Dominick Trant

Claimed for the Lower or Lower Windward estate in Montserrat, for which the compensation was paid to a group of trustees including his father-in-law Philip Laycock Story (q.v.) and others, possibly under his marriage settlement with Caroline Story. He appears to have been out of Britain at the time of compensation and to have died shortly afterwards.

1. James Trant (whose will was made in 1804) was the brother of his legatee Frances Dillon, refers also to his brother Henry in his will and was the father of the claimant Dominick Trant. A son of Dominick and Caroline Trant, apparently named Dominick, was baptised 07/03/1838 at Rose Hill, Montserrat. James Trant had married a Miss Barrett in 1798.

2. Caroline, daughter of P.B. [sic] Story and widow of Dominick Trant of Montserrat married Edward Pellew Mainwaring (d. 1858) in 1842, and had a daughter Louisa Ann Caroline Amelia who married 02/04/1861 Alexander Young Spearman Esq. (q.v.).

3. Dominick Trant, son of Mary Barrett (daughter of Wisdom Barrett of Spot Valley in Jamaica) and James Trant of Montserrat, born 1800, married Caroline Storey (daughter of Philip Storey of Oxon.), two children (Lydia born 1835; Dominick 1838), died 1840.

T71/888 Montserrat No. 15.

1. 'S.M','The Trant Family Part 1' Kerry Archaeological Magazine Vol. 2 No. 12 Mar 1914 pp. 237-262; and 'The Trant Family (continued)' Kerry Archaeological Magazine Vol. 3 No. 13 Oct 1814 pp. 20-38. Part 1 of the article focuses on the Trants of Dovea, commenting 'Some of the family emigrated to the West Indies and settled in Antigua and Montserrat, where many of the name lived during the 18thC and the first part of the 19thC. The family seem to be now extinct in that part of the world' Part 1, p. 239. There is a brief discussion of the Montserrat Trants in Part 2 pp. 29-32. The Sub-Inspector who relayed the 1838 certificate of baptism to 'S.M.' said Caroline Trant was 'said to have been a notorious gambler.'

2. Reginald Mainwaring Finley, ebook, Short history of the Mainwaring family, 'The Mainwarings of Whitmore' p. 49, available at http://archive.org/details/shorthistoryofma00finl [accessed 10/08/2012]. By 14/02/1877, when she was granted probate for her mother's will (who had died 17/11/1876, effects £6000) and 06/12/1879, when she was granted probate for her father's will (21 years after his death), Louisa Anne Caroline Amelia's married name was Molyneux-Seel, National Probate Calendars 1877 and 1879.

3. R.A. Barrett, The Barretts of Jamaica: the family of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Winfield, Kansas, Armstrong Browning Library of Baylor University; The Browning Society; Wedgestone Press, 2000), p. 178.

We are grateful to Johannes Schade for his assistance with this entry.