Christopher Codrington was born in Barbados c. 1668, the eldest son of Christopher Codrington and his wife Gertrude. The Codrington Plantations were one of the largest in Barbados and the family was extremely wealthy. He had a younger brother, who suffered from mental disability.[1] Codrington never married, although he had a natural mixed-race son, William, from a relationship with a Black woman named Mauldline Morange. William was left £500 in his father's will and became a plantation owner in the colony of Jamaica.[2]
Career
Later described by Edmund Burke as "by far ... the most distinguished ornament Barbados ever produced", Codrington was academically talented; educated in England, he studied at Christ Church, Oxford, and was elected to All Souls College in 1690. Part of an intellectual circle that included Charles Boyle and Joseph Addison, he became known as an avid book collector.[3]
In 1693, he returned to the West Indies to take part in an unsuccessful attack on the French possession of Martinique, before serving in Flanders during the Nine Years' War. Having fought with distinction at Huy and Namur in 1695, William III gave him a commission as captain in the English Army's 1st Regiment of Foot Guards.[4] This was often a largely honorary post, since only 16 of the nominal 24 companies were actually formed; under the practice known as double-ranking, Guards officers held a second, higher army position and Codrington ranked as a lieutenant colonel.[5]
His father died shortly after the Peace of Ryswick ended the Nine Years War in 1697, and he was appointed Governor of the Leeward Islands in 1699. He became embroiled in a number of local disputes and accusations of abuse of power, which were investigated by Parliament. He was exonerated just before the War of the Spanish Succession began in 1702; after successfully retaking Saint Kitts from the French, he resigned after a failed attack on Guadeloupe in 1703, which severely damaged his health. His attempts to re-enter politics proved unsuccessful and he spent the rest of his life in retirement on his Barbadian estates.[6][7]
After his death on 7 April 1710, Codrington's body was brought to England and buried on 19 June that year in All Souls Chapel; his will left £10,000 and £6,000 worth of books to endow the Christopher Codrington library in All Souls College, which includes his statue by Sir Henry Cheere. In January 2021, his name was removed from the library due to Codrington's ownership of slaves, and a plaque was placed outside commemorating the enslaved workers who were held on his plantations.[8]
^"Newsletter No. 131"(PDF). The Antigua & Barbuda High Commission. January–February 2009. Archived from the original(PDF) on 26 July 2011. Retrieved 4 April 2011.
