I read
towards the end of last year a newspaper article that appeared in the Daily
Mail claiming that Samantha Cameron the Prime Minister’s wife had ancestors who
were slave owners and did very well out
of compensation when the Slave Trade was abolished in the early 19th century.
Mrs Cameron was related to Rev William Jolliffe’s an industrialist whose
company had been responsible for the building of a number of notable buildings
such as Dartmoor Prison and London Bridge. Jolliffe was related to a family
that had interests alongside the Sussex and Hampshire border and controlled politically the town of Peters
field a constituency the family represented for much of the 18th century. The Jolliffe
family had interests in slavery that went back to the end of the 17th century
in the Caribbean
The name
“Jolliffe “intrigued me. Could she be related to the Jolliffe family that
originated out of Leek in the 17th century?
It seems that the answer is yes. Sleigh’s history of Leek has a family
table of the Jolliffe family. In terms of their Leek connection the family had
a property in the market square which was incorporated into the “Red Lion”.
Remains from Jolliffe Hall were discovered in March 1991. Their Hall long thought to be demolished many years before was
rediscovered in the structure of the Red Lion Inn in Market Square. Workmen
carrying out repairs
found the remnants. The Red Lion was established as
a coaching Inn in 1767 when the incorporation of the early structure into the
Inn must have taken place. Chief conservation officer at the time John Leech considered the discovery one of the most
important archaeological finds in Leek. It appears that the front of the hall
was removed when the Red Lion was built and a second floor added with a flat
roof. It had been long thought that the hall built by William Joliffe in 1627
had been demolished to make way for the coaching Inn.
A daughter of the Jolliffe family
Dame Elizabeth Ash married into wealth in the City of London and a dedication
to her memory and the Jolliffe family appears on the Almshouses on the corner
of Compton and Broad St with the date 1696. It was her brother Thomas Jolliffe
of Leek born in 1617 from who the Prime Minister’s wife descends. Thomas was
active in developing trading links with Russia especially in furs and fishing
rights. From Thomas who was active in Parliament after the Restoration the line
leads to John Jolliffe who married Catherine
Michell the daughter of Robert Michell the MP for Petersfield acquiring
the seat in the 1730s. It was this branch of the family that the interest in
slaves developed. The Ballenbouche Estate in St Lucia was worth £4,174 at the
time of the abolition when it was inherited by William Jolliffe the grandson of
John worth about £3 million for which they were compensated by the state.
Another
brother of Thomas Jolliffe was William Jolliffe another successful merchant who
owned Caverswall Castle He went into trade in London, where his uncle, John
Joliffe, was already established. His growing prosperity was augmented by fortunate marriages into prominent families.
Although on his father’s death he inherited Caverswall Castle, he remained
active in the city of London and was appointed alderman by royal commission in
1687. The appointment was superseded by the restoration of the charter in
October 1688.As a historical side line one marriage that William Joliffe made
was to Mary Hastings the daughter of the Earl of Huntingdon whose family were
descended from the Plantagenet monarchs through George Duke of Clarence the
brother of Richard III