Elizabeth Vassall

The Vassall family could trace their Jamaican ties back to when the English first occupied Jamaica in 1655, but they were also colonists in North America and Barbados from the 17th century.   Elizabeth’s first husband, Sir Godfrey Webster, owned Battle Abbey in Kent. Her second husband was Lord Holland of Holland House. As Lady Holland, Elizabeth developed a key political role as the hostess of the Holland House set. Their circle included a host of Whig politicians, the Dukes of Bedford and of Norfolk; and literary figures such as  Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Lord Byron, and later, Charles Dickens. Elizabeth was complicit in Lord Holland’s opposition to the abolition of enslavement in the 1830s, and successfully claimed for compensation when slavery was abolished in 1834. (The Cabinet decision to award £20m compensation to enslavers was taken at Holland House after dinner.) Extensive correspondence with Jamaican agents during enslavement and the apprenticeship period that followed, allows us glimpses into the lives of the people the Hollands enslaved, including Mrs. Phillis, Elizabeth’s ‘foster sister’- whose mother had nursed her as a baby; and a carpenter who had caricatures of Lord Holland pinned to the wall of his home