UCL

Peter Pegus

Profile & Legacies Summary

???? - 1803

Biography

Early settler and slave-owner on Carriacou, dying in England. Pegus' son and grand-daughter married into the British aristocracy.

  1. Will of Peter Pegus of Greenwich Kent proved 09/06/1803. The will is very simple, leaving all his personal and [unspecified] real estate to his children with Susannah Henrietta and appointing her and her brother Col. Anthony Lewis Layard as executors.

  2. A Capt. Peter Pegus, apparently the natural son of Peter Pegus and an enslaved woman whose name is not known. His birthdate is variously given as 1780, 1786 or 1787 and birthplace as Grenada. Following a military career he and his family emigrated to the Swan River Colony (Western Australia) in 1829. After failures and difficulties as a farmer he migrated to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) in 1836 where, among other things, he was Governor of the Oatlands gaol. He died in 1853.


Sources

  1. PROB 11/1393/199.

  2. Beyond the pale: world immigrants to Van Diemens Land before 1900 [accessed 09/03/2016]; Xavier Reader, Georgina Arnott, Jane Lydon and Zoë Laidlaw, 'Pegus, Peter (c. 1787–1853)', People Australia

Further Information

Absentee?
British/Irish
Spouse
Susannah Henrietta Layard
Children
Peter

Associated Estates (3)

The dates listed below have different categories as denoted by the letters in the brackets following each date. Here is a key to explain those letter codes:

  • SD - Association Start Date
  • SY - Association Start Year
  • EA - Earliest Known Association
  • ED - Association End Date
  • EY - Association End Year
  • LA - Latest Known Association
1817 [EA] - → Previous owner
Hermitage Estate [ Grenada | Carriacou ]
1790 [EA] - → Owner
Hermitage Estate [ Grenada | Carriacou ]

Shown in David Beck Ryden ''One of the Finest and Most Fruitful Spots in America': an Analysis of Eighteenth-century Carriacou', Journal of Interdisciplinary History XLIII:4 (Spring 2013) pp. 539-570 Table 5. Table 4 shows Pegus as 'Inhabitant' for a cotton estate of 224 acres (200 cleared) with 97 enslaved people producing 32,800 pounds of cotton.

1817 [EA] - 1832 [LA] → Previous owner
Union Estate [ Grenada | Carriacou ]

Legacies Summary

Imperial (1)

Australia: Tasmania 
Details
notes →
Capt. Peter Pegus born Grenada, probably the natural son of Peter Pegus, was a pioneering settler in Western Australia and then Tasmania, where he was warden of the Oats gaol....

Relationships (1)

Peter Pegus
Father → Son
Rev. Peter William Pegus
Details

Addresses (1)

Greenwich, Kent, London, England
Details