Family and Education

b. c.1661, 2nd s. of Owen Lloyd of the Abbey, Boyle, co. Roscommon, Ireland, by Elizabeth, da. of Richard Fitzgerald.  educ. Trinity, Dublin 10 May 1677, aged 15; L. Inn. 1681.  m. 24 July 1690, Mary, da. and coh. of Richard Guy, planter, of Jamaica, 2s. 2da.  suc. bro. Thomas to Crowghan, co. Roscommon, abt. 1699.1

Offices Held

Clerk of the crown and peace, Jamaica 1690; member, Jamaican Assembly 1691; councillor, Jamaican Council 1692–98; judge of admiralty, Jamaica 1693–5; c.j. Jamaica 1695–98.2

Biography

Lloyd’s grandfather was Welsh, but his father was living in Boyle by 1659 and may also have owned land in Barnane, co. Tipperary. Possibly the ‘Captain Owen Lloyd’ included in the general pardon of Parliamentarians in 1661, Lloyd’s father died in 1665 leaving a young family. After attending university in Dublin and acquiring some legal training, Lloyd next appears in 1689 petitioning for the post of clerk of the crown and peace in Jamaica. He was by this time a successful colonist of some years’ standing, and was also wealthy enough to purchase Irish lands forfeited under the Williamite confiscations. He had the recommendation of Gilbert Heathcote* among others for his post of clerk of the crown, but his behaviour in the Jamaican assembly the next year did not endear him to the governor of Jamaica, Lord Inchiquin, who complained that Lloyd was one of a group ‘who have made themselves heroes of faction and whose advice tends to the destruction of all government’. Lloyd had more success with the next governor, Sir William Beeston, who requested that Lloyd be appointed to the council, and under Beeston he rose to become chief justice of the island. Lloyd’s military rank dates from the time of the French attack on Jamaica in 1694, when he took a leading role in the island’s defence. He and Jamaica’s attorney-general, William Brodrick, later fell out with Beeston and they returned to England in June 1698, pursued across the Atlantic by letters from the governor informing the Board of Trade that any accusations the pair made against him were unfounded and an effect of ‘their ambition and malice’. Lloyd, asserted Beeston, aimed at replacing him as governor. Heathcote, too, seems to have withdrawn his early support of Lloyd as he gave information to the board that Lloyd and Brodrick were ‘very troublesome men to the quiet of Jamaica’. Lloyd in fact waited until 1699 before attempting to blacken Beeston’s name, alleging that he had mismanaged the defence against the French, but without noticeable effect on the governor’s position.3

Lloyd remained a plantation owner but does not seem to have returned to Jamaica. In 1708 he successfully contested New Shoreham, a borough with which he had no previous connexion. He was classed as a Whig in a list compiled early in 1708. Surviving a petition by the inhabitants of Shoreham against his election, Lloyd was generally inactive in this Parliament, being given leave of absence for his health on 20 Feb. 1708. He was a teller on 7 Apr. 1709 in favour of the Speaker leaving the Chair during deliberations on the bill to establish a regulated company trading to Africa. He voted for the naturalization of the Palatines in 1709, and outside Parliament took an active interest in schemes to settle some 200 Palatine families in Jamaica, suggesting several modifications to such a plan to the Board of Trade in August 1709. The board also sought his advice in 1710 on the measures necessary to defend Jamaica from attack. On 18 Feb. 1710 he was included among those ordered to draft a bill to settle the African trade, in which his Jamaican involvement gave him an obvious interest. In this session he voted for the impeachment of Sacheverell.4

In the 1710 election Lloyd successfully contested Ashburton in partnership with a local Whig Roger Tuckfield, and was incorrectly classed as a Tory on the ‘Hanover list’ of the 1710 Parliament. He was joined by Robert Lloyd II in this Parliament, thus making the record of his activity difficult to discern. He may have been the ‘Mr Lloyd’ who told in favour of adding a clause to the bill for the repeal of the act prohibiting the import of French wines, which would allow foreigners to import wine at the same rates as British merchants after the end of the war (10 Mar.). Shortly after this, on 17 Mar., Lloyd was unseated on petition. He died in 1714, leaving a substantial estate in Jamaica and Ireland to his eldest son, which he expected would also produce £12,000 for his younger children. He named his surviving brother, Dr Owen Lloyd, professor of Divinity at Trinity College, Dublin, as one of his trustees.5

Ref Volumes: 1690-1715

Author: Sonya Wynne

Notes

• 1. Al. Dub. 506; Nat. Lib. Ire. Genealogical Office Ms 168, p. 247; L. Inn Adm. i. 329; Caribbeana ed. Oliver, iii. 338; PCC 54 Aston.
• 2. CSP Col. 1689–92, pp. 282, 471, 710; 1693–6, pp. 103, 469, 621; 1697–8, p. 236.
• 3. Genealogical Office Ms 168, p. 247; Census of Ire. 1659 ed. Pender, 317, 585; CSP Ire. 1660–2, p. 188; Index to Prerogative Wills of Ire. ed. Vicars, 288; CSP Dom. 1689–90, pp. 208, 249; CSP Col. 1689–92, pp. 115, 282, 523, 710; 1693–6, pp. 332–3; 1697–8, pp. 321, 328, 355, 360, 511; 1699, pp. 170, 243, 264, 277; 1700, p. 61; 1708–9, pp. 60–61; J. O’Hart, Irish and Anglo-Irish Landed Gentry, 519.
• 4. CSP Col. 1708–9, pp. 437, 440–2; 1710–11, pp. 98, 125, 127; Jnl. Commrs. of Trade and Plantations, 1709–15, pp. 19, 58–59, 83, 149, 168, 215, 217–18.
• 5. PCC 54 Aston.