Eliza Warren Williams

1. Eliza was the daughter of Thomas Pierce Williams and his second wife, Eliza Down Griffith (both q.v.). She was born on 25/07/1823 and baptised on 06/08/1823, St Elizabeth, Jamaica. Her father was rector of St Elizabeth, 1820-51, Archdeacon of Cornwall (Jamaica), 1850-62 and rector of St James, 1851-62. Her mother left Jamaica at some point after 1830 and had two illegitimate sons in the 1830s, one of whom was possibly born in India, before being convicted of fraud in Bath, England in 1846 and forgery in London 1847 and being transported to seven years' labour in Australia. It's not clear if Eliza saw her mother after 1830; testamony from Eliza's sister in 1847 stated that the legitimate children were in Jamaica with their father.

2. She may be the Eliza Williams, age 16, born in foreign parts, in Lower Clapton Road, Hackney, in what appears to be a school with 30-odd other girls and several instructresses and female servants.

3. Eliza was living in London at the time of her father’s death in 1862, as she is named as the sole executrix of his Will. Her address was 6 Blenheim Crescent, Clarendon Road, Notting Hill. She has not yet been found in any of the UK census records prior to 1871. (The large majority of houses in what is now Blenheim Crescent were built in the 1870s and 1880s and in an OS map from the 1860s Blenheim Cresent appears as Sussex Road.)

4. In 1871, she was living at 15 Lansdowne Road, Kensington (two streets down from Blenheim Crescent), the home of Marianne Warren Sowton (widow of William March Sowton, barrister). Eliza was a boarder, aged 47, an annuitant and her birthplace was wrongly recorded as Marylebone. In 1881, she was still living with the Sowton family, who had moved to 3 Craven Terrace, Uxbridge, Ealing. Eliza was 57, a fundholder and her birthplace was correctly recorded as Jamaica. In 1891 Eliza, aged 67, was at the home of her niece, Helen Catherine Willcox, 11 Shaftesbury Avenue, Weston, Bath. She may have gone to support her niece after the scandal connected to Frank Willcox, her niece’s husband, or following the death of Marianne Sowton in 1885.

5. Eliza’s death was announced in the Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette on 13/10/1892, as well as in other newspapers, “……only daughter of the late Ven. Archdeacon Thomas Pierce Williams D.D., of the County of Cornwall, Jamaica.” She died on 08/10/1892, at her niece’s home. She was aged 69 and was buried on 12th October. Probate was granted in Bath on 31/10/1892 to Rev Thomas Pierce Williams, clerk (her brother) and Richard Matthias Sowton, gentleman (son of Marianne Sowton, with whom Eliza was lodging in 1871 and 1881). Her personal effects were £3,796 11s 3d.

1. Familysearch.org, Jamaica Church of England Parish Register Transcripts, 1664-1880 [database online]; see separate entries for Thomas Pierce Williams and Eliza Down Williams.

2. 1841 census online.

3. National Probate Calendar 1862.

4. 1871, 1881, 1891 censuses online.

5. Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette 13/10/1892; National Probate Calendar 1892.

We are very grateful to Mary Hewitt for her assistance with compiling this entry.