Joseph Foster Barham (was Foster) I

Son of Colonel John Foster (1681-1731) of Egham House Surrey and Jamaica, stepson of Dr Henry Barham (q.v.) and father of Joseph Foster Barham II (q.v.).

1. Joseph Foster Barham I's son Thomas Foster Barham (q.v.) is in the ODNB as 'writer'; there are also ODNB entries for four of Thomas Foster Barham's sons. The entry for Thomas Foster Barham says 'he became associated with the mercantile house of Plummer' (q.v.) but makes no allusion to slavery or to Jamaica, although it does characterise Thomas Foster Barham's brother Joseph Foster Barham II as 'slave-owner and politician'; three of the entries for his sons describe the father as 'musician and writer' or 'writer', and in one case as 'of independent means.'

2. Joseph Foster Barham was listed in the Jamaican Quit Rent books for 1754 as the owner of 3788 acres of land in Westmoreland and 2708 acres of land in St Elizabeth, total 6496 acres.

3. Will of Joseph Foster Barham of Middle, Shropshire proved 26/08/1789. In the will he left £10,000 in trust for his son John, and £5000 for his son Thomas; he had, he said, settled £2000 on each of his daughters at marriage. He left Mesopotamia to his son Joseph Foster Barham (q.v. under Joseph Foster Barham II).

Bertie George Charles, 'Barham family of Trecŵn, Pembs.', Dictionary of Welsh Biography, http://yba.llgc.org.uk/en/s-BARH-TRE-1700.html [accessed 09/07/2014]; Richard S. Dunn, A tale of two plantations : slave life and labor in Jamaica and Virginia (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2014) pp. 29-37.

1. Thompson Cooper, ‘Barham, Thomas Foster (1766–1844)’, rev. David J. Golby, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/1377, accessed 9 July 2014].

2. 'A List of landholders in the Island of Jamaica together with the number of acres each person possessed taken from the quit rent books in the year 1754', TNA CO 142/31 transcribed at http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Samples2/1754lead.htm.

3. PROB 11/1182/302.