George Edward Doney is believed to have been born around 1758 in Gambia. He was transported to Virginia as a young boy and sold into slavery. He is believed to have come to Watford in around 1765 as a servant for the Earl of Essex and the Capel family and was based at Cassiobury House. He achieved respect and status at Cassiobury House and was included in a painting of Cassiobury Park in around 1748.
An unfinished painting from c.1809, 'Harvest Home', painted by J.M.W. Turner on his second visit to Cassiobury, depicts a black servant at a harvest dinner in one of the barns at Cassiobury House. Black figures have featured in many Western paintings, but were typically shown at the edge of the canvas as peripheral, subordinate characters; Turner's positioning of the servant in the main group of people is thought to indicate that this was a high-ranking servant in the Cassiobury household, and it is likely that this is Doney himself.
Records at St Marys Church, Watford show he was baptised there on 1st August 1774. Doney died a free man in 1809, two years after the British abolition of the Atlantic slave trade. He was buried St Marys and a mark of the high regard The Earl of Essex had for him can be seen in the handsome headstone complete with original poetical epigraph which was erected in the churchyard. The gravestone still stands today and was given Grade II listed status in 2008.
