General Notes: Journal of the Institute of Jamaica
Volume 1, Number 6, Page 240-241 of
MEMOIR OF THE HON. WILLIAM BANCROFT ESPEUT.
William Bancroft Espeut was born at Sabina Park near Kingston in Jamaica, on the 21st day of July, 1843. He was the eldest son of Peter Alexander Espeut, Custos of St Thomas, by his second wife Marianne Augusta, daughter of Dr Edward Nathaniel Bancroft, F.R.S. His education was completed at Ipswich in England, and on his return to Jamaica he entered service in the Colonial Bank in Kingston. He subsequently entered the Colonial Secretary's office which he left on the death of his father in 1868. While in this service he acquired much information into the ways of government and the official life and duties, which was of great used to him afterwards in his political career.
He married on 25th of October, 1870, Bessie Adela, elder daughter of Lt. Colonel Armit, Royal Engineers, by whom he had three sons and three daughters.
After his marriage he settled in Portland where he acquired a sugar estate and considerable lands adjoining. He devoted many years to the cultivation of the sugar cane and was one of the pioneers of banana cultivation on an extensive scale. His active mind would not allow him to rest content with the modes of manufacture of sugar around him, and he became the patentee of improved methods. The difficulties of the supplier of labour and low prices forced him to abandon the cultivation of sugar cane. He personally planned and supervised the construction of a tram line connecting the outlying portions of his estates with the sea, a work which was creditably executed.
On the 27th day of August, 1886, he was elected unopposed a member of the Legislative Council for the parishes of Portland and St Thomas, and in March 1889, was re-elected unopposed by the same constituency. On his first election he promised his constituents to get their dangerous rivers bridged and the benefits of the Railroad extended through the island. These promises he fulfilled. It was in his position as a public and representative man that his great talent and ability showed themselves. As a legislator he was very successful and of all subjects which came before the Legislature he had a complete and most intelligent grasp. He understood thoroughly the finances of the country and rendered invaluable service to the country in placing the difficult question of immigration, postal service, and the money order system, education including industrial education, and the botanical department in an intelligible light before the country. To his ability and energy is due on the establishment of the Institute of Jamaica, of which he was a Governor, on its present basis. As a debater in the Legislative Council he had not his superior and he was about the best informed on the practice of Parliament. To his energies and to him alone is due the bridging of the rivers in Portland and St Thomas; he had persistently to struggle against the timidity of Government to incur debt and a lukewarm support from his colleagues. If but for this work alone, he deserved the gratitude of his country.
He was in every respect a brilliant man, a charming companion, a good friend and a most loving and devoted husband and father.
It was not surprising that a man who stood intellectually so far above his average countrymen should have aroused their jealousy and in some sad cases their hate; but he was much appreciated in England where he was a Fellow of the Linnean Society, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and a member of such clubs as the St Stephen's, the Conservative and the Savage Club. After his retirement to England in 1891 the high mark of appreciation of the man was soon shown by his being elected a member of the Parliamentary Committee of the St Stephen's Club. During his short residence in London he was always busying himself in the interests of Jamaica, and in the assembly of delegates from the Chambers of Commerce of the Empire held last summer in London, he did not fail as representative of the Institute of Jamaica to make his mark and to attract the favourable attention of Sir Charles Tupper, the Canadian statesman.
His useful life was brought to an end at an early age in London on the 23rd day of October, 1892, after six days illness, by an attack of pneumonia.
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http://www.green.gen.name/espeut/D1.htm#c1734 