Identity area
Type of entity
Authorized form of name
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
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Description area
Dates of existence
History
A tontine is an investment plan in which participants buy shares in a common fund and receive an annuity that increases every time a participant dies, with the entire fund going to the final survivor or to those who survive after a specified time.
Stephen Drew, formerly of the island of Jamaica but then of Stoketon, near Saltash, Cornwall, was the agent of the tontine on the Dry Sugar Work Estate (1435 acres), in St Catherine's parish on the Rio Cobre River, one mile from Spanish Town. The tontine was to begin in May or June 1805, but Drew did not reach Jamaica until November 1805. In December 1806 the trustees gave power of attorney to Messrs Pinnock & Shand of Jamaica, to proceed against Drew, as his management was unsatisfactory. By September 1808 the estate was in the hands of a receiver; in November 1808 Pinnock estimated the value of negroes and stock at £10,800, exclusive of the freehold. Probably by about that time Drew had received £18-19,000, the trustees retaining little more than £1000. From 1809 Pinnock & Shand acted as managers of the estate, being occupied in selling the negroes, and trying to sell the land. In 1821 the tontine was still not wound up, and a bill was pending in Chancery against the trustees, for an account of the estate.