George Edward Doney: Honouring a remarkable journey and enduring legacy amid slavery, by Gift Luckson
George Edward Doney (1758–1809) is believed to have been born in Gambia around 1758.
Enslavement
He was transported to Virginia as a young boy and sold into slavery. He came to Watford, Hertfordshire in around 1765 as a servant for the Earl of Essex at Cassiobury House, continuing to serve the family for 44 years.
Abolitionist Movement
He achieved respect and status at Cassiobury House and was baptised at St Mary’s Church, Watford on 1 August 1774.
George Capel-Coningsby, 5th Earl of Essex and the Countess of Essex were among the list of subscribers to the autobiography of Olaudah Equiano, a formerly enslaved person who was influential in the abolitionist movement.
An unfinished painting from c.1809, Harvest Home, by J. M. W. Turner on his second visit to Cassiobury, depicts a black servant at a harvest dinner in one of the barns at Cassiobury House.
Black figures have featured in many Western paintings but were typically shown at the edge of the canvas as peripheral, subordinate characters; Turner’s positioning of the servant in the main group of people is thought to indicate that this was a high-ranking servant in the Cassiobury household, and this is likely Doney himself.
Death and Legacy
Doney died a freeman in 1809, two years after the British abolition of the Atlantic slave trade. His burial at St Mary’s Church occurred on 8 September 1809, and a handsome headstone with an original poetic epigraph was erected in the churchyard.
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Inscription:
IN MEMORY OF GEORGE E.D DONEY,
A Native of Virginia,
(who for 44 Years discharged
the duties of a faithful honest servant to the EARLS OF ESSEX), he died 3rd September, 1809.
Poor Edward blessed the pirate bark which bore
His captive infancy from Gambia’s shore
To where in willing servitude he won
Those blest rewards for every duty done –
Kindness and praise, the wages of the heart;
None else to him could joy or pride impart,
And gave him, born a pagan and a slave,
A freeman’s charter and a Christian’s grave.
The monument has now been given Grade II listed status by English Heritage, to mark its importance to the slave trade and its abolition.
The honour coincided with the Bicentenary commemorations of the 1807 Abolition Act.
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