Howe Peter Browne, 2nd Marquis of Sligo

Howe Peter Browne, 2nd Marquis of Sligo, Governor of Jamaica 1834-6, awarded compensation for Kelly's and Cocoa Walk estates, both in St Dorothy Jamaica.

1. Will of the Most Honourable Howe Peter Browne, Marquis of Sligo, Earl of Altamont and Baron Monteagle proved 29/03/1845.

2. Sligo is said to have foregone Apprenticeship (although not apparently compensation) and freed the enslaved people on his estates as of 1 August 1834. In 1863 George John Browne, son of the 2nd Marquis and the 3rd Marquis himself, visited the Morro Velho Gold Mine in Brazil (one of the last British-owned enterprises to end the use of slaves in around 1884). The exact capacity of his visit is not clear, the Superintendent of the mine recorded that "The Marquis of Sligo went round the whole of the lines, and examined the general appreance of both men and women with manifest interest. His Lordship expressed his surprise at the neatness, clothing and order of the Blacks; but that which most struck him was the respectful demeanor and at the same time the cheerful and contented appearance of the Blacks - which proved a striking contracst to any such body of people he had previously seen..."

3. The estates in Jamaica came into the family through the marriage of the 2nd Marquis' grandfather, Peter Browne, 2nd Earl of Altamont (1730-1780), to Elizabeth Kelly, the daughter of Denis Kelly, the Chief Justice of Jamaica. Howe Peter Browne was the son of John Denis Browne, 1st Marquis of Sligo.

4. The village of Sligoville in St Catherine was named after the 2nd Marquis. Sligoville was the first post-Emancipation free village in Jamaica. The village was established by Rev. James Marcell Phillipo, a Baptist minister who bought 25 acreas of land for the site in 1835. The Great House in the parish of Sligoville was used as a summer residence for the Governors of Jamaica. An 1843 lithograph of Sligoville by James Mursell Phillippo is available on the British Library Online Gallery.

T71/853 St Dorothy Nos. 6 & 100.

1. PROB 11/2014.

2. http://jamaica-gleaner.com/pages/history/story006.html [accessed 01/01/2012]. Diary of James Newell Gordon, 8th January 1863 and 4th January 1863, privately owned. For more on the Morro Velho mine see Marshall C. Eakin, British Enterprise in Brazil:The St John del Rey Mining Co and the Morro Velho Gold Mine, 1839-1960 (Duke University Press, Durham NC, 1989).

3. Gordon Kennedy, 'The Brownes of Westport House: Aristocracy, Politics and the Exercise of Power in County Mayo: 1780-1830', PhD thesis, Dublin City University (2010) pp. 16-17, available for download, https://doras.dcu.ie/22720/ [accessed 08/12/2021].

4. For a history of Sligoville see http://www.spanishtownjamaica.com/sligoville/sligovillehistory.htm; for a history of the Great House see Jamaica Gleaner 07/08/2007 at http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20070807/news/news6.html. http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/carviews/s/022zzz0010304h4u00222ir0.html [all accessed 26/04/2013].

We are grateful to Rick Trezise for his assistance with compiling this entry.