Sir Thomas Swinnerton Dyer, 9th Baronet Dyer

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 2 Oct 1878

Notes:

He was a captain in the Royal Artillery, and a justice of the peace for Surrey.

"Sir Thomas Dyer resided chiefly at Brompton Hall, Middlesex, which he inherited from the Hallidays in the reign of George IV. It was a fine old Elizabethan house, panelled throughout with oak, containing secret rooms and passages, one leading to the Thames, surrounded by five acres of garden, and approached by a drive through immense iron gates up an avenue of elms. The South Kensington and Brompton Station on the Underground Railway now occupies the site, which Sir Thomas Swinnerton Dyer was obliged by the Railway Act of Parliament to sell greatly below its value. 'Dyerhaven,' Uckfield, Sussex, Sir Thomas built when Brompton Hall was demolished. Westcroft Park, Chobham, and 14 Redcliffe Square were his other residences." [E. H. Martin, citation details below.]

Sir married Mary Anne Clement on 7 Feb 1832 in Woolwich, London, England. Mary (daughter of Col. John Albeck Clement and Margaret Anne Le Maistre) died on 9 Feb 1880; was buried in Brompton Cemetery, London, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Frederick Carr Swinnerton Dyer was born on 6 Mar 1837; was christened on 4 Apr 1837 in Chobham, Surrey, England; died on 12 Nov 1896.

Notes:

"He was Major General, Royal Artillery, and was present in the following actions, viz. Badajoz, Vittoria, St. Sebastian, Pyrenees, Nivelle, Nive, Orthes, Toulouse, for which he received medals. Created Commander of the Bath, 2 Jan. 1814., and Knight Commander 12 Ap., 1815. He was killed 2 July, 1816, in attempting to stop two runaway horses attached to a carriage containing two ladies, on the Common Woolwich." [E. H. Martin, citation details below.]

Sir married Jane Halliday on 14 Mar 1795 in Charlton, Kent, England. Jane (daughter of Simon Halliday and Jane Bythesea) died on 11 Mar 1851. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Baptised: 4 Jul 1744

Notes:

He is described as "of Park Street" (in London) and as "of the Treasury." He was involved for many years in intricate machinations in connection with his father-in-law Richard Smith's much-litigated-over estate, frequently to the detriment of his sister-in-law, the poet and novelist Charlotte (Turner) Smith (1749-1806). From 1784 to 1788, his older brother, the sixth Dyer baronet, John Swinnerton Dyer (1738-1801) was a trustee of the Smith estate.

He is described by Judith Phillips Stanton, editor of The Collected Letters of Charlotte Smith (citation details below), as "a troublesome brother-in-law instrumental in delaying the settlement of (Richard Smith's) will." In a letter to William Davies, 24 Mar 1797, Charlotte Smith herself describes Thomas Dyer as "the Man who has been one of [Charlotte's children's] principal robbers and torments to them & me". (And in a letter written on 8 Dec 1791, she describes his brother John Swinnerton Dyer, the sixth baronet, as "that detestable cream colourd Dyer.")

Thomas married Mary Smith on 29 Nov 1768 in St. Margaret, Westminster, Middlesex, England. Mary (daughter of Richard Smith and Elizabeth) was born on 12 Dec 1740; died in Aug 1775. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

She predeceased her wealthy slaveowner father Richard Smith, but her second husband, Thomas Dyer, profited well from his involvement in the lengthy settlement of Smith's estate. Meanwhile, her daughter by her first husband William Berney, Dorothy Elizabeth Berney (d. 1842), was one of Smith's eventual heirs and was one of those slaveowners compensated by the British government in 1837 when slavery was abolished in the UK.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: of Brompton Hall, London, England
• Alternate birth: of Westcombe Park, Kent, England

Notes:

A banker of London.

Simon married Jane Bythesea. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Sir married Elizabeth Jones on 25 Sep 1735 in St. Margaret, Westminster, Middlesex, England. Elizabeth (daughter of Maj. (unknown) Jones and (Unknown) Starkie) died between 13 Jan 1777 and 6 Aug 1777. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Her will mentions a grandfather named Edward Starkie, from whom she evidently inherited lands in Kensington.

Notes:

From Wikipedia (accessed 2 Sep 2020):

Richard Smith was an English merchant in the West Indies trade, and director of the East India Company.

Smith was born in Whitehaven, then in Cumberland, or Appleby, Westmorland. He was a merchant and slave owner in the West Indies. When he moved back from Barbados, where he was a plantation owner, to London, he brought five enslaved people with him.

Smith's business assets included a warehouse in Cheapside, and Lys Farm near Bramdean in Hampshire, once used for cattle-breeding. Having bought the farm in 1769, he began to transform it into a gentlemanly estate, Brockwood Park, building a country house; a wing was added to the house in 1774, and at the end of his life it was a family home. It is now the site of the Krishnamurti Centre, as Brockwood Park.

Smith's will left a number of enslaved persons, by name, to his grandchildren. The drafting of the will was intended to keep a substantial estate in trust for Smith's grandchildren; but the effect was otherwise. It was the subject of Chancery proceedings until 1813, when the estate was much diminished. This case has been suggested as one of the inspirations for Jarndyce and Jarndyce in Charles Dickens's Bleak House.

Benjamin Smith, the younger son, bought sugar plantations in 1781, to provide income from the trust arising from the will. Covered by the will was the advowson for St Mary's Church, Islington, which Richard Smith had purchased in 1771.

Richard married Elizabeth. Elizabeth died before Jul 1766. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

When she married Richard Smith, she was the widow of Nathaniel Crowe or Barbados.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Between 1709 and 1710, of Yard House, Somerset, England

Notes:

Member of Parliament for Taunton, 15 Apr 1754 to 8 Jun 1754. Sheriff of Somerset, 1746-47.

Burke's Commoners (citation details below) says, evidently incorrectly, that he died before taking his seat in Parliament.

John married Mary Welman in 1737. Mary (daughter of Isaac Welman and Elizabeth) died in 1792. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

“A magistrate of the county of Wilts.” [A genealogical and heraldic history of the commoners of Great Britain and Ireland, citation details below]

John married Jane Leir. Jane (daughter of Rev. Thomas Leir and Mary Freke) was born in 1707; died in 1782. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]