Abstract
Frank Utten Purchas was born into a family which had a long history of benefitting from slavery. He was born in Jamaica where both his paternal and maternal lines owned slaves who were forced to work on their sugar plantations. Purchas left this life behind him, however, trained in medicine in Edinburgh and became a respected and committed physician in Wales. He married into a prominent local family, and lived through a time that saw significant political, religious and medical changes. He contributed to the founding of an infirmary that exists to this day although he himself did not live to see its opening.
Highlights
Frank Utten Purchas was born into a family which had a long history of benefitting from slavery
European interest in the West Indies began during the 16th century and made many merchants and bankers wealthy during the following three centuries owing to the lucrative sugar and coffee plantations created there, and to the slave trade
Over the 50 years, the number of whites remained constant while the number of Africans rose to 74,000 as the slave trade boomed. [3,4,] The wealth and climate attracted settlers, providing them with a comfortable lifestyle and fortunes that enabled plantation owners to send their sons back to Britain to receive the classical education that prepared them for entry to university and the professions
Summary
Frank Utten Purchas was born into a family which had a long history of benefitting from slavery. On June 25 1891, the wedding of Dr Frank Utten Purchas and Elizabeth Pryce-Jones took place in Newtown, Montgomeryshire, in the county of Powys. In 1795 the marriage took place in Surrey, England, of Thomas Todd and Jamaica-born Elizabeth Rochefort Utten.
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