James Blyth

1801 - 2nd Nov 1873

Claimant or beneficiary

Biography

London merchant, in Mauritius 1830-38 before returning to Britain, awarded the compensation with his brother for two groups of enslaved people as owners-in-fee and a further larger group of enslaved people on an unnamed estate (but probably Bon Accueil) as vendee under a colonial court judgement.

  1. Son of Thomas Blyth (d. 1839), and partner in H.D. and James Blyth and Greene, later Blyth, Greene, Jourdain & Co. Ltd., a major Indian Ocean and Far Eastern trading house and shipowner. His partners were his brother Henry David Blyth and Benjamin Buck Greene (both of whom q.v.). James Blyth was in Mauritius 1830-38, establishing the basis of the firm's future success, and reportedly made £25,000 in intermediating between the London money markets and Mauritian resident planters, who were awarded government loan stock (rather than Treasury cheques) in the compensation process.

  2. High Sheriff of Berkshire 1863-64, left £250,000 on his death in 1873.

  3. Blyth was in Mauritius, September 1830 until January 1839 and was a member of the Legislative Council, 1833-1839.

  4. His firm began to withdraw from the Mauritius trade and to turn to the Brazilian sugar trade after 1846 and the passing of Sugar Duties Act. See his lengthy evidence to the SC for discussion of this and the fortunes of his firms.


Sources

T71/903 Mauritius no. 2663; T71/904 Mauritius no. 3994; T71/906 Mauritius no. 5695.

  1. Augustus Muir, Blyth, Greene, Jourdain & Company Limited 1810-1960 (London: Newman Neame, 1961).

  2. Rubinstein 1873/10

  3. House of Commons Select Committee on Sugar and Coffee Planting, 1st Report, PP1847-48 (123) XXIII Pt. I, p. 251.

  4. See the Select Committee, pp. 251-82.


Further Information

Absentee?
British/Irish
Spouse
Euphemia
Children
1 son, 6 daughters
Wealth at death
£250,000
Occupation
East India merchant
Rubinstein
1873/10

Associated Claims (3)

£413 14s 5d
Awardee (Owner-in-fee)
£2,785 7s 5d
Awardee (Judgement creditor)
£366 2s 9d
Awardee (Owner-in-fee)

Legacies Summary

Commercial (1)

Senior partner
Blyth and Greene
East India merchant  
 

Relationships (2)

Business partners
Brothers
Notes →
Brothers and Business...

Addresses (2)

Woolhampton, Berkshire, Central England, England
Notes →

Bought by James Blyth in 1852

24 Hyde Park Gardens, London, Middlesex, London, England