Quick Facts
Biography
William Beckford of Somerley (? – 1799) was a Jamaican slave-owner and writer.
Life
The illegitimate son of Richard Beckford, who was the brother of Alderman Beckford, William was part of the influential Beckford family. He inherited four sugarcane plantations, which he personally supervised, but lost his holdings, returning to England in 1777 as a debtor with an intention of remaking his fortune and reputation. In 1790, whilst imprisoned in the Fleet Prison for debt, he published A Descriptive Account of the Island of Jamaica, a two-volume description of contemporary life in Jamaica from a planter's point of view.
Beckford brought to Jamaica the artist George Robertson, who produced what have been described as "the most aesthetically ambitious views of Jamaica published in the eighteenth century." Beckford's slavery-derived fortune also enabled him to host "the most sumptuous banquets since Henry VIII" and hire Mozart as his son's piano teacher.