Anthony Langley Swymmer 1724?-1760

Anthony Langley SWYMMER 1724?-1760

Biographical Note

Born in Jamaica, son of Anthony Swymmer, a Jamaica merchant and plantation owner; he inherited his father's estates in 1730. He matriculated at Peterhouse, Cambridge in 1741, but did not graduate. While continuing to derive income from the Jamaican plantations, where he held over 8000 acres in 1754, he also owned an estate in Mold, Flintshire and was MP for Southampton 1747-60; he is known to have had Jacobite sympathies.

Books

Swymmer used an engraved armorial bookplate (Franks 28675), on which he described himself as of Mold. The extent of his library is not known; his will has no mention of books, but is largely concerned with distributing his estates and plantations, on which a number of debts were outstanding at the time of his death. His wife was entitled to take any household goods "as she shall make choice of", while his principal heir was his nephew Thomas Champneys.

Sources

• Will of Anthony Langley Swymmer, the National Archives PROB 11/855/52.
• History of Parliament.
• Legacies of British Slavery database.
• Gambier Howe, E. R. J. Franks bequest: catalogue of British and American book plates bequeathed to the ... British Museum. London, 1903-4.