William Beckford of Somerley (13/24 September 1744 – 5 February 1799) was a British planter and writer who wrote on the topography and conditions of slavery in the British colony of Jamaica and the history of France. . For background, see R.B. Sheridan, 'The formation of Caribbean plantation society, 1689–1748,’ in P.J. Marshall (Ed.), The Oxford History of the British Empire, Vol. II: The Eighteenth Century (Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 394–414.
Born into a very prominent and wealthy slave-holding family, he was educated in England, lost his father at the age of 10, and rounded off his gentleman's upbringing through Westminster School and Oxford University with a Grand Tour. He inherited his estates around Hertford in western Jamaica around 1765 at the age of 21. In a different mould from his colonial ancestors, he was considered a cultivated and personally sensitive man who, after he married and went to live in Jamaica in 1774 to supervise his affairs personally, became preoccupied with the welfare and conditions of the African and Creole workers in his estates, deplored their mistreatment and hardships and sought to deal with them more humanely.
However, he had too open and naive a nature to survive as a businessman, and, facing losses through natural catastrophes, and subjected to predatory actions by his creditors, found that his estates had become heavily involved in debt. Returning to England in 1787 to mend his affairs, he was thrown into debtors' prison, from where he wrote and published two books descriptive of Jamaica, of the industry of the estates and of the circumstances of the enslaved labourers. He advocated reform at every level, in transportation, domestic welfare, working conditions and management, and rights before the law, but not, finally, the dismantling of the system itself, arguing that this would lead to greater deprivations.
By the adjustment of his debts he lost his estates but retained £400 a year, and remaining in England he devoted his last years to writing both in prose and poetry. As a member of a highly privileged class, despite his personal misfortunes, his contribution to the History of France has to be understood in the light of the French Revolution and the fall of Robespierre, which occurred in the year of its publication.
Early life
William Beckford of Somerley, Suffolk was the son of Richard Beckford (c. 1711–1756) and his friend Elizabeth Hay ("whom I have esteemed and do esteem in all respects as my wife"Will of Richard Beckford, Gentleman (P.C.C. 1756, Glasier quire)), and was born in Jamaica in 1744 into an influential slave-holding family of colonial Jamaica.F. Cundall, Historic Jamaica: with fifty-two illustrations (The West India Committee/The Institute of Jamaica, London 1915), pp. 358–67 (Internet Archive). His father Richard and uncles William Beckford (Lord Mayor of London in 1762 and 1769) and Julines Beckford were grandsons of Colonel Peter Beckford (1643–1710), Governor of Jamaica in 1702 (after whom Petersfield in Westmoreland Parish is named), and sons of Peter Beckford jnr. (1672–1735). Their sister Elizabeth was the Countess of Thomas Howard, 2nd Earl of Effingham. William of Somerley was the cousin of the ingenious novelist and scandalous art-collector William Thomas Beckford (1760–1844), son of William the Lord Mayor, and of Peter Beckford (1740–1811), son of Julines Beckford.J.H. Lawrence-Archer, Monumental Inscriptions of the British West Indies from the Earliest Date, with genealogical and historical annotations (Chatto and Windus, London 1875), pp. 26–28 (Google).
Richard (William's father) matriculated from Balliol College, Oxford in January 1727–28, but took his B.A. from University College in 1731.V.L. Oliver, 'William Beckford of Somerley', "Notes and Queries", Caribbeana, I (Mitchell Hughes and Clarke, London 1910), pp. 95–96 (Digital Library of the Caribbean). His estates in Hanover and Westmoreland Parish included the Hertford Penn,Beckford states that a Pen or Penn was not a plantation but a farm enclosure. which he purchased from his brother Julines,Will of Richard Beckford (PCC 1756). the Roaring River Estate and Fort William Estate, both near Petersfield, and also the Shrewsbury Plantation, which he leased from Julines.'William Beckford of Somerley', Legacies of British slave-ownership University College London database. Richard was M.P. for Bristol in 1754–1756 and Prime Warden of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths (of London) in 1755–56, serving as Alderman for the London ward of Farringdon Without in 1754–1756.A.B. Beavan, The Aldermen of the City of London Temp. Henry III to 1912 (Corporation of the City of London, 1913), II, p. 131 (Internet Archive).
Early life William came to England at the age of 5 (at the time of his grandmother's deathWill of Bathshua Beckford (P.C.C. 1750, Busby quire).) and was educated at Westminster School and under the private tuition of the Revd. Dr. Thomas Wilson of Bungay, Suffolk.'Biographical Sketch of William Beckford, Esq., with a portrait', The Monthly Mirror VII: May, 1799, pp. 259–64 (Google). Dr Wilson, formerly a tutor of Balliol College, Oxford, was Vicar of Holy Trinity at Bungay for 40 years, 1733–1774.A.I. Suckling, The History and Antiquities of the County of Suffolk (John Weale, London 1846), p. 155 (Internet Archive).Will of Revd. Dr. Thomas Wilson, Vicar, clerk of Bungay Trinity, Suffolk (P.C.C. 1774, Bargrave quire). Beckford was only 10 or 11 when his father died in the French dominions. Among various legacies, at his death Richard left his Jamaican estates (including all his "Messuages, Lands, Pens, Tenements, Slaves and Hereditaments and all my real Estate") in trust under his executors for his reputed son William Beckford to inherit at his age of 21. The executors were meanwhile empowered to manage the estates, and, of these, Captain Thomas Collett (Chelsea merchant in the West India trade from 1723, West India merchant in London from 1747 to 1774,"Factor. Case 1: Richard Beckford v William Beckford" in J. Brown (ed. T.E. Tomlins), Reports of Cases Upon Appeals and Writs of Error Determined in the High Court of Parliament, 2nd Edition, 8 vols (J. Butterworth and J. Cooke, London 1803), IV, pp. 38–46, at p. 43 (Google). and agent for Alderman William Beckford'William Beckford Esq. to Mr. Pitt, 18 December 1758', in (Chatham, John Earl of, Executors of), Correspondence of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (John Murray, London 1838), I, pp. 376–78 (Google).) accepted sole administration at probate in 1756, though joined by Julines Beckford in 1758.Will of Richard Beckford (P.C.C. 1756). William matriculated from Balliol College, Oxford in 1762, aged 17, and was created M.A. in April 1765.Oliver, 'William Beckford of Somerley', Caribbeana, I, pp. 95–96 (Digital Library of the Caribbean). Uncle Julines Beckford died in 1764.
William then made a "scientific excursion" in Europe in 1765–66, travelling in France, Switzerland and Italy with Patrick Brydone, and with the Revd. William Vyse.'No. V. Patrick Brydone, Esq.', The Annual Biography and Obituary, Vol. 4 (1820), pp. 85–111, at p. 86 (Google). In 1770 Brydone made a Tour Through Sicily and Malta which he described in a two-volume work published in 1773 as a series of letters addressed to his friend William Beckford of Somerley.P. Brydone, A Tour through Sicily and Malta in 1770. In a Series of Letters to William Beckford Esq. of Somerly, 2 volumes (A. Strahan and T. Cadell, London 1773–1774), Vol. 1, Vol. 2 (Google). This went into many subsequent editions. In his introduction, Brydone writes that he has edited the original letters only slightly, to preserve their liveliness, and declares them to be "a monument of his friendship with the gentleman to whom they are addressed." Whether Beckford was actually one of the company is not quite clear, but he was in Rome in May 1770 with William Vyse ("an agreeable young gent") where, in September, they travelled about with Dr Charles Burney, who was there to collect information for his General History of Music.E. Poole (ed.), Music, Men, and Manners in France and Italy, 1770: being the Journal written by Charles Burney during a tour through those countries undertaken to collect material for a General History of Music (Eulenberg Books, London 1980), pp. 130–32, 139. It was at this time that William Beckford met Leopold Mozart, who mentioned the fact in a letter to his wife.C.B. Oldman, 'Beckford and Mozart', Music and Letters, XLVII (1966), pp. 110–115. (In 1766 William's cousin Peter Beckford, as patron, had adopted the child Muzio Clementi and taken him to England, and the young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had given a few lessons to William's cousin William, then of Fonthill Splendens.)
Although William became possessed of his inheritance of four sugarcane plantations in 1765–66, he at first took a long lease on Somerley Hall (a forerunner of the present Somerleyton Hall) in north Suffolk and remained in England, or pursued his travels in Europe.'Biographical Sketch of William Beckford, Esq.', The Monthly Mirror, p. 260 (Google). He was not acknowledged in the will of his uncle Alderman William Beckford in 1770, who had many of his own informally-conceived children to provide for.Will of the Rt. Hon. William Beckford, late Lord Mayor of the City of London (P.C.C. 1770, Jenner quire). On 13 April 1773 Beckford married his first cousin, Miss (Charlotte) Hay,'Biographical Sketch of William Beckford, Esq.', The Monthly Mirror, p. 260 (Google). a minor (aged 16), one of the daughters of Thomas Hay Esq, a former Secretary of Jamaica, who had died in 1769.Died 28 January 1769. Deaths, Gentleman's Magazine, XXXVIII (May 1769), p. 278 (Google). Both were described as of St Mary le Bow: the wedding was conducted by William Vyse (the younger) by special licence in the chapel of Lambeth Palace, with the consent of George Ramsay and others, her lawful guardians.Register of marriages, St Mary, Lambeth, 1762–1867, no. 130 (London Metropolitan Archives, ref. P85/mry1/389).
To Jamaica