Francis George Smyth or Smith senior

Owner of Vauxhall and Long Hill estates in St Elizabeth, Jamaica, c. 1783. Married to Elizabeth Smith (q.v.) whose executors claimed successfully for the compensation for the enslaved people on the Vauxhall estate for arrears of an annuity, although the estate had been sold to John McIntosh in the 1820s.

1. Francis George Smyth, son of Francis Smyth of the Isle of Jamaica, armiger, matriculated Oriel College, Oxford, 24/11/1763, aged 18.

2. By his first wife Frederita or Federata, he had four children. Catherine, baptised in Barnstaple, Devon, 17/07/1765, married Abraham Leach at Northam, Devon, 29/06/1793, died 19/03/1861. Thomasina, baptised St Elizabeth, Jamaica, 20/08/1767, married William Wilson Curry of Thornton, Cheshire, 29/11/1799 in Newtontoney, Wiltshire. Elizabeth, baptised in St Elizabeth, Jamaica, 06/04/1769. Francis George, baptised in St Elizabeth, 16/07/1770.

3. By his second wife Elizabeth he had three children: Federata (baptised in St Elizabeth, 08/04/1776); Thomas (baptised in St Elizabeth, 17/10/1777) and Mary (buried St Elizabeth, 16/08/1786).

4. Francis George Smyth reportedly bought Goshen, a cattle pen with 1500 head, in 1780: he added hardwoods in 1783.

5. He was of Jamaica but residing at Exeter (Devon) in June 1783 when he leased Vauxhall to James and David Webster of London, but was in Jamaica when he died in 1787 (buried at Houghton Pen, 31 December; his father had been buried there, the tomb being engraved with arms which correspond to those of the Smyth family of Heath Hall, Yorkshire).

T71/780 St Elizabeth claim no. 103 (Goshen and Longhill Pen)

1. Ancestry.com, Oxford University Alumni, 1500-1886 [database online].

2. Familysearch.org batch nos. P00574-1, I03915-5 and M05190-1; Roland Thorne M.A., 'The Leach Family of Castlemartin', The Pembrokeshire Historian No. 7 1981 pp. 29-51; Familysearch.org, Jamaica Church of England Parish Register Transcripts, 1664-1880 [database online].

3. Familysearch.org, Jamaica Church of England Parish Register Transcripts, 1664-1880 [database online].

4. John F. Richards, The unending frontier: an environmental history of the modern world (2003) p. 452.

5. Ingram, Manuscript sources for the history of the West Indies: with special reference to Jamaica in the National Library of Jamaica and supplementary sources in the West Indies, North America, and United Kingdom and elsewhere (2000), Items 0306 and 0307, pp. 544-5: shows the June 1783 mortgage of Vauxhall estate by Francis George Smyth, of St Elizabeth but then residing in Exeter (Devon), and the Websters, of London.

We are grateful to Paul Hitchings for his assistance with compiling this entry.