Milliken Craig

Milliken Craig of Ballewan, late Commander in the Hon East India Company, who died at Demerara c. 1820. The heirs of Milliken Craig and John Craig claimed unsuccessfully for the compensation for Vrouw Anna and Nismes in British Guiana.

1. In 1819 the enslaved people on an estate called Balcraig situate on the West Sea Coast of Berbice were registered for Milliken Craig Esq. by Lewis Cameron.

2. Will of Milliken Craig of Demerary proved 29/12/1820. In the will he described himself as 'Milliken Craig of Ballewin [sic] in Stirlingshire parish of Strathblane, North Britain[,] of Gloster Place New Road London[,] of Craig Nimes alias Nismes[,] Mindenburgh[?,] Geneve[,] Patientia[,] Catharina[,] Welgelegen [,] Elizabeth[,] and Belle L'Alliance and of Plantation Craig Adam [both words deleted] New Amstel in the colony of Demerary and of plantation Craig Adam alias Vrouw Anna of Island of Leguan in the colony of Essequebo.' His executors were his 'beloved cousin' Archibald Stirling of Kenmure near Glasgow and of plantations Hampden and Frontier in Jamaica; Archibald's brother Charles of the merchant house of Messrs Stirling Gordon of Glasgow, Francis James Adam of Copthall Buildings London and bankers Josias Henry Stracey and Henry Fauntleroy of Messrs Sibbald, Stracey, Fauntleroy and Graham of Berners Street [London]. [Fauntleroy was the last man in Britain to be hanged for forgery (in London in 1824), in a case involving stock owned by the daughter of John Young, a St Kitts' slave-owner]. Milliken Craig appointed local managers for his estates to be paid 'the custom of the colony', i.e. 10% of their produce. He described his marriage to Janet Munro c. 1796 as 'the greatest misfortune and curse which ever befell me.'

3. Amongst other things, the will provided that the 'neat proceeds' of his estate be divided into thirds. The first third was to go to the use of his heirs; the second third was to be invested by his trustees in public debt for the benefit of all his heirs, and once the cumulative amount invested for any heir amounted to £50,000, the trustees would lay out that sum on a landed estate in Britain 'but always preferring that part of it called Scotland'; the third third was a similar arrangement for his heir-in-possession but the trigger for investing half in land was a total of £200,000. [These numbers presumably reflected his own experience of the profitability of the estates]. His beneficiary was named firstly as any male child, then female child, by Marion Emilia Knibblewhite; then his brother Captain John Craig; then his sister Lillias Craig, widow of Colonel Kearnan; then his sister Marion Craig; then James Drummond Elphinstone, son of the Hon. William Fullerton Elphinstone (to the latter he left £10,000). He provided that the names of Plantations Nismes and Vrouw Anna would be changed to Craig Nismes and Craig Adam respectively. Lillias Craig was granted administration in 1834 and Marion Craig was granted administration of the will in 1848.

Edinburgh Magazine Vol. 85 (1820) p. 293. A partial transcription of his will online shows a bequest of £500 per annum for life to 'my dear and beloved Marion Emilia Knibblewhite whom I left pregnant at my house No. 3 Leigh Street Burton Crescent London', to be increased to £3000 p.a. if she joined him in Demerara and to become her marriage settlement http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=apduncan&id=I10682 accessed 01/10/2013. Further details of his life are included in Susan Miller, 'Commander Milliken Craig of the Honourable East India Company', Scottish Local History Issue 88 (Spring 2014) pp. 9-13.

1. 1819 Slave Registers Berbice pp. 139-140.

2. PROB 11/1637/365.

3. ibid.