Fifth child, eldest son of William PHELPS (1749–1831) and Elizabeth PEYTON (1757–1829)

Born 12th March 1789, Funchal Madeira

Died 6th January 1867, Middlesex

Married 12 May 1835 to Rachel Susannah DEANS, born JACKSON (1800– 1849) widow of Alexander Deans, Attorney General of Jamaica.

Peyton PHELPS (1836–1914)

Louise de la Motte PHELPS (1838–1840)

Albert Dawson PHELPS (1842–1890)

Abel's birth, along with those of five siblings, was registered in the Protestant Dissenters' Registry when he and his mother visited England in 1793.

In 1796 he and his older brother began at Mr Burford's school. The Rev. Peter Burford was a Master at Archbishop Harsnet’s Free Grammar School in Chingford, Essex which had been established by the Archbishop of York in 1629. (One of its early pupils was William Penn, who founded Pennsylvania. It is said that he came under Puritan influences at the school.) Abel's schooling was interrupted however, and his aunt Margaret Peyton records that he moved to a school in Eastbourne, then to Mr Kelly and eventually, 1805 to 1807, to Mr Shaw's.

Abel (always known in the family as Peyton) was the only son who did not join the family's wine business. He seems to have joined the Corporation of the London Assurance for Fire, Life and Marine Assurances, and by 1839 had become Superintendent of the Regent Street office.

In 1835 he married a widow with three children and she bore him two sons and a daughter. The daughter was tragically burnt to death aged two. The sons both followed military careers. Abel's wife died in 1849.

At the 1861 census he was living in Baker Street, described as a retired merchant, and he died in 1867, aged 77.