John Sawers the younger

Formerly of Jamaica but in Scotland when he made his will in 1837.

1. Will of John Sawers [of Bellfield late of the Island of Jamaica now residing in] Stirling [Stirlingshire] proved 26/03/1840. The will dealt largely with property in Scotland but refers to property in Jamaica and provided for two natural sons in Jamaica, leaving £150 to John Alexander Sawers a free Brown man residing in Hanover and £100 to Robert Sawers 'a free quadroon boy my reputed or natural son' who formerly resided with him at Viewfield near Stirling and was then a seaman. His main heirs were his lawful sons John a clerk in the Commercial Bank of Scotland office in Stirling and Robert Sawers clerk in Messrs Sawers and Stone [?] writers of Stirling.

2. John Sawers of Bellfield's son, also John Sawers (1817-1905), became Provost of Stirling 1849-1858, and a main shareholder in the Edinburgh & Glasgow Bank (a predecessor of the Clydesdale Bank, now rebranding as Virgin Money) before moving to Gothenburg where he died in 1905. His son John Sawers (1842-1906), the grandson of John Sawers of Bellfield, has an entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography as 'banker'.

1. PROB 11/1925/31

2. http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/sawers-john-8347 [accessed 07/10/2019]; William Drysdale, Old faces, old places and old stories of Stirling (Volume 2) pp. 129-32. The latter showed John Sawers (1817-1905) as born at Viewfield near Stirling, and his father as a native of Stirling who had spent 36 years in Jamaica.