Joseph Foster Barham II

Son of Joseph Foster Barham I (ne Foster, q.v.) (1729-1789) who had taken the name of Barham on succeeding to the estate of his stepfather Henry Barham (q.v.). MP for Stockbridge with interruptions 1793-1822 (and briefly for Okehampton 1806-1807). He has an entry in the ODNB as 'slave-owner and politician.' He was active in purchasing enslaved people to 'restock' his Jamaica plantations in the face of declining populations.

1. Inherited Jamaican plantations from his father, a Moravian. 'On doing so, he sent instructions to the West Indies to continue payments to missionaries and to treat his slaves well.' At his marriage in 1792 his plantations were worth c. £2,000 p.a., but by his death brought in about £1,200 p.a. He reportedly inherited a partnership in a West Indies merchant firm, Barham and (Thomas) Plummer (though his brother replaced him as a principal, in 1815). From his mother, Dorothea, he got a Welsh estate and an interest in Pembrokeshire politics. Generally Whig in politics. Although generally opposed the abolition of the slave trade between 1794 and 1798, by 1804-1807 he had come round to supporting Wilberforce’s attempts to secure the immediate abolition of the trade. However, he was also anxious to maintain support for the planters – arguing that they should receive compensation – and claimed that they had not acted inhumanely towards the enslaved. He also argued, from 1805 onwards, that labour should be imported to the West Indies from India. Thus for example, 16 March 1807 he spoke of his hopes for the adoption of his plan to import Chinese or Indian free labourers to the West Indies, arguing that it would enable the slaves to imitate ‘an example of voluntary industry ... without rushing at once into a state of savage liberty’. See also, e.g., a speech of 4 April 1811 urging the introduction of ‘free labourers’ from India, (a plan which Wilberforce did not opposed though he had previously done so). He also maintained the view that the enslaved were better off than the British poor. (E.g. 20 May 1818). Wilberforce described Barham as 'a generous fellow, and he seems to be actuated by a warm spirit of patriotism and philanthropy'.

2. The second History of Parliament entry for Barham describes him as a 'Welsh landowner and conscience stricken West Indian proprietor.' It should be noted however that Barham's decision to sell his 'interest' in the Stockbridge constituency to the 2nd Earl Grosvenor in 1822 was due to 'a sharp fall in the value of his West Indian estate'. (Grosvenor eventually paid £81,509 between 1823 and 1825 to secure this 'notoriously venal and corrupt borough'. Joseph Foster Barham was replaced as MP by Grosvenor's candidate, Edward George Stanley, later 14th Earl of Derby.)

3. Will of Joseph Foster Barham of Queen Ann Street Middlesex proved 15/10/1832. In the will he left immediate cash legacies of £500 each to his wife Lady Caroline Barham, sons William Joseph Barham and Charles Henry Barham and daughters Mary Barham and Caroline Gertrude Barham. He recited that under his marriage settlement his wife was entitled to an annuity of £2000 p.a. secured on his Jamaica estates but 'in consequence of the great diminution in the value of West India estates' he secured £800 p.a. of the £2000 p.a. instead on his estates in the County of Pembroke.

Lang, Rachel. 2016 "Barham, Joseph Foster (1759–1832), slave owner and politician." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 1 Nov. 2018. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-107424; Richard S. Dunn, A tale of two plantations : slave life and labor in Jamaica and Virginia (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2014) pp. 38-43.

1. History of Parliament Online 1790-1820: R. G. Thorne/P. A. Symonds, 'Joseph Foster Barham';

2. History of Parliament Online 1820-1832: Philip Salmon/Howard Spencer, 'Foster Barham, Joseph (1759-1832)'; History of Parliament Online: Stockbridge constituency; Angus Hawkins, ‘Stanley, Edward George Geoffrey Smith, fourteenth earl of Derby (1799–1869)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

3. PROB 11/1806/171.