Slaves Tin Mines and Anglican Churches The Reverend Walter Trevelyan in 1827

Nettlecombe Court and its Church

In 1827 the Reverend Walter Trevelyan is a busy man. His younger brother the Reverend George Trevelyan has just died and so he has had to take over as vicar of St Mary’s which does, however, come with the convenience of being right next door to the Trevelyan family seat at Nettlecombe Court in Somerset. But Walter has taken on other new obligations as well. His elderly father who will die a year later aged ninety-three has just passed to him responsibility for administering the Cornish tin mines at Perran which formed the original basis of the family’s wealth and from which part of the country the Trevelyans (then the Trevilians) originated. They still have control of a parish there with a couple of churches. All of this is present in the black-bordered letter below addressed to Helston in Cornwall where two families of long-established bankers and lawyers look after the Trevelyans’ affairs; I think of them as offering what we would now call a concierge service overseeing tin mines, church repairs, and whatever else is asked of them.

But the Trevelyans had found another source of wealth when Walter’s father married Louisa Marianne Simond, daughter of Peter Simond, a London merchant who bequeathed to her his estates and slaves in Grenada. On her marriage, those properties passed to the Trevelyan family and when slavery was abolished five Trevelyan family members including Walter’s children claimed compensation of £34 000 (roughly £3.5 million today) in respect of 1004 enslaved people in Grenada. The Reverend Walter died in 1830 and his 1829 will is quite clear: his share of the Grenada estates are to pass to his two sons “with the negroes, rights and appurtenances both moveable and immoveable quick and dead to the same belonging”.

In 2023, the journalist Laura Trevelyan, a descendant of the slave-owning Trevelyans, travelled to Grenada with other family members to make an apology and a gift of £100 000 as initial reparation.

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Transcription

Datelined:    Bath Nov 28 1827

Addressed to:   John Vivian Esq. Messrs. Grylls & Vivian Helston 

Dear Sir

Owing to a press of business (relating in part to taking the Living of Nettlecombe vacated by my late worthy & lamented Brother) wch took me first into the West, to attend the last sad ceremonies, & afterwards to London, I have not been able to set down to answer your last letter, wch I have left at Henbury [Bristol] ‘till now.

I am glad to find that you have agreed with Meldrum for the lands fallen into hand by the death of Mrs Fenell, & that he has been able to pay up so much of his arrears. He is an industrious & hard striving man & I hope will thrive at last.

What you say of the mines is very satisfactory, & I hope the present good prospect will be confirmed & realized, & perhaps you will soon be sending me some of the Dues; & be so good, at the same time, let me know how things prosper both above & below ground at Perran.

I have the pleasure to tell you that about two months ago my Father was so kind as to make over to me by a Deed of gift, all his lands & rights at & about Perran & also the [Church of England] living at Mawgan so that in future I shall sign the Leases &c myself.

I am glad to hear that the body of the little church at St Martin [a second church in the parish of Mawgan] is now likely to the restored by Sir Rd. [Richard] Vyvyan having taken it up so effectually, as appears by his subscription of £100. Mr Gregor’s (who I believe has no particular interest in the Parish) is a very handsome donation. I beg you will put me down for £25 & pay the money when wanted, but I wish it to be with the proviso that the fine & rare old carved seats may be carefully attended to & replaced. I look upon them as very curious; and open seats are now introduced into all the new Churches & much recommended by those who have the disposal of the [government] monies given or voted for the increase of Churches [following the Church Building Act of 1818]] – but I dare say that Sir Rd. Vyvyan, who has a good deal of taste, has already attended to this. I shall be obliged to you to touch on the subject of St Martin when you write, & to tell me as far as you can, what is proposed to be done, both in point of plan wh. I hope will be respectable, & also how the cash is to be rais’d, wch. I suppose will be done in part by rate. Mention also if you please, Mr Black & his family, & the House at Mawgan wch. I hope is made comfortable for them with my best regards &cc &cc

I shall be glad to be remembered too, to my old Friend Mr Grylls & all my friends at Helston, & I remain dear Sir yours sincerely & obliged    Walter Trevelyan

I am happy to say that my father is very well, except having a cold wch. is rather more troublesome than usual; he does not, he says, see any reason why he shd. subscribe to the new line of road as communicated in the letter received yesterday. 

 

1827 The Reverend Walter Trevelyan

Trevelyan, Laura   A Very British Family. The Trevelyans and Their World (2006)

Wikipedia: Commissioners’ Church A Commissioners' church, also known as a Waterloo church and Million Act church, is an Anglican church in England or Wales built with money voted by Parliament as a result of the Church Building Act 1818 and the Church Building Act 1824.