William Blenman

Son of Jonathan Blenman (Attorney-General of Barbados), and a London lawyer. Wm Blenman was shown [erroneously, instead of Timothy Blenman, q.v.] by Woodcock as the original grantee of Barbados Bay Lot no. 9 which became Messepotamia [sic] in St George Tobago, but William Blenman was indeed owner by 1773; the estate was shown as in the possession of the Earl of Harewood c. 1867. William Blenman was also the owner of the Cooper's Hill estate (also known as Walwyn's) in Barbados, which came to him through his marriage to Elizabeth Dottin in 1748/9. All the Blenman family estates (including Kirton's or Kent in Christ Church Barbados, bought by Jonathan Blenman in 1766) were seized by the Lascelles for debt in 1784.

1. Attended Westminster School: "BLENMAN, WILLIAM, elder son of Jonathan Blenman, Attorney-Gen. and Judge of the Admiralty, Barbados, and Mary ---; bapt. St. Michael, Barbados 28 Jan 1721 (IGI); adm. (aged 11) Oct 1733; left 1739; Trin. Hall, Camb., adm. pens. 12 Apr 1740; adm. Middle Temple 29 Sep 1739, called to bar 6 Feb 1746/7; Clerk to Clerks Comptroller, Board of Green Cloth Jul 1761 - retired 1 Jul 1782; Watchman at St. James’s Palace; m. 1748 Elizabeth, dau. of Joseph Dottin, Barbados; living 17 Jan 1798 (dead by 13 Jul 1800). [presumably William Blenman, Bath, Somerset, will proved PCC 13 Aug 1800]"

2. William Blenman surrendered Mesopotamia estate in Tobago to Lascelles & Daling by a deed executed in 1781; the equity of redemption remained with Blenman until a futher deed drawn up in August 1784 was executed in September 1785.

3. Will of William Blenman of Bath Somerset proved 13/08/1800.

4. William Blenman was brother, and executor of the will, of Caroline Blenman of Cavendish Square proved 23/09/1774: Caroline Blenman left £500 and 'all my slaves in the island of Barbados' to her mother, with a request to free an enslaved person called Cubbah after her (the mother's) death. 'I desire likewise that Romeo may be immediately freed and I direct 4 guineas per annum to be paid to him per annum by half yearly payments so long as he shall behave well towards my mother and she shall think him deserving of it.'

S. D. Smith, Slavery, family and gentry capitalism in the British Atlantic: the world of the Lascelles, 1648-1834 (2006), pp. 210-211; 'Tables showing the Lots in each Parish, numbered as originally granted - the original Grantee - the name of the Lot, or lots, if one has been acquired, and the present Possessor where there is one' and 'A Table, showing the Estates in cultivation in 1832, and their Owners, in 1832, copied from the list appended to Byres' map of that date, with those in cultivation in 1862', Henry Iles Woodcock, A History of Tobago (Ayr: Smith and Grant, 1867; new impression London: Frank Cass and Company Limited, 1971); John Fowler, A summary account of the present flourishing state of the respectable colony of Tobago in the British West Indies illustrated with a map of the island and a plan of its settlement, agreeably to the sales by his Majesty’s Commissioners (London: A Grant, 1774) pp. 33-34. Smith, in line with Fowler, shows Timothy Blenman rather than his brother William as the purchaser of Mesopotamia, assigning his legacy to fund it; 'in 1768, additional funds were sought to clear 100 acres and purchase slaves to work the land.' (p. 210, sourced to CO 101/14(127).

1. The Record of Old Westminsters (1928), with improvements © Hugh Edmund Pagan MA FSA, available via the online catalogue for Westminster School's Archive & Collections, http://collections.westminster.org.uk/index.php/blenman-william-1721-1800 [accessed 05/01/2021].

2. S. D. Smith, Slavery, family and gentry capitalism in the British Atlantic: the world of the Lascelles, 1648-1834 (2006), p. 193.

3. PROB 11/1346/119. His family tree is given in Brandow, Genealogies of Barbados Families p. 178.

4. PROB 11/1001/190.

We are grateful to Hugh Pagan, Bethany Duck and Elizabeth Wells for their assistance with compiling this entry.