Nicholas Gyles

Slave-owner in Jamaica, reportedly unreconciled to Apprenticeship. Possibly the brother of John Gyles (d. 1827), pioneer of the Australian sugar industry who had lived on his [unnamed] brother's sugar plantation in Jamaica on leaving school and later acted as an overseer (by inference between c. 1795-1815).

1. 'Nicholas Gyles the proprietor of Recess plantation, an individual prominent in the recent contest, which terminated in the dismission of Dr Palmer from the magistracy.' Sturge and Harvey cited Nicholas Gyles's letter to a friend in London which states that 'without coercion, no good can be done after the termination of the apprenticeship'. Apprentices could never be improved or changed 'so long as they are black'. Mentions 'the coffin', an imprisonment room and that 'the proprietor said it had not been used since 1834.'

2. Benjamin M'Mahon said of Nicholas Gyles when the latter was overseer on Halifax estate: 'His disposition was cruel in the extreme. No man ever made larger crops of sugar: but, to effect this, he nearly destroyed the whole of the estate labourers by his tyrannical and oppressive conduct.'

Niel Gunson, 'Gyles, John (?–1827)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gyles-john-2138/text2717, published first in hardcopy 1966, accessed online 2 July 2018.

1. Sturge & Harvey pp. 327-328.

2. Benjamin M'Mahon Jamaica Plantership (London, 1839) pp. 201-2.