Henry Peter Simmons

Anti-abolition polemicist, awarded the compensation for the Vaucluse estate in Barbados as owner-in-fee.

1. H.P. Simmons (d. 1845 [sic]) a bachelor; son of Henry Peter Simmons [of Harrow plantation] Barbados and of Anne Kirton also of Barbados. After the death of Henry Peter Simmons senior in 1779, Anne Kirton married John Allen Olton: their daughter Rebecca married Sir R.A. Alleyne bart. (q.v.). The estate was formerly known as Yorkshire Hall, and was owned by Simmons by 1816. 'He frequently resided in England.'

2. Author of 3 letters to Rt Hon Earl Grey, 1832-4. (See Historical Legacies.)

3. Henry Peter Simmons born 17/05/1776; will of Henry Peter Simmons of St Thomas proved 08/12/1843. In the will, he left an annuity of £50 p.a. to his 'natural and reputed colored daughter Mary Ann Baber the wife of James Baber Junior Esquire of Leelands in England' '(late Mary Ann Simmons Spinster).' He provided that his 'friend' Isabella Young wife of Edward Young of Rochester Kent 'late Isabella Akers spinster', 'now resident at my plantation in Barbados called Vaucluse', should be able to continue to live there and have use of his household belongings, together with his legacy to her of an annuity of £400 currency p.a. His residual estate after payment of various monetary legacies he left to his two 'natural colored and reputed sons Harvey [or Harry] Simmons and John Alleyne Simmons', the sons of Molly Harvey [or Harry] (then deceased), described simply as a woman on Vaucluse.

4. Letters of administration of the estate of John Alleyne Simmons formerly of Vaucluse Barbados afterwards of Porchester Hampshire and late of Irthlingborough Northants who died 31/05/1860 at St Leonards on Sea granted 08/10/1860 to Caroline Simmons of Chicksands Lodge the testamentary guardian of Henry Ellis Gresham Simmons and Caroline Marie Simmons the children of the deceased, effects under £1500.

T71/897 Barbados no. 4041 gives address as St Thomas, owner-in-fee by attorney Joseph Bayley. The Henry Peter Simmons of St Marylebone who married Margaret Williams 30/04/1799 at St Marylebone appears unconnected to the man in this entry.

1. Vere Langford Oliver, Caribbeana being miscellaneous papers relating to the history, genealogy, topography, and antiquities of the British West Indies (6 vols., London, Mitchell, Hughes and Clarke, 1910-1919), Vol 1, p. 66; David L. Gobert and Jerome S. Handler, 'Barbados in the Apprenticeship Period: the Report of a French Colonial Official', Journal of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society Vol. XXXVI no. 2 (1980), p. 125.

2. David Lambert, White Creole Culture, Politics and Identity during the Age of Abolition (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 174.

3. Ancestry.com, London, England, Marriages and Banns, 1754-1921 [database online]; PROB 11/1990/244. Genealogical sources [evidently based in part on a reading of the will] suggest that (1) Henry Peter Simmons left Vaucluse to two sons (John Alleyne Simmons (who married Caroline Gresham of Chicksands Lodge Bedfordshire) and Harry Simmons) (2) that he owned land in Ancaster, Upper Canada, where he travelled with Dr Thomas Rolph (3) that he also had a daughter, Mary Anne Baber [sic] of England, the wife of James Baber of Leelands England, e.g. Http://www.boards.ancestry.co.uk/localities.caribbean.barbados.general/298/mb.ashx?pnt=1 and http://brilyuhnt.com/city_system/news/barbados/2011/08/22/comment-on-race-a-significant-aspect-of-property-ownership-in-barbados-by-paul-grimwood/ [accessed 26/05/2012].

4. National Probate Calendar 1860.