Cossley Saunders

Bristol merchant, formerly of Nevis, leaving monetary legacies of £43,000 in his will in 1814.

1. Will of Cossley Saunders of Bristol [made 20/04/1814] proved 28/05/1814. He left two amounts of £2500 in consols and reduced annuities in trust to pay his sister Theodosia Saunders an annuity of £100 p.a., and Mrs Elizabeth Page of Cheltenham £50 p.a. for life and after her death then to her daughter Maria Cossley Page, with the principal amount to pass after the deaths of the annuitants to his two nieces Susanna Saunders and Elizabeth Catherine Eveleigh Saunders. He left Susanna Saunders a further £17,000 in three series of consols and reduced annuities, and Elizabeth Catherine Eveleigh Saunders a further £10,000 in two series, and his nephew James Cossley Lewis £6000 in two series of consols. He left his nephew George Eveleigh Saunders his rights of church patronage at Tarrant Rushton in Dorset and Clare, Tiverton in Devon, £3000 consols, and his ten shares in the Bristol Dock Co. He left £2000 to Miss Ann Eveleigh of Kings Square, St James Bristol, and his own house at Kings Square to his nieces. His residuary heirs were his nephews James Cossley Lewis and George Eveleigh Saunders.

A deed of 1788 in the Bristol Archives showed him as merchant of Nevis, http://archives.bristol.gov.uk/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=37941%2F24b [accessed 27/07/2020], and he was still of Nevis in 1791 when he purchased the estate identified as Fothergill's.

1. PROB 11/1557/153.

We are grateful to Christine Eickelmann and David Small for sharing their work in tracing the history of the Jory's or Fothergill's estate, which Cossley Saunders owned 1791-1799.