He was born the son of Jacob Ricketts and Hannah Poyntz on the Midgham plantation, Jamaica (named after Midgham, Berkshire, the family seat of the Poyntz). He succeeded his father in 1756 to the plantation, which was sold to the Woollery family c.1772. He married in 1774 Sophie Watts, whose sister Amelia was the mother of Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1812 to 1827. Ricketts also had mixed race half-siblings on Jamaica. [2]
He was appointed Governor of Tobago in 1793.[3] On Lord Liverpool's recommendation he was elevated to Governor of Barbados in 1794, a position he held until his resignation in 1800 because of ill health.[4] He then returned to England and died in Liverpool later that year.
^His father Jacob Ricketts' will makes provision for a boy referred to as "the free Mulatto James" to receive an education up to the age of fifteen, then an apprenticeship to a trade and on completion of his time £300 "to set him up"; it also makes a conditional bequest to the expected child of an enslaved woman named Ancilla which, "if a Mulatto", was to be enfranchised at birth and receive £100 when twenty-one years old. National Archives (UK), Will of Jacob Ricketts; PROB 11/826/325
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