John Sober II

1739 - 1795


Biography

In a List of inhabitants of St Peter, Barbados, 1780, Sober was listed as owning 195 enslaved. Almost certainly the John Sober who signed the 1783 address to George III from the planters of the West India islands residing in Great Britain and the merchants trading to those islands, and also the John Sober (1739-1795) whose widow Martha Bersheba Sober (his second wife) died in London c. 1796, and whose will was proved 17/01/1797. She left the estate she had inherited from her husband to Hope Elletston Sober and then to John Sober, Abraham Cumberbatch Sober and Penelope Wentworth Sober, her step-children.

John Sober, son of John Sober of Barbados, gentleman, matriculated Queen's College, Oxford (the same college as his father), 08/04/1756 aged 17. He married Penelope Blake 06/11/1760 in Sevenoaks, Kent.


Sources

Barbados Department of Archives, RB9/3/6; London Gazette 12422 11/03/1783 p. 2; Will of Martha Bersheba Sober widow of St James Middlesex proved PROB 11/1284/166. An online family genealogy supports the identification of John Sober (1739-1795) as the husband of (1) Penelope Blake and (2) Martha Bersheba, http://cumberbatch.one-name.net/familygroup.php?familyID=F165&tree=001 [accessed 19/04/2016].

Ancestry.com, Oxford University Alumni, 1500-1886 [database online]; David Dobson, American Vital Records from the Gentleman’s Magazine, 1731-1868 (Baltimore, 1987) p. 30.

We are grateful to Mark Dickinson for his assistance with compiling this entry.


Further Information

Absentee?
Spouse
[1] Penelope Blake [2] Martha Bersheba Middleton
Children
With [1] Hope Elletson, Abraham Cumberbatch, Penelope Wentworth, John
University
Oxford (Queens) [1756 ]

Associated Estates (1)

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
1777 [EA] - 1787 [LA] → Owner

Relationships (8)

Son-in-law → Father-in-law
Notes →
Tentative relationship only. Vere Langford Oliver shows Penelope Blake, daughter of Martin Blake of Antigua and later Sevenoaks, marrying John Sober of Barbados 06/11/1760....
Father → Daughter
Son → Father
Brothers
Deceased Husband → Widow
Uncle → Nephew
Father → Son
Father → Son