Anna Eliza Brydges, Duchess of Chandos

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Anna Gamon, or Anne Gamon, was an English aristocrat and plantation owner. She married James Brydges, the third Duke of Chandos.

Early life[]

Anna came from Datchworth, Hertfordshire. She was the daughter of Richard Gamon and his wife Elizabeth (née Grace). She had a younger brother Sir Richard Grace Gammon who became MP for Winchester.

First marriage and the Hope Plantation[]

Her first husband was Roger Hope Elletson (1723-1775), an Old Etonian who grew sugar on Jamaica and who also served as Lieutenant Governor of the island.[1] When he died in 1775, he left Anna the Hope Plantation and the enslaved people who worked it.[1] She was an absentee manager of the plantation into the 1780s,[2][3] by which time she was joint owner with her second husband. The property passed to Anna's daughter by her second marriage and, as part of the "Chandos inheritance", remained in the family at the time of the abolition of slavery. Compensation was paid to the trustees of her grandson's marriage settlement for the loss of the slaves on the estate.

Later life[]

She married the 3rd Duke of Chandos in 1777. This was a second marriage for both parties. They had one child who survived to adulthood, Lady Anne Elizabeth Brydges (born 1779).(see note1) In 1789 the Duke died from injuries received when his wife inadvertently moved the chair he was about to sit in. In 1791 Anna was declared a lunatic and confined to her London home, Chandos House.[4] A lengthy lawsuit in the Irish courts over the management of her property ended dramatically in 1794 with the suicide of the presiding judge, Richard Power, who was accused of misappropriation of funds connected with the suit lodged in the Court of Chancery.

Media interest[]

Ana was mentioned in a television programme, Britain's Forgotten Slave-owners, broadcast by the BBC. It was presented by the historian David Olusoga and won a BAFTA award and the Royal Historical Society Public History Prize Winner for Broadcasting.[2][5]

Notes[]

1.^ Anne Elizabeth married Richard Temple-Grenville, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Chandos. They were the parents of Richard Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 2nd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos.

References[]

  1. ^ a b "'Roger Hope Elletson', Legacies of British Slave-ownership database". www.ucl.ac.uk., UCL Department of History 2020.
  2. ^ a b Britain's forgotten slave owners (Television programme). 2015.
  3. ^ Olusoga, David (2015). "David Olusoga: "Thousands of Britons opposed abolition – because they owned slaves"". HistoryExtra.
  4. ^ "Duchess of Chandos". Legacies of British Slave-ownership database. Retrieved 2021-03-28.
  5. ^ "Britain's forgotten slave-owners: BBC TV broadcast | Legacies of British Slave-ownership". www.ucl.ac.uk. Retrieved 2 July 2020.


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