John Kennion of Liverpool

Major slave-owner in Jamaica, given as of Liverpool. The will of a John Kennion Esq. of Liverpool was proved at Chester in 1785. He was described as having been Collector of Customs on the death of his widow Alice in 1813. This is a different man to John Kennion (q.v.), the father of the literary patron John Kenyon (q.v.): this second John Kennion died c. 1792 and his will was proved in 1793, leaving his share in an unnamed estate in Trelawney, believed to be Chester, to his son John Kenyon. The destination of the wealth of John Kennion of Liverpool other than his Hall Head estate is unclear: a merchant firm of John Kennion jun. and Peter Kennion jun. of Liverpool had been bankrupt in the early 1780s, and might have been connected; if so it might explain the transmission of Hall Head to his cousins by John Kennion of Liverpool.

1. The first issue of the Colonial Journal in 1816 opened with an image of Hall Head, the property of John Hall of Liverpool. The commentary following said: 'In the year 1760 the Hall Head estate together with the Holland and Mona estates, were in the possession of the late John Kennion, also of the vicinity of Liverpool.' According to this source, Kennion had sold Holland to Simon Taylor for 'one hundred and nine thousand pounds'; Mona was [in 1816] the property of [unknown] Milner, Esq.; and Kennion had bequeathed Hall Head to his cousins John and [unknown] Hall, the former of which had since purchased his brother's share. The Letters of Simon Taylor confirm the purchase of Holland in 1771, although Taylor gives the price as £100,000, payable £10,000 p.a. for six years interest free and then the remaining £40,000 payable at £5000 p.a. with interest at 5% p.a. Hall Head appears to have been jointly owned by John Kennion's widow Alice Kennion (q.v.) before it passed to John Hall. The Mona estate held by 'Milner' in 1816 has not yet been traced.

2. It appears likely but not certain that this John Kennion was the man who took on the effective guardianship of Edward Kennion the landscape painter, who has an entry in the ODNB describing Edward Kennion's early years in Jamaica including his supervision of John Kennion's estate 1765-1769. The Colonial Journal of 1816 suggested this connection.

1. Colonial Journal Issue 1(London) April 1816 p. 1; Ancestry.com, UK, Extracted Probate Records, 1269-1975 [database online].

2. Albert Nicholson, ‘Kennion, Edward (1744–1809)’, rev. A. Cassandra Albinson, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2009 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/15409, accessed 1 Feb 2017]; Colonial Journal Issue 1 (London) April 1816.