Harrison Walke Sober

The compensation for the enslaved people on the Spring and Ashton Hall estates in Barbados was paid to Sir George Henry Dashwood, Constantine Estwick Trent and John Constantine Trent, as executors and trustees of Harrison Walke Sober. Son of Samson Wood Sober (d. c. 1811) and Jennett Sober, and grandson of Cumberbatch Sober (q.v.).

1. Will of Harrison Walke Sober of [Thursford Hall Norfolk but now residing in] Southampton Hampshire proved 10/02/1827. He left £1000 to his wife Elizabeth and an annuity of £100 p.a. to his grandmother Mrs Mary Walke. He left £10,000 in trust, with half the income to his sister Judith Trent wife of Frank Onslow Trent late of White Stanton for life and half for his sister Elizabeth Jennett wife of James Grant. He left Spring, Ashton Hall and Over Hill estates and the enslaved people on them to be sold 5 years after his death to raise the £10,000, with his wife having the surplus income for life and then his sister Judith Trent to assign the benefits of the trust and then to her heirs. Harrison Walke Sober was buried December 10 1825 aged 28 at St Faith under St Pauls. He had reportedly married Elizabeth Dashwood, sister of Sir George Henry Dashwood, in 1821.

2. A family tree reproduced in Brandow gives Harrison Walke Sober as heir 1800 to his great-uncle Thomas Walke, then under 16; Eton 1811; of 14th Hussars, 'died shortly before 1863' [sic]. Extracts from the will of Thomas Walke refer to his bequest of the Ashton Hall estate to Harrison Walke Sober, son of his niece Jennett Sober. Despite the death-date (which appears to have been sourced from the Eton Lists, published in 1863, where Sober is said to have 'died lately'), there is little doubt that this is the same man as the Harrison Walke Sober who died in 1825.

T71/897 Barbados no. 2034; T71/899 Barbados no. 4925.

1. PROB 11/1722/104; Ancestry.com, London, England, Deaths and Burials, 1813-1980 [database online]; John Debrett, The Baronetage of England(1840) p. 326 'Dashwood, (now Dashwood-King,) of West Wycombe shows the marriage of Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Dashwood-King, and 'W.H. Sober of White Staunton co. Wilts', Oct. 1821.

2. James C. Brandow Genealogies of Barbados Families p. 511, pp. 513-4.

We are grateful to Ruth Hecht for her assistance with compiling this entry.