[CLOSE] ROBBERT DUKENFIELD Robert Dukenfield, merchant in Kingston in the 18th century, was the great-grandson of the Parliamentary Colonel, Robert Duckinfield of Duckinfield, born in 1619; served in the army of Parliament and as Governor of Chester and High Sheriff of Chester 1649-50; died in September, 1689. His son, Sir Robert Duckenfield of Duckenfield, was born about 1642 and created Baronet in June 1665; he was High Sheriff of Cheshire in 1675; he died in November 1729 aged 87 and was buried at Duckinfield Hall Chapel. One of his sons, John, born in August 1677, became a merchant in Bristol, and died 1741. He married Ann Andrews of Bristol and had seven sons and four daughters. (Four sons and all daughters died young or without issue.) He was a slave trader and member of the Society of Merchant Venturers, an elite body of Bristol merchants involved in overseas trade. He left his son, Robert, a large slave plantation in Jamaica in the 1750s. Robert, who was his eldest son, married Isabella, daughter of John Miller of Jamaica, and had one daughter, Isabella who died in infancy.
Robert Dukenfield was Member of the Assembly for Kingston 1731; St. David 1733; St. Thomas East 1745, '49; Portland 1752. In 1754 Robert Duckingfield owned 46 acres of land in Kingston and 4992 in St. Thomas in the East, a total of 5038 acres.
In 1747 a private act was passed to entitle his reputed children to the same rights and privileges with English subjects born of white parents. These were the mulatto children of Robert Duckenfield, Merchant of Jamaica, and his free Black mistress Jane Enguson [Ferguson?]. On Robert Duckenfield's death he provided that his daughter Elizabeth, as well as his two other mulatto children, William and Estcourt Duckenfield, each receive a legacy of 400 acres of land and other property. The mother of his mistress also received 400 acres. Elizabeth Duckenfield married a Mr. Pennington just before her mother died in 1769. ['Enguson' is probably a misreading of Ferguson.] | (Little is known with any certainty of the owners of the other two houses.)
ROBERT TURNER
EDWARD GARDINER
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