,000 enslaved people. The young Thomas Williams died at the age of 32 in January 1805, having returned to Jamaica to manage the family concerns. He appears to have been instrumental in completing the conversion of Old Hope to a cattle pen. Sarah Williams also died in 1805.

Elizabeth Williams married her first cousin, Henry Waite Plummer of Richmond Hill, in the parish of St James in April 1798, and Barrett Williams married Michael White Lee in January 1805. Under a settlement of the family’s affairs in deeds of 31/12/1811, Anchovy Bottom was made over to Elizabeth and Henry Waite Plummer, and Old Hope and Seven Rivers were made over to Martin Williams, charged with £16,000 for Barrett and Michael White Lee. However, the heavy debts of the family and the collapse in the profits of sugar estates after 1814 meant that Martin Williams was in no position to pay the charge to his sister and her husband, and in about 1830 the Seven Rivers estate was made over to them.

1. He married Mary Maddocks in 1811 and had 4 daughters, including Mary who in 1839 married Henry Cornwall Legh, heir to the High Legh estate of Knutsford Cheshire, from 'one of the oldest and best families in the county, & possessed of an estate of £10,000 per ann.' according to Martin Williams. Another daughter, Elizabeth Charlotte, married Henry Robertson Sandbach (q.v.) in 1855.   

2. In 1812 Martin Williams and his wife, Mary, daughter of John Edward Maddocks of Vron-Iw in Denbighshire, purchased the Bryngwyn estate in Wales. Their intentions were to live a leisured lifestyle as landed gentry at Bryngwyn dependent on the proceeds of the cattle pen at Old Hope in Jamaica and its 200 or so enslaved workers. At emancipation, he claimed compensation for 202 enslaved people at Old Hope at a sum of £3,604 8s. 9d. However, this claim was successfully counter claimed by the trustees of the marriage settlement of the Lees, apparently in payment of debts remaining due to them. Martin Williams was reported to have 'commenced great additions and alterations in the house and premises [at Bryngwyn], which, from the ruinous depreciation of West Indian property, he could not satisfactorily complete; otherwise, the whole would have been on an extensive, commodious and excellent scale.’

3. In 1841 and 1851 Martin Williams was living at Bryngwyn, Llanfechan, in 1851 aged 65 Landed Proprietor and Magistrate born Jamaica with wife Mary aged 60, 3 daughters and 3 Legh grand-daughters, a governess and 7 servants.

4. Will of Martin Williams of Bryngwyn Montgomeryshire [now in London, about to embark to Jamaica] [made in 1828] proved 16/02/1856. The will is very simple, leaving his entire property to his wife Mary for her disposal, commenting that 'in the present circumstances of my affairs this mode of bequeathing my real and personal estates will contribute most to the happiness and comfort of my dearly beloved wife and our dear daughters.' At his death on 04/01/1856, his estates at Bryngwyn and Old Hope passed to his widow, and then to his daughter Katherine. At her death on 22/03/1903, the estates passed to her nephew Arthur Edmund Sandbach and his wife Ina Douglas-Pennant. The listings of papers in Powys Archives Sandbach Collection appear to show the estate being operated as a cattle pen and logwood estate throughout this period. Ina Sandbach sold Old Hope in April 1939, while Bryngwn is now in the ownership of her granddaughter Auriol, Marchioness of Linlithgow and her son Sir Henry Ropner.

We are grateful to Melvin Humphreys for assistance in compiling this entry.

T71/873 St James no. 651; T71/871 Westmoreland no. 219 (Old Hope).

1. Jamaica Island Record Office, Wills Liber 75, fol. 107, will of Thomas Williams; 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) pp. 147-48, 177.

Recitals in Jamaica Archives 1A–3–436 Lib.429, pp.89–114, Revd Henry Mair versus Martin Williams and others, bill in chancery of 14/04/1828. Papers listed in Powys Archives, Sandbach uncatalogued collection box 2.

1. 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) pp. 147-48, 177.

2. TNA T71/871, no. 219; W. Maddock Williams, ‘An Historical and Topographical Sketch of Llanfechain’, Montgomeryshire Collections, vol. 5 (1872), p.256.

3. 1841 and 1851 censuses online.

4. PROB 11/2228/97; Auriol Linlinthgow, The Rebirth of Bryngwyn (private printing, undated).