John Beardwell Barnard

J. B. Barnard was an early purchaser (with J. Graham) of land in Tobago. J. Graham and J.B. Barnard 09/05/1769 bought Great River division (St Mary parish) Lot no. 27 (70 acres); by 1773 the two also owned Great River division Lots nos. 2 & 3 (200 and 300 acres respectively) which had been bought originally by Alex. Brown on 12/05/1776 [sic], presumably 12/05/1766], which together became the Glamorgan and Pembroke estates. J. B. Barnard was among the signatories of the 1781 address of inhabitants on the departure of Lt Gov. Ferguson.

1. Almost certainly the John Beardwell Barnard merchant of Rotherhithe whose will was proved 06/11/1783. John Beardwell Barnard successfully petitioned the Council of Massachussetts to release him to go to England in September 1776 after he had been seized on-board the Pecary, a prize ship sailing from Tobago to London, where he said he had a wife and three children. John Beardwell Barnard of Ipswich Suffolk mariner had posted a bond for his marriage to Esther Clarke of St Saviour Southwark on 24th July 1755.

2. The will of John Beardwell Barnard merchant of St Mary, Rotherhithe 'and intending shortly to proceed on a voyage to the island of Tobago' was made 11/07/1776 and proved 06/11/1783. 'Whereas the greatest part of my property and estate doth consist of an undivided moiety or share of and in divers lands, hereditaments, stock-in-trade, debts, effects and other things [sic] in the island of Tobago', he instructed his executors to sell his property to fund £3000 to his wife and £1500 to each of his children. His executors were his wife Esther Barnard, his brother William Barnard shipbuilder, and Edward Clarke, brewer of Southwark and presumably his brother-in-law or father-in-law.

'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. 40-41, 42-43.

1. PROB 11/1110/51; http://lincoln.lib.niu.edu/cgi-bin/amarch/getdoc.pl?/var/lib/philologic/databases/amarch/.24018 [accessed 05/12/2013]; Ancestry.com, London and Surrey, England, Marriage Bonds and Allegations 1597-1921 [database online].

2. PROB 11/1110/51.