Rene Payne

Profile & Legacies Summary

???? - 1799

Biography

London merchant (with Edward Payne) and banker (a partner in Smith, Payne & Smith, q.v.). Edward and Rene Payne reportedly purchased a coffee plantation in St Paul's Dominica in 1776. This estate has not yet been identified by LBS. 'They also appear to have had some involvement with estates in Grenada, as well as a possible interest in the cargo of 313 slaves carried by a ship called the Marlborough in 1772-1773, and as creditors of merchants who owned property in Jamaica, including Monteath, Miller & Sinclair, William and Thomas Monteath and Thomas Hibbert junior.' The firm of Edward and Rene Payne & Co. (as well as Smith, Payne & Smith) appeared among the creditors of the firm of Milligan Robertson in an advertisement calling a meeting of creditors placed in 1828. As partner in Smith, Payne & Smith, Rene Payne was co-owner of The Farm in St Catherine between at least 1789 and 1791.

Will of Rene Payne of St Margaret Lothbury proved 27/04/1799. He left an annuity of £300 p.a to John Pearce and made elaborate arrangement for other members of the Pearce family. In a series of codicils he left an annuity of £400 p.a to Martha Pearce and entailed his real estate to Captain William Pearce, now Payne. Martha Pearce appears to have been the long-term extra-marital partner of Rene Payne, and the male Pearces in the will were probably the children of the couple.

Sources

RBS/Citizens Financial Group, Inc. Historical Research Report: Predecessor Institutions Research Regarding Slavery and the Slave Trade (first published May 25, 2006; updated May 29, 2009), p. 7; London Gazette 18434 22 January 1828 p. 148.

PROB 11/1323/173.

Further Information

Absentee?

British/Irish

Associated Estates (2)

The dates listed below have different categories as denoted by the letters in the brackets following each date. Here is a key to explain those letter codes:

SD - Association Start Date
SY - Association Start Year
EA - Earliest Known Association
ED - Association End Date
EY - Association End Year
LA - Latest Known Association

1789 [EA] - 1791 [LA] → Joint owner

Farm Pen [ Jamaica | St Catherine ]

Shown as the property of Messrs Smith, Payne and Smiths of Great Britain bankers between 1789 and 1791, presumably as mortgagees of Sir Charles Price the previous owner.

1776 [EA] - → Mortgage Holder

New Works [ Jamaica | St Thomas-in-the-Vale ]

In 1776 John Serocold appears to have transferred or assigned his mortgage over Burton New Works to Smith, Payne and Smith.