Eliza Scarlett: Leamington widow and Jamaican slave owner

Leamington
History Group

LEAMINGTON SPA

DISCOVERED
SLIDE SHOW
Eliza Scarlett
Leamington
widow
and Jamaican
slave owner
1

Monday, 4 November 2013

The story starts in a churchyard

Nearly all of the headstones and tombs in the parish churchyard of All Saints, Leamington were
removed between the wars. There are now only three identifiable chest-tombs remaining. This
photograph shows two of these on the South side of the church just inside the railings on Church
Walk. When I was the Verger at All Saints, I had access to the gated area of the churchyard and
as a keen local historian I thought that these particular tombs might be significant and were
worth a closer look. Like most local historians, I am naturally very inquisitive.
2

Basic information on the tombs
The two chest-tombs are of identical design and are very
close together which seems to indicate that they were built
at the same time over over a single family vault.
Each of the panels on the two tombs had originally had
incised lettering on but much of the lettering was badly
eroded and it was impossible to decipher much of it. By
enlarging the photographs and enhancing the images on a
computer it was however possible to read some of the
inscriptions on both of the tombs.

The inscription on the right is from
the tomb nearest to the camera it reads:
IN THIS VAULT LIE
THE MORTAL REMAINS OF
ELIZABETH VIRGO SCARLETT
RELICT OF THE LATE
JAMES SCARLETT ESQ
OF TRELAWNEY IN THE ISLAND OF JAMAICA
WHO DIED AT LEAMINGTON
ON THE 2ND OF JANUARY 1821 AGED 53
RIP

3

a few more clues
The adjoining tomb on which the lettering is also
very degraded records the death of ‘Elizabeth the
widow of James Virgo Dunn born in Jamaica June
20th 1762 died in London `july 15th 1839 and
James Virgo Dunn born in Jamaica died in this
parish 29th of October 1820’.
James Dunn had died only two months before
Elizabeth Scarlett which strengthened the suspicion
that the two tombs were erected at the same date.
This was the extent of the readable information on
the tombs. There was obviously a close family
relationship between Elizabeth Virgo Scarlett and
James Virgo Dunn and his wife Elizabeth for them
to be buried in the same vault but what that was we
don’t know. Virgo is a common surname among the
early British settlers in the West Indies and
surnames were frequently used as fore-names.
A map of Jamaica on the internet indicated that
Trelawney was a large parish in the north of the
island with Falmouth its main town.

4

The Jamaican connection explored
It was fairly obvious that British people like the Scarletts and Dunns with roots in the West Indies in the
eighteenth century could only have been there for one reason and that reason was their intimate
connections with the sugar plantations that had been set up there by Europeans in the previous century. A
search on Google led me immediately to a page on ‘The Scarlett Family in Jamaica’ on the Jamaica Family
Search website. That was enough to confirm what I already suspected about Elizabeth, the question then
arose -where do we go from here? Working on the basis that someone of substance would have left a will,
a search on the National Archive website confirmed that they held a probate copy of the will of ‘Elizabeth
otherwise Eliza Scarlett, Widow of Leamington Priors, Warwickshire’, the will was proved on 19 January
1821. For the very modest sum of £3.50 it was possible to download a PDF copy of the will, the ledger
entry for which is shown below.

Elizabeth’s will was short and not very illuminating but I also downloaded copies of the will of
James Virgo Dunn and of Eliza’s mother Sarah Gallimore who had died in 1810 and these were
far more enlightening. Among the ‘goods and chattels’ left to beneficiaries in both of these wills
were large numbers of named slaves employed on the Jamaican sugar plantations owned by the
two families.
5

striking gold in the National Archive
Working on the assumption that the Scarlett family being minor aristocracy and
seemingly long established in Jamaica, I thought it would be worthwhile to do a
search on the Access to Archive network to see whether there were any surviving
documents anywhere that would help in my search to flesh out the bare bones of
Eliza’s life and that was something of a revelatory experience.
I entered ‘Scarlett’ in the search box on the A2A website and the second of the 917
entries leapt out, it said that the Hull History Centre held an archive of the papers of
James and Eliza Virgo Scarlett and with a click on the mouse the contents of the
archive were revealed. This is the catalogue entry.
Eliza Virgo Scarlett was married to James Scarlett (d.1798). The latter is not to be confused with James
Scarlett (1769-1844), 1st Baron Abinger, though the coincidence of their families both owning estates in
Jamaica suggests that they may have been related.
James Scarlett died in 1798 and Eliza Virgo Scarlett returned to England from Jamaica and ran her
inherited Thicketts Estate, Peru and Green Vale Estate in Jamaica from there. The papers in the
collection originate from her management of these two sugar plantations. She owned and rented slaves
and produced rum. When her husband died he left many debts and she sold the Jamaica Estate to cover
these in 1802. Her mother's death in 1806 increased her assetts and what was left when she died in
1821 was passed to her children, Mary James Scarlett and Eliza Virgo Scarlett junior. The latter married
General Phineas Riall, who owned considerable estates in Ireland and it may be that the papers passed,
like other Irish papers in DDLA of the O'Kelly and Grattan families, to the Langdale family through
intermarriage.

The catalogue entry went on to say that the archive at Hull comprised a total of 193
items including estate correspondence and accounts for the Scarlett estates and also
items like valuations and reports on slaves, letters and press cuttings.
Talk about manna from heaven!

6

To Hull to look at the documents
I got off the train at Hull Paragon station and saw Philip Larkin on the platform who I
remember was also a Warwickshire lad before migrating to East Yorkshire. Three days
had been set aside to look at what was a very extensive archive. There would not be
time to look at or to photograph or copy all of the items but I was able to access the
Hull catalogue on line in advance of the visit and identify which items would be of
most interest to me and these were helpfully on the table in the search room when I
arrived at the History Centre.

The Hull History Centre
(right) is an interesting new
building in Worship Street a
short walk from the railway
station.


7

Information overload
When I first looked at the tombs in the churchyard, I never gave a thought to where my research might
lead and much less to the embarrassment of riches I would uncover along the way. It soon became apparent
that the archive in Hull was far too extensive to look at in just three days but it occurred to me that the
subject would perhaps make an interesting talk for my local history group and it was with that idea in
mind that I began to look at the material and decide which items I ought to copy. Since I knew practically
nothing about the running of sugar plantations or the slave trade, it would also require a fair amount of
background reading at some future date to try and put it all into some sort of context.What follows are just
some of the more interesting documents from the archive with brief notes about what they tell us.

8

This valuation is one of the
first documents I looked at
and it indicates the
astronomical sums of money
involved in sugar
production.Greenvale and
Peru were the names of the
Scarlett plantations The
slaves there were regarded as
capital assets and together
with the stock were valued at
almost £42,000.

One section of a 1794 valuation
of the slaves on the Scarlett’s
Greenvale Estate with their
names and monetary values in
British pounds alongside. Those
with the lowest value were
children.The slaves names would
have been given to them by the
estate owners.
9

The slaves as economic assets

This is a small section of a valuation of 223 slaves on the Peru Estate drawn up in 1816, their names, ages and
value in English pounds are listed (right hand column) The values are significantly less than in the 1794
valuation and a number have no monetary value. Many of the slaves were afflicted by tropical diseases and lifethreatening conditions which meant they were unable to work.
10

James Scarlett’s death in 1798
It is fairly certain that Elizabeth Scarlett lived with her husband James on one of their Trelawney estates
until he died in 1798. James Sarlett’s family had a long connection with Jamaica and had been settled there
since 1670. Various members of the family held extensive estates on the island. There is a mention in the
household account books of ‘a payment to D Gardner’s visit to James Scarlett during his last illness £5’
which is presumably a Doctor’s fee for attendance. James Scarlett died intestate and left large debts. At the
time of his death he owned estates named Peru, Scarlett’s Thicket, Young’s Thickett and Greenvale which
amounted to 2,700 acres. He is buried in the churchyard of St Peter’s church in Falmouth seen below.
St Peters Falmouth built 1795

11

Elizabeth returns to England
After James Scarlett had died, Elizabeth and her daughters returned to England. Among the
documents in the Hull archive is this receipt for £135 dated 19 May 1800 which was the fare for
Eliza, her two daughters and her servant’s passage to England on board the ship Elizabeth.

12

Eliza Scarlett estate owner
What is clear from the Hull documents is that at the time of James Scarlett’s death he was
heavily in debt. The sums of money involved in the sugar trade and slaving are quite
extraordinary by today’s standards. By the early part of the 19th century there was already
a move to get rid of the business of slavery and an increasing trend in England to give up
the use of sugar because of its unsavoury associations. The sugar trade was in decline.

A typical and greatly idealised estate scene this is Port Maria on
the north coast of Jamaica circa 1800

This advert in a Jamaican newspaper in
1802 invites offers for the Greenvale
Estate’s 900 acres and 120 slaves

13

management from afar
After Eliza had moved back to
England, the Scarlett estates were
administered locally in Jamaica
by Attorneys James Stevenson
and David Richards. Eliza kept a
very close watch on their
management of her affairs. In
spite of the huge logistical
problems involved she regularly
exchanged letters with her
Attorneys but even though these
were sent by the weekly Post
Office packet boats out of
Falmouth, they took anything up
to ten weeks to arrive in Jamaica
and then several days before they
were delivered. Replies of course
took a similar amount of time to
get back to England.
Eliza wrote in her own hand and
made a copy of each letter
written in a leather bound Letter
Book which survives in the Hull
archive and is seen top right.

The Francis Freeling one
of the Post Office fleet of mail-packets that
operated weekly between Falmouth and the West Indies
carrying official dispatches, mail, passengers and Bank of England bullion.

14

one of Eliza’s letters

Part of a letter to her Attorneys in
Eliza’s own hand giving details of
transactions for the purchase of
slaves in the year 1795 when her
husband was still living, with a
transcription below right.
15

From Barret & Parkinson
at Montego Bay were purchased 17 Negroes,
16 at £75 per head, one at £50. From Rainsford
Blundel & Bainsden at Kingston or Spanish
Town 20 Negroes 19 at £69 per head one at £50
From Galloway at Falmouth were bought
10 Negroes 9 at £65 one at £60. These were
the last that were purchased in the year 1795.

work on the plantation - planting
It goes without
saying that sugar
and rum production
relied entirely on
slave labour for the
large work force it
required. The latter
section of this show
will explain how the
slave trade was
organised.Here we
take a look at the
workings of a typical
sugar plantation.

Sugar cane is sterile and can only
be reproduced from cuttings.
Here we see (top) slaves hoeing in
preparation for planting and
(below)layering root cuttings into
shallow trenches There was no
mechanisation in the cane fields
just a few horses and oxen. The
cane would take fifteen months
before it would be ready for
cutting and boiling.

16

Harvesting the cane

When it was ready for harvesting , the cane was cut by hand with
a machete and bundled. It was then taken as soon as possible to
the estate mill to be crushed to extract the juice before it
deteriorated. The mills were either wind or watermills but on
some estates the cane was crushed by a simple horse-driven mill.
The cane harvesting would go on for six months of the year.
17

the boiling house
Here the raw sugar was boiled in a
succession of copper vessels to
extract the crystalline sugar which
had to be done quickly before it
began to ferment.It was then cooled
in a cistern to form coarse
granulated sugar and the residual
molasses.The sugar would then be
put into the large wooden barrels
seen below called hogsheads and
then onto carts drawn by horses or
oxen for transporting to the boats.

Practically all of the metal
equipment used on the estate
had to be shipped out from
England since there were few
manufacturing industries in
the West Indies.Coopering was
one of the few jobs that could
be done on the estate and the
coopers were the most valuable
slaves on the payroll. The
logistics associated with setting
up a mill and boiling house
were very complicated.
18

shipping the sugar
In the early days, there were no docks or wharves and
vessels would have to be loaded out at sea. A large
hogshead of sugar weighing the best part
of three quarters of a ton is being
man-handled into a small skiff
to be taken out to the lighters
at anchor in the bay before
being hoisted on to ships for England.

19

How the slave trade worked

The trans-Atlantic slave trade owes its existence to the pursuit of riches. European plantation owners needed
huge numbers of workers on their estates in areas like the West Indies whose small populations were
insufficient to meet the demand for labour. The easy solution was to charter ships in England and to sail down
the coast of West Africa and to forcibly enslave huge numbers of Africans. Thus developed what came to be
known as the Triangular Trade. Merchants filled outbound ships with things like metal goods and textiles
which could be exchanged in West Africa for slaves who were then shipped across the Atlantic and off-loaded
in the West Indies. The ships would then return to Britain with sugar and rum from the plantations to be sold
here.
The ships never sailed empty.
20

Filling the ships
Slavery had been practised in Africa for
centuries and many of the African Chiefs
were complicit in providing slaves for
European merchants. Slaves were frequently
gathered from areas far inland and
imprisoned in forts along the coast to wait
until a large enough group had been
assembled to fill a slave ship which might
be several weeks or even months.. Men,
women and children were taken and many
native African families were separated for
all time.

21

buying an African slave
A slave could be purchased for the equivalent of a few pence. One of the most
favoured items to be bartered for slaves was a brass or copper item shaped like
a bracelet and known as a Manilla shown bottom right.. These could be
melted down but were used as currency in some parts of West Africa. The
bronze plaque (right) from Benin shows an African trader holding his staff
of office and one of these Manillas the local currency. These were turned out
in their millions by Birmingham brass foundries.

22

a journey into the unknown
This is the ‘Watt’ a typical
eighteenth century slave ship.
Most slave ships were normal
merchant ships of 250 to 300
tons adapted to carry a human
cargo and would have a crew of
35 or 40 sailors. Each ship would
be packed with up to 300 slaves
who were shackled below decks
in the ships hold for most of the
time. The slaves on board had no
idea where they were going or
what the future held in store for
them. Some thought they would
be killed and eaten by the crew.

23

Conditions on board ship
The passage across the Atlantic would take several weeks and the
conditions on board were unspeakable. Small groups of slaves
would be unshackled and taken up on deck for exercise. A former
slave surgeon Alexander Falconbridge had this to say:
‘They lie on bare planks and are frequently stowed too close, as to admit of no
other posture than lying on their sides. Neither will the height between decks,
unless directly under the gratings, permit them the indulgence of an erect
posture. The surgeon upon going between the decks in the morning, to examine
the situation, frequently finds several dead. These dead slaves are thrown to the
sharks’.
Unsurprisingly there was a very high mortality rate among both
the slaves and crew on passage and 12% died before the ship
reached landfall and were thrown overboard. On some voyages the
mortality rate was an astonishing 40%.

24

Landfall and further indignities
The regime on board
the slave ship was
brutal and the
conditions for the
slaves were
indescribable after a
long period at sea.
Having survived the
rigours of the
Atlantic, disease,
rough treatment,
poor food, lack of
sanitation and the
threat of piracy, they
might have expected
that their situation
could only improve
once the ship neared
its destination but
further indignities
were in store.

As the ship approached its destination, it was a case of ‘all hands on deck’ to smarten up the slaves and to make them as
saleable as possible when they were taken ashore. They would be washed and shaved and a sailor would apply a mixture
of gunpowder, lemon juice and palm oil to the skin of the slaves which he rubbed in with a cloth. A second sailor would
then vigorously brush the slave with a dandy brush so that the skin glistened. The better the shine the better the price.

25

welcome to Jamaica
Having finally disembarked, the
assembled slaves were offered for sale in
a number of different ways. Some had
been pre-ordered by estate owners and
merchants.
Others would be sent to a public
auction where they could be bid for like
cattle in a market and prodded and
poked and intimately examined like an
animal.
The worst-case scenario was something
called the ’scrambles’ where at a given
signal potential buyers would rush
among the slaves and grab hold of
anyone they wished to buy. An observer
at one of these spectacles reported how
a large number of terrified Africans had
jumped into the sea fearing what was
about to happen to them. Thus was their
fate sealed for the rest of their short
lives. A man sent by their new
employers stood ready with a red-hot
branding iron and each slave was
branded on the left shoulder with an
iron bearing the new owner’s logo or
initials.
26

a life of unremitting toil
Alone, separated from family and friends and unable to communicate with those around him, what did life hold in store
for the enslaved African? His life expectancy was at best nine years of unremitting toil. Stripped of his identity and in a
process designed to make him subservient, he would be put through a process of ‘seasoning’ which might last for two or
three years. During this period he would get accustomed to the mental and physical torture that were part and parcel of
daily life on a plantation. He would work for up to eighteen hours a day and sometimes longer at harvest time. There
were no free weekends or rest days. The only people exempt from working were children under the age of six, some
elderly people and those with serious physical disabilities.Beatings and whippings were common as was the use of
implements like the neck collar and leg irons. Any serious offences would be punishable with the death penalty.
Slaves were never more than chattels that could be traded at will by the people who owned them.

27

but the times they are a changing

The slaves lived in encampments of simple huts and always at a respectable distance from the large and
imposing houses occupied by the estate owners and their families. We know little about many aspects of
the lives lived in these small settlements. Whilst looking through Eliza Scarlett’s archive in the Hull
History Centre I came across a number of revealing entries in the estate accounts for the shipment from
Glasgow of large quantities of salted herrings which I can only assume was perhaps the staple diet of the
slaves. One such shipment, of which there were many, was for 100 barrels of herrings.
During the time of Eliza Scarlett’s stewardship of the Jamaican estates, big changes were afoot for both
the sugar trade and for the slave trade which underpinned it and the word on everyone’s lips was

ABOLITION
28

a beginning and an ending
The slave trade reached its zenith in the middle of the 18th century but within a few decades a movement for abolition began
to gather momentum. The defeat of the British in the war with America led to many people returning to Britain sometimes
bringing with them their former slaves who wasted no time in actively lobbying against slavery.
In 1783 an incident involving the
Liverpool registered slave ship Zong
caused widespread outrage and
raised public concern. The Zong
lost her way on passage to the West
Indies and as water grew short an
epidemic started on board and
crew and slaves began to die. At
this point the Captain, Luke
Colingwood, called the crew
together and pointed out to them
that if the slaves died naturally then
the financial loss would be borne
by the ship’s owners but if on some
pretext of the safety of the crew
they had to be thrown into the sea,
then it would be the loss of the
underwriters. Ever keen to satisfy
the ships owners and despite the
objections of his first mate
Colingwood ordered that 133
slaves be thrown overboard.

29

The abolitionists
Two of the most influential members of the abolition movement were
William Wilberforce (left)the Member of Parliament for Hull and the potter
and industrialist Josiah Wedgewood (below) together with many other
Quakers. Wilberforce failed on eleven occasions to get an Abolition Bill
through Parliament and had a model of the slave ship Brookes made
showing the manner in which the slaves were packed like sardines in a can
which he produced at length in a House of Commons debate to great effect.
Wedgewood produced a cameo showing a kneeling, manacled slave asking
‘Am I not a man & a brother?’ These were probably two of the most effective
political images ever used in a British political campaign.

30

the cartoonist joins the debate
The leading caricaturist of the time Isaac Cruikshank reflected the mood of the period in this 1792 cartoon titled
The leaving of sugar by degrees. The title is a play on the words ‘of’ and ‘off’. Seated round the breakfast table are
George III, the Queen and two of their daughters. The Queen’s Keeper of the Robes’ Juliana Elizabeth
Schwellenbergen holds a bottle of brandy and discusses with them the use of sugar in moderation.

31

The Abolition Bill is passed
It was the testimony of men like
former ships captains and surgeons
who had served on slave ships that
would prove to be the deciding factor
in focussing public opinion in Britain
firmly against the horrors of the
Atlantic slave trade. That said,
economic factors also played a part
and women were at the forefront of
the abolition campaign and set up the
Anti-Saccarite Movement to promote
the boycott of slave-grown sugar.
Britain became involved in a costly
war with France, one of the
consequences of which was a halving
of the value of English currency
between 1790 and 1800.
The Abolition of the Slave Trade bill
was eventually carried in the House of
Commons and became law on
25th March 1807.

32

see how the girls dance
Isaac Cruikshank’s satirical view of the Abolition titled The Abolition of the Slave Trade published in 1792
depicts the notorious Captain Kimber whipping a teen-age African girl on board the slave ship Recovery
which had sailed from Bristol en route for Grenada in 1791. "Dancing the slaves" was a regular part of the
routine of a slave ship on the Middle Passage and aimed to ensure that slaves who were confined to the
extremely cramped and unhygienic conditions below decks received at least a degree of regular exercise.
Those who refused to take part were flogged and Kimber was subsequently charged with the murder of a slave
girl who had refused to dance with him. Although he was acquitted at an Old Bailey trial in 1792 due to a lack
of evidence, it established the principle that those who killed slaves could be tried for murder. When the slaves
were thrown overboard from the Zong ten years earlier none of the crew was ever tried for murder, and the
subsequent court cases established the legality of their act.

33

1833 and the pay-off

Although the 1807 Act had effectively put an end to the business of trading slaves, it
would be another twenty-six years before slavery throughout the British Empire was
ended with the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833. One of the provisions of
the Act provided for the payment of compensation to slave owners for the loss of their
slaves as business assets. In 1833 the British Government set aside 40% of its annual
budget for such payments which is an indication of the huge sums of money involved
in the trade over the preceding two centuries. Many of those who received payments
were people of high social standing who it has to be said had risen from modest
beginnings to establish family fortunes and trading dynasties by putting money into
slave ships and plantations in the West Indies. The Lascelles family rose from modest
Yorkshire farming stock and reached the top of the aristocratic slippery pole being
ennobled as Earls of Harewood. When the compensation was paid out Henry Lascelles
was in receipt of £26,309 for his 2,554 slaves in the West Indies.

34

Postscript
To round off this presentation I want to return to Elizabeth Scarlett whose tomb in All Saints
churchyard first set me off on this voyage of discovery into the unknown.
Eliza was a young woman of just thirty years of age with two small children when her husband
James died on their Jamaican plantation in 1798 leaving behind huge debts. It says much about
the capable woman she was that for the next twenty-three years she successfully managed the
estates in what were very difficult times for all those involved in producing sugar. What is even
more remarkable is that for much of that time she ran the estates from here in England. We
know that she came back to England with the children in the Spring of 1800 and from her letter
book we also know that she was back on the family's Greenfield Estate in Jamaica by 1810 and
again between 1815 and 1817. During the periods she spent in England, she occupied a number
of addresses in the more desirable parts of London in Portland Place and Bedford Square. On
returning to England she lived for a period in Cheltenham between 1817 and 1819 but there is
no indication as to when she came to Leamington or where she was living at the time of her
death. To the best of my knowledge no image of Eliza is known to exist.
She would have had to address the problems associated with the Abolition Act in 1807 but had
died by the time the compensation was paid in 1833.
At the time of her death she held government stocks worth half-a-million pounds at today's
values.
She sat down at her desk in Leamington to write out her will on Boxing Day 1820 and had died
before the week was out. It was a great privilege to see and to handle the letters and documents
in the Hull Record Centre and in spite of much that I read and saw
I developed a huge amount of empathy for
Elizabeth Scarlett a truly remarkable Regency woman.

35

This slide show in the Leamington Discovered series was compiled by
Alan Griffin for the Leamington History Group website
Resources
Hull History Centre, Worship Street, Hull houses the Scarlett archive for which the reference is UDDLA/41. This
archive is of national importance for anyone researching early sugar production and the slave trade. I found the
staff to be unfailingly helpful and good -humoured.
Wilberforce House, 23 High Street, Hull is the birthplace of William Wilberforce the abolitionist campaigner.
The museum tells the story of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and its abolition, as well as dealing with
contemporary slavery. The permanent displays include journals and items that belonged to William
Wilberforce, Admission is free

Acknowledgements
All contemporary photographs were taken by the compiler of this presentation and the majority of early
engravings are also from his collection. He also acknowledges the following:
National Maritime Museum

National Archives

John Trevelyan - Blake

John Carter Brown Library Providence R I

36

Wilberforce Museum

Aexpress

End of slide show 3

Please visit us again
for new presentations on aspects of the history of
Royal Leamington Spa

37

Eliza Scarlett: Leamington widow and Jamaican slave owner

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