Stephen Fuller

Agent for Jamaica, London West India merchant, partner with his nephew Rose Fuller of York Street (q.v.). As with Rose Fuller of York Street, it is not clear that Stephen Fuller owned enslaved people.

1. Will of Stephen Fuller merchant of St Clement Danes Middlesex [made in 1796] was proved 19/09/1799. The will identifies John Trayton Fuller of Ashdown Place Suffolk (the father of Augustus Elliott Fuller, q.v.) as the husband of 'my daughter Elizabeth now dead without issue' and Rose Fuller as 'my nephew and partner': it also shows his late brother Thomas [father of John Trayton Fuller] as his former partner. He left £10,000 to his grandson William Dickinson, the son of Philippa Fuller and William Dickinson MP; £5000 each to his grand-daughters Frances Dickinson and Maria Sloane; and £10,000 in trust for his grandsons William and Stephen Sloane with wide powers for their father Hans Sloane to modify the bequest or direct it to Maria Sloane. From the residue of his personal estate he instructed his executors and trustees to invest it, with half serving to pay an annuity of £630 p.a. to his daughter Philippa Dickinson with 3/4 of the residue going to his grandson William Dickinson and 1/4 to his grand-daughter Frances Dickinson; the other half was for the benefit of his three grandchildren Maria, William and Stephen Sloane in whatever proportion their father Hans Sloane determined, and after Hans Sloane's death to be divided 1/4 to Maria Sloane and 3/4 to her brothers equally. There is no mention of property or enslaved people in Jamaica, or indeed of real estate in England and Wales. He did however give instructions to spread over seven years the repayment by his partner Rose Fuller of debts due from their partnership.

1. PROB 11/1330/144. The South West Heritage Trust holds papers of the Fuller family, with extensive papers of Stephen Fuller, catalogued at the Somerset Heritage Centre under DD\DN/8, http://somerset-cat.swheritage.org.uk/records/DD/DN/8 [accessed 30/03/2016].