Henry Papps of Antigua

Slave-owner on Antigua, dying in London and being buried at St Luke Chelsea 26/03/1805.

1. Will of Henry Papps of Antigua [made in 1802] proved 13/12/1805. In the will he left £600 currency to his wife Dorothy Ann immediately, and instructed his 'house and estate' in Antigua called St Ann's Hill including Pigeon Point to be sold, with the people on it, at the discretionary timing of his executors, as well as his half share of a lease on Guana Island and the enslaved people there. The proceeds were to be invested in the funds to support an annuity of £100 p.a. to his father Henry Papps now of Chelsea; he left his wife Dorothy Ann an annuity of £300 p.a. from his investment in the funds. He left £1000 to his 'daughter-in-law' [stepdaughter] Eliza Papps Williams. his residuary estate was to be divided among his [unnamed] children. In a codicil 1804, being about to leave Antigua, he reiterated the sale of his land, and specified that the field gang should be hired out on a long lease, and the tradesmen be hired out in public departments if possible, otherwise sold; he also increased his wife's legacy to £1000 and her annuity to £450 p.a. and left several monetary legacies of £100 and 200 guineas. His executors included Thomas Elmes, his brother-in-law who had been the heir to the Elmes' estate.

Ancestry.com, London, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812 for Henry Papps Kensington and Chelsea St Luke, Chelsea 1778 - 1812 [database online]

1. PROB 11/1435/105. The property in Papps' will was almost certainly the Guana [or now Guiana] Island off the north-east coast of Antigua, as opposed to the Guana Island estate (q.v.) in the Virgin Islands, reportedly the site of a 'Quaker experiment in slave-owning'.