Lucretia Moultrie Kelsall: From Revolutionary America to Fareham

Lucretia Moultrie Kelsall’s life connects Fareham with the American Revolution, British Florida and the Bahamas.

She was born in South Carolina in the early 1770s into the prominent Moultrie family. Her father, Dr John Moultrie, was a physician, planter and politician who became Lieutenant-Governor of British East Florida. During the American Revolution he remained loyal to the British Crown. Other members of the family chose the opposite side: his brother William Moultrie became a major-general in the American Continental Army, and Fort Moultrie in South Carolina was named after him. The Revolution therefore divided the Moultrie family itself.

Lucretia later married John Kelsall in London in 1791. The Kelsalls were another Loyalist family from South Carolina who had lost their position after the Revolution and established themselves in the Bahamas. John became an important figure there, serving in the Assembly and as a vice-admiralty judge.

The family’s prosperity was also tied to slavery. Both the Moultries and the Kelsalls owned plantations and enslaved people. One surviving document records Lucretia herself later manumitting an enslaved woman named Statira, describing her long and faithful service.

After her husband’s death, Lucretia returned to Britain with her children. Her descendants became closely connected with the Fareham area, and several generations of the family can be traced locally. She died in Fareham on 20 December 1835 and was buried at St Peter & St Paul six days later.

Her memorial therefore tells a much larger story than that of one Fareham family. It links the parish with a family divided by the American Revolution, the collapse of British rule in parts of North America, Loyalist migration through Florida and the Bahamas, and eventually a new family home in Hampshire.