Philip Thomas Lee

Life 1738 or 1739 - 1778

Matriculation year 1757

Place connected Virginia & Maryland, North America

Born in Maryland, Philip was sent to England to be educated: first at Eton, and then at Christ's. He was appointed as a member of the Council for Maryland (of which his father was President) in 1771. He died in 1778, three years after the American War of Independence began.

Connection to enslavement

Phillip Thomas Lee was the second son of Richard Lee of Blenheim (who outlived Philip, dying in 1787).¹ ²

At his death, Philip was recorded as owning eight enslaved people, as part of his estate apparently worth a net of £5293 0s 7d.³

His father, Richard, owned multiple properties in Virginia, and Prince Charles County, Maryland, including 4,293 acres (2,200 acres of which he had acquired in Virginia by marriage), in addition to estates of unspecified size in Gloucester County and Prince Charles County, which he had inherited from his father.² He was also assessed for 900 acres of land in Montgomery County, Maryland, in 1783.²

At his death in 1787, Richard owned 76 enslaved people, in addition to 6,400 acres of land in Virginia and Maryland.²

Overall, both Philip and his father owned enslaved people, and his father owned large tracts of land in Virginia and Maryland. It is therefore likely that the wealth used to send Philip to England - to study at Eton and then Christ's - was derived at least in part from the ownership of plantations and enslaved people.

Philip Thomas Lee appears to have been the second cousin of George Fairfax Lee, another Christ's alumnus appearing on this database,⁴ as they shared a great-grandfather, Colonel Richard Lee (1647-1714).⁵

References

¹ Venn, J.A., ed. (1947) "Lee, Phillip Thomas". Alumni Cantabrigienses (Part 2). Vol.4, Cambridge University Press - via Internet Archive. ² Papenfuse, Edward C., et al, A Biographical Dictionary of the Maryland Legislature 1635-1789, 2 Vols. (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1979, 1985), p. 528-529 [accessed via the Maryland State Archives, as Volume 426 of the Archives of Maryland series: https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc2900/sc2908/000001/000426/html/am426--528.html, accessed 14th August 2022]. ³ Papenfuse, Edward C., et al, A Biographical Dictionary of the Maryland Legislature 1635-1789, 2 Vols. (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1979, 1985), p. 527-528 [accessed via the Maryland State Archives, as Volume 426 of the Archives of Maryland series: https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc2900/sc2908/000001/000426/html/am426--527.html, accessed 14th August 2022]. ⁴ Lee, Edmund Jennings, Lee of Virginia, 1642-1892: Biographical and Genealogical Sketches of the Descendants of Colonel Richard Lee (Philadelphia: Franklin Printing Company, 1895), p. 302-304. ⁵ Lee, Edmund Jennings, Lee of Virginia, 1642-1892: Biographical and Genealogical Sketches of the Descendants of Colonel Richard Lee (Philadelphia: Franklin Printing Company, 1895), p. 74-75.

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