William Shand of Fettercain

Party to the Chancery suit of Oswin v Shand, into which was paid the compensation for Belmont in St John, and Kellitts, The Burn and Mammee Gully in Clarendon, previously (with the exception of The Burn) the property of William's brother John Shand.

1. Oswin was the successor to the London merchant firm of William Pollard, Oswin & Co. John Shand had died c. 1825 (will of the Hon. John Shand of St Catherine in the County of Middlesex Island of Jamaica proved 01/01/1826).

2. This William Shand was the William Shand who gave evidence to the 1832 Select Committee on the Extinction of Slavery. He was positioned as having been a planting attorney with experience of managing 18,000 to 20,000 enslaved people in his time in Jamaica between 1791 and 1823 (he returned there between January 1825 and May 1826, presumably to deal with his and John Shand's affairs around the latter's death). It also emerged that he owned 1200 people as a result of purchase 'about 1801.'

3. John Shand purchased the Burn, Fettercairn along with Arnhall in Scotland in 1814. He bequeathed £5000 to each of the children born to his 'housekeeper', Frances Brown (he brought the children back to Scotland). William Shand 'sought refuge at Straloch in 1835 after being chased by his creditors.'

4. William Shand married Eliza Rankin, daughter of John Rankin, merchant of Greenock, sister-in-law of Hinton Spalding and niece of Dr Alexander Maclarty, in Jamaica in 1820. Shand wrote to his brother John prior to their marriage, "The Lady is Miss Rankin with whom I am not certain that others associate ideas of beauty, but she will al least I think be allowed to possess extreme goodness of heart, superior understanding, and a well cultivated mind." Their children John and Hinton, were born in Jamaica in 1821 and 1822. Eliza's sister Jane and her husband Dr Hinton Spalding, along with Jane's sister Margaret Anne McLarty, visited the Shands at Clifton in Jamaica in June 1822. He was called Hon. William Shand, Custos of Clarendon, in the baptismal entry for his son Hinton, November 1822. William and Eliza's third son, William, was born in Scotland in 1824. They had returned to Jamaica by the birth of their only daughter Eliza in the second half of 1825. In June 1826 their sons John, Hinton and William were staying in Scotland with their grandfather Rankin. Mrs Shand, wife of William Shand of Arnhall died at Mammee Gully 11/02/1826. Shand remarried in 1827, to Christina Innes 'of Dyce.'

5. The estate of William Shand of Arnhall was subject to sequestration in 1834.

6. In the 1841 census, William Shand, age 65, his second wife Christina, age 40 and children John (age 20, born Jamaica), Hinton (age 18, born Jamaica), William (age 20, born Scotland), Eliza (age 15, born Jamaica) and Alexander (age 8, born Scotland), were living at Somerset Place, Glasgow, with three female servants.

7. William Shand of Arnhall was the father of Alexander Innes Shand, the writer, who appears in the ODNB. The entry (which identifies the mother of Alexander Innes Shand as William Shand's second wife 'Christina, (d. 1855) daughter of Alexander Innes of Pitmedden, Aberdeenshire') says erroneously: 'His father possessed a considerable estate in Demerara [sic], but his income was greatly reduced on the abolition of slavery in the 1830s.'

8. Memorial inscription in the old churchyard, Dyce, Aberdeenshire: "Erected by his widow and children in memory of William Shand, late of Arnhall, who died 26 February 1845, aged 69, and is interred here. Here lies also Christina his wife, daughter of Alexander Innes of Pitmedden who died 30th March 1855 aged 54."

9. "Arnhall is a property in Fettercain district. It, along with The Burn, was purchased in 1818 by John Shand (son of John Shand, merchant and shipowner, Garmouth), who, in early manhood, had emigrated to Demerera, and acquired a competency. At his death both properties passed to his brother, William Shand, whose son, Alexander Innes Shand, is the well-known contributer to "Blackwood." Mr William Shand's affairs having become involved, the creditors sold the estates to Colonel McInroy..."

T71/854 St John no 20; Clarendon nos. 128, 143 and 415.

1. London Gazette, Issue 15444, 12/01/1802, p. 51; PROB 11/1710.

2. Report from the Select Committee on the extinction of slavery throughout the British dominions Parliamentary Papers 1831-2, vol. 20 (721) p. 434 and 466. For the whole of Shand's evidence see pp. 428-43; 459-84; 542-44.

3. Papers of William Shand (1776-1845) of The Burn, Fettercairn and Straloch, GB 0231 Aberdeen University, Special Libraries and Archives, MS 3652; 'A North East Story - Scotland, Africa and Slavery in the Caribbean', http://www.abdn.ac.uk/slavery/6p4.htm and http://www.abdn.ac.uk/slavery/5p3.htm [accessed 14/05/2012]. The two sources give different numbers of children for John Shand and Frances Brown, and differ as to her status (free or enslaved).

4. David Dobson, Scots in the West Indies 1707-1857 Vol. 1 p. 127; quote from William Shand to John Shand, 28/05/1820, MS3652/1/5; The History of Fettercairn, Chapter XVII Disclune, Arnhall and The Burn, http://www.electricscotland.com/history/fettercairn/chapter17.htm [accessed 18/9/2012]; Familysearch.org, Jamaica parish registers, St Catherine baptisms, marriages and burials 1764-1825, vol. 2 p. 435; email from Rebecca Green 19/06/2018 sourced to William Shand's papers, University of Aberdeen, Historic Collections and originals or copies of the letters of John Rankin.

5. London Gazette, Issue 19131, 25/02/1834, p. 350, where he was described as 'merchant and trader.'

6. ODNB online, W.B. Duffield, rev. H.C.G. Matthew 'Shand, Alexander Innes (1832-1907), journalist and author'.

7. Findmypast.co.uk, Aberdeenshire, Banffshire & Kincardineshire Monumental Inscriptions [database online].

8. John A. Henderson, Aberdeenshire epitaphs and inscriptions : with historical, biographical, genealogical, and antiquarian notes (Aberdeen, 1907) p. 4.

The papers of William Shand, 1816-1835, are held at the University of Aberdeen, Special Collections (MS3652) and include some letters by his brother-in-law Dr Hinton Spalding.

We are grateful to Rebecca Green and Paul Hitchings for their assistance with compiling this entry.