Edward Charlton

Slave-owner of Jamaica, moving to England in 1744. In the will he freed two 'negroe women' whom he identified as Big Bess or Town Bess and Little Bess or Elizabeth Carding, and a man named as Coachman Tom, leaving each of the three an annuity of £5 p.a. He left £2000 to his niece Isabella Charlton, and his residuary estate (including his copyhold estate at Cuffnells near Lynhurst [sic] on Hampshire which he ordered to be sold) to his brother Andrew Charlton and his great-nephew Fitzherbert Richards.

1. Edward Charlton of St Catherine, Esquire. Estate probated in Jamaica in 1746. Slave-ownership at probate: 340 of whom 202 were listed as male and 138 as female. 87 were listed as boys, girls or children. Total value of estate at probate: £14989 Jamaican currency of which £10428.25 currency was the value of enslaved people. Estate valuation included £0 currency cash, £0 currency debts and £0 currency plate.

2. An Edward Charlton was Member of Assembly for St Thomas-in-the-Vale in 1722 and St Catherine in 1737. "In 1731 a private act was passed to establish, confirm and secure the right and title of the Honorable Edward Charlton Esquire, to three parcels of land in the Town of Saint Jago de la Vega in the parish of Saint Catherine."

3. Edward Charlton was listed in the Jamaican Quit Rent books for 1754 as the owner of 2160 acres of land in St Mary and 1576 acres of land in St Thomas-in-the-Vale, total 3736 acres. No Edward Charlton appears in the will of Edward Charlton who died in 1746.

Will of Edward Charlton of St George Hanover Square proved 21/02/1746, PROB 11/744/453. Sources on the Cuffnells estate do not mention Edward Charlton, commencing with the Tancred family, e.g. http://research.hgt.org.uk/item/cuffnells-park/. Charlton conceivably bought the estate on his arrival in England from Thomas South: he was party to litigation with Thomas South's executor Elizabeth Partington in 1745, C 11/164/29.

1. "A List of landholders in the Island of Jamaica together with the number of acres each person possessed taken from the quit rent books in the year 1754", TNA CO 142/31 transcribed at http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Samples2/1754lead.htm.

2. W. A. Feurtado, Official and Other Personages of Jamaica from 1655 to 1790 Compiled from Various Sources (1896), transcribed at http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Members/bfeurtado02.htm.

3.Trevor Burnard, Database of Jamaican inventories, 1674-1784.