Charles Blair

Trustees (Vere Fane and the 2nd Viscount St Vincent, both of whom q.v.) of Charles Blair were awarded the compensation for the enslaved people on East Prospect and West Prospect estatee in St Thomas-in-the-East Jamaica. The trusteeship arose under the will of Charles Blair [senior] (1743-1802) of Down House Dorset, the father of Charles Blair (1776-1854) the subject of this entry.

1. Charles Blair (1776-1854) was the great-grandfather of George Orwell: his son the Rev. Thomas Richard Arthur Blair (1803-1867) was the father of Richard Walmesley Blair (1857-1939), Orwell's father. The ODNB entry for Orwell says: 'Richard Blair's great-grandfather Charles Blair (1743-1820 [sic]), a Scot, had been a rich man, a plantation and slave-owner in Jamaica who had married into the English aristocracy; the money had run out by Richard Blair's time.'

2. In 1851 Charles Blair, widower aged 74 late Captain 4th Dragoon Guards, born Whit[e]church Dorset was living with a single servant at 15 Pulteney Street Bath. Baptism records confirm that Charles, the son of Charles and Lady Mary Blair, was baptised 01/01/1777 at Winterborne Whitechurch Dorset.

3. Will of Charles Blair of Cattestock [i.e. Cattistock] Dorset [made in 1848] proved 27/10/1854, when he was shown as late of Weymouth. In the will he rehearsed an indenture of 09/09/1806 under which he was entitled to dispose of trust fund now comprising £10,400 3% consols among his children, which he did in the ratio of 1/4th to his son Horatio; 1/4th to the children of his late son Frederick; 1/4th to the children of his late daughter Mrs Lindsey; and 1/4th part to the children of his late daughter Emma Hamilton. He left the rest of his property to his son Thomas Richard Arthur Blair. In codicil of 1849 he said that £1750 of the £10,400 consols had been sold to repay his debt to Colin Lindsey, and so left only £8650 among four of his children.

T71/867 St Thomas-in-the-East no. 291.

1. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (http://www.oxforddnb.com) online, Bernard Crick, 'Blair, Eric Arthur [pseud. George Orwell] (1903-1950), political writer and essayist'. The death-date given by Crick for the first Charles Blair is erroneous: the will of Charles Blair of Down House Dorset was proved 27/07/1802 PROB 11/1377/276.

2. 1851 census online; England and Wales Christening Records 1530-1906; Dorset, England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials 1538-1812.

3. PROB 11/2198/426.