William Beckford of Somerley

William Beckford of Somerley (13/24 September 1744 – 5 February 1799) was a Jamaican-born planter and writer who wrote on the topography and conditions of slavery in the British colony of Jamaica and the history of France.

[1] Born into a very prominent and wealthy slave-holding family, he was educated in England, lost his father at the age of 10, and rounded off his gentleman's upbringing through Westminster School and Oxford University with a Grand Tour.

Returning to England in 1787 to mend his affairs, he was thrown into debtors' prison, from where he wrote and published two books descriptive of Jamaica, of the industry of the estates and of the circumstances of the enslaved labourers.

He advocated reform at every level, in transportation, domestic welfare, working conditions and management, and rights before the law, but not, finally, the dismantling of the system itself, arguing that this would lead to greater deprivations.

As a member of a highly privileged class, despite his personal misfortunes, his contribution to the History of France has to be understood in the light of the French Revolution and the fall of Robespierre, which occurred in the year of its publication.

[18] In 1770 Brydone made a Tour Through Sicily and Malta which he described in a two-volume work published in 1773 as a series of letters addressed to his friend William Beckford of Somerley.

In his introduction, Brydone writes that he has edited the original letters only slightly, to preserve their liveliness, and declares them to be "a monument of his friendship with the gentleman to whom they are addressed."

Whether Beckford was actually one of the company is not quite clear, but he was in Rome in May 1770 with William Vyse ("an agreeable young gent") where, in September, they travelled about with Dr Charles Burney, who was there to collect information for his General History of Music.

[25] Both were described as of St Mary le Bow: the wedding was conducted by William Vyse (the younger) by special licence in the chapel of Lambeth Palace, with the consent of George Ramsay and others, her lawful guardians.

[41] Robert Charles Dallas, as a visitor to Beckford at Hertford, gave this description of him:"A West Indian, a man of taste and learning... A classical education, and a course of well-directed travelling, conspired to accomplish the mind of Benevolus: and while that was liberally stored with the beauties of science and of art, and with every delicate refinement, Nature pressed upon his heart all the noble feelings of philanthropy.

[43] After 13 years in Jamaica (1774–1787[44]), through poor business advice, through the corrupt behaviour of merchants who exploited his trust, and by his unstinted generosity,[45] William eventually lost his holdings and returned to England as a debtor, intending to rebuild his fortune and reputation.

The first of his prison books, Remarks upon the Situation of Negroes in Jamaica, was effectively a long essay dictated in February 1788 and prepared for the press in June of that year.

[51] The subtitles are explanatory: Remarks upon the cultivation of the sugar-cane, throughout the different seasons of the year, and chiefly considered in a picturesque point of view: Also, Observations and Reflections upon what would probably be the consequences of an abolition of the slave-trade, and of the emancipation of the slaves.

This he dedicated, with permission, to the Duke of Dorset, acknowledging "that friendship which was the delight of my early days, the pride of my advancing years, and which has been a comfort to me in my present hours of mortification", dating this and his introduction from the Fleet in February 1790.

In volume II of this work Beckford made the following observation:"It is customary with the liberal creditor to suffer the indebted planter to reside upon his mortgaged premises, to superintend the white people, and to direct the cultivation of the land; to dispose of his rum to discharge the contingencies of the country, to recommend captains of ships to convey his stores to the island, and to have the preference of freight to England, and to be indulged with such articles and conveniences as the plantation affords; to have the liberty to reside upon it, and likewise to share the same emoluments that an attorney would have; and under such a compact, a planter may not have much to apprehend, nor the merchant much to fear, as confidence is the best connective band of interest; whereas dissension and distrust, while they sour the mind, will ultimately conduct to ruin.

To be, on the other hand, forbidden the least interference whatever with his concerns, to be proceeded against to the utmost remnant of his means, to be deprived of common subsistence; and, to encrease his mortification, to behold all at once a man become his master, who but a few years before was contented to be his servant; all these are bitter circumstances which the planter too often suffers, and which it is certainly heart-breaking to endure.

[58] In 1794, in which year the Reign of Terror came to its climax in Paris with the fall of Robespierre, Beckford's historical work, A History of France, from the Most Early Records to the Death of Louis XVI was published in London in four volumes.

Beckford was improving both in health and fortune when he died quite suddenly of an apoplectic fit on the night of 5 February 1799 while visiting the Earl of Effingham in Wimpole Street from his own residence in Han's Place, Pimlico.

His eye in painting was correct in the most minute degree, as was his ear in music, and his taste in architecture; and all without any obvious cultivation; for every useful and ornamental acquisition appeared in him to spring solely from intuition, while he was universally allowed to rank among the best classical scholars of the age...