Anne Brodbelt née Anne Penoyre (1 January 1751 – 6 September 1827) was a British – Jamaican letter writer and social observer.

Life

Brodbelt was born in

Spanish Town Spanish Town (Jamaican Patois: Spain) is the capital and the largest town in the Parishes of Jamaica, parish of St. Catherine, Jamaica, St. Catherine in the historic county of Middlesex, Jamaica, Middlesex, Jamaica. It was the Spanish and Briti ...

Colony of Jamaica The Crown Colony of Jamaica and Dependencies was a British colony from 1655, when it was Invasion of Jamaica (1655), captured by the The Protectorate, English Protectorate from the Spanish Empire. Jamaica became a British Empire, British colon ...

, into a family long established there, and she married a physician named Francis Rigby Brodbelt, also of a West Indian family who served as doctors, members of the assembly or judiciary, or as soldiers for many generations in the colonial West Indies. Both the Penoyres and Brodbelts owned plantations in Jamaica. She is known today because she wrote long descriptive letters to her children who were being educated in England, away from the slave-owning plantocracy in the West Indies. They describe her life and local events. Her husband died in 1795 and a memorial by John Bacon was made for him. Brodbelt relocated to

Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

, where she died in 1827.

Legacy

Her letters were passed down the family, and they were finally published in 1938 by Geraldine Mozley who was her great-great-granddaughter. Also a member of council and a medical doctor, her son Francis was left property in Jamaica, landed estates in England, property in the City of London, and £120,000, by a number of benefactors including Anne's relative, Thomas Stallard Penoyre of the Moor, a merchant and apothecary of London and a member of the land-owning gentry of

Herefordshire Herefordshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England, bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh ...

. As a condition of the Penoyre inheritance, Francis changed his name in 1824 to Francis Rigby Brodbelt Stallard Penoyre, and he relocated to Herefordshire, London, and Bath.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brodbelt, Anne 1751 births 1827 deaths People from Spanish Town 18th-century British letter writers Women letter writers 19th-century British letter writers People from Bath, Somerset 18th-century Jamaican writers 19th-century British writers