William Bond

London merchant, partner with Abraham Watson Rutherford (q.v.), and co-owner with his brother and co-partner Thomas Bond (also q.v.) of the Mona estate in St Andrews, Jamaica, from at least 1779, when a map shows it as the property of Messrs Williams and Thomas Bond. Together with the Papine estate (q.v.), the Mona estate now forms the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies.

1. Will of William Bond of Park Hill near Croydon [made 10/08/1791] was proved 24/03/1794. Under the will he provided that the debts he owed as co-partner and executor of his brother Thomas Bond, together with the legacies made by Thomas in his own will, be paid. He left £2000 each to his niece Sarah Wilkinson widow and Rebecca Bond, the daughters of his late brother Richard Bond, a further £1000 each to Elizabeth and Sarah, daughters of his cousin [also named Richard], and £3000 to his esteemed friend Abraham Watson Rutherford [also appointed an executor and trustee under the will]. In addition he made numerous monetary legacies of £50-1000 to a series of 'friends' [both social and business associates] in London and Jamaica and to servants in London. The remainder of his personalty he put in trust with his real estate, which he specified to include his property in Jamaica 'and also....all the Negroes and other slaves and parts and shares of Negroes and other slaves...and also the increase and issue of such of them as are females and also all and sundry the cattle and other livestock belonging or pertaining to the same plantations.' The trustees were to use the funds first to satisfy the debts and legacies under the will of William Bond and of his brother Thomas, and then the income on the residual was to be paid equally to his two nieces Sarah Wilkinson and Rebecca Bond for life, and then to their children. The name of the contingent heirs [the beneficiary if both nieces died childless] is left blank in the copy of the original will at The National Archives, but in a codicil of 1793 William Bond made Elizabeth and Sarah Bond daughters of his cousin Richard Bond the contingent heirs. The original will specified that Abraham Watson Rutherford would continue as the London consignee for the remainder of his active mercantile life, whether in his own name or in partnership. In a codicil of 1792 he left his servant Mary Newell an annuity of £25 p.a. in addition to the £50 lump sum he had provided in his will, 'fearing that she may not have saved as much money as she may deem sufficient to make her happy for life.'

Suzanne Francis Brown, Mona Past and Present: The History and Heritage of the Mona Campus, University of the West Indies (Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press, 2004), p. 7.

1. PROB 11/1242/234