George Walker Esq.

In a list of inhabitants of St Peter, Barbados, 1780, Walker was listed as owning 148 enslaved. Probably but not certainly George Walker, later Walker-Hungerford, the agent for Barbados and father-in-law of the Hon. John O. Crewe (q.v.), who married Henrietta Maria Anne Hungerford.

1. A George Walker of Barbados who would have been born around 1713 was at Groningen in 1733.

2. A George Walker gave evidence to a Committee of the House of Commons on Thursday, 16 March 1775, regarding the condition of trade with Barbados. He began his detailed testimony as follows: “ I am of Barbados; resided there a great many years, and have been their Agent ever since I left the country.”

3. The will of George Walker of Calais late of Cavendish Square and formerly of Barbados proved 17/08/1784 identifies his daughter as Henrietta Maria Anne Walker, refers to a settlement in Barbados for his son George and to the provision for his daughter Henrietta Maria Anne under his own marriage settlement: he also made Henrietta Maria Anne his heir in the case of the death of his son.

We are grateful to Stanley Robert Criens for the reference to Groningen and to Camilla Wonnacott for the details of the Committee of the House of Commons testimony.

Barbados Department of Archives, RB9/3/6.

1. 1733, 25 Nov. Geo Walker, Barbadoensis, Jur. (Album Studiosorum Academiae Groningen, kol. 183). (Naamlijst van de studenten, sedert de oprigting der Hoogeschool te Groningen ingeschreven : 1615-1833. – Groningen : s.n., [ca. 1870], 568, [14] p. ; 19 cm. – Overdr. Uit: Album Academiae Groninganae. – p. 532).

2. Richard B. Sheridan, ‘The Plantation Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, 1625-1775’, Caribbean Studies, October 1969, vol. 9, no. 3 pp. 5-25 (see note 51: “Quoted in Peter Force (ed.), American Archives, Fourth Series, 1774-1776 (6 vols., Washington DC.., 1837), I, 1728-9”).

3. PROB 11/1121/82.