Roger Hope Elletson 1723-1775

Roger Hope ELLETSON 1723-1775

Biographical Note

Son of Richard Elletson of Jamaica, plantation owner. Matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge 1746, but did not graduate; in 1744 he was admitted at Lincoln's Inn. He returned to Jamaica in the 1750s to run the family estates there; in 1753 he is recorded as owning a 600-acre estate with 93 enslaved people. He was elected a member of the House of Assembly of Port Royal, and in 1757 a member of the Royal Council; in 1767-8 he was Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica. He died during a visit to England.

Books

Elletson used an engraved armorial bookplate, made when he was at Trinity College (Franks 9725). The extent of his library is not known; after monetary bequests to some relatives, he left all his estate to his second wife Anna Eliza, who went on to marry James Brydges, 3rd Duke of Chandos.

Sources

• Will of Roger Hope Elletson, the National Archives PROB 11/1014/29.
• Roger Hope Elletson, Legacies of British Slavery.
• Gambier Howe, E. R. J. Franks bequest: catalogue of British and American book plates bequeathed to the ... British Museum. London, 1903-4.