Charles Rose Ellis, Lord Seaford

Charles Rose Ellis, Lord Seaford, awarded the compensation for several estates in Jamaica as owner-in-fee. 

1. Ellis was the descendent of Colonel John Ellis who had settled in Jamaica in 1665 and established the family fortune, the grandson of George Ellis, Chief Justice of Jamaica and the son of John Ellis and Elizabeth, daughter of John Pallmer, Chief Justice of Jamaica. He married the Hon. Elizabeth Catherine Caroline Hervey, daughter of John Hervey, Lord Hervey, eldest son of Frederick Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol, in 1798. She died in January 1803, aged 22. The same year their four-year-old son Charles succeeded his great-grandfather Lord Bristol as sixth Baron Howard de Walden. 1826: raised to the peerage as Baron Seaford, of Seaford in the County of Sussex. Ellis was a friend of Lord and Lady Holland. He was foster brother of Elizabeth Vassall, with whom he had been brought up in Jamaica, and who was to become Lady Holland in 1797. Ellis active in the West India Committee and in Parliament as the leading spokesman for the West India interest. Permanent chair of the West India Committee in early C19th. Spoke against abolition. Member of the West India Committee and the 'Committee of April 25, 1823' formed to press the government for ameliorationist measures for the Crown colonies and to resist moves towards emancipation. Friend of George Canning: used control of seat at Seaford to support Canning; received a peerage for this in 1826.

2. Inherited 'a large West Indian property worth £20,000 p.a. on his father's death' in 1782. 'He supported moral improvement of West Indian slaves, and certain other reforms, but he was never an abolitionist.' Bought Claremont estate in Surrey c. 1798, sold it 1815 and purchased Woodend at Chichester, where he died 01/07/1845.

3. His second wife was Louisa Emily Anne (Berkeley) Hardy, widow of Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy who was Lord Nelson's captain of HMS Victory at Trafalgar ("Kiss me Hardy"). Aforementioned Woodend at Chichester was certainly owned earlier by Louisa's grandmother Lady Louisa (Kerr) Lennox who was wife of Lord George Henry Lennox, son of 2nd Duke of Richmond.

4. His son, Charles Augustus Ellis, sixth Baron Howard de Walden and second Baron Seaford (1799–1868), married Lady Lucy Joan Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck (d. 29 July 1899), fourth daughter of William Henry Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck, fourth duke of Portland, the brother Lord William Henry Cavendish Bentinck (1774-1839) (q.v.). His uncle George had married Susannah Charlotte Long, sister of Edward Long (1743-1813), author of The History of Jamaica (3 vols., 1774).

5. Charles Augustus Ellis continued the business in Jamaica with one estate in the north of the island, and a share in an estate in the south. His evidence to the Select Committee of 1847-8 refers to the Montpelier, Shettlewood and Caymanas estates.

1. R. G. Thorne (ed.), The House of Commons, 1790-1820 (5 vols., London, Secker & Warburg for the History of Parliament Trust, 1986), vol. 3; Thomas C. Holt, The problem of freedom: race, labor, and politics in Jamaica and Britain, 1832-1938 (Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), pp. 83-5 (which also discusses Seaford's correspondence with Lord Holland); Alexandra Franklin, Enterprise and advantage: The West India interest in Britain, 1774-1840 (University of Pennsylvania, Unpub. PhD, 1992), pp. 81, 214.

2. H. M. Stephens, ‘Ellis, Charles Rose, first Baron Seaford (1771–1845)’, rev. H. C. G. Matthew, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn.

3. A. M. Broadley, R. G. Bartlett, The three Dorset captains at Trafalgar: Thomas Masterman Hardy, Charles Bullen, Henry Digby, London, J. Murray, 1906; p 237. https://archive.org/stream/threedorsetcapta00broa#page/236/mode/2up

4. H. M. Stephens, ‘Ellis, Charles Augustus, sixth Baron Howard de Walden and second Baron Seaford (1799–1868)’, rev. H. C. G. Matthew, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn.; Angelina Osborne, Power and Persuasion: The London West India Committee, 1783-1833 (unpub. PhD., University of Hull, 2014), p. 82.

5. Evidence to the Select Committee on Sugar and Coffee Planting, 3rd Report, 3rd Report. PP1847-48 (167) XXIII Pt. I, pp. 1-31.

We are grateful to Ted Robbens for help in compiling this entry.