Christopher Weatherhead

An unsourced fragment online on the history of Giggleswick states: 'After the 17th century Stainforth Hall never regained the importance it had enjoyed as the residence of Tempests and Watsons. In 1774 it figured in a curious transaction. Its then owner, Christopher Weatherhead of Liverpool, who held mortgages on properties in the West Indies, was made a bankrupt: and, in the list of his assets assigned by the commissioners in bankruptcy to his creditors, this typical old Craven homestead, standing square and grey on its wind swept hillside, appears in the strange company of tropical plantations in Dominica and Tobago, “and also all those negroe Slaves following: that is to say, Venture, Mial, Somersett, Industry, Cato, Derry, Lidia and her child, Exchange, Kenzie, Mary, Ann, Joan, Catherine, Aurelia, Phebe, Hannah, Marge, Tom, Diligence, Jolly, Jenny, Margaret, Belinda, Dina, with the future Increase of the Females of all such Slaves."'

1. To date, no verification of this has been found nor has Christopher Weatherhead been traced as an owner of estates in Tobago or Dominica. However, C. or Chris. Wetherhead appears [with variants 'Weatherhead', 'Wetherhea' and 'Wetherhd'] for a total of 8 slave voyages from Liverpool, one in 1766 and 7 between 1774 and 1777, the latter 7 all as sole owner, of which two were to Dominica.

[Ralph M. Robinson], http://www.northcravenhistoricalresearch.co.uk/Outreach/brayshawFINALDEC04.pdf [accessed 03/11/2015].

1. Transatlantic Slave Trade Database.