John Tharp IV, of Good Hope and Chippenham Park

Born in 1744, son of Joseph Tharp and Margaret nee Frost. Inherited Batchelor's Hall and Pedro estates in Hanover, Jamaica, from his father and grandfather by 1754. Educated at Eton and Trinity, Cambridge.

Married Elizabeth Partridge in 1765 and through her he acquired Potosi estate in St James, which he sold in 1769 (apparently subject to a mortgage to the buyer, give that ownership returned to him by the time of his death) choosing to invest instead in land in the newly formed parish of Trelawny. Acquired further estates in the area, eventually owning 10 estates in total. Member of Assembly for Trelawny in 1772.

Five surviving children with Elizabeth: Joseph (bap. 1767), John (bap. 1771) [John VI], William Blake, Thomas Partridge (bap. 1773) and Elizabeth Partridge (bap. 1773). His first wife Elizabeth died in 1780.

John Tharp contributed £50 to the University of Pennsylvania following Dr John Morgan's fundraising tour of the West Indies in 1772-1773.

John had an illegitimate daughter, Mary Hyde Tharp, born 07/08/1782, by Hannah Philips. She was baptised in Trelawny 16/04/1784. He bequeathed to her £100 p/a to age 21 and £1,200 at age 21. Mary Hyde Tharp married (1) 1800, Robert Hayward of Fordham, Cambridgeshire (who died in 1830, aged 50, described as “an opulent miller and eminent agriculturalist”) and (2), 1834, Robert Dix. She died, a widow, at Fordham, 24/02/1864; probate value under £4,000; her only child, Mary Ann Hayward married, 1833, Tansley Hall (later ordained; curate of Fordham from 1841, by which date Mary Ann had died).

In 1794 he remarried, to the widowed Ann Gallimore (nee Virgo). She was considerably younger than him. In their marriage settlement, John received Lansquinet and Cheshire estates, with 750 acres and 375 enslaved people. In return, Ann was guaranteed £1,200 Jamaican currency p/a should she outlive John. John and Ann left Jamaica for England in 1795, where they lived at John's Chippenham Park estate in Cambridgeshire and at his townhouse at 41 Portland Place.

John Tharp bought Chippenham Park in Cambridgeshire for £40,000 in 1791. The house history online describes him as 'a hugely successful sugar baron' and states that he 'had a large fortune from Jamaican sugar plantations.'

By 1801, Ann had had an affair with the husband of John's daughter, Elizabeth Phillipson nee Tharp, and was pregnant with an illegitimate child. Richard Burton Burton Phillipson was a wealthy clergyman and he lived near John Tharp's Cambridgeshire estate. On discovering the affair, John obtained a legal separation from his wife, allocating her a substantial income and receiving a guarantee that she would have no further contact with Richard.

John Tharp returned to Jamaica in 1802. He died at Good Hope in Trelawny in 1804. His heir was his grandson John Tharp VIII (q.v.), declared lunatic and committed, with his uncle John Tharp VI as committee.

The Jamaican inventory of John Tharp, dated 01/03/1805, values his moveable estate at £362,262 19s 11 3/4 d, of which over £14,248 was 'book debts'.

The family of Behaviour of Good Hope Plantation was among the many families enslaved by Tharp.

We are grateful to Anthony Gambrill, Paul Hitchings, and Julie Coleman for their assistance with compiling this entry.

'The Tharp Papers', http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~atgwgw/resources/jsourcetharp.html [accessed 11/10/2015]. PROB 11/1423/18. Sarah M. S. Pearsall, Atlantic Families: Lives and Letters in the Later Eighteenth Centry (Oxford, 2008) chapter 7; Sarah M. S. Pearsall, ''The Late Flagrant Instance of Depravity in My Family’: The Story of an Anglo-Jamaican Cuckold,' William and Mary Quarterly 60, no. 3 (2003); Familysearch.org, Jamaica Church of England Parish Register Transcripts, 1664-1880 [database online]; http://www.chippenhamparkgardens.info/history.htm [accessed 26/02/2016]. Email from Anthony Gambrill sourced to John Tharp Details of Inventory Volume 104 Folio33 April24 1805.

C. S. Graubard, 'Documenting the University of Pennsylvania's Connection to Slavery (2018) via archives.upenn.edu [accessed 16/01/2019].

Information on Mary Hyde Tharp: Huntingdon, Bedford and Peterborough Gazette, 05/06/1830; Cambridgeshire Chronicle and Journal, 26/04/1833 and 11/07/1834; National Probate Calendar 1864; Ancestry.com, Cambridge University Alumni, 1261-1900 [database online].

There is a detailed account of the development of the Tharp estates written by Alan Furness and now published by the Friends of the Georgian Society of Jamaica, at https://fgsj.org.uk/the-tharp-estates-in-jamaica/ [accessed 30/04/2018]. We would like to thank Rosemary Dodd and Robert Barker of the FGSJ for drawing our attention to this material.

For a family tree of the family of Behaviour, see https://mysteriousgrandmother.blogspot.com/2024/04/behaviour-of-good-hope.html. An index to the names of all the people enslaved on Good Hope, Covey, Top Hill Pen and Chippenham Park Pen in that period has been produced by Prof Julie Coleman at https://mysteriousgrandmother.blogspot.com/p/index-of-enslaved-people.html [accessed 17/05/2024].