Whilst following up information on the Rev. Charles Este, his son Michael Lambton and their connections with Nelson and the Hamiltons, I came across the interesting story of Nathaniel Wells, owner of Piercefield House at Chepstow, which the Nelson/Hamilton party purportedly visited on the long and winding road to Monmouth in 1802.
Nathaniel Wells had firstly married Harriet Este, daughter of the Rev. Charles Este and sister of Lambton, and the story of his life is quite extraordinary. Here is summary of information to be found online:
Quote:
"In 1800 there is little doubt that Nathaniel Wells was the richest black man in Britain. Latterly he became Sheriff of Monmouthshire and Deputy Lieutenant of the county.
Nathaniel was the son of a Negro house-slave and the Cardiff-born plantation owner William Wells who, in 1749, had left England for the island of St Kitts to seek his fortune in the sugar trade.
Five years later, Wells was become wealthy and was satisfactorily married, but, before long, tragedy struck when his wife and small children, including his son and heir, died. William didn't marry again. But he did have at least six more children by various house-slaves.
Nathaniel's first years were lived as a slave, but when he was four years old, his father had him baptised, effectively freeing him from slavery, and when he was 10, William sent him to school in London. Just five years later, William died. He chose one of these children as his heir - "my natural and dear son Nathaniel Wells, whose mother is my woman Juggy". William's will also freed Nathaniel's mother Juggy and three other house-slaves and they all received financial bequests.
Nathaniel remained in England to continue his schooling and social education and when he reached 21 he inherited the bulk of his father's estate. He moved to Pall Mall, and married 20-year old Harriet Este, whose well-conected father is thought to have been chaplain to King George III. By the year of his marriage in 1801, Wells had property worth an estimated £200,000.
At this time, he bought Piercefield House from Colonel Mark Wood, after agreeing to buy it for £90,000 over dinner. Piercefield, a famous and elegant estate, attracted visitors from all over the country and put Nathaniel at the centre of fashionable society. A letter from Wells' great grandson (Country Life, April 6, 1956) accompanied by a picture of the house as rebuilt by Soane relates how the deal was concluded over dinner 'after which the host and his guest changed places, and the new owner then invited his former host to take port'.
NB: This is possibly the ideal property transaction that Nelson refers to, and desired to emulate, in his letters when purchasing Merton in 1801.
Nathaniel added to Piercefield until it reached almost 3,000 acres. Wood stated :- "Mr Wells is a West Indian of large fortune, a man of very gentlemanly manners, but so much a man of colour as to be little removed from a Negro". His colour was well documented at the time - "a Creole of very deep colour" - but the comments were not derogatory - he was considered different, but not inferior - as he would have been just half a century later. Had he returned to St Kitts, however, he wouldn't even have had a vote because of his colour.
Nathaniel continued to own slaves even after abolition in 1833 - to qualify for reparation for loss of "property" he held on to his slaves for another four years. But by that time he had sold off two of his three plantations, due to the decline in the Caribbean sugar industry. In Britain his fortunes were changing, too. After Piercefield was found to have dry rot, he rented out the house and moved to Bath, where in 1851 he died of a fever in old age. Piercefield was eventually sold to the Clay family, who owned it until 1921.
On the death of Harriet, Nathaniel married the Esther (listed in the Memorial below.) In his lifetime he fathered 22 children. Nathaniel Wells' memorial relates the following:
"Sacred to the memory of Nathaniel Wells of Piercefield, Esq, a Magistrate and Deputy Lieutenant of the county of Monmouth,
who died at Bath May 13th, 1852, aged 72 years.
Also of Esther, widow of the above, who died on the 1st day of June, 1871, aged 67 years.
R.I.P."
What a fascinating life, and what contrasting and contradictory sentiments it arouses.
Incidentally, the information above comes entirely from online resources, and although I've made a couple of easy to check corrections here, may be subject to revision. The voracity of Wiki and other online resources (mentioned on another thread) is interesting. Personally, I find the web an incredibly useful and fruitful place to begin when researching some of the more obscure, difficult to trace characters. Many a Google has led to a journey of confirmation or otherwise, and fine-tuning at the British Library etc. Google Books in particular has proved to be a revelatory resource and a joy to explore.
Having said that, the Rev. Charles Este, described by Nelson to Lambton as 'your worthy good father', remains a little too obscure for my liking. Any further information or pointers on the life and works of this esteemed gentleman would be gratefully received.