Henry Shirley III

The compensation for Shirley's two estates in Trelawney Jamaica was awarded to two trustees, both clergymen without cure of souls, the Rev. Charles W. Davy and the Rev. George Porcher (both of whom q.v.).

Son of Bernard Shirley (d. 1808) and grandson of Henry Sherdley (d. 1768). Inherited the [entailed] Jamaican estates of his uncle Henry Shirley II (né Sherdley, 1745-1812), the husband of Hannah Rock (née Spencer), who established or acquired his own estates in Jamaica in the 1780s including Spring Garden, Etingdon or Eatindon, and Glamorgan (Grosett, p. 102) and who died at Upper Wimpole Street.

Bernard Shirley was in Jamaica c. 1788 - some time before his will was made in 1806). Henry Shirley III apparently was in the Coldstream Guards when his uncle Henry Shirley II died in 1812. Henry Shirley III married (1) Dorothea Francis (who died 07/01/1828 at Bath), daughter of Col. John Houlton of Farley Castle Somerset and (2) at Brighton 23/01/1837 Isabella Martha, daughter of the late Sir Harry Verelst Darrell Bart. Shortly after this Henry Shirley III moved to Jamaica (Grosett pp. 151-2), dying at Hyde Hall in 1848. Henry Shirley III's son, also Henry Shirley, was a Member of the Jamaica Assembly and died 1856.

Despite Henry Shirley II's naming of his Eatingdon estate, there is a pained passage in the family history of E. P. Shirley of the Shirley's of Eatingdon Warwickshire disclaiming any connection between the families (Grosett p. 153).

T71/874 Trelawney Nos. 110-115.

1. Details of Henry Shirley III's life are given in MS of Charles Mackenzie Grosett, Chapter XIII 'Henry Shirley III of Peppingford, Sussex' pp. 151-158.