Charles Wightman

Merchant and slave-owner in Tobago whose wife Elizabeth Wightman and daughter Elizabeth Robertson nee Wightman claimed with trustees for the compensation for Craighall or Craig Hall, Concordia and Lambeau estates in Tobago.

1. Will of Charles Wightman of the Island of Tobago residing in the town of Eyemouth [Berwickshire] proved 18/05/1831. He left his estate in trust to the Rev. Abraham Home, his wife Elizabeth and Alexander Robertson writer of Edinburgh. His wife was entitled to an annuity of £300 p.a. secured on the Concordia estate and as this together with her inheritance from her aunt Mrs French would allow her to 'live genteely', he left her nothing further beyond household effects, except, while '[t]he low price of West India produce puts it out of my power to increase her annuity', a further £5000 ten years after his death [later shortened in a codicil to five years], since Wightman had benefited most materially from the estate of his wife's kinsman Mr John Cooper of St Croix. He left his grand-daughters Elizabeth Kenney and Margaret Cooper Kenney, daughters of the deceased Dr Andrew Kenney £2000 each. The residue of his estate was left for life to his daughter Elizabeth, wife of Dr John Argyle Robertson, then to her children.

2. David Dobson shows two entries for Charles Wightman, probably the same man or possibly father and son (and the latter the same man as the Charles Wightman of this entry): Wightman, Charles son of Charles Wightman in Anstruther Fife, a merchant in Tobago 1778 [SRO CS16.1.174]; and Wightman, Charles in Tobago married Elizabeth daughter of Arthur Cooper in St Croix in Canongate 19.4.1800 [CMR].

3. Charles Wightman was shown as aged 80 years old on his death in 1831.

4. Dr Charles Wightman's ownership of what is now 'John Muir's Birthplace' in Dunbar, and his Concordia estate in Tobago, were linked in an article in the East Lothian Courier 23/10/2008.

1. PROB 11/1786/46 (Abraham Home one of the trustees of Charles Wightman identified in the compensation records was a clergyman of Greenlaw, Berwickshire).

2. David Dobson, Scots in the West Indies 1707-1857, Vol. 1.

3. Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine Vol. 29 (1831) p. 576.

4. http://www.eastlothiancourier.com/articles/1/29862 accessed 25/11/2013.