John Carr

John Carr, awarded part of the compensation with his brother Alfred Carr (q.v.) for Silver Stream in Trinidad as heirs of John Carr. John and Alfred Carr were the sons of John Carr (1781-1828) and of a woman of colour who currently remains unidentified. John Carr the son became the Chief Justice of Sierra Leone, where he worked with another West Indian of part African descent, the governor William Fergusson.

1. In 1871 John Carr aged 60 LL.B London, barrister-at-law, Chief Justice of Sierra Leone, born Trinidad, was living at 8 Leyland Road, Lee Kent with his wife Margaret Edwina aged 47 born Jamaica, and their nine children, all but the youngest born in Sierra Leone.

2. Carr entered University College London to study law in 1836 and graduated in 1839 as the inaugural recipient of the prize in English law presented by Lord Brougham; he was admitted to Gray's Inn in 1837 and was called to the bar and appointed Queen's Advocate for Sierra Leone in 1840. He was appointed Acting Governor in 1841 and Chief Justice the same year. His wife Margaret Edwina nee Walker was the daughter of Ralph Walker (q.v.) and Elizabeth Sarah Darlington (q.v.), a free woman of colour in Jamaica.

T71/893 Trinidad no. 1935; ODNB online, Christopher Fyfe, 'Fergusson, William (1795?-1846), physician and colonial governor.'

1. 1871 census online [On Ancestry.com both John Carr's and Margaret Edwina Carr's birthplaces are transcribed as 'Tannadice']

2. Nigel Browne-Davies 'Carr, John Charles (1810-1880), lawyer and judge', draft entry for the ODNB;