Other People
Lemuel Bower was born in the New
Jersey. He fought with the American rebels.
William Crowle had problems in his
involvements with Thomas Woolridge and had to seek the help of William Stork.
His land appears to have been undeveloped.
Sir James Esdaile was a banker who later became Lord Mayor of
London in 1777. The biographical sketch of him on the Old Upminster blog site
mentions that around 1787 he
became the owner of a share of the major Rose Hall Plantation in Jamaica, more detail
of which is on the Legacies of British Slave-ownership database.
Edmund Jennings was an American in London. He supported the American
rebels and knew the attorney John Adams.
John Murray was a Scottish plantation
owner at Wilmington. His sister Dorothy married another Scot John Forbes, the
clergyman who owned land in East Florida. Forbes was a loyalist during the American Rebellion.
James
Mill and Gilbert Ross were merchant
partners in Ross & Mill of Fenchurch St. Ross was a member of the Committee
of Merchants trading to Africa. Ross’s will was made in 1788. They were both members of the East Florida Society. It was a
influential lobby group in London,
whose Secretary was Joshua Wilson.
Peter Parmier speculated rather than
developed land in East Florida, and had correspondence from America in
1779.
Of
French Huguenot origin Frederick Pigou, and his father Frederick, would petition the House
of Lords in 1788 against the Trade Regulation Bill which would regulate for a
limited time the shipping and carrying enslaved Africans in British Vessels, and requesting
compensation if it was passed. The father is probably the East India Company
official who recommended in 1756 that
Shanghai would be a good place to trade. He became a Director of the Company. He
co-owned a gunpowder factory at Dartford. Dieing in 1792 there is a plaque to
him in All Saints Church, Kingston. The younger
Frederick had been a partner with
Wiliam Neate a Quaker trading with Pennsylvanian Stephen Collins until 1769
then going into partnership with Benjamin Booth who worked for the firm. Their
involvement in selling tea to the American colonies was badly damaged by the
Boston Tea Party. His daughter married Vice
Admiral Robert Stuart Lambert who received £5,125
15s. 3d compensation for 275 enslaved on his
plantation in Jamaica.
William
Henry Ricketts had been born in Jamaica and owned a slave plantation
there. He travelled between Jamaica and
England. He made a claim to the East
Florida Commission.
George
Rolfe specialised in his enslaved workforce
cutting down trees and running a sawmill.
John Savage proposed
to establish ship building using 200 people from Bermuda.
Thomas Shirley,
another who had the Earl of Dartmouth as a patron. He became Governor of
Bahamas in 1768 succeeding his father William who had previously been Governor of
Massachusetts . Thomas was then
Governor of Dominica from 1774 until 1778 when the French captured the island.
He became Governor of the Leeward Islands in 1781. He was made Baronet of Oathall
in 1786.He died in 1800.
Samuel Tooker later became a member of the Yorkshire
Association with Christopher Wyvil between 1779 and 1785 both of whom are
mentioned in the 1790 poem The Priest and the lawyer. He was also a Magistrate in the Wakefield area.
Lords
Involved in East Florida
William Ponsonby, the Earl of
Bessborough, owned the Bessborough estate in Roehampton. The house built in
1750 is now Parkstead part of Roehampton University. Charles Sloan Cadogan, the
Earl of Cardogan, was the grandson of Sir Hans Sloane who inherited the Sloan
estate in 1780. He lent £20,500 to four others to purchase an estate on Grenada
and the enslaved working on it. He was Master of the Mint from 1769 to 1784.
George, Viscount Townshend from1764, was
a soldier who fought at Culloden, and took command for the final capture of
Quebec. He was MP for Norfolk from 1747 to 1764. He was Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland from 1767 until 1772. From 1763
until 1782 and then again for a short time in 1783 and 1784 he was in charge of
the Ordnance. He died at Raynham Hall in Norfolk in 1807. His brothers included
Charles of the Townshend’s Acts which helped provoke the American Rebellion. A
James Townshend, probably his son was also granted acerage. There was also a Thomas
Townshend with land in East Florida, who was probably George’s and Charles’s
brother, Member of Parliament for
Whitchurch between 1754 and 1783, and Colonial Secretary between 1783 and
1789. He approved an attack on Spanish colonial Buenos Aires and Monte Video,
which was halted because of the peace treaty that included returning the
Floridas to Spain. He drew up the plan to export criminals to Botany Bay in
Australia.
Other Lords were John Rawdon, Earl of
Moira and possibly C(l)oworthy Upton, 1st Baron Templeton from 1776.
George Beresford, Earl of Tyrone, was an Irish MP from 1757-1763, the latter year being
when he became the Earl. Alexander Crauford
may have become Baronet of Kilberny in 1781. Sackville Tufton, Earl of
Thanet, was High Sherriff of Westmoreland from 1753 to 1786 when he died. His
son-in law Sir William Duncan, Baronet
of Marylebone was a partner with Turnbull.
John
Rawdon became the Earl of
Moira in 1762. He was involved with Charles Bernard and other grantees in
sending a ship from Ireland with 36 potential settlers, with tools for
planting, carpentry and other ironmongery." Bernard located a 10,000-acre
tract for Rawdon, purchased at least 10 slaves and 200 cattle (from Georgia) and started the
building of Rawdon Hall mansion house on the plantation. Bernard returned to
Britain in 1767 and was replaced on the plantation by a man named Stanhope from
New York.
William Beresford
William Beresford, the Earl of Tyrone used Charles Bernard in the late
1760s to establish his Beresford Plantation.
Also based in Britain Lord Egmont had
active interests. He owned three plantations including Mount Royal and Amelia Island. In 1776 the latter was destroyed by
American rebel troops from Georgia. His agent, the Irishman Stephen Egan whose
sister was an Egmont tenant in Ireland, got his family and 100 enslaved men and
women to safety in St. Augustine. He then set up the Cecilton Plantation on
land that had been allocated to Edward Wood. It produced naval stores between 1776 and 1785. Richard Brett conveyed 10,000 acres owned by
Charles George Arden, Lord of Ireland, to his father John, Earl of Egmont.
Sir William Duncan, Baronet of
Marylebone, a Scottish doctor to George III, was a partner with Turnbull who tried to new up the New Symra colony on
the 20,000 acres they both had. Duncan was also a Scots doctor. In 1763 Duncan
married Sackville Tufton’s daughter. He died in 17774
An absentee Sir
Richard Russell, Lord Buckworth, had
10,000-acres from 1767. He engaged Alexander Gray as his agent, and then John
Ross, who used enslaved men and women on indigo and provisions cultivation,
cattle grazing, and lumber and naval stores production. Russell died in October
1773, leaving the property to his widow, Mary Magdalene Russell.
Members
Of Parliament As Land Owners In East Florida
Cadogan was also MP for Cambridge
(1749-76) A search for ‘Florida’ on The
History of Parliament website shows a number of MPs who had been, were or
would be, who had been granted land. However, this is dependent on whether the
Florida connection was detailed in the individual biographies of MPs. The
Florida connection of Humphrey Mackworth Praed, who was an MP for Cornwall
1761-8 and 1772-4, is not mentioned in his biographical sketch. Nor were
Charles Ogilvie, MP for West Looe 1774-5, James Coutts, MP for Edinburgh 1762-8;
Humphrey Mackworth, the MP for Cardiff between 1766 and 1790; Lord William
Campbell an MP between 1764 and 1766, Charles Townsend, MP for Saltash 1756-61
and Harwich 1761-7; and Sir Robert
Bernard, for Huntingdonshire 1765-8 and
sponsored by John Wilkes for Westminster 1770-4.
Edward Southwell was MP for Bridgwater
1761-3, and Gloucestershire 1763-76. He became Baron of Clifton in 1776. Related
to the Earl of Egmont, he was under his patronage. His land was not developed. His
involvement in Florida is not mentioned in his History of Parliament geography.
A later MP Duncan Davidson was a West
Indies merchant with premises at 14 Fenchurch
Buildings. He had inherited Tulloch Caste
and estate from his elder brother and partner Henry Davidson Tulloch in 1781. Henry
had lodged an appeal with the House of Lords, which was pending consideration
in 1767. By 1793 Duncan’s merchant firm was
known as Davidson and Graham. His son Henry became
a partner. Duncan signed a petition to the House of Commons about
the rivers in that part of Scotland in 1785; He
was MP for Cromartyshire between 1790 and 1796, voting
against slave trade abolition in 1796. He was an
East India Company stockholder. He left his sons plantations in Grenada,
Berbice, Jamaica and Suriname. One of
his grandsons was awarded compensation for the emancipated enslaved workers in
Grenada.
John Murray, MP
of Linlithgow Burghs (1754-1761 had been
educated at Glasgow University in 1742, becoming an advocate in 1748. He was
the head of a family which owned estates in Ettrick and Yarrow. He was related
to the Dukes of Hamilton and Douglas, and the Earls of Selkirk, Dundonald, and
March, and to the leading freeholders of Selkirkshire. He did badly in had land
speculation in East Florida and the island of St John He and his family appear to have moved to
Jamaica in 1785, where he died in 1800. The contestation over his will after
his death is reported in The Scottish
Jurist in 1830.
Mackworth owned the copper works on
his estate of Gnoll in Neath in Wales. Campbell was the last British Governor
of South Carolina and from 1766 to 1773 was Governor of Nova Scotia. Townsend
was Paymaster General 1765-6, and Chancellor of the Exchequer 1766-7. He was responsible for the Townsend Acts which
levied taxes on exports to the North American colonies which helped to trigger
the American rebellion.
In 1769 Bernard
helped to found the Bill of Rights Society. Breaking with Wilkes he voted in
1771 for its dissolution of the Bill of Rights Society, and joined the Constitutional Society, and broke with
Wilkes.
George Onslow of Ember
Court in Surrey inherited it in 1768 from his father Arthur the Speaker
of the House of Commons. He had been MP for
Rye (1754-1761) and Surrey (1761-1774). He was plantation owner on Jamaica
between 1776 and 1804. He sold Ember Court in 1791. From 1776 to 1814 he was at
Clandon Park near Guildford. In 1776 George was created Baron Cranley and inherited the title of 4th Baron Onslow. In 1801 he became Earl of Onslow. While the Privy Council (Colonial records)
record him as George Onslow of Ember Court, Florida History OnLine says he was
Bishop of Ossory.
Sir Edward Hawke was a Royal Navy
officer who started off on the North American Station, then served on the West
coast of Africa, and then on the Jamaica Station. From
July 1739 he was a Commander on the North American Station
escorting merchant ships in the Caribbean. He was Portsmouth’s MP from December 1747 until 1776. Having been a
successful commander in many naval battles he was First Lord of the Admiralty between
1766 and 1771. He was also made Baron Hawke of Towton in Yorkshire in 1766.
Naval
And Army Officers
Like
Sir Edward Hawke there were naval and army officers. Commodore Thomas Harrison
was Envoy Extraordinary in Genoa from 1763 to 1776 and in command of the Mediterranean
Squadron 1764-6.He had briefly been sent to the West Indies 1762-3. Samuel Barrington was a Naval Captain when his land was granted.
Later he was appointed Commander in Chief in the West Indies in 1778 and
captured St Lucia.
Miller Hill Hunt was a Captain in the 56th Foot and Ann Hunt had
10,000 acres on which was grown corn,
rice and indigo. Their overseer was Donald Kennedy from Edinburgh. Tar, pitch,
turpentine, and timber became the main activity during the American Rebellion.
The Plantation continued to operate until 1784, using in the early 1780s,
enslaved hired from Colonel Thomas Brown.
Alexander Montgomery may be
either Colonel Alexander John Montomery,
a captain in the 43rd Regiment of
Foot, which served in America, and He
was MP for County Donegal from 1768 to 1800, or General Alexander Montgomery (c.1721—1785)
an Irish MP.
Captain John Bagster was in the Royal
Navy (Royal Museums of Greenwich) He
lost his lands in America fighting for the British and died in Jamaica in 1780.
Colonel James Robertson was born in
Virginia in 1742 later moving to North Carolina. He became known as the Father
of Tennessee. His correspondence is subject to an article in The American
Historical Magazine of 1896.
Major Charles Lee rose to be a
General and switched sides to support the American rebels in 1775. The Lee
Papers in the Early American Imprint Collection show his involvement in advocating the invasion of East
Florida by the rebels.
Germans,
Swiss and Minorcans
Several people were involved in
encouraging Germans, Swiss and Minorcans to go to East Florida. Antoine Louis
de Norac planned a colony of settlers from Switzerland.
John Augustus Ernst was a German
living in London who with others wanted to settle Protestants from Germany and
Switzerland.
It seems likely that John
Christopher Haberkorn, was the
German printer in Gerrard-street, Soho, was
one of several Germans on the Committee in 1765 seeking to help impoverished
German refugees.
William
Stork, the author, wanted to settle a group of Germans in East Florida.
The Scottish
physician Dr. Andrew Turnbull, recruited 1,400 from the Mediterranean mainly
from Minorca to set up the agricultural
colony of New Smyrna in 1768 in
partnership with William Duncan (see above) and Sir Richard Temple. Detailed studies have been made about the colony and
its failure due to political
strife, inadequate financing, miserable living conditions and ruthless
maltreatment by the overseers. The East Florida Governor allowed them to move
to St. Augustine in 1777.
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