Richard Lytcott Hicks Esq.

Slave-owner of Nevis. Clay Hill was placed in trust under his marriage settlement, and appears to have passed to other family members after his death. The deceased owner of Clay Hill on Nevis was given as Richard Lithcoth Hicks in the Slave Registers of 1817-1831 and might refer to this man or to an intermediate Richard Lytcott Hicks, Richard Lytcott Hicks (q.v., 1810-1836) was either the grandson or great-nephew of this Richard Lytcott Hicks Esq.: although the latter's wiil suggested he died s.p., the will of Ann Ram Wilson proved in 1838 shows the younger Richard Lytcott Hicks as her grandson and her daughter-in-law as Fanny Hicks.

1. Will of Richard Lytcott Hicks late of the island of Nevis in America but now residing in the parish of St Pauls Covent Garden proved 05/07/1786. He left his wife Ann £500 [which he subsequently revoked in a codicil] and household effects, and left his other property in trust to pay Ann an annuity of £100 p.a. and his mother an annuity of £50 p.a., in each case over and above his previous settlement on them. He also made provision of lower annuities for a widow called Sarah Downes, widow, late of Shrewsbury, and her children and for Francis Stubbin of Mason Bridge Suffolk and instructed his trustees in addition to raise £4000 for Francis Stubbin and his children. All the annuities and legacies were secured on his property in Nevis. He left one moiety of his estates subject to these payments to the Rev. Henry Augustus Newcome of Hadleigh Suffolk and the other half to George Gosling [sic] the younger of Doctors Commons. The wills of neither Rev. Henry Augustus Newcome of Hadleigh nor of George Gostling of Whitton Middlesex refer to either slave-property or the inheritance from Richard Lytcott Hicks.

2. Marriage settlement [dated 12/10/1780] between (1) Sarah Hicks of Titchfield Street, Middlesex, widow of Thompson Hicks late of the Island of Nevis, esq, and Richard Lytcot [sic] Hicks of Titchfield Street, esq, their only son and heir, (2) Ann Ram Stubbin of Titchfield Street, spinster, and (3) John Brownrigg Leake, jnr, of Hadleigh, Suffolk, gent, and Thomas Wall of Saint Bartholomews Hospital, London, gent, breaking the entails on property bought by Thompson Hicks from George Hatsell of the City of London, gent, viz. a plantation called Clayhill Plantation on the Island of Nevis, with all of its buildings, equipment, slaves and livestock, and creating a trust to pay an annuity of £250 per annum to Sarah Hicks and £300 per annum to Ann Ram Stubbin in lieu of dower. Annexed: affidavit by Hawkins Wall of the Inner Temple, 6 March 1781, declaring that he witnessed the parties' signatures, and certification by the Lord Mayor of London that Wall swore to the truth of the affidavit in accordance with the Act for the more easy recovery of debts in his Majesty's plantations and colonies in America'.

1. PROB 11/1144/44.

2. Godalming Museum, Peter Woods Collections, PWD/2, http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/bb1f667f-0020-4d89-ac1f-f880eb6ee89c [accessed 14/05/2018]; Ancestry.com, London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1932 for Richard Lytcot Hicks [database online].