Walter Kennedy Lawrie

Walter Kennedy Lawrie (given as Walker Kennedy Laurie in the compensation records), heir and probably natural son (possibly nephew or grand-son) of a previous owner of the Woodhall estate in Jamaica, William Kennedy Lawrie (d. 1811).

1. Walter Kennedy Lawrie was buried at English cemetery in Florence, b. Scotland 20/08/1806 d. Florence 28/11/1837. Will of Walter Kennedy Lawrie of Florence proved 19/03/1838. In the Italian probate his father was identified as William of Scotland, and Walter Kennedy Lawrie left his property to his son, also named Walter Kennedy Lawrie, at 21. His wife was Lady Clorinda, daughter of Signor Luigi Aretini. He specified that his collection of paintings should not be sold, except the Raphael, which could be sold at a minimum price of 30,000 scudi. Newspaper reports from 1857 record the "discovery" of a Raphael now in the possession of Walter Kennedy Laurie of Florence, previously thought to be a copy.

2. William Kennedy Lawrie of Red Castle, Galloway, late of St Thomas-in-the-East, Jamaica died 07/02/1811 [Bath Abbey [Somerset]], 'formerly of Woodhall Estates'. [Bath Chronicle]. Will of William Kennedy Lawrie of Bath proved 26/03/1811. Walter would have been born just under a year after the marriage of his father to Miss William Cockburn, daughter of Alexander Cockburn of Grenada (q.v.). No trace has been found of Walter's mother who is named in the will of Walter's father as Agnes McCartney deceased late in Dalbeaty.

3. William Bingham [sic] Lawrie and Antonia Robertson, daughter of Arthur Grant Robertson MD of Antigua, had two sons, William Kennedy Lawrie of Woodhall, parish of Balmaghie (born 1820 [sic]) and Walter Kennedy Lawrie. William Kennedy Lawrie was a landowner in Kircudbrightshire in the mid-1840s. Four children in total were baptised to William Baillie Kennedy Laurie and Antonia Robertson: William Kennedy (1820), Elizabeth Kennedy (1822), James Walker (1824) and Walter Dunlop Kennedy (1832).

T71/994 St Thomas-in-the-East claim no. 426 gives Walter Kennedy Laurie. Woodhall is given consistently in the Jamaica Almanacs as William Kennedy Laurie between 1811 and 1833.

1. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/30592751/walter-kennedy-lawrie memorial ID 30592751[accessed 23/11/2020]; PROB 11/1892; Glasgow Herald 13/07/1857.

2. Vere Langford Oliver, Caribbeana being miscellaneous papers relating to the history, genealogy, topography, and antiquities of the British West Indies (6 vols., London, Mitchell, Hughes and Clarke, 1910-1919), Vol I p. 29; Cumberland Pacquet, and Ware's Whitehaven Advertiser 13/12/1814; PROB 11/1520.

3. [P.H. M'Kerlie], History of the Lands and their Owners in Galloway (Edinburgh, William Paterson, 1879), p. 299; A topographical dictionary of Scotland (1846) pp. 147-185; Familysearch.org batch no. C11857-4.