Francis Graham

Francis Graham, planter and attorney. His widow Jemima Charlotte Munro unsuccessfully claimed compensation for ownership of enslaved people on Tulloch estate in Jamaica.

1. Born 17/10/1778, Francis Graham was a son of Alexander Graham of Drynie (in the Black Isle), near Dingwall, the British Consul at Faial (Fayal), the Azores, and his wife, Donna Ighaive. By his own account, Francis Graham first arrived in Jamaica in April 1797, aged eighteen and a half. He briefly returned to Great Britain, sailing from Jamaica on 16/07/1812, to marry in 1813, at Edinburgh castle, his cousin Jemima Charlotte, the third daughter of lieutenant colonel Colin Dundas Graham of the Scots Brigade. He and his wife then returned to Jamaica. Their children by the marriage, Colin and Agnes, predeceased them. Graham died 01/02/1820. Following his death, his widow married Major George Gun Munro of Poyntzfield, Scotland.

2. Graham testified before the House of Commons Committee relative to the bill abolishing the slave trade in 1815. In answer to, "What is your present situation, and the nature of your connection with the island of Jamaica?" he replied that he "represents solely and in part forty-nine sugar-estates, nineteen pens, and ten other plantations, on which there are about thirteen thousand negroes; that he possesses a sugar-estate, called Tulloch, with about four hundred and fifty negroes, and holds jointly with Lord Carrington the Farm pen, with about two hundred and fifty negroes." He gave the committee his views on the buying and selling of enslaved people and the conditions in which they were kept.

3. In the 1790s up to the time of his death, Graham was a member of the firm Davidson and Graham of London. Francis's uncle Charles Graham had previously been in partnership with Duncan Davidson (1733-1799) and Duncan's son Henry Davidson (1771-1827).

T71/855 St Thomas-in-the-Vale claim no. 285. Claim originally by Jemima Charlotte Munro, as the residuary devisee of Francis Graham.

1. http://inchbrakie.tripod.com/inchbrakie/id39.html [sourced but not checked, accessed 09/01/2013]; memorial inscription in the Cathedral, St Catherine from Archer p. 48.

2. Further proceedings of the Honourable House of Assembly of Jamaica [microform] : relative to a bill introduced into the House of Commons for effectually preventing the unlawful importation of slaves, and holding free persons in slavery, in the British colonies : to which are annexed examinations, taken upon oath before a committee of that House, for the purpose of disproving the allegations of the said bill (London, J. M. Richardson, and J. Ridgeway, 1816).

3. http://www.spanglefish.com/slavesandhighlanders/index.asp?pageid=261689 [accessed 09/07/2013].

We are grateful to Jonathan Cutmore and Eric Graham for their assistance in compiling this entry.