Martha Glover

One of the very few female early purchasers of land in Tobago, buying 05/06/1770 Courland Bay division (St David parish) Lot no. 32 (250 acres): by 1773, this Lot, together with Lot no. 31 (200 acres, originally purchased on the same date by George Glover) were shown as 'late Glover.' The purchasers were probably mother and son. Courland Bay division (St David parish) Lots nos. 31, 32 and 36 are shown by Woodcock as later forming the Runnemede estate; he also shows Barbados Bay division (St George parish) lots nos. 43 and 44 as later forming 'Part of Runnemede.'

1. Martha Glover was the wife and executor of George Glover of Antigua, Gent. whose will was dated 23/08/1758 and sworn 18/02/1761, 'about to leave the island', 'All my estate to my wife Martha and son George', remainder thereafter to nephew Rob. Glover of St Croix, the sons of George's brother Richard and to his god-daughter Elinor Merchant. The son George had been baptised in 1743.

2. It is not clear whether the Martha Glover widow of [Old Brentford] Ealing whose will was proved 19/01/1798 was connected. The will makes no reference to land in Tobago, and leaves her personal estate to her children, Christopher Peel Glover, George Glover and Elizabeth Chirt, of Strand-on-the-Green.

'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. 36-37.

1. Vere Langford Oliver, History of Antigua

2. PROB 11/1300/162.