Lucy Mary Billingsley (née Dottin)

Absentee slave-owner and mortgagee on Barbados, owner of an estate in St Lucy that she called 'The Blessing' in her will that has not yet been further traced. Lucy Mary Billingsley was earlier the mortgagee of Pickerings and it is possible that this was in fact the estate she referred to in her will.

1. Will of Lucy Mary Billingsley widow [late of Bath but now of Mount Beacon in the parish] of Walcot Somerset [mde in 1799] proved 25/05/1803. In the will, she identified her dead husband as Rev. Philip Billingsley. She left her estate of The Blessing in St Lucy Barbados and the enslaved people on it in trust for her nephew Abel Rous Dottin (q.v.) of Clayfield Co. of Southampton, subject to raising £6500 to fund a series of monetary legacies, including £6000 for her niece Elizabeth Mary Agnes Spooner Lillingston. Her other bequests included annuities of £50 p.a to her sister Wilhelmina [Willielma] Johanna Lillingston and £40 p.a. to the Rev. Joseph Pickering of Wickham, Hampshire. In a codicil she recognised that her original trustees were not fully acquainted with 'the nature of West India property' and appointed Abel Rous Dottin to have oversight of her plantations and enslaved people, and reduced her legacy to her niece and children to £5000.

1. PROB 11/1392/265. The will was subject to litigation in Dottin v Drewe 1804 C 13/2406/36.