John Alleyne Holder

1. The Holder family had been present within Barbados since c. 1660. Inter-marriage with the prominent Alleyne family had 'produced ten assembly or council members, one general, and five colonels of the island militia.' But by 1834 the Holders' property on the island had been reduced to the 189 acre Lemon Arbour Estate in St. John. The Congo Road estate in St Philip was owned until 1832. Other estates, in other parishes, had been disposed of before then. 'No reference to a private or chancery sale of the Holders' estate appears in the later records.'

2. John Alleyne Holder married Jane Haggatt Lowe in St Michael 03/09/1827. They had three children: John Alleyne (baptised St George 1829), Julie (baptised St John 1830) and Henry Lowe (baptised St John 1832). Jane was buried in St John, Barbados, 19/10/1832 age 32 [sic.]. John Alleyne Holder remarried, to Sophia Susannah Green Bush. They had eight children: Susannah Sophia Augusta (1835, St John, Barbados), Mary Oceana (born and died 1836, Bristol, when parents' abode was College Place), Mary Beckles (1837, Dawlish, Devon), William Bush (1839, Dawlish), Sarah Hampden (1840, Clifton, Gloucestershire), Francis (1841, St John, Barbados), Elizabeth Caroline (1843, St John) and Georgiana Maria (1844, St John).

3. John Alleyne Holder was buried in St John, 08/06/1844. Sophia Susannah remarried, to Frederick Howard, and was living with her Holder children and later Howard children in Middleton, Derbyshire in 1851 and St Pancras, Middlesex in 1861.

1. Kathleen Mary Butler, The Economics of Emancipation: Jamaica and Barbados 1823-1843 (Chapel Hill and London, University of North Carolina Press, 1995), p. 84.

2. Familysearch.org, Barbados Church Records, 1637-1887 [database online]; Ancestry.com, Bristol, England, Church of England Baptisms, 1813-1918 [database online]; Findmypast.co.uk, Devon Baptisms [database online].

3. Familysearch.org, Barbados Church Records, 1637-1887 [database online]; 1851 and 1861 census online.

We are grateful to Chris Lusby Taylor for assistance with compiling this entry.