Thomas Hibbert of Birtles Hall

Thomas Hibbert (1788-1879) was the eldest son of Robert Hibbert (1750-1835) and Letitia Hibbert née Nembhard. Robert Hibbert had been a partner in his uncle Thomas’ (1710-1780) slave factorage business in Kingston alongside his brother Thomas Hibbert (1744-1819) and cousin Robert (1761-1807). The house had interests in slave factorage and the supply of credit. Robert acted as an attorney for Nathaniel Phillips (1733-1813). Robert was also a slave and plantation owner with an estate called Albion located fifteen miles east of Kingston in what was St. David parish but is now modern day St. Thomas.

Thomas inherited Birtles Hall in Cheshire from his father Robert in 1835. Robert left the staggering sum of £250,000 in personalty as well as his ‘Jamaica estates with slaves, stocks etc.’ In 1839 Thomas became High Sheriff of Cheshire. In 1823 Thomas had married Mary Caroline Henrietta Cholmondely (1803-1879), the eldest daughter of Charles Cholmondeley of Overleigh, Cheshire. Mary was also the niece of Thomas Cholmondely M.P., who was raised to the peerage in 1821 as Baron Delamere. The Cholmondelys were a long established Cheshire family with a country seat at Vale Royal Abbey that had been in the family since 1615. The couple had eight children and the estate was passed on to their eldest surviving son Hugh Thomas Hibbert. Hugh entered into the British army becoming commander of the Royal Fusiliers, he went to the Crimea in 1854 where he was severely wounded. He married Sarah Catherine Augusta Lee, the daughter of the artist Frederick Richard Lee R.A. whose most famous work, a collaboration with Sir Edwin Landseer, Bringing in the Stag is now owned by the Tate. Birtles Hall appears to have gone out of the Hibberts’ ownership around the time of Colonel Hibbert’s death in 1895. Birtles Hall remains a Grade II English Heritage listed building.

See separate entry for Robert Hibbert.

Will of Robert Hibbert in Oliver Vere Langford, Caribbeana being miscellaneous papers relating to the history, genealogy, topography, and antiquities of the British West Indies, Vol.4 (London, 1919), p.199. William Rubinstein, Who were the rich? , Vol. I (2009), 1835/14. Telegram 12 September 1855, DHB/76, Cheshire Archives and Local Studies. < href=”http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-58324-birtles-hall-over-alderley-“>http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-58324-birtles-hall-over-alderley- [accessed 01/02/2013].