1740 - 1821
MP for Bedford 1784-1802, slave-owner on St Kitts, Nevis and St Croix, in financial difficulty from 1802 onwards. His major creditors were Pinney & Tobin. Son of Robert Colhoun of St Kitts and Frances Mills. Married Grace Parson of Parndon, Essex, in Westminster 24/09/1766. Children baptised in St James, Westminster: Grace (1773), William (1774), Frances (1775) and Robert (1777). Purchased West Wretham Manor in 1788, and (from John Pinney of Bristol) Great Hockham in 1805.
Born c. 1740. Inherited his father's plantations on St Kitts and St Croix in 1763. Main agent of the Pinneys of Nevis and Bristol. Owned three estates in Norfolk: Thorpe, Wretham and Great Hockham. By 1800 he still owned Mount Pleasant Plantation, St. Croix (318 acres, 189 enslaved Africans), plus 'Colhouns' (100 acres, 110 enslaved, formerly 'Windmill & Paradise') plantation on Nevis.
http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/colhoun-william-macdowall-1758-1821 [accessed 10/02/2016]; some details of his slave-owning on Nevis are given in David Small and Christine Eickelmann's 'Clifton Estate, Nevis: an Account of Absence and Ambition' http://seis.bris.ac.uk/~emceee/cliftonhistory.pdf [accessed 29/11/2017], where he appears as William Colhoun as well as William Macdowall Colhoun; Findmypast.co.uk, Westminster Marriages [database online]; Findmypast.co.uk, Westminster Baptisms [database online]. For West Wretham see 'The Wretham Estate (East and West Wretham)', http://www.breckslandscape.co.uk/caseWretham.php [accessed 19/10/2018]. For Great Hockham see Somerset Heritage Centre DD/S/BT/28/8/10, Copy assignment of contract to purchase the manor of Great Hockham, Norfolk.
Richard Pares, A West India Fortune (London 1950), Chapter XI, documents Colhoun's later career; Stuart M. Nisbet, 'Sugar and the Early Mercantile Identity of Glasgow', Scottish Archives Vol. 19 (2013).
We are grateful to Stuart M. Nisbet for his assistance with compiling this entry.
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Absentee?
Transatlantic
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Spouse
Grace Parson
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Children
Grace (1773-), William (1774-), Frances (1775-), Robert (1777-)
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Occupation
Politician, landowner and plantation owner
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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:
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1800 [EA] - 1800 [LA] → Owner
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Physical (1) |
Country house
Wretham Hall
description → Apparently built by William McDowall Colhoun: 'William Colhoun purchased part of the manor of West Wretham in 1788 and the Eton College lands at East Wretham were subsequently leased to him. It was...
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Political (1) |
MP
election →
Bedford Bedfordshire
1784 - 1802 |
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Son → Father
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Executor → Testator
Notes →
In 1791 administration of the will of Thomas Mills was granted to William MacDowall Colhoun. PROB 11/942/209, The National Archives. It is indexed as 'Thomas Mills, St...
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Trustee → Testator
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Son-in-law → Father-in-law
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Brother-in-laws
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West Wretham Manor, Wretham, Norfolk, East Anglia, England
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1787 - 1861
Enslaved boy on Unity Valley Pen, Jamaica. Manumitted in 1795 by David Barclay and removed to Philadelphia, with 29 other freed persons from the estate, where he was placed under the care of Society for Improving the Condition of Free Blacks.
Document comprises 4 parts, written recto and verso across 5 folios: 1. An inventory and valuation of enslaved persons at Windsor Estate, St Elizabeth parish, Jamaica, 1814. 2. An inventory and valuation of enslaved persons at Williamsfield settlement, St Elisabeth parish, Jamaica, 1814. 3. An inventory of animals at Windsor Estate, St Elizabeth parish, Jamaica, 1814. 4. A cover note outlining the contents of the document.
© Copyright Legacies of British Slavery - UCL Department of History 2024
CITING THIS RECORD:
'William McDowall Colhoun', Legacies of British Slavery database, http://wwwdepts-live.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146645519 [accessed 23rd April 2024].
