James Baillie MP of Bedford Square and Ealing Grove

MP for Horsham 1792-1793, brother of Evan Baillie (q.v.) and Alexander Baillie, father of Hugh James Baillie (q.v.), Janet Higgins (q.v.), Alexander Baillie (q.v.), Evan Hamilton Baillie, Amelia Baillie and (another daughter) Colin Campbell Baillie. He had been in the West Indies between 1755 and 1771.

1. In the will of James Baillie of Bedford Square proved 21/10/1793, he described his purchase 'sometime since' of Bacolet and another estate on Grenada, Chemin (since sold to Mr Samuel Mitchell of Grenada) from the Governors and Company of the Bank of England for £100,000, payable as to £10,000 15/04/1790, £35,000 01/09/1790 and the balance of £55,000 (bearing 4% interest) in 7 subsequent equal annual payments, of which two had been made by the time he drew up his will. He left an annuity for life of £2000, and a further annuity of £1000 payable until her youngest child reached 21, to his wife Colin Baillie, secured on the Bacolet estate; the estate itself he left in entail to his son Alexander Baillie. He left £10,000 to each of his 5 other children. In his will he also referred to his moiety of Hermitage and Mount St Bernard estates in Grenada and his estate called Northbrook in 'Demerary', all of which he instructed his trustees to sell, and to apply the proceeds to buying out the rest of Bacolet and funding the legacies to his children. His trustees were Rene Payne, Archibald Hamilton, Walter Farquhar and his brothers Evan and Alexander Baillie. Boyle's 1792 Directory shows him at 14 Bedford Square (as James Bailie).

2. He was almost certainly the James Baillie the elder previously of Grenada but then of the City of London who in partnership with William and Robert Gemmell and Duncan and Henry Davidson purchased 4000 acres of land on St Vincent from Robert Monckton, to whom the Crown had granted the land. This is supported by a deed of 20/10/1810 under which his widow and executrix Colin Baillie with William Gemmell sold a mortgage of £1050 from Peter Dershon over Lot No. 24 of the Monckton lands to James Lowe of Trinidad for £750, and by the testimony of James Baillie to the 1789-1790 Committee on the Slave Trade, where he said he had been in the West Indies for about 16 years at different times, had purchased an estate on Grenada in 1765 and was concerned in the purchase of another on St Vincent that had been granted to General Monckton and which cost £33,000.

History of Parliament online 1790-1820, David R. Fisher, 'Baillie, James (?1737-1793), of Bedford Square and Ealing Grove Mdx.

1. Will of James Baillie of Bedford Square proved 21/10/1793 PROB 11/1237/227; P.Boyle, The Fashionable Guide or Town Visiting Directory for the year 1792 (London,1792).

2. Deed Book 1785, British Library, EAP688/1/1/1, https://eap.bl.uk/archive-file/EAP688-1-1-1, pp. 159-162 and pp. 162-178. William Gemmell was party to a deed of 24/05/1785 under which he - given as late of Lime Street but then of Marylebone and as executor of Robert Gemmell - leased for 1 year land known as Lot No. 4 in the Monckton Quarter of St Vincent to Duncan Campbell of St Vincent. The indenture was the prelude to a further deed of the following day to be entered into with James Baillie and the Davidson firm of London that set out the background including the 1775 purchase from Monckton; Deed Book 1810, British Library, EAP688/1/1/21, https://eap.bl.uk/archive-file/EAP688-1-1-21 pp. 272-83; Abridgment of the Minutes of the Evidence: Taken Before a Committee of the Whole House..to Consider the Slave Trade (1790) Vol. II part II pp 74 et seq.